How to download HD videos from YouTube and Vimeo

According to YouTube, it’s currently serving up more than 5 billion video views every day and the average viewing session is 40 minutes. That’s a lot of skateboarding cats, but it’s also a lot of data to download. If you’re on a capped mobile data plan, have a sketchy internet connection or will be travelling in places where getting online isn’t likely, that’s a problem. 

A stream is only as good as your internet connection, and if that connection is slow, patchy or congested then you’ll spend more time buffering and uttering expletives than you will get to spend actually watching anything. 

In many cases even good internet connections don’t deliver full quality all the time. That’s because video sites use a technology called adaptive streaming, which automatically adjusts the video bitrate according to network conditions. You might find that if you live in a busy street the quality of your video streaming drops considerably at peak times. That’s because everybody’s going online at the same time, causing the electronic equivalent of rush hour traffic.

The good news is that there’s a solution. Instead of streaming videos every time you want to watch them, why not download them once and view the download instead?

Is downloading YouTube or Vimeo videos legal?

The short answer is 'uhhhh…' and the longer answer is 'maybe'. If it’s a publicly available video and you’re downloading it purely for personal use then you probably won’t end up wearing an orange jumpsuit and making weapons out of toothbrushes.

However, unauthorized downloading is very much against YouTube’s terms of service, which state clearly that downloads are only permitted if YouTube itself offers them via a download link.

Vimeo is a bit less clear in its terms, conditions and guidelines, noting that while it respects content owners’ rights to choose whether or not to offer downloads of their videos it’s up to them to pursue any piracy.

It’s worth asking what you want to do with the video you’re planning to download. Are you downloading it so that you can share it with others on a peer to peer network? Don’t do that, because it’s illegal: you’re actively distributing other people’s content without permission, and that’s against the law pretty much everywhere. If you want to spread the word about a video it’s much easier – and actively encouraged by YouTube and Vimeo – to do it legally and use the site’s built-in share buttons, which you can use to email or embed videos or to share them on your favourite social networks.

Ultimately unauthorized downloading is something you do at your own risk: if you do it a lot, Google may kill your account or your ISP may impose restrictions.

HD video formats and quality

YouTube used to deliver video in Flash, which was a real pain: downloaded .FLV files didn’t play nice with the most common media players. Now, though, it produces video content in a range of formats and resolutions, and that makes it easy for third party apps to offer a range of download options. 

In most cases the best video quality you’ll find on YouTube is 1080p, which is 1920 x 1080 resolution. That’s full HD. Next best is 720p (1280 x 720), which is the lowest resolution that can call itself HD. Many videos are in much lower resolutions, especially if they’re quite old. 

YouTube has supported 4K video since 2010, but it has very specific requirements: if your browser doesn’t support the VP9 codec, YouTube won’t give you 4K video. On Vimeo you’ll find some videos in 2K resolution, which is twice Full HD (2048 x 1080), but most download services and apps don’t go beyond Full HD.

For most downloaders the best format to use is MP4, which works on pretty much anything, but the quality you get depends on the quality of the original upload. For example, as we write this we’re watching a Linkin Park video; its maximum quality is 360p because that’s the resolution it was uploaded at. Avoid formats such as 3GP/3GPP unless you’re downloading for use on a fairly old phone: 3GP files are tiny because they were designed for 3G mobile phones, and they look pretty rotten on more modern devices. 

Unless you’re on an unlimited data plan, don’t download on a mobile data connection: you’ll hit the cap in no time and out-of-plan mobile data is frighteningly expensive. Wait until you’ve found a decent Wi-Fi connection and do your downloading over that.

Can you download video without sound, or sound without video?

Yes. Many downloaders such as Save It Offline enable you to download video-only or audio-only. As with normal downloads, the available quality depends on the original upload. Don’t expect to get high-res audio from a 360p video.

If you’re wondering why anybody would want an audio-free video, it’s handy if you want to use video clips in a documentary or presentation that already has audio in it, or if you’re making a mashup of multiple sources, or if you’re intending to use your own audio in place of the original. And audio-only clips are useful because for many people YouTube is their number one source of new music: why download the video bit if you want to listen, not watch?

What you need to know about YouTube video downloaders

The big problem with doing something on the internet you probably shouldn’t be doing is that the people who make the relevant software often do things they probably shouldn’t be doing either. Many YouTube video downloaders are perfectly well behaved, but even the best apps can suddenly develop issues. The key ones are privacy and unwanted software, or even malicious software.

An app that looks brilliant today may end up with an installer stuffed with unwanted software tomorrow; an online service that respects your privacy this week may change its mind or its advertising provider the next. If you work on the assumption that the site is tracking you or that the app installer is going to add eleventy billion toolbars to your web browser you’ll be pleasantly surprised if the worst doesn’t actually happen. It goes without saying that you should make sure your security software is up to date and that you’re wearing clean underwear before installing any unfamiliar app. Ad-blockers can help with the online services too, which is poetic justice when you think about it: you’re preventing them from making money from other people’s content. You’re practically a saint!

How to download HD videos from YouTube or Vimeo

Let’s assume you have the permission of the copyright holder to download a video. How do you do it?

1. Find some HD video

We’ll stick with YouTube for the time being, because it’s increasingly packed with HD video. If you’re not sure whether something is HD or not, click on the Settings icon – the gear shape in the bottom right hand corner of the video – and you’ll see an option labelled Quality. Many videos default to Auto 360p but if you click on that you’ll see the other available options, which in this case include 720p HD and 1080p Full HD.

Not everything labelled HD is actually HD. Sometimes that’s because people don’t know what they’re doing, so they’ll export a 360p clip at 1080p resolution, and sometimes it’s because people are trying to game the system by making promises they can’t keep.

2. Copy and paste the link

Once you’ve found your video, paste the link into your downloader. In this case we’re using 4K Video Downloader, which is available for both PC and Mac, and which automatically grabs the copied link when you click on the Paste Link button. When you enter the link you’ll be given a range of options for downloading. We want the 1080p version, so that’s what we’ll choose. 

It’s worth noting that some downloaders don’t offer 1080p, others only do if you pay for a Pro version, and still others won’t download videos that have a musical soundtrack – presumably because of copyright fears.

3. Make a cup of tea

Downloading takes time, especially when it’s HD: a few minutes of HD video will take up around a gigabyte of space.

4K Video Downloader has the ability to download multiple streams simultaneously to improve download speeds, but ultimately it’s a lottery: some downloads come down the tubes at high speed, others not so much. On our super-speedy fibre connection, one of our YouTube downloads crawled at 584kbps.

4. Find your download

In most cases, you can watch your downloaded video by double-clicking on it from within the app. 4K Video Downloader creates own folder inside Movies and puts the downloads in there, ready for you to preview, play or import into your favourite video app.

You’ll see in our screenshot that the colours are a little overcooked and the rocks in the foreground a bit smeary, but that’s in the original video. What you get is only as good as what YouTube was given in the first place.

Contributer : Techradar - All the latest technology news http://ift.tt/2uIN1K6