gHacks technology news » google-video http://www.ghacks.net A technology blog covering software, mobile phones, gadgets, security, the Internet and other relevant areas. Tue, 24 Nov 2009 23:31:44 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 en hourly 1 Youtube To Add 1080p HD Videos http://www.ghacks.net/2009/11/13/youtube-to-add-1080p-hd-videos/ http://www.ghacks.net/2009/11/13/youtube-to-add-1080p-hd-videos/#comments Fri, 13 Nov 2009 11:02:19 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/?p=18466 Youtube and other video portals on the Internet have come a long way since the beginning of the online video boom. What started with low resolutions has now grown over the year to keep pace with the high definition development in the TV, digital camcorder and media market. Youtube announced yesterday in the official Youtube blog that they would start serving 1080p HD videos from the coming week on at their popular video portal.

The current maximum resolution for Youtube videos is 720p (1280 × 720) which will be raised to the new maximum of 1080p (1920×1080) from next week on. The highest quality level of the video still depends on the video source according to the post at the Youtube blog.

standard-360p jpghd-1080p jpg

A test video was uploaded to Youtube to showcase the new maximum resolution. This video cannot be embedded and interested users need to visit Youtube to view the video there.

Videos that have already been uploaded in 1080p have previously been encoded for 720p. These videos will automatically be encoded again so that they can be shown in 1080p from next week on at the video portal. A search for 1080p on Youtube reveals many videos that are already available in that new format (or have been improperly tagged with the 1080p tag).

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2009/11/13/youtube-to-add-1080p-hd-videos/feed/ 6 Yahoo Does A Microsoft http://www.ghacks.net/2008/07/25/yahoo-does-a-microsoft/ http://www.ghacks.net/2008/07/25/yahoo-does-a-microsoft/#comments Fri, 25 Jul 2008 19:43:28 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/?p=5600 After the fiasco that Microsoft experienced when they made the announcements that they would turn off the MSN Music servers one would have thought that other companies would not follow that lead and would have learned a lesson from it.

Microsoft backpedaled quickly after it became apparent that the public was not that pleased with their decision and decided to keep the servers up and running for another three year period. The huge problem that arises when DRM servers are taken off the Internet is that the verification process will fail which means that users who want to move the music from an old to a new computer – where they had to verify the music again – would realize that they could not do so because of the server being offline.

Yahoo apparently did not pay attention to the media fiasco and decided to close the Yahoo! Music Store and take the DRM servers offline on September 30, 2008.

Yahoo is giving users of their music service the advise to burn the tracks to CD and rip those tracks on the new computer so that they would be able to listen to the music on a new computer as well.

If you needed another reason why DRM is bad then you got it. And it’s not that some small companies decided to turn off their servers, it’s two huge global corporations that decided to do it. (And Google did it as well before with Google Video)

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2008/07/25/yahoo-does-a-microsoft/feed/ 3 Stage 6 Clone announced http://www.ghacks.net/2008/04/24/stage-6-clone-announced/ http://www.ghacks.net/2008/04/24/stage-6-clone-announced/#comments Thu, 24 Apr 2008 14:18:26 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/?p=3907 Stage 6 was a highly successful video portal created and maintained by the creators of the DIVX codec to showcase among other things the power and quality of the DIVX codec. This was reached by providing high quality videos on the portal opposed to lower quality videos on other portals like Youtube. The service however never managed to be cost neutral or profitable for the company and they decided to pull it after trying to find different solutions to keep it alive.

Bandwidth and server costs accumulated to more than a million Dollars each month. As I said earlier the service was highly popular because of the great video quality which exceeded that of most other portals.

Tulluis informed me just a minute ago that a Stage 6 Clone was announced that would open its gate on April 29th. The homepage of the new service is Divxit and there is unfortunately not a lot to discover right now. Servers and GUI seem to be online already and the Divxit Core converter nears completion which seems to be the last step before the portal goes live.

It would be really nice to see a comeback of Stage 6. A service like that needs either a very potent company in the background or find a way to monetize the website properly so that it does not have to be closed soon after release. Monetization of video portals is not easy because companies know that the click through rates are horrible.

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2008/04/24/stage-6-clone-announced/feed/ 20 Youtube Mass Downloader http://www.ghacks.net/2008/03/15/youtube-mass-downloader/ http://www.ghacks.net/2008/03/15/youtube-mass-downloader/#comments Sat, 15 Mar 2008 17:22:11 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/2008/03/15/youtube-mass-downloader/ If you are looking for a convenient way to download lots of videos from video portals like Youtube, Dailymotion and even, ehem adult related ones, you might want to try out the software Free FLV Converter by Koyote Soft. The tool offers a search box that pulls video results from the portal (or all of them) that you have chosen. Videos can be previewed, downloaded and converted into another format.

