Southwest Missouri Professional Learning Communities

There are several ways to “capture” videos from YouTube and other video source (such as TeacherTube).

Before giving those suggestions, you should know that the videos that are promoted on those sites are NOT videos that can be played with Windows Media Player or QuickTime Player. Videos from those sites are flash-based videos, or .flv files and require an flv-player. (The other option is to convert flv videos to another format, but I’ve found that in the conversion process, it inflates the size of the video files while degrading the quality.)

• So before you download YouTube video clips, you’ll need a flv-player (my current favorite is flvsoft’s flv-player). Look for one that can easily be resized and, of course, is free.

• Next, you’ll need a way to capture the streaming video files. Again the easiest way I’ve found is through the Firefox web browser, and the add-in, “Video DownloadHelper” A stand-alone program is the less-than-user-friendly TubeMe program, or other programs could be located by your favorite search-engine.

Another PAINLESS option that doesn’t require installing any software is YouConverIt where you can copy & paste the YouTube URL (or web address) and select a video format that can be played on your favorite player (”wmv” for WindowsMediaVideo, for example). Be advised, though, that the converted video file will be emailed to you. SPAM filters might not allow for this, so an alternative web-based email (Gmail, Yahoo!, and others) might be a better choice.