It happens to us all – we see a totally cool video on the Internet we’d like to keep a copy for ourselves on the computer or mobile phone. You can do this with one convenient, free program called RealPlayer SP.

RealPlayer SP is a free player available from RealNetworks Inc. With it you have One-Click Video download ability from the Internet. You also have a nifty Mobile-Transfer feature that lets you easily move your media to your phone. You can also do some simple trim edits as well as post the media to your favourite websites.

Instructions for Downloading Videos

1.) Download RealPlayer SP onto your computer.

2.) When Installing be sure that you keep “Enable browser download button” checked.

3.) Launch your browser and go to a video site such as YouTube. When you watch the video hover the mouse pointer over it and a “Download This Video” button will appear. Simply click on this button and the video will be downloaded to your computer. If the button fails to appear, be sure that the plug-in is enabled. Also note that this will not work with Silverlight videos (used by Netflix) and certain sites such as Hulu.

4.) Your downloaded video will now appear in a RealPlayer Downloader box as well as in the My Library (under My Library> Downloads & Recordings).

Having Some Fun

To edit: While in the My Library, highlight the video you want to edit and click on “Trim Video.” The RealPlayer Trimmer will appear. Here you can adjust the starting and stopping point of the media and “clip it off”. (Note that the trimmer is one of the features only available on the Windows version).

To transfer the video to our phone: In the My Library, highlight the video and click on down arrow where you see “Copy to Apple iPad” – there you can select your mobile device. The RealPlayer Converter will then pop up and start converting the media to something that your device can handle and then start transferring it (be sure that your device is plugged into your computer).

To convert the media format: By clicking on the “Convert to …” button while in the My Library, for example, we can convert the video into an MP3 track (ripping the audio) without affecting the original file.

To post the image to the Internet: While in the My Library area, click on the down arrow next to “Post to Twitter” and choose any site you’d like the video posted to.

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Summarised by the WOUGNET Techteam from an article by Bryan Lambert posted on Geeks.com .