Download Youtube Videos on Linux with Youtube-dl
I recently had a need to download a video from Youtube, and it was just a frustrating process. Many of the Firefox extensions that claim to do that are rather half-baked (the best being VideoDownloader) and it was jut a bit of a hassle. Then I discovered youtube-dl, and nice shell script put together by Ricardo Garcia Gonzalez. It’s *very* easy to use. From the website:
Use youtube-dl followed by a video URL or identifier. Example: youtube-dl “http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foobar”. The video will be saved to the file foobar.flv in that example.
Keep in mind that the video is saved in its original flash (.flv) video format, so you’ll need a player that support .flv or you’ll need to convert it to another format.
EDIT: Check out this link to Linux.com on converting your YouTube videos to DivX or XviD.
Happy downloading!
Youtube-dl
There’s now a graphical tool that uses this software. It allows to store in a preferred video directory, many formats to choose from (avi, mp4, mpeg, wmv, flv), and resolution of the video.
Find it here:
http://yourtubedownloader.awardspace.com/
I would appreciate feedback via the forums or email.
Thanks !
Did not work. Complains of Java incompatibility. Help appreciated.
Thanks
Exception in thread “main” java.awt.AWTError: Cannot load AWT toolkit: gnu.java.awt.peer.gtk.GtkToolkit
at java.awt.Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit(libgcj.so.70)
at java.awt.Font.tk(libgcj.so.70)
at java.awt.Font.getPeerFromToolkit(libgcj.so.70)
at java.awt.Font.(libgcj.so.70)
at javax.swing.plaf.FontUIResource.(libgcj.so.70)
at javax.swing.plaf.metal.DefaultMetalTheme.(libgcj.so.70)
at java.lang.Class.initializeClass(libgcj.so.70)
at java.lang.Class.initializeClass(libgcj.so.70)
at javax.swing.plaf.metal.MetalLookAndFeel.createDefaultTheme(libgcj.so.70)
at javax.swing.plaf.metal.MetalLookAndFeel.(libgcj.so.70)
at javax.swing.UIManager.(libgcj.so.70)
at java.lang.Class.initializeClass(libgcj.so.70)
at Run.(YourTube.java:25)
at YourTube.main(YourTube.java:66)
Caused by: java.lang.UnsatisfiedLinkError: libgtkpeer: libgtkpeer.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
at java.lang.Runtime._load(libgcj.so.70)
at java.lang.Runtime.loadLibrary(libgcj.so.70)
at java.lang.System.loadLibrary(libgcj.so.70)
at gnu.java.awt.peer.gtk.GtkToolkit.(libgcj.so.70)
at java.lang.Class.initializeClass(libgcj.so.70)
at java.lang.Class.forName(libgcj.so.70)
at java.awt.Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit(libgcj.so.70)
…13 more
OK, you need to check that you have libgcj* packages installed.
In Ubuntu Hardy they are:
libgcj-bc
libgcj-common
libgcj8-1
libgcj8-l-awt
libgcj8-l-jar
You will find these in Synaptic package manager.
I have recently released a new version of this software, so give it a go and let me know by email how you get on.
Thanks!