How to download videos from YouTube

[murathan]

There are several ways to download a video from the websites such as YouTube and others. How ethical is debatable to pay for or download a media or not. Why do we need to download a video? Because YouTube deletes videos and channels, also channels can delete their videos too. You may want to make a custom archive or to use on your car audio system. These ways also allows to take a video as mp3 (sound format) from a video.

1. YouTube Premium: For a monthly subscription fee, Youtube allows you to download videos directly themselves. Probably the most ethical way. I m not sure the artist/creator gets a personal share from that but its very legal at the moment. I guess its an economical pool system.

2. Downloader Softwares: There are many social media download softwares, both can be found as legal or pirate. For legal ones you buy the software. Pirate ones are cracked (no need to pay) but they may harm your computer or make other harms to your actions in your computer such as identity theft.

3. Online Downloaders. You make a search in google for "download youtube" etc. and you go to a website, you paste the link and start downloading. These sites are probably the most convenient and easy way without pay.

 

[Ffingers]

The problem that I find with youtube is that the end quality of the sound, the stuff that actually gets to my computor, is not especially good.

When compared side by side with a good CD, played on a visual editor there are significant discrepancies.

 

[murathan]

The problem that I find with youtube is that the end quality of the sound, the stuff that actually gets to my computor, is not especially good.

When compared side by side with a good CD, played on a visual editor there are significant discrepancies.

This may come from the computers hardware (the speakers etc.) otherwise CDs are prepared from these formats either. A computer is much more capable potentially than a Hi-Fi but lacks of quality speakers generally. There are also enhancements (an equalizer at least) needed as software to your computer. I still use Winamp, actually provides very good output. I also connected the laptop to a Sony Hi-Fi. Getting good sound without using a lot of space for CDs, only going with data formats (mp3). The quality of a sound recording depends on the actual recording, but that threshold is not so high. 128 kb / second has a very nice output, even better than 320 (max). Later there are some other formats such as FLAC which takes all the data from a CD... mp3 takes some of useful data and left useless data. FLAC format uses a lot of disk space without too much enhancement. So thats also debatable.

 

[boxplayer4000]

MacX YouTube Downloader.app works fine (for Mac users obviously).

 

[kevinch]

Good breakdown! If you're looking for a quick and easy way, Y2Down.app is a great option. No software needed, just paste the link and download in MP4 or MP3. Best for 1080p resolutions, works on mobile and desktop.

 

[Tom]

I also use a software downloader. Reason I download the videos it watch them without ads in playlists I make. Or to cycle a part for learning. I understand there are ad blockers too but ai haven’t found one I like.

 

[saundersbp]

There are several ways to download a video from the websites such as YouTube and others

Method 4) is just the onboard screen recorder app on my Chromebook. Works a treat and I can't detect any loss of quality. I've used this method quite a bit when people have put videos on youtube (often unknown to me!) and I've wanted to use a clip of my performance for my website. I don't know anything about PCs or Macs, but presumably they have a similar function.

 

[dak]

128 kb / second has a very nice output, even better than 320 (max).

Nope? In my experience, what makes MP3 really fall apart is shallow 3-reed tremolo. Below at least 160kbps, the rendition is pretty awful. The sound is too complex for MP3 to compress well, but the resulting compression artifacts are too conspicuous for a human to miss.

Without tremolo, 128kbps can work (LM compresses much more gracefully than MMM), but it may get mushy in combination with the bass. Other compression methods are not as bad with accordion sounds: Opus does reasonably well and does not fall apart similarly.