From YouTube to Powerpoint

I get asked this question quite often: How can I take a video from YouTube (or some other video site) and put it in PowerPoint? Unfortunately, it's definitely not a drag and drop operation. These instructions are kind of long, but really not that difficult, and once you do it it's easy to figure it out. There are two basic ways to do it.
1 - Download the flv, get a flv player, associate flv files with the flv player, and link to the file in PowerPoint
2 - Download the flv, convert it to a wmv file, and insert it as a movie file in PowerPoint.

The latter is definitely preferable. So here are the instructions for both ways:
1 - Find the video on YouTube. Once you've located it, clear your browser cache. This isn't totally necessary, but makes the video easier to find. In Internet Explorer this is done via Tools -> Options -> Delete. If you're using IE and haven't done this for awhile (or ever) prepare to wait awhile while it clears the cache. I figure if you are using Firefox then you know how to do this.
2 - Load the video, or if you are already on the page with the video, refresh the page. Wait for the video to finish downloading - you don't need to play it all the way through (you can even pause it if you want) but let the red bar indicating how much it has downloaded progress all the way to the end.
3 - Once downloaded, go back to Tools -> Options and access your cache. If you are using Firefox, browse to your cache in windows explorer. In XP, this will be c:\Documents and Settings\[yourusername]\Local Settings\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\[nameofyourprofile]\Cache. Make sure you are viewing protected operating system files or you won't see the necessary folders (in windows explorer: Tools -> Folder Options -> View -> UNcheck "Hide Protected Operating System Files"). The nameofyourprofile mentioned is probably the only folder listed, and probably ends in "default." Whether using IE or Firefox, sort the cache by size. The largest file is probably the video file you want, and for YouTube videos will likely start with "getVideo." Copy it to your computer somewhere, like your desktop, and rename it to MyVideo.flv (or whatever, as long as it ends in flv). You can also use Real Player to download the video easier than pulling it from your cache, but personally I hate Real Player, so I'm not going to encourage you to use it. There are also several web services out there that will create the flv for you to download if you give it the video ID, but why bother? It's easy enough to just get it from your cache.
4 - If you plan to convert it to a WMV to play inside PowerPoint, then go to step 5 - otherwise do step 4 and then you are done. If you are just going to link to the file in PowerPoint, then create a hyperlink in PowerPoint that points to the FLV file. You will need a FLV player installed on the computer that will be showing the PowerPoint. There are lots of them out there - Wimpy Flash Player is a good one - just a simple standalone exe (nothing to install). You do need to tell windows to use this program to open .flv files though - the easiest way to do this is just to double click the flv file, and when prompted, point Windows to "Wimpy FLV Player.exe" (wherever you put it) and make sure the box "Always use this program to open this kind of file" is checked.
5 - Again, there are lots of programs you could use to convert FLV to WMV. I recommend VLC Player from VideoLan. It's free (open source), and plays just about any kind of video or audio file, and can be used to convert from one type to the other. Download it and install it using the above link.
6 - Someone has already written instructions on how to use VLC to convert FLV to WMV, so I'm not going to reinvent the wheel, but let me know if the above link no longer works.
7 - Once converted to WMV, insert the file into PowerPoint as a movie file.

Please note that there are often copyright ramifications. Just because something is on YouTube doesn't mean that the person who put it there didn't violate copyright by putting it there in the first place.