How To Save a Google Video on your Computer

Google video is the second most popular video sharing website on the Internet. YouTube (which is also owned by Google) is certainly the biggest and most popular). Watching these videos on the Internet is very easy if you have a high speed connection. However if your connection speed is slow or you don't always have the Internet then you will find it difficult to watch the videos that you want to watch.

It is possible to download the videos from the Internet and store them on your computer. This makes it very easy to watch them at any time even if you don't have Internet access. This also reduces any problems with videos continually buffering and loading.

Step 1: Searching for a Video

The first thing that you need to do is search for the video on Google Video and find the one that you want to download to your computer. Normally this will be the most time consuming part of the process because there are so many different videos to choose from on the site.

Search for the videos on the Google Video website to find the right ones that you want to download. It used to be very easy to download Google Videos, now however it is slightly more complicated. This is thanks to Googles takeover of YouTube when they started to standardize both platforms.

Step 2: Looking at the Source Code

Now you need to open the source code of the website by right clicking the website and clicking on "View Source". The wording of this might be slightly different depending on the browser you are using on your computer. The source code will typically load in notepad although this will also differ depending on the browser.

The source code can look intimidating at first, however you won't actually need to do anything with it. All you need to do is search for a term in the source code.

Step 3: Finding the Code

Press Control and F on your keyboard to open the find dialog box. Now you need to search for the term "googleplayer". This should take you to a term which says videoURL=NUMBER. You are interested in the code.

Step 4: Getting the Video URL

Now in the URL location bar type in "Javascript:unescape("NUMBER")." This should then cause it to output the URL of the video in the browser. This can then be copied to the clipboard.

Step 5: Downloading the Video

Simply paste the URL that you have just copied into the location bar of your browser. This should automatically start the file download. You will then be able to save it wherever you want, it's a good idea to rename it as something else first though. By renaming the file you will find it much easier to find it again when needed.

Step 6: Playing the Video

The video file will be in FLV format, this is a flash video and is not compatible with all video players. Either use a specially designed FLV video player or alternatively convert your videos to MP4 format so they can be played anywhere and on virtually any device.