Tip: Download YouTube Videos in Zuneable Format

[Adam Krebs]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://vixy.net/rawvideo/' target='_blank'>http://vixy.net/rawvideo/</a><br /><br /></div>I know what you're thinking, but hear me out. This isn't another &quot;use three different utilities and several different websites&quot; to get those YouTube videos you've been lusting after. Actually, it's quite easy, since YouTube carries a copy of every one of its videos in <a href="http://www.zunethoughts.com/news/show/23172/and-we-re-official.html" target="_blank">Zune-friendly</a> H.264 format. Though this feature was originally <a target="_blank" href="http://www.webpronews.com/blogtalk/2007/06/08/youtube-adding-h-264-format">introduced</a> to support AppleTV, we Zune owners get to benefit from it as well.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.vixy.net/rawvideo" target="_blank"><img border="1" src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/500/zt/auto/1207783873.usr40.jpg" alt="" /></a><br /><br />Go to <a href="http://vixy.net/rawvideo/" target="_blank">vixy.net/rawvideo</a> and enter the URL of the YouTube video you want to download. Make sure <strong>MP4 (H.264)</strong> is selected in the dropdown menu and then click the Download button. Follow the instructions on the next page and right-click the link that appears to save it to your computer. Change the name of the file to whatever you want the video to be called, but make sure to add &quot;<strong>.mp4</strong>&quot; at the end of the filename or else it won't save correctly. Once the file has finished downloading, drag the video into the Zune software. It'll recognize it and allow you to sync with your Zune device. Zune 4/8/80's don't even need to convert!

[FiredCylinder]

Great tip, but it doesn't support any other formats, such as one that the 30gb models can play without a massively long transcode.

[Adam Krebs]

Great tip, but it doesn't support any other formats, such as one that the 30gb models can play without a massively long transcode.

Yeah, that's an issue. I haven't found there to be too much trouble converting short videos (YouTube's non Directors Program users have a 10 minute limit) using the Zune software. If you'd like faster transcoding, try using either the web-based Zamzar.com (http://www.zamzar.com/url/) or Vconvert.net (http://vconvert.net/), or the downloadable Expression Encoder (http://www.microsoft.com/expression/products/overview.aspx?key=encoder) or Encode360 (http://dcunningham.net/projects/encode360/).

Paying for converters is dumb ;)

[Jason Dunn]

Hrm. This only works with IE - Firefox has no "Save Target As" function....but in IE it worked real good. :)

[Adam Krebs]

Firefox has no "Save Target As" function

The equivalent in FF is "save link as", and it works fine for me... Just change the "get_video" or "videoplayback.html" to "whatever.mp4" and it should work.

[Heatwave316]

Great info!!! I've been holding back on spending money on a converter, since there are only a few videos I'm after.