Today, let me show you how I was able to download a YouTube video from the Linux terminal. It's really very easy so you may want to try it immediately after the following instructions:
1. Using Ubuntu Linux, I downloaded the package youtube-dl with this command:
$ sudo apt-get install youtube-dl
2. After having successfully installed youtube-dl, open a web browser and go to youtube.com to pick a video that you would like to download.
3. Copy the page URL/address of the Youtube video.
4. Go back to the Linux terminal and simply type: youtube-dl + URL/Address of the video
For example, I downloaded the current number one YouTube video clip of all time with this command:
$ youtube-dl http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OBlgSz8sSM
You can add the -b option to download the video in high quality, e.g.
$ youtube-dl -b http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OBlgSz8sSM
5. The downloaded video will be saved at /home/username by default. It will be in .flv format so be sure to have flash plugin installed before viewing the video.
