[TIPS] zamzar and YouTube

There are plenty of ways, now, to get videos downloaded from the Internet so that you can play them later at school where the video site is blocked. I've mentioned one such site before, Keepvid. Plus, there are extensions that you can get for the Firefox browser that will let you download the videos from that page to your desktop. And, as long as you've got a player (like VLC or Miro) that will play the flv format you're in good shape.

Here's another option: zamzar. Remember zamzar from a while back? (http://tipline.blogspot.com/2006/11/tips-online-file-conversion.html) It's a site that will let ou convert files from one format to another, such as pdf to doc. Well, back in February they added a feature that will convert an online video on the fly. It saves the step of having to download and install another viewer to watch the flv formatted files. It's a matter of pasting in the url for the video and selecting the desired output format. In moments the file is converted and you will receive the link to it so that you can download it. Check out this video demo of the Zamzar tools in action: http://blog.zamzar.com/2007/02/16/support-launched-for-youtube-video-conversion/

So, schools blocking YouTube doesn't really bother me that much any more. It's just too easy to get those videos from home in the evenings.