“I found some great YouTube videos I want to play on a big screen during a party I’m hosting, but I don’t have a way to make a playlist. I was thinking I could burn a DVD of YouTube videos instead. Is there a way I can do that?”

You definitely can burn a YouTube video to DVD, just make sure you’re getting the highest resolution version available so that your DVD video quality looks good. There are a few steps involved, because you need to download the YouTube videos you want to burn to DVD, you then need to add the videos to a DVD authoring software, and finally burn the DVD. I’ll walk you through the process here.

Before you burn a YouTube video to DVD, you need to download the video. There are several ways to accomplish this step, but I continue to find it easiest to use the RealPlayer browser plugin. This makes step one in burning a YouTube video to DVD installing RealPlayer.
After you install the software, you should get an icon that hovers over the top of a YouTube video you can click to download. For an example you can see the screenshot in this tutorial on downloading YouTube videos. Before you download the video, be sure that you have it set to playback in whatever the highest quality is. If there’s an 720p HD version, be sure to use the YouTube HD version. If no HD version exists, you may still have the option to choose 240p, 360p, or 480p. Choose whatever the highest resolution happens to be.

RealPlayer will download the YouTube video and store it in your Videos > RealPlayer Downloads folder. The YouTube downloads are in .FLV format, which doesn’t work in most DVD burning applications.

There are three primary ways you can burn the FLV files to DVD.

Option 1: Convert FLV files to a Compatible Format
Converting YouTube videos to another format, like MP4, which will work in video editing software like Roxio Creator and Pinnacle Studio HD allows you to use software you already have for burning YouTube videos to DVD. That creates a great deal of extra time in the process and ultimately will make the video look worse because quality will be reduced, but if you already have DVD authoring software, converting the files before burning is free because you don’t need any new software.

Option 2: Upgrade RealPlayer with DVD Burning
Upgrading RealPlayer SP to include DVD burning is the easiest route to putting YouTube videos on a DVD that plays in any set top DVD player. The initial download of RealPlayer SP is free, including the ability to convert YouTube videos for playback on an iPhone, but the free app doesn’t include DVD burning. By upgrading RealPlayer SP, you add DVD burning, which will allow you to author a DVD directly from YouTube FLV files.

Option 3: Download a Video to DVD Converter
Using a video converter that supports both the FLV format and DVD burning is a third option. While this solution will also cost money, it affords the flexibility of being useful for other projects too. Xilisoft Video to DVD Converter is one of several options that allow you to import a group of FLV files and convert them for burning to DVD.