ten mov.es

Here’s how to save videos from YouTube and view them on your computer.

YouTube videos are stored in the Flash video format, FLV. There’s no standard software to play these files, and YouTube doesn’t make it easy to capture the files to your computer. This, however, is a pretty easy way to do it.

You need Firefox and Windows to be able to do this. (I haven’t explored ways of doing this on Macs. Maybe it’s easier.)

Register at Firefox addons if you haven’t already.

Download and install Video DownloadHelper. This is a Firefox add-on/extension.

Restart Firefox. DownloadHelper will appear in your Navigation bar:

Install the free Windows software VLC Media Player from the VideoLAN Project, a worldwide free software development project which began at the French École Centrale Paris.

Visit the page of the YouTube video you want to download.

Click on the drop down arrow to the right of the toolbar icon, and select the file with the YouTube logo next to it:

Save the file to your computer. (Both files have the FLV extension; you’ll know whether you’ve got the right one because it’s a big file. The other one is small.)

Once the file is downloaded, double click on it.

You may have to select the application from a list:

Your file should now play (OK, it’s black here, but it really does play):

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