This is my series on technology you can use in teaching Chinese or creating that Chinese Learning Environment (CLE). My last post was on Downloading Audio From Ximalaya.
Just as I download audio files, I also download video files to convert to audio files for our hours in the car. We don’t have unlimited data plan and though this takes time, I like how I get to keep everything in iTunes instead of having to keep a separate playlist on YouTube.
So the super quick lowdown:
Use the same extension, Video Download Helper, to download videos. However, if you want to download YouTube, you have to get around Chrome restrictions by using Firefox. After you’ve downloaded the mp4 file, you can use Mac’s Quicktime program to export it to Audio only.
Detailed Instructions
1. Install Video Download Helper
You may have already installed this when you tried to download audio files.
2. Install Firefox
YouTube and Chrome are both owned by Google, so you can imagine why they wouldn’t want you to download their videos.
3. Download your video the same way you downloaded the audio.
Those screen shots took me forever, so I refer you back to my Downloading Audio post for detailed instructions.
It’s just now you need to find a playlist in Youtube and download all those videos instead.
This is how I downloaded my 3 seasons of Sweetheart Princess 甜心格格, which, if you follow the links in my original post, no longer exist. A perfect illustration of why I download items instead of relying on these websites.
4. Convert to mp3 if necessary
For music videos I want to play in the car, I open the file in QuickTime Player. You can even trim the video to the length you like! Once you have it, you can save as mp3 audio file.
Voila! That’s it! Some videos, like flash videos, won’t download.
I won’t mention what other YouTube videos you can download here but I’m sure you can find lots of uses for this.
