Keep YouTube Videos for Posterity with KeepVid

I’m sure we have all come across a YouTube video or two that, for one reason or another, became an instant favourite or stirred up some sort of nostalgia for the old days. Whilst broadband speeds have been increasing and video sharing has become more popular, sometimes it isn’t so possible to get to YouTube on certain devices (such as lower end iPods). Otherwise, you might just like to keep a local copy of these videos for your viewing enjoyment offline or to add to your video collection.

If this sounds like you, you may be in luck with a service called KeepVid!

KeepVid Video Link Submission

It’s incredibly easy to use with services such as YouTube and other including Flickr, Facebook and other video sharing services which are listed here. You have two methods of grabbing your selected video, specifically:

1. Browse to the page containing the video, copy the URL and paste it into the box on the KeepVid website,
2. Drop a bookmarklet onto your links toolbar in your browser and click the “Keep It!” button when you want to download a video.

It’s fairly straight forward and you should be downloading videos in no time. One thing to remember is that this requires Java in order to work so make sure you have it installed (and don’t forget to check that you have the most recent version of Java here).

Of course, there should be consideration given to video whose original source claims copyright as technically downloading a copy of the video could be construed as a form of piracy.

The only other thing to be concerned about is how to play the videos that you have downloaded. The files are in FLV (Flash Video) format which most video players will be unable to play with their default codecs. The simplest and easiest option is to get VLC Player which will play them just fine. Otherwise, if you are more adventurous you could download and install a codec pack such as K-Lite (the basic version will do) which will allow your incumbent media player(s) to get around the problem.

KeepVid is something you can keep in your technology arsenal for the off chance that you might need to download a video from the major video sharing services.