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Download Youtube videos with wget

Submitted by ggarron on Thu, 12/06/2007 - 09:15

Here there is an easy way to download Youtube videos using wget.

First thing we need is the video ID which we are going to get using also wget together with grep.

First locate the page of the video you want to download, I will use for this example one showing compizfusion in action.

wget -O /tmp/page.tmp http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHvAXLBMWGI

Then using cat and grep we will get the video ID

cat /tmp/page.tmp | grep video_id=

This will be the output

var fullscreenUrl = '/watch_fullscreen?video_id=UHvAXLBMWGI&l=51&t=OEgsToPDskKBFLkte03dOnia39Rzd63j&sk=7Ayx8rGROMLJrkh6LkXj7AC&fs=1&title=CompizFusion';
var relatedVideoGridUrl = '/related_ajax?video_id=UHvAXLBMWGI&view_type=G&watch3=1&search=compiz%20linux%20ubuntu';
var relatedVideoListUrl = '/related_ajax?video_id=UHvAXLBMWGI&view_type=L&watch3=1&search=compiz%20linux%20ubuntu';

Check that you have more than one Video_id, but only the first one is the one we want, check that the others says "relatedVideo", we do not want those ones.

Now download the video.

wget -O /tmp/video.flv 'http://www.youtube.com/get_video?video_id=UHvAXLBMWGI&l=51&t=OEgsToPDskKBFLkte03dOnia39Rzd63j&sk=7Ayx8rGROMLJrkh6LkXj7AC&fs=1&title=CompizFusion'

check out that I am sending the output to /tmp/video.flv you of course can use any other file and directory you may want, after this you can play the video with any player you usually use.

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Submitted by Anonymous on Sun, 03/22/2009 - 00:49. #

You can also download them using a couple apps called youtube-dl and clive. I use them quite a lot. There is also a nice website called file2hd.com that will find vids and other stuff for you in web pages.

Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 03/18/2009 - 20:39. #

You can download youtube video using freefileconvert.com

Submitted by Download (not verified) on Fri, 02/13/2009 - 17:01. #

Cool tutorial thanks but its all web based now, check this out: http://www.videodownloadr.com for downloading Youtube videos as MP4 or 3GP for your mobile phone.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 12/08/2008 - 09:19. #

http://startube.mobi is the site where we can search and download YOUTUBE videos without softwares (NO SOFTWARE NEEDED) just a click you can download it to your MOBILE PHONE, iPHONE and PC in the formats u like...

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sat, 11/29/2008 - 04:19. #

Please let the cat sleep.
You can use grep like this:

grep "video_id=" /tmp/page.tmp

Submitted by Salvio (not verified) on Mon, 10/06/2008 - 22:02. #

sorry posted 2 times cuz browser error

Submitted by Salvio (not verified) on Mon, 10/06/2008 - 22:01. #

I like to download videos from youtube in this site

http://www.freefileconvert.com

it is possible to download from youtube, metacafe and convert files, is very usefull

Submitted by ashmew2 (not verified) on Mon, 09/29/2008 - 09:45. #

Just get the firefox Addon "Fast Video Download" and you can download all sorts of videos from all sorts of sites...

Submitted by Rob (not verified) on Fri, 05/23/2008 - 12:55. #

If you want to download youtube videos with a graphical tool, one has become available... It allows you to download videos as: avi, mpeg, mp4, flv etc... and also you can set the preferred directory to store your videos.

Check it here:
http://yourtubedownloader.awardspace.com/

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 04/14/2008 - 12:22. #

It doesn't work with my! NO sound! Both way just geting a crapy streaming!

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sat, 12/08/2007 - 00:55. #

Why not just open your /tmp folder and copy the file that appears there?
It will be called some random FL8Ks34G or something, but all you need to do is rename it, add .flv and you're laughing!

Submitted by ggarron on Sat, 12/08/2007 - 08:04. #

Thanks, I did not know that, nice!

Guillermo Garron