How To Save WebM Videos From YouTube And Play Them In Ubuntu

Now that YouTube supports WebM (actually, since it supports HTML5), it's easier than ever to download the videos - all you have to do is look at the page source (remember to enable HTML5 for YouTube first) and search for "videoPlayer.setAvailableFormat": you should see some links and next to it, the video quality is displayed, like so:

Once you find the link for the video quality you want to download (unfortunately 1080p is not available in WebM yet), simply paste it in a new browser tab, then save it to your desktop and rename it to something .webm (whatever name you want, but append the .webm extension).

Here is a link example for a 720p video:

http://v11.lscache3.c.youtube.com/videoplayback?ip=0.0.0.0&sparams=id%2Cexpire%2Cip%2Cipbits%2Citag%2Calgorithm%2Cburst%2Cfactor%2Coc%3AU0dWTFNPT19FSkNNNl9LSVND&fexp=902303%2C900036&algorithm=throttle-factor&itag=45&ipbits=0&burst=40&sver=3&expire=1277341200&key=yt1&signature=725573BEE680BE61FC7219EE7DEC403E9D9FAFDA.6A2978DB9D871FAEE833082A2D16A9A3927F09CB&factor=1.25&id=3888ed5b82778824

To be able to play the video, you need a WebM capable video player. The easiest way is to install the latest Gstreamer packages and then simply use Totem ("Movie player"):

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gstreamer-developers/ppa && sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

You will get an error when upgrading to the latest gstreamer packages but don't worry, it can be fixed by simply running the following command:

sudo apt-get -f install

Note: Don't worry, installing the latest Gstreamer packages from the Gstreamer dev PPA will not break the audio/video playback for any media players!

You will also need the gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad package to be able to play WebM videos:

sudo apt-get install gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad

Now the only thing left to do is set Totem as the file association for .webm files - you have to do this manually by right clicking a .webm file and then selecting Propreties > Open With and add Totem ("Movie Player"). That's it!