The search engine is indexing the contents of those websites and providing a search engine so that users can search all sites for multimedia content at once. The search results are therefor a combination of all multimedia portals. Results can be filtered by media type (video, audio, radio, games..) and sorted by factors like popularity, relevancy or rating.

Content that has been selected will be played in the main interface which uses independent blocks that can be moved around. It is for instance possible to search for additional videos while one is already playing. The multimedia content is simply embedded in the site which means that the basic controls of the site’s players is available.

One major nuisance of the multimedia search engine is that only four results are displayed per page which could mean some serious page flipping when searching for popular terms.

Registered users receive additional options like the ability to save or embed multimedia files or build a personal multimedia collection. The service is showing promise. It’s a little bit slow when it comes to displaying results to the user which quickly becomes annoying considering that only four results per page are displayed.

On the other hand: If you are looking for a way to search hundreds of sites for multimedia content you might want to give Video Crawler a try.

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That seems to have been a major concern for the developers over at Dailymotion because they decided to develop and release a high quality option for users of their video portal. High quality videos look better than the default low definition videos but require less bandwidth and computing power than high definition videos. A compromise between quality and technical requirements so to speak.

The high quality option displays videos encoded with the H.264 codec which according to Dailymotion does not require additional bandwidth compared to the SD version of a video. It furthermore uses AAC 96 kbps audio encoding and a resolution of 512:384 and 30 frames per seconds.

Dailymotion created a website detailing the advantages of the high quality codec by displaying an standard definiton version next to the high quality version which gives a good impression of the quality differences.

The high quality version has to be enabled once by clicking on the Dailymotion Menu button and selecting the High Quality option.

The setting will be stored and the option will be enabled for all videos from then on. This is also the menu to change to other quality settings like high definition or back to the standard definition videos.

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While most users are perfectly happy to watch the video clips online some prefer to download them to the computer. This has a few advantages like being able to watch them multiple times without using additional bandwidth or the ability to convert the videos into formats that can be burned to DVD or copied on mobile devices.

The number of video clip downloaders is nearly uncountable. There are dozens of browser plugins for various websites, the download managers and specific applications created for the purpose. They all cater to different audiences. Some users prefer to have the functionality build into their web browser, others prefer standalone applications that provide advanced features like downloading videos even if the browser is not active.

One popular application to download video clips from currently more than 70 video portals is xVideoServiceThief, a standalone application that uses a dropbox to catch the videos that it should download.

It’s easy to use the video clip downloader. The dropbox can be activated from withing the program interface and stays on top all the time. All that needs to be done is to move the video clip, either the url from the address bar or the link on the page, into the dropbox area. The download starts instantly

Video clips can also be added by pasting urls directly by clicking on the Add Video button in the program’s interface.

The downloads are automatically stored on the computer’s hard drive and by default converted into avi format. It is possible to pick another format like 3gp or mp3 instead or keep the downloaded files in their original format.

XVideoServiceThief is definitely not the only application that is providing that functionality but the program works without difficulties. It’s also worth mentioning that it is Open Source, available for Windows, Linux and Macintosh and comes as a portable version and installation in the Windows version.

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One of the best, or at least one with lots of options to choose from, is Media Converter. The music and video converter supports a wide range of file types like flv, avi, mp3 or pdf that can be uploaded and converted online. That’s only part of their service though. Instead of uploading files to Media Converter to convert them online it is possible to point the service to a supported website and convert the media files found on that site directly.

This has the advantage that the source file does not have to be downloaded or uploaded. Only the final product has to be downloaded to the local computer. The media can be converted in the process. Pointing Media Converter to a Youtube video makes it possible to convert the video to mp3, ogg or one of the supported video formats before downloading the converted product.

Another interesting feature of Media Converter is the ability to convert video or music from protocols like rstp, mms or http. All those services are free of charge. Premium users get access to a handful of additional video portals, a larger file size limit, unlimited conversions per day, a higher priority and quality of recording.

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The process itself is explained in a few words. The user enters a search phrase, selects between all or a single video portal and defines the amount of results that he wants returned. A test with 10000 search results was successful, it`s probably safe to say that you can even use a higher figure than that safely.

