I'm probably a little behind the times...

[FurLoverinFL]

But for those of you who may not have tried this... Get the latest version of RealPlayer. It has an interface that allows you to download all those YouTube videos with one simple click of a button. Works great - give it a try if you have not already done so.

 

FLinFL

[Worker 11811]

I avoid RealPlayer.

 

It is borderline spyware.

Everything you do, every video you watch and everything you download is recorded by RealPlayer and sent back to the Mothership to be used for marketing purposes.

 

You can copy YouTube videos from your browser cache and play them back with VideoLan player.

 

VideoLan is free: http://www.videolan.org/

Plus it is not spyware.

[Guest]

Hey!! It's compatible with ubuntu

 

OFF

[Worker 11811]

Yes, there is a Linux version of RealPlayer but that still does not change my opinion of it.

 

RealPlayer isn't worth a crap.

 

You can still extract YouTube and other types of movies out of your browser cache just as easily as you can on Windoze, Mac or Linux.

 

VLC VideoLan player is available for Windoze, Mac and Linux.

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

 

There is no reason for RealPlayer to exist.

[FurrySlipper]

For that matter, none of this rigamarole would be necessary if it wasn't for Flash to begin with.

 

Why would people want to embed a perferctly good wmv, avi, mpeg or whatever in Flash? Let us all drastically cut the quality of our video, take user control almost completely away and take up much more of the user's system resources (Full screen? Not with that video card, sonny!) in order to take an extra, absolutely unnecessary step in posting video!!!

 

At least Adobe gets something out of it.

[Worker 11811]

 

I could not agree more!

 

Flash is the original high-bandwidth, low-quality video format!

Even Windoze Media Slayer is better!

 

Flash is EVIL

Flash should be illegal!

[brandy-uk]

So ...

 

I am getting the feeling that Flash and real player.. are not your fav. media devices...????

 

kisses

brandy

xxxxxx

[Worker 11811]

The funky part is that Flash uses a proprietary version of the mp4 video format that is compatible with NOTHING else except those players which explicitly seek out ways to play Flash content. (They probably have to pay a royalty to Adobe, the creators of Flash, to do it, too!) Technically speaking, any player should be able to play Flash videos because mp4 is an open standard.

 

Flash Player does so many things to make the video scalable and adds so many unnecessary features that, what was once a simple mp4 movie, becomes a giant, unmanageable mess for anything but the fastest computers on broadband connections to handle. Flash actually downgrades the quality of the video and sound to get that stupid "embedable" player to load on your computer.

 

Flash provides no more features and no better quality than any other video player out there. The only difference is that Adobe, the makers of Flash, have millions of dollars worth of marketing behind them and they have made some vague promises that Flash videos are more secure and can't be stolen.

 

Well, I can steal Flash videos FASTER than I can steal other formats and, with VLC player I can play them back a lot EASIER than the embeddable Flash player does AND at higher quality.

 

If YouTube had simply used Quicktime as the standard instead, they would have pretty solid (90% safe) security if they wanted to. There is a way to "lock" Quicktime content so that only those people who have the "key" will be able to even view it. They can download it all they want but, unless they have the key the file will be useless. A good example is iTunes. You can download and share iTunes music files all you want but, unless you are the authorized "owner" of those files, you can't play them.

 

Quicktime is the "engine" that makes iTunes work. If you have iTunes on your computer you also have Quicktime.

 

Yes, there are ways to "scrub" the security features out of QuickTime files but they aren't 100% reliable and they also risk degrading the quality.

 

If YouTube would have gone with a straight, non-proprietary version of the mp4 format or even the open standards "H.264" format (which is, in reality, a hybrid of mp4 and some other technologies) almost any computer made in the last 5 years could easily play the videos and they could do it faster, better, easier, with better quality and they wouldn't have to use special software to do it.

 

YouTube's forced-standardization on the Flash format is probably one of the STUPIDEST moves that has EVER occurred in the ENTIRE on-line multimedia industry!

 

RealPlayer is the second stupidest!

 

Avoid both whenever possible!

[ew19975]

Worker, do you have any recommendations for a program to convert RealPlayer (.RM) movies to a more suitable format; as I have several videos that were only in RealPlayer format on my computer (computer dead and hard drives to be moved to more up-to-date unit ).

[Worker 11811]

I know it is possible to convert RealMedia to other formats but it is not a very straightforward process.

 

RealMedia uses proprietary CODECs. That means that the software to encode and decode RealMedia is legally owned and controlled by Real, Inc. ®

 

I know a few ways to convert Real to other formats but they all involve using Unix command line tools and they all require RealPlayer to be installed on your machine.

 

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20050130184054216

 

If you Google around a little bit, you can find a few sites that claim to have conversion tools for RM to AVI or other formats. I can't vouch for them. I've never used them.

 

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/win/129020

 

I know it sounds mean and disparaging but, when people ask me to use RealMedia files on my computers I just tell them where to go. I refuse to use RealMedia for nearly any reason.

 

When I get to a website that uses it... CLICK!... I shut the browser window and go to some other site.

[LordTheNightKnight]

Any youtube alternatives that allow other formats, like mpg and mov?

[Worker 11811]

Ooh... I don't know... The Fur Den, maybe?

So long as the entire movie is under 8 MB in size. (We don't have enough server space to support huge video files.)

 

I put about a dozen of them into the gallery and, when it first opened, there was a lot of business there but it has fallen off.

 

We do allow MPEG and QuicTime MOV files. But, because of the way files are embedded into the pages, we had to shut off access for WMV files. I intened to fix that some day but since demand has fallen off so much, the project went to the back burner.

 

Adobe has had a very aggressive marketing campaign for Flash. They have bundled it in to Adobe Creative Suite and are telling everybody how "great" it is to be able to instantly put Flash into your website. The great majority of websites are using Flash to deliver video, now. There are still a few that don't.

 

My advice is, marketing be damned, patronize the websites that have video in the format that YOU want to view them in and NOT let the website owners tell you what software you have to have to make their website viewable on your computer.

 

Most people behave like sheep when it comes to the internet. When a website tells them "Your software is not supported..." they sit there and take it. What they should be doing is calling up the site owners or sending them an e-mail and telling them "Bullshit!! I want my video in MPEG-4 or I'll take my business some place else!" Then, if the website doesn't satisfy them they should follow through and click-off that webiste and look for another one that does what they want.

 

If you went to the grocery store to buy bread and milk but the storekeeper said, "Sorry, we don't sell milk but you can have a quart of motor oil instead," what would you do?

You'd walk out! Wouldn't you?

 

If there was suddenly a law that said you can't drive your car on certain highways unless you have Michelin tires, you'd be PISSED OFF! Wouldn't you?

 

So, why do people keep going back to sites like YouTube to watch grainy, choppy videos that slow their computer down when they could, very easily, watch high quality video with the software they already have on their computer?

 

It doesn't make sense to me.