Comparison of You Tube Downloader 3.5 to You Tube Downlaoder Extension for Google Chrome

If you are an avid You Tube surfer like myself and you would like to play your favorite You Tube videos on your television or other electronic devices, you definitely need some sort of You Tube downloading software. However, there are quite a few to choose from. In hopes of simplifying your search, I am going to be comparing and discussing the features of two very good You Tube downloading programs that I have experience with: You Tube Downloader 3.5 for Windows (YTD 3.5) and the You Tube Downloader Extension (YTDE) for Google Chrome (although, I am pretty sure you could find it in Opera and Mozilla Firefox too).

YTD 3.5 has a very attractive and easy to use interface with four tabs: download, convert, activity, and play. All you need to do to download a You Tube video with YTD 3.5 is, under the download tab, copy and paste the URL of the video in the interface, choose your destination folder, and click the red download button on the bottom right corner. You can then monitor your download by clicking the activity tab.

In addition, you can download up to three videos at a time (you can actually choose more, but it won’t download more than three at a time. The remainder will be queued). Upon completion of a download, you can play your video in in the play tab. What’s more, in the convert tab, videos can be converted to a number of formats:

• Ipod (MOV)
• Iphone (MPEG-MP4)
• PSP (H.264 MP4)
• cell phone (H.263 3GP)
• Windows Media Player (V.7 WMV)
• X-Vid player (AVI)
• MP3 player.

This is excellent if you want to watch Walter Veith’s Total Onslaught seminars (which I highly recommend) on your Ipod, for example.

However, there is a downside to converting your videos with YTD 3.5 after downloading them: their quality decreases. This may be resolved by choosing to automatically convert your videos to the format of your choice if you go pro (which means you will have to fork up $19.90). I say “may be” because I do not have the pro version of YTD 3.5, so I am not completely sure. I like free stuff. Moreover, I have discovered a costless way of automatically converting You Tube videos, which suits my needs. I will discuss that later.

Another benefit of going pro in YTD 3.5 is that your downloads will speed up four times faster than in the basic version. However, the basic download speed is not bad. I have a 6 mb. Internet connection, and my You Tube videos take about a quarter to half of their length to download. The pro version also allows you to select multiple URLs to download at once instead of having to download them one at a time. Although, I prefer to choose to download one at a time for free. Thank you very much. The pro version also has the option of automatically deleting an original file after conversion; but that is very easy to do manually too.

In the Blue Corner: The You Tube Downloader Extension for Google Chrome

The YTDE for Google Chrome is free and simpler to use than YTD 3.5, in my opinion. To download it, go to the wrench icon on the Google Chrome browser interface, click options, choose extensions on the left hand side of the screen, scroll down to the bottom of your extensions list until you see the “get more extensions” link and click that. Finally, a search bar will appear at the top left corner of the screen where you should type “You Tube Downloader”. It came up as the second item found in my search. Then, click the “add to Chrome” button on the right side of the extension. Follow the directions from there and it should be installed within seconds.

What I like about the YTDE is that it adds a download button on You Tube right under the video. How convenient! You can choose the quality of your download and the format in which you want your video to automatically download after clicking the download button as well. This is more convenient that YTD 3.5 basic, in which you must convert your video after it has been downloaded. This takes up to, and sometimes more than, twice the time than just downloading a video; because converting a video is like downloading it all over again. Not to mention, when you convert videos with YTD 3.5 basic you lose quality; but when you automatically convert them during your download with the YTDE, the quality remains the same.

However, the YTDE extension is more limited in terms of the formats you could convert your videos to. It includes MP3, MP4 and FLV. Although, if the device you intend to play your You Tube videos on supports any of these formats, you will be just fine. I usually download my You Tube videos as MP4s, and they play on flat screen TVs with USB video support just fine. That’s all I need, so it works for me.

Saving with the YTDE is easy too. You just right click the download button and choose “save link as” in the drop down menu. You can then choose what folder you want to save your video file in. Another thing I like about the YTDE is that it downloads much quicker than YTD 3.5, since it is completely free; and YTD 3.5 uses speed as leverage to persuade you to purchase the pro version.

YTD 3.5 is an easy to use program with an attractive interface which allows users to download videos and convert them into various formats. The basic version is free; the pro version adds some speed and perks for $19.90. A major benefit of YTD 3.5 is its ability to convert video files to a variety of formats to suit users needs. The YTDE for Google Chrome is simpler to use than YTD 3.5. It also downloads videos at a faster speed, while automatically converting them to one of three formats at the same time, without decreasing video quality. If you intend to play You Tube videos on a device which does not support MP3, MP4 or FLV formats, then YTD 3.5 is probably the best program for you; otherwise, the YTDE will be than just fine.

Note: You can also use the YTDE for Google Chrome to download your videos quicker than YTD 3.5 and then just convert them to the format you need with YTD 3.5 as well.