Is there a decent youtube downloader?

[helmut85]

Remember Laura Nyro.

[Deozaan]

Look at http://deturl.com/

Or you can look for YousableTubeFix which is an extension for Firefox, Opera, or Chrome which will add a download button below every YouTube video.

[helmut85]

Remember Laura Nyro.

[Shades]

What is wrong with 'YouTube HD downloader"? It's free and portable. Fill in the YouTube URL and it will look up the highest quality version associated with that URL for downloading, if you want.

To my knowledge, it comes without any of the usual "nasties" as described in the OP.

[cmpm]

http://www.netvideohunter.com/

NetVideoHunter works for me.
Play it on the web for a second or 2 and it will catch the link for downloading the full video.
It will continue logging viewed videos and present a full list per session.
Check the ones you want to download. Preview of video available-click Play.
A firefox plug-in.
See screenshots.

[helmut85]

Remember Laura Nyro.

[Curt]

@helmut85, you say you are willing to install Firefox if need be. I encourage you to do so. Then install the small addon DownloadHelper (and do the settings). When you are on a YouTube page, middle-click on a video in the right column, and it will open in a new tab. DH will automatically find the best / highest resolution. All it takes from you is the initial middle-click, to open a new page, and a second click (on the DH icon in Firefox's Add-on bar) to download the best video, without further actions needed. When you see that the download has begun, you may close the new page, and voila! you are still on the initial page.

edit:
I forgot the download of playlist requirement. I simply don't think this feature is available anywhere. It has been my impression that YouTube made it so far impossible.

[helmut85]

Remember Laura Nyro.

[Curt]

Well, good luck finding what you want. If you know up front what you want to download, there are options like http://www.abelssoft.net/apps/youtube-song-downloader . It is quite good, but not for YouTube's playlist format.

[4wd]

Something to try with a couple of Firefox addons:

BYTubeD - Bulk YouTube video Downloader

Features at a glance
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

•    Helps in batch downloading YouTube videos;
•    Can grab YouTube video links from: any web page, a local HTML or text file and system clipboard;
•    Can be used to download YouTube Playlists (as a by-product of the ability to batch download);
•    Formats Supported: FLV, MP4, WebM, 3GP (subject to availability);
•    Qualities Supported: 144p, 240p, 360p, 480p, 720p HD, 1080p HD, Original (subject to availability);
•    Can download subtitles in the chosen language, if available.
•    Can be used in combination with download managers like DownThemAll!

DownThemAll! - excellent download manager that can be set to skip already existing files.

Use PortableFirefox if you don't want to install Firefox.

[Tinman57]

UltraGet Video Downloader has the option for Best Video Quality, but I'm not sure about the rest of the options you wanted....  It's also freeware with a pro version that has more bells and whistles...

http://www.ultraget.com/

[cmpm]

I'm not sure how to check if you already have a video before downloading, unless it is the same file name.
The Firefox download manager alerts me for files that already have the same name.
Net Video Hunter downloads the best quality video by default.
https://addons.mozilla.org/EN-US/firefox/addon/netvideohunter-video-downloade/

If your file list is a web based link list or links in a web page in Firefox,
you can use Snap Links Plus.
http://snaplinks.mozdev.org/ or use this link
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/SnapLinksPlus/?src=search

[Curt]

Something to try with a couple of Firefox addons:
BYTubeD - Bulk YouTube video Downloader
updated version: http://msram.github.com/bytubed/2012/12/19/new-develpment-version-1-1-2a1.html

-wow, I am impressed. I had no idea such a useful addon was available (of course I hadn't, otherwise I wouldn't have said, what I said, to helmut85!). Really useful, AND it surely must be The Answer to helmut85's request! I have already picked up my first playlist.

[cmpm]

Yes, BYTubeD, is better then my attempt at a solution.

[Renegade]

As before, I'll recommend this:

http://www.youtubedownloadersite.com/

I've used it for a long time, and quite heavily, and it works very well.

[4wd]

http://www.youtubedownloadersite.com/

Isn't that what was tried and had its inadequacies pointed out in the OP, (YTD/FYTD)?

[Renegade]

http://www.youtubedownloadersite.com/

Isn't that what was tried and had its inadequacies pointed out in the OP, (YTD/FYTD)?