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.

youtube mass downloader

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.

youtube mass downloader

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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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2008/03/15/youtube-mass-downloader/feed/ 21 Watch Documentaries Online http://www.ghacks.net/2008/01/10/watch-documentaries-online/ http://www.ghacks.net/2008/01/10/watch-documentaries-online/#comments Wed, 09 Jan 2008 22:05:49 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/2008/01/10/watch-documentaries-online/ It seems that more and more specialized websites appear that list videos from sites such as Youtube and Google Video. At the beginning websites that would post lists of tv shows and movies were the most common ones and they are still very popular. Other websites emerge now that only list anime, sports or music videos.

One sector that was a bit neglected until now was documentaries. Best Online Documentaries is a website that tries to change that. They offer nearly 650 documentaries embedded in their website that are hosted on servers like Google Video or Youtube. Viewers can watch the documentaries online on their website.

Several categories like Biographies, History, Science and Mystery and numerous subcategories make it easy to find what you are interested in. All the videos that I tested worked and have a playing time of 40+ minutes. The language is English. Below is one of the videos that you can find on the website. You could really spend several days there.

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2008/01/10/watch-documentaries-online/feed/ 7 Loom TV brings comfort to Youtube http://www.ghacks.net/2007/10/26/loom-tv-brings-comfort-to-youtube/ http://www.ghacks.net/2007/10/26/loom-tv-brings-comfort-to-youtube/#comments Fri, 26 Oct 2007 18:09:39 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/2007/10/26/loom-tv-brings-comfort-to-youtube/ Watching videos at Youtube and Google Video is not really that comfortable. The search is pretty basic, as are the categories offered and the options to change settings like when viewing it are limited as well. There is also no way to create your own categories at those video sites and fill them with videos that you found.

Loom TV steps in and increases the Youtube and Google Video experience. They offer a standalone client that is able to search both video portals for keywords or predefined channels like Metal and Soccer. The software works in full screen mode, which reminds me a little bit of Joost, as well as in windowed mode.

All videos can be zoomed and stretched from a barely visible video to full screen, have a general quality setting and an option to adjust brightness for instance in real time.

loom tv

Videos can be added to your channels with easy and they will remain there forever unless they are deleted at Youtube or Google Video. Besides offering ways to view Youtube videos more comfortably Loom TV also offers a way to listen to Internet Radio and read News. Some of the so called plugins can be combined.

It is for instance possible to view videos and read the latest news in a ticker at the same time. The topics are chosen by the user of course.

Users need to signup at the Loom TV website to be able to download the client. The login information is used to login into the client at every startup.

Read More:

Loom TV

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2007/10/26/loom-tv-brings-comfort-to-youtube/feed/ 5 Why DRM is not consumer friendly http://www.ghacks.net/2007/08/13/why-drm-is-not-consumer-friendly/ http://www.ghacks.net/2007/08/13/why-drm-is-not-consumer-friendly/#comments Mon, 13 Aug 2007 16:44:47 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/2007/08/13/why-drm-is-not-consumer-friendly/ I just read an interesting article at Arstechnica by Ken Fisher who was commenting on the termination of Google’s commercial Video service. The termination takes effect in just two days which would not be a big problem if the users who bought or rented videos from the service would still be able to play their purchased videos after that date.

This is however not the case. All videos will no longer play after the termination of the service which can be used as a major argument against DRM services. Google – wisely – decided to compensate users by refunding each and everyone

The money will be refunded into a Google Checkout account and expires after 60 days. What this means is that the users who bought videos from Google Video have 60 days to purchase items that they probably do not need from merchants who use Google Checkout. Hardly a fair deal for the consumer if you ask me.

The steps that Google is undertaking to close down their Video service is clearly showing why DRM is not consumer friendly. If the company that sold you items with DRM goes broke, out of business or decides to terminate the service you will realize that your purchased items do not play anymore – and yes, this is also the case with Apple and the songs that they sell that contain DRM.

If you are lucky you get a full refund, if not you might get something that looks like a refund but is basically pushing a different service which is in this case Google Checkout. And if you are out of luck you might not get compensated at all. Does not feel nice to pay a lot of money for items only to find out that you can’t play them anymore on your system, doesn’t it ?

No one would purchase an item in real life that could stop working if the company selling you the item got broke or quit producing the item but this is exactly what is happening right now.

Google sold you videos, made a strategic decision to terminate their service and decided to push the Google Checkout service by tying the refunds to it.

I think it is helpful that consumers now see and hopefully realize that drm media purchased from “big” companies are not guaranteed to work a lifetime which should hopefully push the masses away from DRM.

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2007/08/13/why-drm-is-not-consumer-friendly/feed/ 3 Download and Convert Youtube movies in one step http://www.ghacks.net/2007/01/06/download-and-convert-youtube-movies-in-one-step/ http://www.ghacks.net/2007/01/06/download-and-convert-youtube-movies-in-one-step/#comments Sat, 06 Jan 2007 08:14:55 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/2007/01/06/download-and-convert-youtube-movies-in-one-step/ Not long ago I wrote an article about converting flv files which are used by Youtube and Google Video to another format like avi and mpg to be able to watch them on your computer without the need of using a flv player or plugin. Fastdump pointed out in the comments that the program VDownloader would do the same faster and easier, what can I say – he was right.

