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I tried many Youtube video downloader (sites and bookmarklets) and none of them were able to download HD videos

This bookmarklet works, but does not lead to direct download but to an intermediary page:

javascript:(function(){url='http://keephd.com/download.js';document.body.appendChild(document.createElement('script')).src=url;})();

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Why not just download it yourself?

The way Youtube (and most flash media players) work is that the flash in the page calls back to the server to download the media. If you use a http debugger like Microsoft Fiddler or Charles you can see this call to the server and then grab the url (or in the case of Charles save the whole media stream).

With this url you can then use your browser or a downloading program such as curl or Getright to save this stream to disk.

For video you will end up with an .flv file which can be played in VLC among other media players.

There's also the VideoCacheView tool which can scan your browser's cache for FLV videos that are stored there.

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It'll work, but it seems like a horrifically difficult and roundabout way of getting the video. – A. Scagnelli Aug 24 '09 at 4:57
Yes. Once you've done it a couple of times it's pretty easy. Most of the "Downloaders" take you to their site and don't work properly on every site though – Matthew Lock Aug 24 '09 at 5:04
Firebug doesn't helps much, does it? – Jader Dias Aug 24 '09 at 11:36
Got the URL in Firebug and tried to wget it in my virtual linux box: ERROR 400: Bad Request. – Jader Dias Aug 24 '09 at 11:41
In Charles (not sure about Fiddler) you can simply right click and save on the FLV request call to get the FLV stream. – Matthew Lock Sep 15 '09 at 3:04
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up vote 2 down vote

KeepHD seems to have this ability.

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up vote -1 down vote

I hope this is what you are looking for.

http://jaxov.com/2009/07/how-to-download-youtube-videos-in-google-chrome/

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