It looks like YouTube users can finally sit back and relax. They won't have to rely on third party applications for grabbing video content on YouTube, as the Google owned company is experimenting with a video downloading feature. However, the popular video sharing site is just offering pre-presidential video clips of Barack Obama, though it could soon spell out as a big move by the website.

The Barack Obama videos, including his latest weekly address of January 17, have a “Click to Download” link placed at the end of the video toolbar. This enables viewers to download high-quality videos in MPEG4 format. The video comes with a bit rate of 460 Kb/sec, and it is of much higher quality than the content currently available on the website.

It remains to be seen how YouTube will manage to extend the downloading option to its entire website, but it's clear it's an option everyone was looking forward to.

YouTube has not announced a date for this event. The videos currently available have a resolution of 480x270 pixels. Google also allows HD streaming, but no HD download at this time. Analysts say this is a step forward for YouTube, who begins to see the importance of portability. Basically, the video site allows consumers to watch videos even when they don't have Internet access, so it's clear where YouTube is headed.

YouTube is a video sharing site where users can upload, view and share video clips. Three former PayPal employees created YouTube in February 2005 and in November 2006, YouTube was bought by Google for $1.65 billion, operating as a subsidiary of Google since then. The company is based in San Bruno and uses Adobe Flash Video technology to display the wide variety of videos.

Recent data show that searches on YouTube in the United States recently edged out those on Yahoo, which had long been the No.2 search engine, behind Google. In November, Americans conducted nearly 2.8 billion searches on YouTube, about 200 million more than on Yahoo.

It looks like even before taking the oath of office Tuesday, Barack Obama has brought many changes to America, and his latest beneficiary is YouTube. It's the first time the video site allows downloads. The first channel to allow the functionality is “changedotgov”, the official YouTube channel of Obama's transition team.

The move comes just two days after the announcement that Google Video would no longer be accepting user uploaded videos. Google Video let you download an iPod and PSP-friendly H.264 encoded clip that's the exact same size as what YouTube is now offering.