Saving and Playing YouTube Video Files! (Updated)

Ever wanted to save a YouTube video file for watching offline, or just in case it gets deleted from the website because some company threatened them? YouTube files can be saved, perhaps not as easily as saving pictures from the Web, but their video files can be grabbed for viewing later!
Because of the huge popularity of Youtube and other video sites, people are wanting to save these to the computer for future viewing, especially when offline, or they’re stuck with slow dialup speeds and don’t want to wait 10 minutes like the first time.
Now that Google owns Youtube, they have done a few things that are rather puzzling as well as stupid such as using video files that are not stored in the hard drive that can be captured.  Many Youtube files that are the Flash .flv format are still at Youtube and can be saved from your Temporary Internet Files folder using the below steps.
However, those steps won’t work with the newer video files from Youtube which means saving them in different ways.
Personally, the way Google has changed the video files is a bit ignorant, but that’s Google for you.  Smart in certain areas, dumb in others.  By changing the video files, folks still stuck with dialup connections like families living in rural areas will not have those videos in their Temporary Internet Files.  When they want to rewatch a certain video on Youtube, say a day later, they will have to wait and endure another downloading session lasting several minutes to get that media content again
I’ll bet the Google folks didn’t think of that.
Ok.  Here’s one way to copy the newer Youtube files, for free.  There are other ways and they will be covered in the near future as well!
Right now I’m using the free version of Snagit from Smithtech Corporation.  Back in December, 2007, Smithtech offered version 7.2.5.0 for free.  All you had to do was register with them and they would send back the key to unlock Snagit.  It was an enticement to later buy their newer version 8.2.
I recently visited their website and noticed that version 7.2.5.0 was not mentioned on the site that I could tell.  It’s possible that they have withdrawn that offer, or simply made it a bit harder to find.  You may have to do a bit of sleuthing to find the link for it and perhaps a friend could share a copy with you.  It was offered FREE to the Internet community, so surely they won’t be bothered with that copy being shared.
Snagit does a pretty good job of capturing Youtube videos and it’s so easy to do that I won’t go into detail about using it.  But a few suggestions are in order.
First, when you launch Snagit (7.2.5) for capturing video, don’t use the button in Explorer or Firefox.  Use the desktop icon instead.
With the Youtube video player on the left all set to go (the video file is all downloaded), call up Snagit, press the video capture button and make sure the microphone function is on.  Otherwise all you will get is silence.
Now, please note something.  Snagit will NOT capture the audio part of the file without microphone input.  I’ve tried.  I have to patch the headphones output of the soundcard into the microphone jack.  On the Dell laptop here, it works well even when I just use a $20 Wal-mart microphone to pick up the audio.
Regrettably, on this main computer that I do most of my work on, the integrated audio section on the motherboard doesn’t work nearly as well, so I don’t bother using Snagit with it.  You may have to experiment with your particular computer to get the best results.
Once Snagit is set to record the video a little box will pop up and I draw a box with the cursor over the Flash video player, click Record, click the Play button on the video player and record away.
Once you are done, you can review your video file and save it to My Documents very easily.
One more note: Snagit may not be perfect with slower machines and may produce a few seconds of slightly corrupted video per file.  If you have a fast machine, you may never see that problem.  But please be aware that may show up. Consider turning off any programs running in the background to help Snagit run as efficiently as possible.
Later on I will post some more tips on recording Youtube files, so stay tuned!
Tips on saving the older Youtube video files:
The earlier YouTube video files are Flash video files that normally carry the .flv file extension and are usually created with Flash 7 or 8. YouTube videoplayer downloads the Flash video (.flv) file(s), but doesn't give an option to save it. However, these files are stored in the computers Temporary Internet File folder in Windows and can be located and saved in your My Documents, on a CD, DVD, or whatever.
Here's what you do to get and save them. First watch the desired Youtube video until it is completely downloaded. You will not be able to see this file in the Temporary Internet Files folder until it is completely downloaded as evidenced by the loading progress bar at the bottom of the videoplayer on Youtube.
Once it's done downloading, go to the Temporary Internet files; if you are not familier with doing that in Windows, just click on the Tools at the top of Explorer which brings up the menu which has Internet Options at it's bottom. Click on that. You will now have a larger menu box which has the Temporary Internet Files section in the middle. See the settings button? Click on it. Up shows one more menu box which has a View Files button. Clicking on that will bring up the Temp files. If you have just watched the Youtube video file you're after, it will be at or near the top of the page. If not, go to the upper right and click the "Last Checked" tab to arrange the list of files to show the very latest ones at the top. The Youtube file should then be at the top or very near it.
It will be a Flash video file as designated under the Type tab in this folder.
Note that if you happen to have Flash 7 or 8 installed in your computer, this file will have a little icon which will probably look like this:

