How to Download a YouTube Video to your computer

Ever wanted to save that favorite YouTube video to your local computer? Although some people might have you believe this is a difficult task, it’s actually very simple. Below is an outline to the easiest way to rip a YouTube video to your local computer.

1. Load your favorite YouTube video.
2. Copy the URL from the address bar.
3. Go to RipZor.com
4. Paste the URL into the textbox and click "Get Video".
5. The website will generate a flash file for you to download.
6. Click on the "Click Here" link to download the flash file, it will save as an flv file.

At this point as long as you have a flash viewer on your computer, you will be able to play this saved file, without having to connect to the internet, or having to go to the YouTube website! What if you want to play them in Media Center? You will need to convert this file to sometime of video format that is supported in Media Center.

The simplest way to do this is to download this zip file. It includes a program that will convert your newly created flash file to mpg format. Here are the easy to follow steps.

1. Download the zip file here.
2. Extract the zip file to a folder on your computer and run flvconverter.exe
3. Click Add Files and Browse to the location of your flv file you just converted.
4. Choose an output folder by clicking the browse button.
5. Click "Process"

You should now have a mpg file on your computer that you can play at any time! Most importantly, you can add this to your video library on your Media Center without having to load YouTube!