Saving online video to disc is not a new thing and many tools to help you do this are easily obtainable on the Web. 4K Video Downloader is exactly what it sounds like; it’s an easy to use tool which lets you grab videos from a variety of sources online and save them to your hard drive. The reasons you might want to do this rather than just view the video online are numerous. But let’s find out more.
Why Save to Disk?
The most obvious reason for making online video offline is that you need to play the video in something which is not ‘Net-connected, like a projector. Yes, there are nifty Android-based projectors available that have browsers built in, but what if, like most of us, you don’t have one of those? Another reason could be it’s a video that you think might not be up on a site for long, and you want to archive it to disc for further viewing at your leisure. Whatever the reason, it’s essential that the method you use to stream those videos to disc instead of your screen is simple and fast. One of the most recent simple and fast tools to do this is, of course, 4K Video Downloader.
Downloading in Action
Don’t let its simple name and easy interface deceive you – this is a good solid tool. Firstly, you have to download the tool and save the installer to a place where you can find it easily. I used the desktop. Run the installer and you’re good to go.
First thing you’ll notice is the big green “Paste Link” button. Getting online videos into this utility is a little unusual, but let’s do it in order. To download a video from any of the popular online video services, Facebook, Vimeo, etc., go to the video you want to archive to disc and copy the URL. In 4K Video Downloader click the “Paste Link” button. Of course, normally you would expect to paste the link into a text box and press a “Go” button, but they’ve helpfully removed that step. Once the URL has been fed to the tool, the program parses the URL it’s been asked to download and extracts a download link.
Next, if the link is good (and some are not, they’re probably encrypted, nothing to do with the software), you’ll get the resolution chooser panel. Here you will see all the formats you can download from this link. You have a choice to download MP4 or MKV via a drop-down. MP4 is good up to 1080, but in order to get videos of up to 4K resolution, you have to change to the MKV option.
You have other options, too. For example, a drop-down for choosing between Download Video and Extract Audio is up on the left. This is for music or sound effects where downloading the video as well is not really necessary.
The other option is to download subtitles at the same time as the video. The subs are saved as a text file, so if you are downloading a foreign language video to go into a media server like Plex or playing in VLC, you can set the subtitles to play in sync with the video in your player. Perfection.
Once you’re all set with resolutions, subtitles, etc., you can press the Download button. You’ll get a progress bar as the video downloads. Once finished, the video will show up in the main menu of the program as a completed download. Clicking the three dots gives you a menu concerning the particular video allowing you to go to the containing folder or copy the link, or even delete it if you downloaded the wrong video.
Conclusion
So there you have it, it’s that simple. I think the utility works very well: it has a nice clean interface, fast downloading (within the constraints of my network and processor) and as far as I could ascertain trying it with every site I could think of, good support for all the major video sites. 4K Video Downloader is available for free as a trial, but if you want to remove adverts and go unlimited for downloads, you can pay a one-time fee. It costs $15 for personal use on up to three computers and $75 for business use on up to five computers. As usual, if you have any questions or comments, please let us know in the comments section below.
