Download Google Video for offline playback

Download Google Video for offline playback

By default, 

Google Video is for online viewing. If you want to watch the video offline, you are given two options:

• Download for Windows/Mac — You need to install Google Video Player, then use the player to open Google Video file link(.GVP). The Google Video Player will download the selected video file(.GVI) to your computer.
• Download for Video iPod/Sony PSP — this is a more straight forward way to download Google Video clips. You are provided a direct download link to the MP4 file.

Tip: GVI is an modified AVI file. It can be playback by most media player that support AVI format, such as VLC, Media Player Classic but not Windows Media Player.

However, some Google Video clips do not provide a download link, example: music videos, movies, and TV show. How do we download them? Read on for the hack. 

Download Google Video as .FLV, .AVI and .MP4

Some Google Video clips are protected and do not provide video download. BUT we still want to download the video clips, how? It can be done by using VideoDownloader, the great web tool to grab online video download links (read my previous review on “VideoDownloader“).

On the page of Google Video clip you want to download, copy the web page address and paste it to VideoDownloader to get the video download links for .flv, .avi, and .mp4. That’s simple!

Even on protected(no download link) Google Video, VideoDownloader still can get the .flv download link for you. Cool!

FLV is a flash video format. It can only playback with FLV players. I tell you how to convert FLV to AVI, MPG or MP4 format to playback using our favorite media player. Read on.

Convert FLV (flash video) to AVI or MPG or MP4

There are many free FLV players, but we prefer to playback the video clips on our favorite media player. In order to do so, we need to convert FLV flash video to the format supported by media player such as .AVI, .MPG, or .MP4.

For Windows users — Download Riva FLV Encoder(freeware). It allows you to convert FLV to MPG or AVI format. Riva FLV Encoder is easy to use, you can refer to the tutorial on VideoHelp.

For Mac users — Download iSquint(freeware). It is a free iPod videoconverter for Mac OS X. We can use it to convert FLV to MP4 format.

That’s it. I hope you enjoy this article. Feedback are welcome.