YouTube tries out downloadable videos

Users have long been able to use third party applications to grab content from YouTube, instead of just streaming it, but apparently the popular video sharing site is now embracing the idea of downloadable content itself. Just don’t expect to start downloading all your favorite clips just yet, as only a few political videos have the new download option for now.

Specifically, the “Weekly Address” videos on President-elect Barack Obama’s YouTube page now sport a “Click to download” link below the play button, which gives users a full-quality H.264 file. If and how this feature will expand remains to be seen, but of course Google Video has provided this feature for a while now, and following Google’s recent decision to end user uploads maybe this option will soon be available on YouTube as a standard publishing feature for those who enable it on their clips.