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How to Play YouTube Videos (FLV) Offline?

YouTube is becoming more popular among web users for its convenience and abundance. You can find various types of videos on it, for example music video, funny video, and news. However have you ever thought of playing these videos offline when you can not log on Internet? This tutorial will introduce you how to play YouTube videos offline step by step.

Software Required

What is FLV?

Since many video websites, such as YouTube, Google Video, Reuters.com, Yahoo! Video and MySpace choose FLV as the source file, we should know what FLV is first.

FLV (Flash Video) is a proprietary file format used to deliver video over the Internet using Adobe Flash Player (formerly known as Macromedia Flash Player) version 6, 7, 8, or 9. FLV content may also be embedded within SWF files. Notable users of the FLV format include YouTube, Google Video, Reuters.com, Yahoo! Video and MySpace.

Commonly FLV files contain video bit streams which are a variant of the H.263 video standard, under the name of Sorenson Spark. Flash Player 8 and newer revisions support the playback of On2 TrueMotion VP6 video bit streams. On2 VP6 can provide a higher visual quality than Sorenson Spark, especially when using lower bit rates. On the other hand it is computationally more complex and therefore will not run as well on certain older system configurations.

Step-1 Download FLV

You can find different types of flv downloaders on the Internet. In general, there are three types - browser extension or add-on, web application, and windows program. You can choose any of them to download flv files.

Sothink Web Video downloader for Firefox is a simple and small Firefox extension (add-on) for you to quickly capture and download web videos (FLV/SWF) and Flash files from internet. It supports all popular video sites, such as YouTube, Google Video, Reuters.com, Yahoo! Video and MySpace. Click here to see more information >>>

Step-2 Download and Install FLV Player

You can get free Sothink FLV Player from this URL.
Follow the wizard to install Sothink FLV Player in your computer.

Step-3 Play FLV with Sothink FLV Player

There are three ways to open and play a flv file.

1. Double click the *.flv file

Double click the *.flv file to play flv with flv player.

2. Drag and drop *.flv file into the player window

Drag and drop *.flv file into the flv player window to play flv

Drag and drop *.flv file into the flash video player window to play flv

3. Click File and click the Open option

Click File and click the Open option to play flv with flash video player

How to Play YouTube Videos (FLV) Offline? - A few things to keep in mind

Although you may enjoy Flash Video on web page, you can't play the downloaded flv files directly by Windows Media Player or other common players. The installation of the Flash Player or Macromedia Flash development tool also does not install any player associated with FLV files. After installed Sothink FLV Player, you can open flv files directly by double-click the icon, as simply as open wma, rm, mov files in Windows Media Player, Real Player or Quicktime, etc.

To play a YouTube video offline, you can simply follow the three steps below.

Step-1 Download FLV
Step-2 Download and Install FLV Player
Step-3 Play FLV with Sothink FLV Player

Next Step

Want to enjoy these FLVs on your PSP, iPod, or 3G mobiles? Want to share them with a friend whose PC doesn't have a FLV player? Then, you will need a FLV Converter, and convert FLV to other video foramts.