Video Converter

Can I download YouTube videos to my home computer? Find out here.

To convert YouTube to MP4, you need to install a YouTube video downloader software program on your computer. Flash format is great except for one thing: you can only play it on your computer. Software solves this problem for you. It converts your YouTube Flash videos to MP4 so you can upload them to your phone, iPod, iPad, or PSP and watch them anytime you want.

Here are some things I love about this software:

• It's fast! Videos download in less than 2 minutes each.
• Download an unlimited number of videos at once.
• Easy to use - one-click convenience.
• Works with YouTube's new HD video format for the best quality.
• Automatically names each video exactly as it shows up on YouTube.
• Sorts downloads in the built-in Flash player window so you can keep track of them.

YouTube to MP4 converter

To convert your videos to MP4, you need the full version of YouTube Mate, which gives you a full-featured video converter along with the capture and download functions:

• Start with virtually any type of input file: YouTube FLV, SWF, AVI, DivX, XviD, RMVB, MOV, MP4, MOV, WMV, and more
• Convert to any output file format
• Supports nearly all types of portable devices, or you can create custom profiles if you own a device that's not on the list
• Has a preview window so you can make sure you're converting the file you want

YouTube Mate runs on any version of Windows with DirectX 8.0 or later installed. Sorry, no version for Mac is available at this time.

Can I Get in Trouble?

Before you use this software, it's a good idea to read YouTube's Terms of Service to make sure you're not violating their rules. YouTube has always had a strict no-downloads policy but in 2009 they decided to make selected videos available for download in MP4 format - probably as a trial balloon for selling some of their content.

YouTube is the biggest video file sharing site on the internet and many of their users download content in violation of their terms of service. YouTube managed to lock out a number of third party browser add-on tools that viewers had been using to download videos. Most of these tools were open source and worked as add-ons to the Firefox browser.

That wasn't the end of people downloading vids from YouTube, but it was the end of open source downloading software. Third-party software developers have stepped in and are marketing inexpensive software that will do the same job as the old open source add-ons used to do.

The future of YouTube video capture is uncertain. For now, it's a game of cat and mouse as software developers work around YouTube's terms of service and YouTube responds by upping the ante. In the end, if enough YouTube users pressure the company to allow them to take their content open source, then it could end up running the third party software developers out of business.

Cheers,