HOW TO Download Youtube Videos - a dummy's guide

Edit : See this article, it's got a better way:
http://nikhilsheth.blogspot.in/2012/06/using-bytubed-in-firefox-to-download.html

Hi ppl!
This one's dedicated to everyone who has wished they could somehow save those great videos they saw in youtube, dailymotion, metacafe, etc to their comp so they could watch it again & again without wasting bandwidth or having to wait so long for it to load the next time. Too many people have told me that it's impossible to save youtube videos. Really? let's find out...

DOWNLOADING YOUTUBE VIDEOS FOR DUMMIES

There's 2 ways to do this: 1)Copy-paste , 2)Use a firefox extension



Method 1) Copy-paste URL's
This is simple but involves too much copy-pasting & switching between windows/tabs. If you have few video's to dload & not make a habit out of this, use this method.
If you're using Internet Explorer and not Firefox browser (shame!), then you can only use this method, to the best of my knowledge..

1. Open the site: www.videodownloader.net in a separate window/tab. Keep it there...
2. Go to the page where your video is playing, copy the URL from the address bar.
3. You might want to close the video page / go back to last page, so as to prevent unnecessary bandwidth usage.
4. Paste the URL in videodownloader's page where they ask you to & Submit. A link will come below, pointing to the video. Right-click and Save As..
5. Supply the .flv extension to the filename if it doesn't have one.
6. Note: This site doesn't run so well all of the time, that's why I use Method 2.

Method 2) Firefox Extension
For those of us who want to regularly download videos. Pull this off & you'll have upgraded your skills from dummy surfer to power downloader!

1. Get Video DownloadHelper extension/add-on from this page (you are in Firefox, right?)
   
2. Install the add-on, and restart Firefox.
3. Make sure there's an icon of downloadhelper (3 colorful balls) somehere at the top, near the reload / stop buttons. If not, right-click somewhere near the toolbar buttons and Customize.. drag the icon to where you want it.
   
4. Go to the page having your video, and start the video to play. (No need for that on youtube!)
   
5. In a few seconds, the downloadhelper's icon starts dancing. Click the down-arrow button next to it. Your video file that's playing will be listed. (might be some weird name)
6. Click on the video you want to dload. A save-as-dialog will open. Save it where you want to.
7. The video's downloading separately, straight to your pc now. So might as well close the web-page / go back, to avoid wasting your bandwidth..
8. In youtube, you don't even need to browse to the video's page.. just right-click its link and "Download video(s) from youtube links". Ain't that kool?
   
9. You can do tonnes of customizations with this amazing extension, but if i wrote all of them here, this wouldn't be for dummies, would it? ;)

Extra: Playing the FLV videos:

• To play it anywhere, even in windows-media-player, install CCCP codec pack. (requires installing -> admin rights to the PC you're surfing on)
• FLV Player will surely play it, and it's really small & requires no installing. (Metacafe vids will play here only)
• Other players: VLC, Winamp, RealOne (many more.. u can google for it)

Another recommended firefox extension: Flashblock. It prevents flash animations/vids from playing automatically when the page loads, they'll play only when you click on them. This saves me a ton of bandwidth!