Command-line way to download youtube video in multi-threaded

Question

On a fast internet connection, downloading Youtube videos is too slow compared to downloading files from other websites. Currently I'm using get_flash_videos to download the Youtube videos.

How can I integrate get_flash_videos with multi-threaded download accelerators like axel, MultiGet or Wxdownloadfast?

Solution

I agree with the comments saying youtube-dl is probably what you want, but you will also be interested to know:

YouTube's performance at downloading FLV is far slower than downloading the MP4 for whatever reason.

Therefore, avoiding Flash entirely may help more than a download accelerator.

Comments

[Philomath]

Take a look here, just replace wget with one of the downloaders you mentioned, does it work?

[Alen Milakovic]

I use youtube-dl. I had not previously heard of get_flash_videos. How does it compare with youtube-dl?

[derobert]

There is clive as well. Also, keep in mind, that if you put additional load on YouTube's servers, you're encouraging them to close the "hole" that these downloaders use. So please don't do that.

[Alen Milakovic]

@derobert: I may be missing something, but shouldn't YOuTube like it when people download stuff? The bandwidth use is the same as for one viewing, and the viewer won't be hitting the servers to watch it repeatedly. I realise they don't have an official download method, so maybe they don't like it that much. Does YouTube have an official position on this?

[derobert]

@FaheemMitha: Well, Google has several times removed all the YouTube downloaders it could find from the Android market. Also, see II(11) of the YouTube API terms. There are several parts of the normal TOS that could be read to be against downloading too (and also against using a download accelerator)

[Alen Milakovic]

@derobert: Thanks for the link. I was not aware of this, and I still don't get it. Do they think they own the content just because it has been uploaded to their servers?

[derobert]

@FaheemMitha: I'd guess the actual reasons are probably that they feel the legal (copyright, etc.) risk is lower with streaming-only. Further, they have content providers that want streaming-only. Lastly, they can monetize streaming better, I suspect. I'd guess that Google feels its within its rights to dictate terms of access to their servers. Of course, the probably don't care much—at least not enough to start an "arms race" over it, or worse to start filing lawsuits (the PR cost would be enormous), but adding in a DL accelerator will make them care more (because it eats server resources).

[Alen Milakovic]

@derobert: I see. Thanks for the informative comments.

[Martin]

Not really command-line, but have you tried DownloadHelper extension for Firefox? I believe it can be used together with download accelerators.