Most of today's internet traffic is spent streaming online video, with YouTube taking up a massive chunk. Over 400 hours of video content is uploaded to YouTube every minute, and YouTube has a greater reach in the xviii-49 demographic than even cablevision TV.

And so you lot have to consider other video streaming sites similar Vimeo, Dailymotion, Twitch, so on. That's a lot of information flowing around—and if your ISP caps your monthly data allowance, and so all this video streaming can be expensive.

The solution is to capture or download online videos to sentinel offline, allowing you to re-lookout man videos as many times as you lot desire without wasting data.

Here are some of the best tools for capturing and downloading streaming video from websites online, so you tin watch them offline.

ane. Video DownloadHelper

videodownloadhelper

Bachelor on: Chrome, Firefox.

Supported sites: YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Vimeo, Dailymotion, Lynda, Twitter, Udemy, and hundreds of other sites.

Video DownloadHelper is easily i of the most useful browser extensions for downloading streaming video that you'll ever install. The downside (sort of) is that you take to install it on your browser; if you already run numerous extensions, the last thing y'all need is another i making Chrome even slower. Just, if yous download numerous videos on a twenty-four hours-to-day ground, Video DownloadHelper is definitely worth it.

The extension adds a button next to your browser's accost bar. Whenever you lot come up across an online video, just click the push to download any video on the current page. Utilise the pop-upward box to decide where to salve it on your computer.

2. 4K Video Downloader

Available on: Windows, Mac, Linux.

Supported sites: YouTube, Facebook, Vimeo, Flickr, Dailymotion, and several other sites.

4K Video Downloader is the simplest and most straightforward tool to capture video from a website. Nosotros recommend it if yous want a no-hassle pick that requires close to zero effort on your part. It works quickly and doesn't throttle your download, plus it's straightforward to get to grips with.

Only copy the URL of an online video and paste it into 4K Video Downloader. You tin paste links to YouTube playlists or YouTube channels to download every video bachelor. In fact, you tin can even subscribe to YouTube channels and automobile-download new videos every bit they're made available. Yous can too download the annotations and subtitles in YouTube videos.

Video downloads are available in 8K, 4K, 1080p, or 720p (as long as the source video was uploaded at that resolution, of course). In add-on, videos can likewise be downloaded in MP4, MKV, and FLV formats. Or, you can download only the audio portion in MP3 or M4A formats.

3. Freemake Video Downloader

Freemake Video Downloader interface

Available on: Windows.

Supported sites: YouTube, Facebook, Liveleak, Veoh, Vimeo, Dailymotion, and dozens of other sites.

Freemake Video Downloader is one of the virtually popular video downloading tools out there. Indeed, it is ane of the best online video downloaders for any site.

It's completely costless, piece of cake to use, and relatively flexible equally far as quality and format options are concerned. Even so, the 1 large downside is that it's only available on Windows.

Videos tin be downloaded in a scattering of formats, including AVI, FLV, MKV, MP4, and WMV. If y'all only desire the audio portion, videos tin also be downloaded in MP3 format. The bodily procedure but requires the URL of the video—just re-create and paste information technology in.

4. JDownloader

JDownloader 2 interface

Available on: Windows, Mac, Linux.

Supported sites: Most any site with streaming video.

JDownloader is a stream downloader, simply with a twist. You take the URL of any folio that has a streamed video on it, paste it into the app, and it volition browse the page for all the videos information technology can detect. You get to pick which of the detected videos yous want to download.

The nice affair about JDownloader is that you don't need the direct URL of a specific video. For example, accept a MakeUseOf article with five embedded videos and all of them will exist detected. No need to fumble around finding out the direct URL of the video. This makes information technology effortless to capture several videos at one time.

Notwithstanding, exist aware that the installer comes with bundleware, which is where other programs are pushed to you that you don't need. When you run the installer, you lot'll come across a page that offers to install "Bing Search" or something else. On this page, the buttons will modify to Turn down and Have. Ensure you click Decline considering this volition forestall bundleware from being installed on your system.

v. youtube-dl

youtube dl

Available on: Windows, Mac, Linux.

Supported sites: YouTube, Facebook, HBO, Metacafe, Vimeo, Dailymotion, and thousands of other sites.

youtube-dl is a tool for advanced users who are comfortable using the command line. If y'all adopt graphical interfaces, relieve yourself the headache and just use ane of the ones listed higher up.

But if you're okay with command line utilities, then youtube-dl offers the about flexibility of whatsoever video downloading tool. It's complicated enough to have a non-trivial learning bend though, and so set up to read the documentation, or else you'll be lost.

You could also attempt youtube-dl-gui, which is an unofficial forepart-end user interface that's available for Windows and Linux.

Features include several video selection and quality parameters, playlist processing, download charge per unit limit, batch video downloading, automatic naming of files, inclusion of ads, and downloading subtitles (for sites similar YouTube).

The following formats are supported: 3GP, AAC, FLV, M4A, MP3, MP4, OGG, WAV, and WEBM.

The Terminal Resort for Capturing Online Videos

If you encounter a video that isn't supported by any of the above tools, the terminal resort is to play the video in full-screen mode and record your screen equally it plays.

Information technology's not a perfect solution, only it normally works when zero else does. Go on in mind, withal, that some sites and apps (peculiarly Idiot box streaming services) will not let a screen recorder capture the footage. When you go to play the video back again, you will simply be faced with a blank screen.

If you tin can get the direct URL of an online video, y'all can also use VLC to play and tape online videos as a kind of streaming video recorder.

How to Record Your Screen Using VLC

VLC Media Thespian has many uses, merely did you know that it tin can record your screen as well? Hither's how to hands record your desktop with VLC.

Read Adjacent

About The Author

Dan Price (1606 Articles Published)

Dan joined MakeUseOf in 2014 and has been Partnerships Director since July 2020. Reach out to him for inquires about sponsored content, affiliate agreements, promotions, and whatever other forms of partnership. Y'all can also notice him roaming the show floor at CES in Las Vegas every yr, say hi if you're going. Prior to his writing career, he was a Financial Consultant.

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