With the high-technology development of the computer, multimedia and communication, video playing online has become much smoothly. Gradually, more and more people prefer to watching videos online and downloading these videos directly. Now there are many video download tools available on the Internet, and the operation steps for most tools are quite easy and convenient, which really help us a lot. However, from time to time, people may find some online videos not be downloaded or even detected by the downloader software. How does it happen? Here let’s analyze the cause of the failure.

Generally, that one fails to download online videos is mainly caused by 4 factors: Internet connection, download tool, video and website.

1. Internet Connection

If your Internet connection has something wrong, it will result in the failure of online video download, so please check your net connection and make sure all work well firstly.

2. Download Tool

To download online videos, of course you need to install a video download tool in your computer first. If you fail to download the online video, but neither video nor website itself causes the problem, you had better carefully check the downloader software you are using. Firstly, please check whether your video downloader supports the formats of the video that you want to download; next, ask the following 3 questions to you yourself: have you installed the program correctly? Is the program set correctly? Do you use the tool correctly? If all above does not help, we suggest you ask the software’s customer service for further help.

3. Video

Usually, the online videos are divided into two kinds: streaming media and non-streaming media.

Most video download tools are able to capture and download non-streaming online videos, so if your tool cannot detect the online video, please check whether it is a streaming video or not.

From Wikipedia: Streaming media is multimedia that is constantly received by and presented to an end-user while being delivered by a streaming provider. The name refers to the delivery method of the medium rather than to the medium itself. The distinction is usually applied to media that are distributed over telecommunications networks, as most other delivery systems are either inherently streaming (e.g., radio, television) or inherently non-streaming (e.g., books, video cassettes, audio CDs). The verb 'to stream' is also derived from this term, meaning to deliver media in this manner. Internet television is a commonly streamed medium.

In addition, if the video is encrypted, no matter what kind of the video it is, it certainly cannot be downloaded.

4. Website

As known, it is the server that ensures the website running (here it refers to the server on which the website is based), thus, if a website is based on the streaming media server, the online videos on the website cannot be captured and downloaded as usual.

To be more concrete, take sothink web video downloader for example, if a video file is of non-streaming media format but locates in a streaming media website, the very video downloader cannot detect it, so it cannot be downloaded by the software. However, as for the streaming video on the non-streaming media website, the program is capable of downloading it actually.

In conclusion, the tool, Internet, video and website are the important parts need to be paid much attention when you download online videos. Do remember: get to know the properties of the videos and websites, find to use a good video downloader tool, and make sure the Internet is connected. At last, hope above can help you and just enjoy the wonderful Internet life.