Making YouTube YOURtube
By Wayne
Maruna
After writing computer articles for the Tribune
for over six years, I often have difficulty coming up with new ideas for
articles that will appeal to the wider audience of readers whose computer skill
sets vary from novice to expert. Fortunately my sideline as computer fix-it guy
often provides real world situations worth sharing.
Case in point: I received a call from a gentleman whose wife loved watching a
particular couple on Dancing With The Stars. As it turns out, the show’s
network posted dance videos on YouTube from the dozen or so shows on
which the couple appeared. Now I’m going to assume that all my readers know
about YouTube, and if you don’t, I hope the rock you’ve been living under
has provided sufficient shade to keep you cool during our hot summer. So our
gentleman caller decided that a DVD of all this couple’s dance routines would
make for a really swell gift to give to his wife. Only problem was, he didn’t
know how to make such a thing. He asked me if I knew someone who could do it,
and of course I said I could, though at the time I must confess I hadn’t a
clue. I didn’t lie. I didn’t say I knew how. I only said I could
(eventually).
I should mention that my wife and
I first met while I was taking ballroom dance classes - mom made me go - so
thankfully I was dealing with material that I understood and enjoyed watching.
Had the request been made to compile mud wrestling matches, I would have been
less inclined to accept the assignment and far more wary of the folks making the
request.
At this point, I’m going to divert to the
subject of web browsers. Those are the program applications that allow you to
connect to the world wide web. The vast majority of people use the browser that
comes with Windows, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. Many people aren’t even
aware that there are alternatives. Most of my techie friends use a program
called Mozilla Firefox, as do I. There are numerous other alternatives
including Google Chrome, SeaMonkey, and Opera. Apple computer users default to
the Safari browser. The main reason I use Firefox is that most black-hat guys
writing malware code to infest browsers go after the big dog on the block,
Internet Explorer. So users of Firefox tend to be less at risk of drive-by
browser hi-jacking.
Firefox uses something called Extensions.
These are 3rd party add-ons to the basic browser that give it
enhanced capabilities. For example, I use one extension called Colorful Tabs.
With this extension, when I have several web pages open simultaneously within
Firefox, each appearing in its own tab, each tab has a different color to help
distinguish one from the other. It’s mainly just eye candy, but eye candy can
make for more enjoyable web browsing.
OK, so it turns out there is an extension for
Firefox called ‘Easy YouTube Video Downloader’. According to the
author’s website, this free Firefox add-on allows users to download YouTube
videos easily. Visit any YouTube video page and use the simple
direct download buttons to start downloading videos in the format of your
choice, including FLV (Flash video), MP3, MP4, HD, and 1080p Full HD where
available. Those download buttons appear on the YouTube web page once
you have installed the extension. It really is that simple.
Of course in this case, downloading the videos
was only half the battle, as I then had to view them, set them in sequential
order by broadcast date, and burn them to disk using NeroVision Express to
produce a DVD that could be viewed on a home DVD player. That is a whole
different process beyond the scope of this article.
I was truly impressed by how simple ‘Easy
YouTube Video Downloader’ made the download and conversion process. It
really did earn the word ‘Easy’ in its title. Care to add it to your
installation of Firefox? You can get it at
http://www.yourvideofile.com . It’s free, but the authors do suggest a
nominal donation. If you’re not a Firefox user and want to try that, you can
download a copy from
http://www.firefox.com .