I've got a question for the more tech savvy people around the board. I've got a project at work in which we've got to host videos but the company is too small to want to set up a video server of any sort.

What we're looking to do is set up a youtube account that is private. Basically only people who have permission to view the videos will be able to find them. Is this possible? Is it hard to do? Does it cost anything?

Second question. Is there a way to download videos from youtube? If so can anyone recommend a program that does it well and is safe. I've got to use it on a company computer so I don't want to get a virus or malware or anything.

Third question, though I imagine this will be answered via the use of the answer from question 2.... what file format does a youtube video download as? I know I can upload just about anything but I'm curious what I would get if I downloaded from youtube...

Thanks!

1. As far as private yes, you just mark the video as private and give out the URL to it to the people that can see it. Or give them a special username on YT and invite them to view it.

2 There are many ways, a few via webpages, as far as which are best I'm not sure as I haven't used them.

3 It will depend on the program, some may give you the option, however I believe it will probably be AVI or Mp4. These two formats are pretty universal and AVI is generally more uncompressed it seems.

1) As said above, yes you can make a video private. It's free and not hard to do at all. You'll see what I mean when you go to upload it.

2) Some YouTube videos can be downloaded from a site called http://www.mediaconverter.org/. However, I have noticed it has quite a bit of trouble on some videos. I haven't noticed a pattern between the ones that work and the ones that don't. Also, they limit the number of downloads you can have per day for free users.

Another software that you could use is RealPlayer which you can download here.

3) I'm not entirely sure, but I think you can select the format you want the video to be in when you download it. Either way, RealPlayer should be able to run it when you download.

I only know the answer to Number 2, and yes, you can. Just look them up on Google.

I didn't see that anyone posted this method of downloading Youtube videos.
If you have Firefox, which I believe you do if I remember correctly, use this addon to Firefox called Video DownloadHelper, it is trusted by over 6,000,000 downloads
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/video-downloadhelper/

I think you can set videos to private however nothing is really private on the net. There is always a chance of someone getting through security to view the video and download it and repost it somewhere. I don't know what the videos will have in them but just don't upload sensitive information that might be a risk to the company. Maybe I am being paranoid but it would suck if the private video got in the wrong hands. It should be free though since its a privacy option.

As for downloading videos idk anything about that. But you could use a screen recorder which captures your computer screen but I don't know any on PC have not looked into it at all.

As for file format go here: http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/answer.py?answer=55744

Most video software should allow you to select what kind of file you want to save it as. I assume it would be in the format of the original video but idk im a noob at videos.

On a final note look out for what you upload if they find a violation in copyrights the video will be disabled. If you get enough copyright strikes against you they will ban you like they did to me lol

JigSaw : I appreciate the response but this is sort of old news now =/

It really should be closed so more people don't waste time answering a question I don't need answered anymore