Does anyone know the best way to download/copy a Youtube clip to your hardrive? The only option I've seen on the web is to save it as a .flv file, but ideally I'd like to save it as an .mpg or .avi format.

Thank you

I use www.savetube.com but there are many. Savetube does the job just fine.

The video format is .flv, you'd have to convert it after downloading.One of the easiest ways I've found to save them is use FireFox and the DownloadHelper plugin.Never converted any (I just use a Flv player) but google brings up a ton of convertors.

i use orbitdownloader

youtube downloader

but i think i did post some url´s a while ago where u can download clips from youtube.

http://keepvid.com/
http://www.tvjoost.nl/simpel-youtube-video...op-je-harddisk/
http://www.techcrunch.com/get-youtube-movie/
http://www.bligg.be/story.php?title=YouTub..._YouTube_Videos
http://www.downloadyoutubevideos.com/

and if that is not what u looking for just google for download youtube vids

This does it all in one step

http://www.convertdirect.com/

Thank you all, this is very informative. I'll have a go at it when I get home from work this evening.

Vixy is another online converter that you can use.

Download a piece of software called Super.

It's free and it will convert any video format to any other video format.

The one I use and I think it is very helpful for me is Videoraptor and I say it is very helpful cause it downloads videos and MP3 from youtube, google video, myvideo etc and also it converts the songs in formats I need (cellphone, MP3 player, ipod). my opinion is that this is the simplest way to get videos from internet. ;)

This is the one I like, no program to download and it does it al by Proxy if you know what I mean.

http://www.videocodezone.com/conversion.php

So many ways... DownloadHelper add-on is the thing if you use FireFox