From the OP:

I once contacted YTD about this, telling them I would be happy to pay their 20 dollar a year fare if they introduced such a feature - it goes without saying that I didn't even got any answer, and to be frank, YTD has become from bad over worse to unacceptable lately: Many titles cannot be downloaded with the latest version, when the same download without any problems with any other downloader, and with the preceding YTD version, you can't download anything anymore from YTD, when with much older versions from other downloaders most title will download without problems. (And not speaking of those terrible goodies you install together with YTD if you don't pay a maximum of attention at any second.)

I've not see those problems, so it may or may not be the same piece of software. In this particular space, there are a lot of very similarly named titles. So, dunno.

You could be right. I'm not sure.

[cmpm]

Eset blocks a connection for a toolbar after the install of YTD.
Just a heads-up fyi.

[cmpm]

YouTubeVideoGrabber may be a consideration.

http://www.litexmedia.com/youtube-grabber/

[helmut85]

Remember Laura Nyro.

[Curt]

http://www.youtubedownloadersite.com/

Isn't that what was tried and had its inadequacies pointed out in the OP, (YTD/FYTD)?

-apparently not:

1) I'm very grateful for all these suggestions all unknown hitherto to me,

But hey, unknown abbreviations and lack of links can do that.

[Renegade]

Hey, here's a wicked cool project that if it doesn't do exactly what's needed, it could:

http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/21053/MyDownloader-A-Multi-thread-C-Segmented-Download-M

Now, it's a Code Project project, and so it's really meant for programmers, but still, it does Youtube, and since it's open source (CPOL licensed) it can be changed and added to.

I use some of the functionality quite a bit, so I might just well check it out. -- Haven't tried it yet, but from my experience with the Code Project, stuff there is usually pretty darn good.

[helmut85]

Remember Laura Nyro.

[Renegade]

Phew! That was a long and pretty comprehensive write up!  Good on ya there~!

And even for Renegade's beloved "YouTube Downloader and Converter", you'll need to write a many-mouseclicks (!) macro in order to put the download on a single key, i.e. these developers are unable even to implement some little keyboard shortcuts, which would be a strict minimum for 30-bucks-a-year sw imo. Sorry, I always get harsh in the end for being overwhelmed by dissatisfaction, but I simply don't understand this blatant, ubiquitous lack of understanding of users' even most basic needs, all sorts of free and paid sw combined, with rare exceptions.

I'm not tied to any specific piece of software, except through experience, and I've just never had many real problems with YTD there.

Now, to be fair to the authors of this kind of software, they have a tough job. I'd like to outline just a bit of what they face...

The generic term for this kind of software is a "scraper". All scraper software suffers from the problem of web sites updating their code and then the scraper breaking. This requires vigilance and work to keep things smooth. i.e. The software *WILL* break. That's a given. (I've written this kind of software before many, many times.)

So, you're stuck with having to get users to update the software. This is a real pain for the users, but believe me... it's a MUCH greater pain for the developer/author. I'll skip the nastiness there - but you can probably imagine the horrible nastiness associated with updating - I've been called names and accused of malicious intent simply for talking about having an automatic updating mechanism that lets users choose if they want to update... There is simply NO pleasing some people.

For YTD, I've simply kept it up to date. I had one short period where they couldn't update it quickly enough, but I've got the current version, and it's working fine for what I need - e.g. downloading videos and playlists and converting, etc. This will happen with all scraper software.

For global shortcut keys, that's an entirely different can of worms. Suffice it to say that you need to be judicious with them, and that browser integration isn't all that simple when you do client software (tonnes of issues there - I'll skip them here).

But I'm not sure I read which you'd decided upon. Please to post your final decision as I'd like to try that out. It seems like you've more than done your homework, so I'd like to take advantage of your experience there from the purely user-perspective.

Again, thanks for posting all that info there! 

[4wd]

I think you missed my point about Bulk Youtube Video Downloader, (BYTubeD), addon and DownThemAll!, (DTA).

You use BYTubeD to manage the batch download, (collect URLs, select quality, read from list, etc), and it uses DTA to do the actual download, skipping already existing files.

You don't use DTA for management of the URLs at all and you can choose the target folder - it defaults to whatever is set in Firefox under Options->General.

BTW, if you lost  "1 giga" of drive space after installing Firefox and a couple of addons, you've seriously got something wrong with your installation.  Mine's under 50MB in total including quite a few addons.