TubeSock - Download and Convert YouTube Videos on Your Mac

TubeSock is the name of a fantastic YouTube utility (available for both Mac and Windows), that makes it incredibly simple to download YouTube videos to your hard drive, and then convert them to the proper format for one of a handful of popular multimedia devices, including the iPod (either H.264 or MP4 codecs), Apple TV, Treo or PSP.

How does TubeSock work? At its most basic level, TubeSock allows you to enter in either the ID of a YouTube video, or else the actual URL where the video is located. You don't need to actually find (or figure out) the URL for the video itself... just the page where the video can be viewed.

Once you've entered that information, you can either click Save to start the downloading and converting process, or - if you want to make sure you've entered the correct information - you can preview the video right in TubeSock. The TubeSock window will expand, allowing for the size of the video, which you can watch right there.

When you're satisfied you've selected the correct video (or when you're finished watching), you have a couple options. As mentioned, TubeSock supports a wide variety of formats for conversion. In addition to the devices mentioned above, you can also choose to save the video as a Flash video file (most YouTube videos should download as FLV), or simply as a video playable on the Mac (MP4 format). Finally, you can also choose to save the audio only as an MP3 file, for those times when you really just want a copy of the audio from a video.

TubeSock also provides the option of automatically adding a converted video to your iTunes library, which is nice if you use iTunes as your video player (or simply as a conduit to synchronizing your videos with a portable device), but for those of us who don't watch videos on any of the supported devices, this feature can be turned off as well. You can also add a converted movie to your computer's Movies folder, or simply save the video to a specific place (and with a specific name) on your hard drive.