LostInTechnology

3 Ways to Download Streaming Videos

Posted on 31. Aug, 2009 by UzEE in Internet Tools

Advertisements

Fan of online video? Who isn’t? But are you one of those poor souls who are plagued by low bandwidth connections that don’t provide a smooth video streaming experience? Or do you just like to watch them over and over again from your iPod or cell phone which can’t connect to the internet?

What you need is a video downloader to download the videos you stream from YouTube, Vimeo, Viddler or virtually any other flash video sharing site.

I travel a lot, and I don’t always have high speed internet access with me, and the only way I can have a smooth video experience on sites like YouTube and Facebook is by downloading videos on my computer.

Today, I’m sharing the three most popular and easiest ways to download videos from these sites. These tools range from Web Apps to Browser Extensions to Desktop Applications – all well exceptionally well with their own pros and cons. Just pick one which suites you best.

KeepVid.com

KeepVid.com is a popular video downloading site which supports downloading videos from a number of video sharing services like YouTube, Dailymotion, Vimeo, iFilm, MetaCafe and a lot more. All you need to to do is get the video page URL and drop it in the textbox on KeepVid. You will get the direct download links for the video. And if there are more than one download options, like an HD version in case of YouTube, you will get a separate link for that as well.

KeepVid’s prime advantage is that since it is a web app, it is available everywhere, if you have internet. No additional plug-in required.

Video Download Helper for Firefox

The next great tool is my favorite one for this job. Why? Because it not only works on videos, it can handle virtually any type of media which is accessible an a site including, images, audio, flash and more. It is available as an extension for Firefox, and I would recommend this to anyone who uses the browser.

To download any video with this tool, just install it (of course), go to the page containing the video and click the arrow next to the Download Helper button in the toolbar. You’ll see a list of all media it can download. Hovering over the item displays a list of further actions you can take including download, convert and even tweet the video.

As I’ve said before, this extension can be used to download media from any page. Just keep an eye on the toolbar button – grayed out means the page has nothing to download, if the three balls are colored, then there is something on the page which can be saved to your computer.

Orbit Downloader

Video DownloadHelper is a great tool, but it would only work for Firefox users. So what about those who use Internet Explorer or Opera (yeah right) or something else? Well, you can then rely on the freeware Orbit Downloader. Orbit also packs a huge feature set and like DownloadHelper, it supports downloading from a number of services including RTSP, RTMP, MMS streaming and RapidShare.

Other notable features include built in download acceleration and HTTPS encryption. It is lightweight and integrates with most popular browsers.  To download any media with Orbit, just hover over the media and press the Grab++ button. The grabber interface would open up showing the list of downloadable files it detected. Select the ones you want to download and hit the download button.

There are many other tools out there that let you rip and backup streaming videos on your hard drive. Which ones do you use? Let us know via the comments below.

Article By Uzair Sajid (UzEE), a technologist and a freelance blogger who also authors The Technopath.

Related Posts

• 3 Awesome Sites to Download Videos From
• 4 YouTube Based Sites Worth Checking
• Top 5 Video Applications You Have to Know
• Miro: The Best Internet Video Application Available?
• Firefox 3 Download Day is June 17th

Tags: download, internet, streaming, Video