(no subject)

[fan_eunice]

Howdy!

I'm doing a panel on rpf and reality tv vids for Vividcon this year (and super excited about it). I wanted to be able to present a variety of options for downloading/ripping from YouTube etc...however my crap internet is making it difficult to both find and test that variety without knowing what is an issue with living up on top of a mountain and what is a program obstacle. I also can't test Mac programs at *all*, so Mac user input would be absolutely lovely here.

So I come to you to ask what your favorite programs/web services are when you absolutely must have that YouTube video or streaming interview or whatever. Pros/cons and why you like your particular favorite method. Also, if you have a favored method for obtaining screen grabs/captures or recording your web activity (like, making a video of scrolling a twitter feed in your web browser and such).

Thank you kindly in advance :) :)

Comments

[shati]

I used Keepvid to get Maru videos, so that's my favorite! Because it's the only one I know about.

[fan_eunice]

Keepvid is so awesome, sweetestdrain turned me on to it and it gives me hearts in my eyes.

[frayadjacent]

Thus far on my Mac I've used the Firefox add-on Video Download Helper. However I haven't actually vidded with these! But the resulting videos seem OK?

Also, the beta version of MPEG Streamclip for Mac claims to work for downloading youtube. I haven't tried it yet as I just installed this version last week!

[violace]

I also use Video Download Helper most of the time. It's unobtrusive and really easy to use, and has the option to download videos in various qualities, and to convert them to all kinds of formats on the go. I like that I can get the video in the original size and format it was uploaded in so there's no real loss in quality. (ETA: I realize this sounds rather misleading - of course quality always suffers by uploading to YouTube and there's no way to download the original file, but what I mean is that the downloader won't automatically convert again so what you see on YT will be the same thing you get to download.)

And it's not just for YouTube, but can handle any media files on any site.

For longer videos on YT where I don't want to download the whole thing, but only a small section, I've been using ClipConverter. Very useful!

[fan_eunice]

Awesome, thanks for the Mac info :) We have so many lovely Mac vidders attending I'd feel awful if I didn't have any Mac specific info. *smoosh*

[fan_eunice]

Thank you! Yeah, being able to retain the size/highest quality is such an issue when dealing with obtaining streaming video for vidding purposes. Avoiding programs that reconvert is on my list of Things To Watch Out For. :D

[eleanorjane]

I use Dirpy (dirpy.com) but it goes down a lot. (I particularly use it for grabbing the audio track, but it'll do video as well.) Deturl.com is also very useful - they have a nice handy bookmarklet that gives you a little popup banner with download links for all the different qualities of the youtube vid in question.

On the Mac I use Jaksta, a standalone app which also works on other streaming stuff (and, sometimes, even on the BBC iPlayer, woot :))

[eleanorjane]

And for screengrabbing stuff, Screenflow on the Mac works pretty well. I don't do much of that stuff on the PC, but for gaming video capture Fraps is the gold standard; I'm just not sure you can invoke its video-recording in all situations.