I’ve been asked several times over the past few days, “Hey fungus, how do you get those videos from YouTube on your iPod?” Well, I’m no expert and I had to do a little research to figure it out, but it’s pretty easy. Since most of the people who ask me how to do it don’t want to spend the time to figure it out, or are just too lazy, and just want to make it happen, I’m writing this simple tutorial I can point to so I don’t have to explain what I do or how I do it again. If you have already figured how to convert video clips or snag video from YouTube (or other video services) and convert them for use on your video iPod, there’s no need to read this post, however, if you have suggestions on how to do it better feel free to comment. Obviously there are other ways to do this, but I know this works. By the way, I don’t want to promote copyright infringement, so make sure you have permission to use the videos you decide to use.
This seems like a lot of steps, but they are really easy:
First Step - The Free Tools You Will Need
- Download and install Firefox
- Get an add-on for Firefox and install it
- Download and install Super (scroll to the bottom of the page to “Download Now” options)
Next Steps – Using the Free Tools
Get The Video
- Browse to a page with Firefox that has an embedded video you would like
- Click on the “Video Downloader” icon in Firefox (it should be in the Status Bar at the bottom if you did not change the settings)
- When the Video Downloader window opens, click on the “Download Link” button
- Save the file, it will be called “get_video”
- Find the file and add “.flv” to the end of the file name – example: get_video.flv
Convert The Video
- Open Super
- At the top left select “Apple – iPod” or “Apple – iPod 5.5” (depending on which video iPod you have) in the drop down list in the Output Container selector
- Towards the bottom drag and drop the get_video.flv to the DROP A VALID MULTIMEDIA FILE HERE area
- Right click and Select The Output Folder Destination and set where you want the new file to go
- Now hit the “Encode (Active Files)” button
- Depending on how large the file is, it may take some time to convert the file, so be patient
- Once the conversion is done find the file in the folder you specified for the output destination
- The file should be named “get_video.MP4” if you did not make any changes to the file name
Last Steps – Sync to Your iPod
- Add the MP4 file you created to your iTunes library
- Sync the new file to your iPod
Obviously there are other ways to do this, which are probably faster and easier, but I like Super because it does more than just convert YouTube video to iPod format. If you choose to use Super, play around with the settings to shrink the output files and other converting options.
Well freaks, I hope that helps you if you have a video iPod, if not, figure it out for yourself. Thanks for stopping by.
