Most of today's net traffic is spent streaming online video, with YouTube taking up a massive clamper. Over 400 hours of video content is uploaded to YouTube every minute, and YouTube has a greater reach in the 18-49 demographic than fifty-fifty cable TV.

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

The solution is to capture or download online videos to watch offline, allowing yous to re-watch equally many times as yous want without wasting data.

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

i. Video DownloadHelper

Available on: Chrome, Firefox.

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

Video DownloadHelper is easily one of the most useful browser extensions for downloading streaming video that you'll ever install. The downside (sort of) is that yous accept to install it on your browser; if yous already run a lot of extensions, the terminal thing you demand is another 1 making Chrome fifty-fifty slower. But if you download a lot of videos on a day-to-day basis, Video DownloadHelper is definitely worth it.

The extension adds a push next to your browser's accost bar. Whenever you come across an online video, just click the push to download any video on the current page. Use the popular-up box to decide where to save it on your calculator.

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 about straightforward tool to capture video from a website. Nosotros recommend it if yous desire a no-hassle option that requires close to zero endeavour on your part. It works extremely apace and doesn't throttle your download, plus it's really easy to get to grips with.

Just copy the URL of an online video and paste it into 4K Video Downloader. You can paste links to YouTube playlists or YouTube channels to download every video available, and you can even subscribe to YouTube channels and auto-download new videos as they're made available. You can besides download the annotations and subtitles in YouTube videos.

Video downloads are available in 8K, 4K, 1080p, or 720p (as long equally the source video was uploaded at that resolution, of course). Videos tin be downloaded in MP4, MKV, and FLV formats. Or you lot tin can download merely the audio portion in MP3 or M4A formats.

3. Freemake Video Downloader

Available on: Windows.

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

Freemake Video Downloader is one of the about popular video downloading tools out there. It's completely free, easy to use, and relatively flexible as far as quality and format options are concerned. The one big downside is that it's only available on Windows.

Videos tin be downloaded in a handful of formats, including AVI, FLV, MKV, MP4, and WMV. Videos can likewise exist downloaded in MP3 format if y'all only want the audio portion. The actual process merely requires the URL of the video—just copy and paste it in.

iv. JDownloader

Available on: Windows, Mac, Linux.

Supported sites: Nearly whatsoever site with streaming video.

JDownloader is like Freemake Video Downloader but with a twist. You lot take the URL of whatever page that has a streamed video on information technology, paste it into the app, and it will browse the folio for all the videos it tin discover. Yous get to pick which of the detected videos you want to download.

The nice thing nearly JDownloader is that you don't need the direct URL of a specific video. Take a MakeUseOf article with five embedded videos, for example, and all of them volition be detected. No need to fumble around finding out the direct URL of the video. This makes information technology very easy to capture several videos at once.

Withal, be aware that the installer comes with bundleware, which is where other programs are pushed on you that yous don't need. When you lot run the installer, yous'll come across a page that offers to install "Bing Search" or something else. On this page, the buttons will change to Decline and Take. Ensure yous click Decline, because this will prevent bundleware from beingness installed on your arrangement.

5. 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 control line. If you adopt graphical interfaces, save yourself the headache and just use one of the ones listed above.

But if you lot're okay with control line utilities, then youtube-dl offers the most flexibility of any video downloading tool. It's complicated enough to accept a non-piffling learning curve though, so prepare to read the documentation, or else you'll be lost.

You could also try youtube-dl-gui, which is an unofficial front-terminate user interface that'due south bachelor for Windows and Linux.

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

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

The Last Resort for Capturing Online Videos

If you run across a video that isn't supported past any of the above tools, the last resort is to play the video in full screen way and record your screen equally it plays.

It's not a perfect solution, but information technology commonly works when nothing else does. Go on in heed, still, that some sites and apps (peculiarly Boob tube streaming services) will non let a screen recorder capture the footage. When you become to play the video dorsum again, you volition just be faced with a blank screen.

If yous can become the direct URL of an online video, you can also use VLC to play and tape online videos every bit a kind of streaming video recorder.

How to Record Your Screen Using VLC

VLC Media Player has many uses, but did yous know that information technology can record your screen too? Here's how to hands record your desktop with VLC.

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Virtually The Author

Dan Cost (1608 Articles Published)

Dan joined MakeUseOf in 2014 and has been Partnerships Director since July 2020. Accomplish out to him for inquires nearly sponsored content, affiliate agreements, promotions, and whatsoever other forms of partnership. You can also find him roaming the testify floor at CES in Las Vegas every yr, say hullo if you're going. Prior to his writing career, he was a Financial Consultant.

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