How to get Youtube videos locally on the iPhone/iPod Touch
Since the iPhone's native YouTube app has no automatic or manual cache
function, watching YouTube videos (especially for offline iPod Touch
users) becomes very difficult and often quite slow. So, here are a
couple of ways to get your iPhone playing videos without using all that
prized 3G data or waiting a couple of years for that 20 second clip to
buffer.
Method 1 (Recommended) Requires $1.19 app purchase
This method doesn't need any computers at all, but still gives you the
option of using it on your computer if you want. Here is what to do.
1.Find the video you want and copy the URL. This is slightly more
difficult to do than it would seem. Using the native YouTube app, you
can choose to email to a friend and then copy the video URL from the
message, or you can use Safari to navigate to YouTube, then choose
Desktop view at the bottom to get the full version, then search for the
video you want. From the search results, you can just tap-hold on the
name and copy the link, or go to the video page and copy the URL out of
the address bar. Now, in your clipboard is the URL for your video
(http://youtube.com/watch?h7T14m, for example). Next in Safari, head
over to Zamzar.com. While there are other (arguably better) online video
conversion sites, this one I've found to be the most reliable for
iPhone-only operation. Now, choose URL jsut above the file box, then
paste the URL of your video in the box, then choose iPhone as your
output format. Next, enter in an e-mail address that is active/checkable
on your iTouch device and click Convert. 98% of the time, it will work,
there will be progress bars just under the box and it will give you a
confirmation message that the upload has worked. For the other 2%, try
again and if it still doesn't work, choose a different video.
2.Now, go to the Inbox of the email account you entered previously (in
Safari or Mail, doesn't really matter) and after about a minute, you
should've received an e-mail from Zamzar.com (longer videos take longer
to arrive), not with the actual video (which would be pointlessly
trapped in Mail) but with a link to a download page. Tap-hold to select,
then Copy the URL for the download.
3.Now is when you'll have to pony up the money. You are going to
download a download browser. There are a billion of them on the App
Store, but my choice would always be hwBrowser. While it doesn't
support pause/resume with downloads, everything else about it is solid,
easy-to-use and it's cheap. You take your pick, but make sure it has an
option to force download a link. Some browsers will see an iPhone
compatible file and simply start playing it, instead of downloading it.
Now, after you have downloaded hwBrowser, open it up and tap the bottom
right icon and choose settings, then change the download button from
Action to Toggle (Action *should* work, but I've had mixed results, try
it if you want). Now choose Done and tap in the address bar, then tap
again, and choose Paste, which should paste an enormous URL from
Zamzar.com into the address bar, then hit Enter. Now, the download page
should appear. Tap the Download icon (top left) to choose Download mode
(shows DL) (if you are using the Action button, choose Download Next
Link). Now, tap on the Download Now icon on the download page and choose
Yes to save the mp4 file. Wait for the download to finish. If you tap
X, then Hide, you can keep browsing and check the progress in
Settings(bottom right)>Downloads, but it will give you a pop-up when
it's done. Now, if you tap the files icon (left of Settings) you should
see your file. You can rename it, create a folder for it, etc by using
the folder tools button in the top left corner. Tapping on the file will
start playing it, straight off your iPhone. This now means that since
you can use hwBrowser without the Internet, you can watch the videos
offline.
4.You can also move the videos back onto your Computer by starting
hwBrowser, opening Settings>Settings and entering the address shown
into a browser onto your computer. From here, you can also drop it back
into your favourite app (however, but usually with WebDAV or FTP).
Method 2 (horrifically unreliable) FREE!
This method will download Youtube and Dailymotion videos directly to
your device, but you won't be able to access them outside of the app or
on your computer, which doesn't seem so bad, until you start actually
using the app in question.
For this, you'll need an app bizarrely named iWoopie. It's free, which
is nice. It's also an absolutely horrific app, which is unfortunate.
Once you open the app, ignore the Most Popular videos which are
invariably hopeless and head to the search tab. Click in the search box
(more difficult than you'd think since it's hiding *under* the status
bar) and type in your query. Try to be specific. Once the results arrive
(if they do, and if the app hasn't already crashed, a frequent
occurrence) choose a video from the list and click Download. Now, a
badge will appear on the Downloads tab. Tap on the Downloads icon and
watch what happens. If it says 0% and then Complete, it hasn't worked.
If it just says Error, it obviously hasn't worked. On the off chance
that it has worked, you should've seen the progress bar fill up and then
tap on the video to check that it's playable. It often isn't. To combat
this, you'll have to download about 50 different videos by about 50
different people from both site in the hope that one of them will work.
For example, I've downloaded almost every video in the Top 25 results
for Iron Man 2 and none of them worked. Of course, that's not a problem,
because even if it does, it'll probably just crash anyway. Yes, this
app is actually that bad. Use it if you really want, but believe me when
I say that even Method 3 would be better than this.
Method 3 (not so fantastic) FREE!
This method will need a computer at some point, so be ready. For
starters follow steps 1 and 2 from Method 1 to get your download link.
1.Now, download ByteTornado Downloader. This is actually a good app
anyway with quick, easy downloads and almost-full pause and resume
functions (won't work with the dynamic Zamzar servers we're using for
this, so don't try). After you've downloaded it and opened it up, paste
the URL you copied into the Browser tab's address bar. You should see a
little yellow box and a badge on the second tab, indicating that you are
downloading the file. Tap the downloads tab to watch the progress and
wait until it's done. The problem here is that ByteTornado has no
inbuilt preview function. It can only download and host the files from
it's own file server. Even if you navigate to 127.0.0.1 (geeks will
recognise this as like calling your own phone number, except with
computers, it works) and trying that, it simply downloads it again, from
itself. Strange.
2.Now, download another app. For this, you want a mobile disk app, with
viewing capabilities. My recommended pick is Discover, a useful,
powerful and easy-to-use app with an amazing web interface. I'll do the
instructions for Discover, so if you're unsure, try it first, then try
your own pick if you don't like it. Other choices inclued FileApp (uses
FTP and has good file management capabilities) or DocumentViewer (simple
and poweful, but also $1.19)
3.Now, go to your computer and open a browser, any browser should work
so it's not really important. On your iTouch, open ByteTornado, then
enter the address shown in the Share tab into youre computer's browser.
You should be greeted with a simple page listing the files you've
downloaded. Right-click>Save Target as to download the files and save
them somewhere on your computer. Now, quit out of ByteTornado and open
Discover or whatever you've downloaded (Some apps need to enter a
sharing mode. If so, do so). On your computer, enter the address the app
gives you. For Discover, it will be the same address as before, but
with :8888 at the end instead of :9999. Now, choose (or create) the
folder where you want the videos, then choose Add files in the bottom
pane, find and choose the *.mp4's that you downloaded before, then click
Upload All to push them to your device.
4.Once the upload is complete, you can simply tap the file in Discover
to start watching the video
One of the biggest problems with this method is that since the video
files have to go via the computer anyway, you have two far more viable
options. Firstly, you could just use YouTube Downloader and a converter
to download the videos on your computer in the first place and then put
it on your device however you want to. Secondly, since the videos are on
your computer, why not just import them into iTunes, sync your device
and be done with it...
There are probably a couple of methods and feel free to let me know, but
for the moment, these (especially Method 1) are pretty sound methods of
getting YouTube (or generally online) videos onto your iPhone/iPod
Touch. Hope it helps and Good Luck!
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