All results are displayed in the main pane with information like name, video description, duration, age and views. If the user clicks on a video he gets to see a preview of it in the left sidebar with the option to play and download that single video. Multiple videos can be checked and downloaded together as well which is where the strength of the application lies.

Hitting the download button after checking multiple videos will download those videos from the video portal they are hosted at. The output format can be selected as well which I recommend to do before you start download videos. The option is available under the Tube Downloader tab. Several predefined formats can be selected such as iPhone, PSP, iPod, Avi or no conversion.

It is also possible to select custom settings which enables selection of the audio and video codec, output size and bitrate among other settings.

The Free FLV Converter offers a second way of displaying search results. Instead of listing them by name and other details you can generate a thumbnail view which is extremely comfortable if you like preview pictures of the videos.

I have to admit that this is one – if not the – most comfortable way to download multiple videos from a variety of video sites. That in combination with simultaneous downloads and automatic conversions make this an invaluable tool for everyone who downloads videos regularly.

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The videos on Stage6 have a far better quality than everything that you can find at Youtube for instance. It became apparently that popular that the company did not have the resources to continue the portal on their own. Unfortunately they did not succeed in finding a buyer for the portal which left them only with the option to shut it down completely.

The major problem for the users was that they had to install a plugin so that they could play the videos at Stage6. Not a huge problem but it could have turned many away from the service.

I’m really wondering why a company like Microsoft would not take advantage of such a great video portal and make a bid for it. It’s a sad thing to see this portal being shut down. My advice, head over there now and watch / download all the nice stuff that you can find there. Lots of nice documentaries, music videos in high quality and the like.

It’s really worth it. The portal will shut down on February 29th 2008.

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The website viddownloader converts the videos to avi before it displays a download link. This is probably not the most elegant solution if you want to download hundreds of videos but it works fine if you only want to download a few videos. You supply the url of the video that you want to download and viddownloader does the rest automatically and displays a download link afterwards. It supports the following sites at the moment: Youtube, Break, Dailymotion, Myspace and Pornotube.

The conversion took just a few minutes and depends on the length of the video mainly. Not sure if video conversions are queued or how viddownloader handles several requests at the same time. Download speeds were fine as well. I was able to download with about 100K which is ok for videos of that size. The flv video was about 7 megabytes in size while the converted avi was almost triple that size with 19 megabytes.

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Vdownloader is a little freeware program that scans your clipboard for links to youtube, google video, grinvi and dailymotion. Once it detects such a link the movie will be automatically downloaded and converted to the format that you specified in the settings. You may save the video as avi, mpg or psp and change the output size and audio bitrate in the process.

Converting youtube videos did not take long at all. A 2 minute video was downloaded and converted in about 2-3 minutes to mpg. I was trying the same on dailymotion and it was working fluent as well. It takes a little bit longer to convert larger videos of course but it still the fastest way that I know of. It is basically a one click download and conversion program.

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Now. What would you do ? Would you fight for the chance to win this uphill battle risking everything you got in the course of it ? Or would you give in although you might have every right to link to those websites and shows ? It is indeed a difficult question and I’m really not sure how I would react if I would face such a situation.

Would you personally say that linking to a movie on youtube for instance is illegal if the movie itself has been illegally uploaded to the site ? Would not it make more sense to sue youtube instead – they are hosting the content. So, why didn’t they sue google instead ? Could it be that google has enough money to hire some lawyers who would defend their site ? Could it be that Fox is not interested in a ruling at all ?

The same tactics can be witnessed when RIAA lawyers sue people. Most can’t afford lawyers and do what the RIAA lawyers tell them. The people that fight the ruling normally win and the RIAA backs out.

The main question however is the following: If it is indeed illegal to link to illegal content why aren’t they suing the search engines ? What if a website changes content and has now something illegally on their site ? Do webmasters have to check all the sites that they link to every day to make sure there is nothing hosted on them that could get them in trouble ?

Where will this end ? Can they sue me if I talk to someone in person and tell him that he should search for Simpsons on youtube to find and watch the latest episodes ? What if someone does not link directly to the shows but to a search results page ? Still illegal ? What if he writes down the name that his visitors should search for and links only to the main address of the video hosting site ? Still illegal ?

Where does it end ?

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A high level player is killing them over and over again and they decide to level their characters killing bors more than seven weeks to match his level. Funny how they become fatter and fatter in this time, just in real life :P

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