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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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2007/01/06/download-and-convert-youtube-movies-in-one-step/feed/ 16 Convert Youtube Video Files to Avi http://www.ghacks.net/2006/12/14/convert-youtube-video-files-to-avi/ http://www.ghacks.net/2006/12/14/convert-youtube-video-files-to-avi/#comments Thu, 14 Dec 2006 08:04:24 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/2006/12/14/convert-youtube-video-files-to-avi/ Youtube and Google Video use the format flv, flash video, to stream the videos on their websites. If you download them using a firefox extension such as Video Downloader you might have problems playing them in your normal video player. One option would be to use a player that supports flv files such as the FLV Player. A better solution would be in my opinion to convert the flv files into avi or mpg which are widely supported and can be send to friends or burned on DVD easier.

The Riva FLV Encoder helps us to convert the downloaded flv files into avi, mpg, quicktime or wmv files. All you need to do is add a local input file (flv in this case) and select an output format by adding the extension to the file. If you want an avi file you simply name it video.avi in the form destination video file.

You may change additional parameters like movie size, bitrate, framerate and audio if you like. Please note that the results will not be good if you choose to increase the movie size for instance. Hitting Encode will start the process. Once that is finished you may preview the result and try again if you do not like the result.

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2006/12/14/convert-youtube-video-files-to-avi/feed/ 10 Google Video Hidden Categories http://www.ghacks.net/2006/07/07/google-video-hidden-categories/ http://www.ghacks.net/2006/07/07/google-video-hidden-categories/#comments Fri, 07 Jul 2006 05:06:11 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/2006/07/07/google-video-hidden-categories/ Have you ever uploaded a movie to Google Video ? You can chose one of 38 categories like sports or business for the movie. Now, when you visit the Google Video page again you only have the option to click on a few categories on the top. There is no option to search most of the 38 categories: Until now.

To search a special category you use the “genre:” command. If you would like to search for the keyword fun only in the comedy category you would type in fun genre:comedy in the search box. The following paragraph lists all 38 category names of Google Video.

  1. Educational
  2. Instructional
  3. Stock Footage
  4. Comedy
  5. Mature Adult
  6. Science and Technology
  7. Ads and Promotions
  8. News
  9. Animation
  10. Sports
  11. Home Video
  12. Documentary
  13. Business
  14. Dance
  15. Drama
  16. Foreign
  17. Gaming
  18. Horror
  19. Movie trailer
  20. Nature
  21. Political
  22. Religious
  23. Romance
  24. Special Interest
  25. Thriller
  26. Travel
  27. TV Show
  28. Western
  29. Movie Short
  30. Movie Feature
  31. Faith and Spirituality
  32. Gay and Lesbian
  33. Science Fiction & Fantasy
  34. Action and Adventure
  35. Children and Family
  36. Art and Expiremental
  37. Health And Fitness
  38. Independent

Thanks to jimmyr for finding this out.

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2006/07/07/google-video-hidden-categories/feed/ 5 Google Video Downloader http://www.ghacks.net/2005/11/05/google-video-downloader/ http://www.ghacks.net/2005/11/05/google-video-downloader/#comments Sat, 05 Nov 2005 09:34:49 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/?p=100 Everyone probably knows Google’s Video Service where you can search for videos and watch them online. Until know it was not easy to download a movie that you liked, that you probably would like to see again or show friends at home.

Enter Google Video Downloader. This online script does the following. If you find a video at video.google.com that you would like to download all you need to do is copy the url the video is located and paste it into a text field called Decode Url on their site.

A script automatically converts the url and displays the download link and the watch it link. If you click download you can download the film to your computer. Please note that the movies are
in flv format, so you will need a movie player that is capable of playing those files. They provide a link to one on the results page.

Head over to dev2.traxio.net/projects/googlevideo/and take a look if this concept sounds interesting to you.

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2005/11/05/google-video-downloader/feed/ 2 Google To Host Home-Video Uploads http://www.ghacks.net/2005/10/14/google-to-host-home-video-uploads/ http://www.ghacks.net/2005/10/14/google-to-host-home-video-uploads/#comments Fri, 14 Oct 2005 19:21:36 +0000 Martin http://www.deny.de/ghacks/?p=28 While there’s no formal announcement yet, Google co-founder Larry Page said Monday that the well-known search engine concern would soon let the general public upload self-produced videos to Google’s servers, partly in an effort to learn more about how to more efficiently search and display information about video-based data.

It’s an experiment we want to run, said Page of the video-uploading service, which he said the company will formally announce in the next few days. Page made the non-announcement announcement during Monday’s opening panel discussion at the National Cable & Telecommunications Show here, upstaging his luminary fellow panelists John Chambers of Cisco, Brian Roberts of Comcast, Jon Miller of AOL and Jeffrey Katzenberg of Dreamworks.

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