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Takeout now lets you download your own YouTube videos

This Quick-Tip is about accessing your own YouTube videos, using Google's Takeout / Data-liberation service.

If you upload a video using the Blogger Post Editor's video icon, then it's stored in Google Videos - which is now retired except for the part that hosts vids uploaded thru Blogger.   (This was where they were being put  the last time I checked, which was a few months ago)

Many people dislike this, and prefer to upload their vids to YouTube first, and then link to the YouTube video from Blogger.  This gives
  • Better control over the size of the video you display in your blog / website
  • Video management tools (sorely lacking in Google Videos). 
  • Statistics about viewers
  • The chance to earn money separately from your blog if your video becomes popular
  • Access to many more YoutTube features.
This is similar to the recommendation to upload pictures to Picasa independently of the post-editor, and putting them into your posts via the URL - it just gives you more control.

Now you can use Google Takeout to download a copy of the original for videos that you have uploaded to YouTube - without changing the format.   This is different to YouTube's download function, which only lets you download a transformed/transcoded version (eg a .wmv I just checked was available for download from YouTube as .mp4).

This can be used if you are:

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