This tutorial shows you how to download videos from sites like YouTube, Google, Break etc, which runs is in the extension of .flv(Flash Video), and then convert it to .avi or .mpg format.

First of all, go to http://keepvid.com

This site support the download of the sites listed below.


Then you'll be greeted by a line which tells you to download video direct from sites. Now go to your video site which you want to download from, then find the video that you wanted to download. Then when the page of the video you desire is loaded, click on the address bar of the page you wanted and right click it, then click "copy".

Go back to the KeepVid site and paste the address into the textbox there(right click on the textbox and click paste) and select the site that you are downloading from at the right drop down menu. Then click download.

A box will show up below label grey in color with the word "Download" in the heading... Right click on the "›› Download Link ‹‹" and click save as. Change the file extension to .flv. Wait for the video to finish the downloading. And then when it's finished the flash video is now save into your computer.




Now time for converting into a nice .avi or .mpg format which we can easily deal with.

Go to http://www.download.com/Riva-FLV-Encoder/3...&tag=button

Download the Riva FLV Encoder 2 and save it into your desktop. Run the installer and follow the instruction. After it has finished installing, open up the Riva FLV Encoder. Then at the input section click on the browse button, and search for the video you have downloaded. Then click on the browse button of the output section and select your destination folder. The default output name will be shown with extension .flv and change the output name extension to .avi or .mpg instead of .flv. Play with those settings at the right to ensure you get the correct video you wanted. Then click the encode button.



Note: Some encoding will result in the lost of audio. If in that case happens I suggest you use Audacity and combine with the .avi or .mpg product from your encoding.

I've not encounter this problem but I'll try to experiement with this features and then edit this tutorial again with the fix.

During encoding, there may be a FFMPEG window which will popup and will disappear once the encoding is finish.


There you are, a nicely done up video in the extension you wanted from a site you think you could never download from! I've tried it out a couple of times and it works great! Hope you guys will like this tutorial.

PS: There maybe a certain codec you need to download in order to view your video, go to http://www.free-codecs.com/The_Codecs_download.htm to download the codec.

I'll like to thank the user guide of videohelp.com for helping me to finish my script.

This post has been edited by hype: Aug 15 2006, 01:03 PM

I would like to point out that although these video clips may be on the net and free to grab, the copyright of those materials are still enfoced. This means if you are going to use the original video clip as you would like, please obtain a permission from the video clip owner before using/distributing video/edited clips.

Thank you.

I agree with BuffaloHELP. You cannot just go to any site you want and take their stuff. Well they say you can on Ebaumsworld. But they stole most of there videos from other sites. There making alot of money off other peoples ideas.

Well, I agree that its true that you cannot use it to download copyrighted materials but somethings like a trailer is legal for downloads and maybe some of the users edited video or self created ones, sometimes they are worth downloading but you just dont know how to download it, so here's the way to get those videos...

Thanks for this tutorial! I have been looking for some easy way to convert stuff I find on YouTube etc. to a format suitable for my iPod. This will come in handy, thanks hype!

Just because of the quality of everything, I dont think that I would really want to do this. I hate having to conver audio files, especially when it makes the quality worse. But hey this could come in handy. Thanks for the link!

Yeah, I figure out that after converting the video the quality is greatly reduced... I'm trying out to see if I can reduce the quality loss by converting to .avi or .mpg format, but if you really want the video to be in your computer only, just leave it in .flv format, and open it using the riva player... They'll look just fine...

Thanks. This is similar to videodownloader.net right?

Well, I was writing this halfway and I decided to google it, and I found out about another one called videohelp.com... Then I decided to use their tips to fill in those that I've never experience before, like the Audacity software that can mux the audio as I've never encounter a problem with the audio part, and the FFMPEG windows which never pops up when i encode it, so I figure its better to place those tips in rather than seeing ppl struggling with that part if it happens... Maybe I'll place that put some link to them for the touching up of my script...