Enter Google Video Downloader. This online script does the following. If you find a video at video.google.com that you would like to download all you need to do is copy the url the video is located and paste it into a text field called Decode Url on their site.

A script automatically converts the url and displays the download link and the watch it link. If you click download you can download the film to your computer. Please note that the movies are in flv format, so you will need a movie player that is capable of playing those files. They provide a link to one on the results page.

Head over to Google Video and take a look if this concept sounds interesting to you.

Update: Google since then has retired their own video service after purchasing and heavily promoting YouTube. The video hosting site since then has become the most popular, and lots of video downloaders have been published since then. Here is a short selection of tools that we have reviewed in the past:

Google Chrome Youtube Video Downloader – A video downloader for the Chrome web browser that is integrating the download capabilities right into the browser window.

Bulk Youtube Video Downloader For Firefox – A similar program for the Firefox browser that you can use to download multiple videos at once.

You can also check out our YouTube video downloader overview that lists dozens of web browser extensions and desktop applications to download YouTube videos.