Rip Youtube the CLI way

There are many applications for extracting and downloading videos from youtube and other video hosts like web-based KeepVid or addons like VideoDownloader, and many others. There's also a very good technique of saving any streaming video by buffering it till 100%, navigate to the Cache folder and simply copy the video file (which is /tmp in case of linux).

But recently I got a python based CLI tool youtube-dl, which is a nifty yet a powerful must have tool. You can get it from your default repositories or for youtube-dl under Windows XP. Get it :

$ sudo yum install youtube-dl

Usage

• Simply download :

  $ youtube-dl http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=video_id



• Specify filename
  
  Manually specify :

  $ youtube-dl -o output.flv http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=video_id

  Use the original video title :

  $ youtube-dl -t http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=video_id

  Have a literal title :

  $ youtube-dl -l http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=video_id



• Download videos which requires your youtube account privileges and confirmation :

  $ youtube-dl -u username -p password http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=video_id

  
  Or read account details from .netrc file :

  $ youtube-dl -n http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=video_id

  Append this line to ~/.netrc file :
  

  machine youtube login username password password



• Simply print video URL instead of downloading :

  $ youtube-dl -g http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=video_id

  Or grab the Title :

  $ youtube-dl -2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=video_id



• Download in silent mode (like wget) :

  $ youtube-dl -q http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=video_id &



• Get Help :

  $ youtube-dl -h

Know more at the Official Page.