EPT
Why bother downloading something that's already on Youtube? Well, for a number of reasons. You could have slow or flaky Internets, like me, or you could just want to convert the files to a format that is supported by your portable music player so you can watch Nada vs Nal_rA while waiting at the dentist's. Finally, you could also be an OCDish fanboy who just wants every single Boxer VOD on Youtube. Thanks to the power of syndicated content, this is now possible.
Step 1 - Get Miro
First, you need to install Miro, which is "cross-platform and 100% free and open-source", meaning you can probably get it for your operating system. Head over to the download page and it should automatically detect your OS. If it bugs out, here are the direct download links for each variant.
Miro for Windows
Miro for Mac
Miro for Ubuntu
Miro Source Code and Binaries for other Linux distributions
Step 2 - Install and Run Miro
Install Miro. This is going to be different based on your OS, but it should be pretty straight forward. When it's done installing, run the program. You should see something that at least remotely resemble this.
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/riptide/miroguide/miro_mainscreen.jpg)
Miro is smarter than you think.
Now, there are lots of features here which you will just have to explore and see for yourself. The Miro Guide may help you as well. What I'm going to do, however, is to show you how to get Miro to carefully rip the Youtube videos you want to watch.
Step 3 - Get your custom RSS feed
First things first, Youtube does provide a many RSS options, including an RSS feed for each user, and a few more for categories such as recently uploaded, most favourited, and so on. Using the parameters outlined on that page, the RSS feed for TL's own nevake account would be -
http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/base/users/nevake/uploads
Obviously, you can change the username and grab a feed of the 20 latest videos from any uploader. As you can imagine, the possibilities are endless. For now though, let's focus on Starcraft. There is a problem I found with the Youtube generated RSS feed - it got the order of games mixed up. Now, I don't know about you, but this just made the nerd me in rage hard. I mean, what's the point of getting games auto downloaded if they're sitting there in the wrong order, amirite? After a considerable amount of angst, I decided to go back to the custom feed generator I had tried earlier, and hey, what do you know, it worked better! Internet - 1, Youtube - 0.
Head over to the Youtube Playlist Generator, and play around with the options. For this demonstration, we're going to just fill in two variables.
Playlist ID
Username (for videos) : nevake
Username (for favorites)
Name : Nevake
Description
Click Get RSS, and then copy the URL it gives you. It should look something like this -
http://ubeek.com/youtube/index.cfm?ytuser=nevake&playlistName=&playlistDescription=Nevake
Step 4 - Add it to Miro
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/riptide/miroguide/miro_addfeed.png)
Open up Miro, and go to Sidebar -> Add Feed.
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/riptide/miroguide/miro_createfeed.png)
Paste in the URL you just copied, and click 'Create Feed'.
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/riptide/miroguide/miro_youtubenevake.png)
You should now see an icon like this in your sidebar, under 'Feeds'. Click it.
You probably wont see the green '4' next to it, but that's alright, you soon will.
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/riptide/miroguide/miro_channelscreen.jpg)
Welcome to the Nevake channel screen.
Now, you can begin to customise how you want your content. Althogh many advanced options are available under File -> Options, it's best to begin by making sure Miro is set to Auto Download 'All' for the channel, and not just 'New' stuff. You should see stuff downloading. Depending on your connection, it could take seconds, minutes, or like in my case, hours.
The cool thing, however, is that depending on when you set Miro to check the feed for updates (the interval can be set in File -> Options -> Feeds), it will check for new videos and download the files for you automatically, meaning you don't have to keep refreshing a web page anymore. Just sit back, watch what you have, and let the new ones download by themselves.
Step 5 - Watch Away!
Once the files are downloaded they will look something like this on the channel screen.
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/riptide/miroguide/miro_downloadedscreen.jpg)
That's right, hours are about to be wasted.
Click the play button to view it in Miro's own media player, and hit the stop button at any time to go back to the channel screen.
Optional Step - Downloading an entire Playlist
Miss some Liquibitions, or a few TL Attacks? Or perhaps you're just feeling angsty about the lack of TSL2 so far, and want to spend a weekend watching the TSL through again. Whatever the cause, I'm sure there's been a time where you've just wished you could download an entire playlist, right? Well, now you can.
Head over to the RSS generator and this time copy the Playlist ID of the playlist you'd like to make into a feed. Look after the p= at the end of a playlist URL and copy that string. For example, the URL for Nevake's TSL playlist is - http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=38E1EAF964B7B67D, and therefore the Playlist ID is 38E1EAF964B7B67D. Something to note is that while user feeds are limited to 20 entries, playlist feeds can have a theoretically unlimited amount of videos. For example, when I put together a TSL feed to test, Miro was ready to download all 54 videos.
Optional Step - Downloading based on Search Terms
Interested in Proleague this time around, but would rather skip the OSL/MSL? OK, computer! You can use search terms when generating a RSS feed as well. Here is the syntax -
http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/base/videos?q=tags go here&client=ytapi-youtube-search&v=2
So, for example, if I wanted just the videos tagged 'SPL' and 'nevake', I'd use this RSS feed -
http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/base/videos?q=SPL nevake&client=ytapi-youtube-search&v=2
When using search terms, it's always best to use specific tags, as these will make sure that no irrelevant videos will sneak into your search results. Here, searching for the username of the uploader (nevake) with a tag he/she uses for the videos you want (SPL) is a great way of making sure you only get the VODs you want.
Having said that, it must be noted that unfortunately, this isn't a great way of downloading entire leagues, and the above mentioned Playlist download options is much better since the feed can then contain an unlimited number of games. When using tags to create a feed, the maximum number of entries it allows is 20, a limitation imposed by Youtube's API.
Advanced Usage
Of course, there is a lot of uncharted territory when it comes to this kind of thing, and a great place to start playing around with Youtube feeds is of course Youtube's About RSS page. I'd encourage you to meddle a little and see what you can do. Also, if you find anything interesting, be sure to post in this thread so the information can be added to the guide.
GLHF
Hope this guide was useful, and that you'll have as much downloading VODs as me. There are many variations of the above you can do, especially when it comes to putting the feed together, and tweaking Miro's options. If there are any questions, please ask in the thread and I will do my best to answer them. Happy vodding!
Thanks to Download Your Favorite YouTube Videos for the original HOWTO.