If not you may see something like

You will still see a strange file name for it like the 2KrdBUFeFtY[1]. You can click on it and move or copy it to whatever folder you want such as My Documents or My Video.
Afterwards, I usually slide it into Flash 8 right onto the stage to export it as a Flash 8 file while adding some controls like stop and rewind buttons.
At the time of this writing, most common video players such as Windows Media Player won't play a Flash .flv file, although that may change quickly. There are now free .flv players available from www.cnet.com such as the Riva FLV Player which has been favorably reviewed by users. You can slide the .flv Flash video file right into the Riva Player and watch it go.
Recently YouTube appears to have tried to obscure the .flv files; apparently they don't like people saving their files which is baffling to say the least. Users have looked in their Temporary Internet Files folder for the YouTube files, but didn't see the typical .flv file icon unless the video file was relatively old. Well, cheer up, because that .flv file is still there; YouTube simply obscured it or changed it's 'looks' a bit.
What you will see will be something like this Get_video[1] file::

If you right-click on it, and click on Properties, you may get a file size of a few hundred kilobytes to a few megabytes. That's the Flash video file; it just doesn't look like it.
If you drag or copy it to My Documents or whatever, it will look like this and you can't do much with it like that as is. No sweat, just right click on it, choose Rename, and give it the name that best describes it, like Cartoon.flv. Please note that the .flv file extension is added on as well. Don't forget to do this. That will change it to the familier looking .flv file that will look like:

Now it's all ready to import into Flash 7 or 8 or your favorite Flash Video player. Youtube might not like it, but that's the way it goes. When I import a Youtube video file in Flash 8 I will have to set the frames per second to either 25 frames per second or 30 frames per second and see how the audio and video sync together. When I imported the Knitter video file into Flash, I noted that 25 fps worked best, but with another animation, 30 frames per second produced the proper voice and lips synchronization. Happy downloading!
One more note: the technique of looking in the Temporary Internet Files of Windows to save YouTube video files is also good for finding and saving image files like GIFs or JPGs that could not be saved from Internet Explorer or Firefox. The right-click was disabled so that the picture could not be saved. Well, in the same way you can grab a Flash video file, you can grab a picture file, and even many Windows media files and Quicktime movies.
You don't have to pay for that fancier Quicktime player in order to save a Quicktime movie from the Web; most of the times those files will be in your Temp files folder and you can grab them with the above techniques! Cheers.
Additional Notes on Saving Youtube Files
A few individuals have remarked that sometimes when they look in the temporary internet files that they won't see that Youtube video file no matter what. Well, it is in there somewhere, but I've noticed as well that sometimes certain files won't be visible. I'm not a Windows expert, so I don't know exactly why that happens, but I know how to fix it.
Click on the Tools at the top of Explorer, then click Internet Options. You see in the middle of the menu box the Temporary Internet File with a button that says Delete Files. Click it to clean out those files. Windows will ask you if you are sure. Click Yes. It may take a few seconds or even a minute or two for this to happen.
Now, go to the Temporary Internet Files folder (click on the Settings button, then click View Files) since the Temp Internet Files menu is already up.
Now, with Internet Explorer at the Youtube page that has the movie you are interested in saving, click Refresh button or just press F5. The movie will reload into the Temporary Files folder and THIS time, you will be able to see it once it has been completely downloaded.
Go back to the Temporary Internet File folder, press F5 to refresh it, and that video file should be right there, ready to be plucked and saved.
Another Way of Saving Internet pictures and Images
Sometimes you may want to save a picture or image on your monitor and you don't want to bother with pulling up the picture from the Temporary Internet Files foler, OR the image is inside the Flash player, a Word document, or whatever.
No sweat, you can save the image(s).
First, start up your favorite image editing program such as Photoshop or PhotoImpact which is what I happen to use. What I do is create a new document within PhotoImpact as a transparent document which is my preference.
Then I go back to Internet Explorer or Firefox making sure the picture that I'm after is pretty much in the center of the screen, then press the Print Screen button. I go back to PhotoImpact, and with the new document on the screen, press Ctrl+V to paste the image onto that document. I can then do a Merge All command to merge the image onto the document. The Cropping tool can cut away the unneeded parts of the image which can then be save the image under any file name.
This isn't perfect, but it does work, even with Flash movies. The picture below is from the Bountyhunter Girl© series. While the animation was running, I simply tapped Print Screen at the part I wanted, and pasted the image right into PhotoImpact. As you can see, it works well.

This will not work with a video file which is say playing in Windows Media Player. So far, it pretty much takes a video editor or sequencer to export an image. One can also use a Flash parser or decompiler, such as Sothink's SWF decompiler program. It works well, but it's a bit pricey at around $80. More on that program in a few days!