Videos in your presentation can be powerful, but embedding them using a YouTube link that needs a working Internet connection is a risky strategy in a live presentation, technology always fails when you need it most.
The website keepvid allows you to download YouTube videos to your computer and embed the video file in your presentation. The program comes with a few health warnings though:
- Watch out for copyright. Keepvid is legal as long as you use it legally for material for which you have permission to use it
- Keepvid is covered with ads and buttons that say “Download”, these usually link to a sponsor site and do not download your actual video. Watch carefully on what link you click.
- Technical issues. It takes some time before the Java applet downloads, be patient. There is something funny going on with Java and Google Chrome, so when I use Keepvid I switch to Safari which works fine.