Downloading and Converting Videos using My Video Downloader HD

This tutorial will walk you through downloading and converting a high definition video from YouTube. This tutorial assumes that you have My Video Downloader HD downloaded and installed on your computer. 

Finding a video to download

For this tutorial I did a quick search on YouTube to find a video to download. I am going to download a "Avatar" movie trailer. The permanent URL for this video is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRdxXPV9GNQ

NOTE: to find the permanent URL of a video simply click the "Share" link under the video and the URL is available under "Copy and paste this link into an email or instant message:". For best results use the permanent URL. YouTube has many different URLs that can be created via searching the site (example - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRdxXPV9GNQ&feature=PlayList&p=691FFDFA8F076726&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=26)

Copy the permanent URL

Downloading a Video

Paste the permanent URL in My Video Downloader HD in Step One, then hit "Get Video"

Naming a Video

The name is pulled from the name of the video on YouTube. You can edit this name to your liking.

In this case I really do not like the name they used, therefore I am changing it to Avatar Extend HD Trailer. 

NOTE: You will get an error message if the name contains special characters such as ()$%^*, remove these from the name for best results.

Format to Convert Video to

Use the drop down list to choose what format you would like to encode the video to such as iPhone or iPod. In this tutorial we are downloading and HD video and I would like to convert the video to HD - MKV.  This is a popular format for HD video files and will require a codec to play on your computer. You can download a package full of popular codecs HERE The Combined Community Codec Pack is a simple playback pack for Windows with the goal of supporting the majority of video formats in use today.

Now click on the "Advanced" button to change the conversion settings, below is a screen shot of the settings for HD - MKV

This screen gives us full control of how our video will be converted. 

The advanced screen give you control over the following settings

• Video Resolution
• Video Frame Rate
• Video Bitrate
• Audio Codec
• Audio Bitrate
• Audio Channels

 I will not go in depth on these settings in this tutorial. My Video Downloader will default to optimum settings. Advanced user love the ability to tweak these settings. 

In this case the highest quality of video on YouTube of this video is a 720p. How do I know this? You can video the resolution available on the YouTube page located in the player on the bottom right.

Since the highest quality available is 720p I will choose 1280x720 Video Resolution. I can change this to 1920x1080 to convert to a 1080p resolution, but the video will NOT look any better than the original. 

NOTE: My Video Downloader HD will always download the highest quality video, even if you are watching the standard definition video online it will still download the highest quality version. This will give you the best results when converting to any format. 

Video Downloading and Converting Queue

Now that we have our video naming and conversion setting set, hit the "Add to Queue" button. The video will be added to the queue and automatically start downloading (this can be changed in Settings/Queue, so that you can build a queue and then start the downloads when ready).

The download queue has the following sections

• Video - Shows the video name and a logo of the site where it is being downloaded from
• Size - The size of the video being downloaded
• Progress - Shows whether the video is being downloaded or converted and the progress
• Time - Shows the remaining time for the progress
• Speed - Show the speed of the download 

When the file is completed, you will see this window

Check the box and the folder where the converted videos are stored will open. 

Now play your video when you want! No internet connection required and no buffering!

After completing this tutorial you will be an expert at downloading and converting videos from YouTube. This next time you do this process it will go a lot faster as you know what your doing.

Enjoy!