When I was with my old mainstream broadband provider I always suffered with low download speeds which  meant that watching videos online was a pain. The movies would stick midway while the file was buffering on my computer. Have you had that problem and wondered how you can download youtube movies and watch them on your PC? Another good reason to do this is that youtube videos often get removed and your favorite video may not always be there.

There are various bits of software which promise to enable you to download youtube videos but I didn’t have a great deal of success with these. I discovered a very simple way to do it:

I thought to myself that the youtube file has buffered onto my PC somewhere. I found that it goes here:    C:\Documents and Settings\’User’\Local Settings\Temp   In this temporary folder you will find a file that looks a bit like this:  fla1E.tmp You need to copy this file to another location, but the problem is the system won’t let you do it – the file is locked. Never fear, Potter’s ‘ere with the solution. Go here and download this amazing free software which will ‘unlock’ the desired file. http://ccollomb.free.fr/unlocker/

Once you have the .tmp file saved, rename it to ‘my video name’.flv

The final thing you need is software to play flv files. You can get that here and it’s free:

http://www.download.com/FLV-Player/3000-13632_4-10467081.html

There are ways to convert flv files to other formats to play in your standard media player. More anon on that.         Enjoy building your video library!