YTD Youtube Downloader 4.3 Final Full Version
Formerly known as plain
old YouTube Downloader, the recently renamed YTD Video Downloader
updates to version 4.3 with a promise of 2x faster downloads and 2x
faster video conversions, and perhaps more usefully, the ability to
resume downloads after the temporary loss of an Internet connection. As
usual, the installer includes a Spigot-based YTD Video Toolbar and
offers to change your default search engine to Yahoo and add 5-6
shopping extensions to Google Chrome. Clicking the "Decline" button
during the lone advertising screen in the installer lets users easily
opt-out of all offers.
Downloading worked very well for popular
video sites like YouTube, Vimeo, and Blip.TV. As in previous reviews,
YTD Video Downloader quickly saved the default MP4 file to the directory
of my choice, which is easily selected or created from the main screen.
I tried various CNET and "creative commons"-tagged videos on YouTube
and had excellent download speeds. I was sure to try out the most
recently added site that YTD supports--the Chinese video site Youku--and
was able to download a wonderful beetle animation easily, though it did
break longer videos into multiple files (see below).
The free
version of YTD Video Download only allows downloading to the MP4 video
format, so the additional conversion functionality for changing the file
to WMV, AVI, or MP3 is welcome, but why not just convert the download
on the fly? Converting video files worked acceptably well, although I
did crash the app once converting a Download Video Preview from MP4 to
MP3. The conversion completed, but the program become unresponsive and I
had to force quit. I experienced other occasional brief program hangs
when downloading large videos from foreign sites.
The video
player in YTD is supposedly new for v4, but I can't tell the difference
from v3. Users select a directory from which to select specific video
files, and YTD Downloader plays back the video in a small windows that
is about 300x165 pixels. A full-screen button is the only resizing
option, and there is no skipping around within videos--the only controls
are for moving to the previous or next video on the directory. It's a
passable player to confirm that the video you selected was downloaded
and is not corrupt, but no one would use YTD for their regular video
player.
I tested out YTD's new "resume download" functionality
the old-fashioned way--by ripping the ethernet cord out of the back of
my PC. The software delivered as promised--after the PC was unplugged,
the downloading files updated to a "Status" of "Paused, waiting for
Internet connection" and then resumed appropriately after replugging
into the network.
One thing I did notice is that YTD will
(sometimes) break longer videos into multiple MP4 files, and if one of
those files is complete when your Internet or computer crashes, YTD will
restart all of those multiple files, even the completed ones. Not a
huge problem, just a niggling annoyance, and I wasn't able to replicate
the issue on YouTube (YTD always saved my YouTube videos as one file). A
bit more frustrating than the mutiple files is the inability to resize
the main application window to actually read the contents of the
"Status" messages.
YTD Video Downloader version 4.0 doesn't add
many new features, but performance of the latest update was impressive,
and the app continues to work flawlessly on all the major
video-streaming sites. I recommend it whole-heartedly without any
reservations, aside from the standard mom-and-pop warning to only use
the application for legal purposes per the laws and and regulations that
apply to your geographic locale.
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