monline

I've tested five methods for downloading YouTube videos, only two worked.

The linked blog post describes three URL components that you can use in YouTube video links to control subtitles (ie. language), HD and fullscreen playback. I only tested the subtitle language selector hl parameter and unfortunately it does not really work (it works only if you've turned on subtitles previously on some YT video). The hl parameter selects the UI language (if available), which also sets the default CC (closed captions, aka. subtitles) language in case the given video has a CC in the specified language. However the hl parameter does not turn on the display of subtitles automatically (ie. regardless of the user's previous settings)! There's a method to do that, but not yet as an URL parameter.

YouTube captions are downloaded by the video player in a custom XML format (it's actually the same format that Google Video used to have). There's a Java utility called Google2SRT that can convert such an XML into an SRT, but using this Greasemonkey script you can just load the YouTube video page and download+convert the captions in one single step. It doesn't get any easier than that.

The DownloadHelper extension shows that many YouTube videos have multiple versions available, labeled as HQ18, HQ22, HQ35, etc. This blogpost explains which label covers which quality. The point is: HQ22 is the highest available.

"Steal This Film" is a sort of a documentary on how file-sharing (and network based file distribution) affects our culture and daily life. It's actuality comes from the recent trial of PirateBay. I found the vid. enlightening and amusing, imho it's worth watching for 44 minutes.

I was just reading about the story of British ISPs blocking access to a number of sites (one among them Wikipedia). It is told that Wikipedia is blocked because of a single article that features the cover of an album of the Scorpions (a German rock band) that is considered to be child pornograpgy. The article (that I was reading) also says that the band is best known for their song "Rock You Like a Hurricane". I googled for the song title and clicked on both YouTube hits that came up on the first page. Both of them said what's in the title of this post: "this video is not available in your country". I'm not quite sure what to make of this. Is YouTube now filtering in accordance with legal control on a per country basis? Or did some Hungarian pro children activist group contact YouTube to block those videos from Hungarian visitors? Of course it's non sense. There're dozens of video sharing sites that I can use to watch the vid.

Monty Python decided to go to war with all the YouTubers who have been ripping them off for the last couple of years. They've started their own YouTube channel and uploaded all the popular scenes from their shows as high quality videos. Some of my favourites are: Ministry of Silly Walks, The Miracle of Birth - Part I, Argument Clinic, Pope and Michaelangelo.

Vidnik is a small utility allowing you to record movies from any camera source of your Mac, then upload the movie to YouTube. Using the built-int iSight camera of Mac's, it's the ideal tool for video blogging.

It's a video of the "Scaling MySQL at YouTube" presentation from MySQL Conference & Expo 2007 by Paul Tuckfield, the lead MySQL DBA at YouTube. Here you can download an MP3 version too.