Downloading Youtube videos to Zen

fletch3163

Hello everyone

I've had such good help from the Techie site it's become my first port of call for help. Soon it'll bypass Google for assistance.

Can anyone help me help my 12 year old son download animation from Youtube? We tried very unsuccessfully last night and he wants to share some stuff with his new high school mates (a bit of an ice breaker methinks)

Anyway, anyone? It downloads to Realplayer but we can't get it to go to Windows Media Player to move over to the Zen. If it's any help to anyone it's a .flv file? EEK please don't think for a second I know what I'm talking about. We've tried dragging it and everything

dogmaryxx

Since nobody has replied I will least bump for you. .flv files are I think not supported by Windows Media Player so you will need to convert them to an acceptable format first or use a plugin such as this.

To convert video you will need something such as http://www.avs4you.com/AVS-Video-Converter.aspx?type=GoogleImageAds
to make them work for the Zen/Media Player.

I stand to be corrected on all above as I am not familiar with video/Zen.

Hope a real techie helps out.

coolagarry

I don't know what type of video Zen plays but I use Winff
http://winff.org/html_new/
to convert .flv files (and all kinds of other files) to MP4 which is what plays on ipods. I have no doubt that it will convert to whatever file type Zen uses.

It's free and it comes with good instructions.

Ximian

According to Creative's website, the ZEN player will only play videos in WMV format so you'll need to convert the flv file to a compatible format. I use FormatFactory (free) and it's very easy to use: http://www.formatoz.com/

Some additional information that might help:
Most YouTube video downloaders will save the video in flv format (flv=Flash Video) but there are some that can save in a different video format such as MP4.
To play ANY video file as well as audio files have a look at VLC: http://www.videolan.org/vlc/
VLC can play partial files, VOB files, MKV etc...

dogmaryxx

Zen Supports audio formats WMA (with DRM), MP3, WAV; video formats MPEG (1/2/4), DivX, XviD, WMV; picture format JPG (JPEG).

fletch3163

My God, you lot are good. Thanks dogmaryxx for bumping too.

It's all over my head but when I get home tonight I'll have a gander. Please everyone hope I can do it because otherwise I'm a nightmare trying to understand stuff

Marty_J

You'll get better quality video if you download the files directly from YouTube as mp4 files (rather than flv files) using this method. They'll look better when you convert them to wmv, and downloading them is easier too!