Last Updated on
Show me an athlete who doesn’t own an iPod!
All the athletes on my track team know I work as a Technology Consultant during the day. One of my biggest request is to save YouTube files for the iPod.
Personally, they should be worrying about their next race, but here are the steps to do so.
It is a 2 step process: extract the file, then converting it.
Step 1a) – Extact from your Temporary Internet files in your browser. The easist way is after viewing a YouTube file, you can go to your Temporary Internet files in your browswer settings options (In Internet Explorer, it is usually located in C:Documents and SettingsusernameLocal SettingsTemporary Internet Files) and search for the *.FLV file, then copy & paste to another directory. This can be a pain if you are trying to download a large file, as you have to wait until the download buffer is complete. If you can’t wait, go to Step 1b.
Step 1b) – Use www.youtubeX.com (note the X after youtube)
Go to YouTube and find the URL for the video you wish to download and copy the shortcut. Then, Go to www.youtubeX.com, paste the URL to the site, let it “load” and click download. Save the file with an appropriate meaningful name and a *.FLV extension
Step 2) Converting FLV to MP4 for your iPod.
(optional step) Before you convert the file, view the file on your computer to make sure it worked. Remember, the video is 320×240, but you can view it in 2X mode. You can download the free player from FLV player
To convert a FLV file to MP4 (for iPods), WMV, MPEG-2, AVI, etc., here are 2 easy & free programs:
- WinFF is a frontend for FFMPEG that runs on Windows XP, Linux. It will convert most any video file that FFmpeg will convert.
- SUPER, Simplified Universal Player Encoder & Renderer. A GUI to ffmpeg, mencoder, mplayer, ffmpeg2theora.
Do you prefer a free One-Stop Shopping?
A much easier 1-step wizard is to use the Internet Video Converter. Here is a quick summary of this FREE software:
- free for private and professional usage
- Download videos from over 50 websites like Youtube, Blip.tv, DailyMotion, Google Video etc.
- Convert videos between major formats (Mpeg (vcd/svcd/dvd compliant), DV, Quicktime, Windows Media, Xvid, H264, 3GP, PSP, iPod, Flash video (FLV or SWF) that you extracted from above
- A video player is integrated for playing all videos
- Rotate videos taken from digital camera
- Extract soundtrack from video
Now, all you have to do is upgrade to a 60GB iPod! Hmmm, my birthday is coming up soon.
Jimson Lee
Latest posts by Jimson Lee (see all)
Leave a Reply