Tag Archives: youtube

Play Ogg

20
Posted by skullbochs on 7 June 2009 – 11:15 am
Filed under proprietary perils
Tagged as , , , , , , , , ,

MPEG-1 Layer 3 (Mp3) audio has not yet been succeeded. Both Apple and Microsoft have been pushing their own newfangled proprietary codecs, but they’re just not sufficiently better for most people to care. Increasing storage and bandwidth have lessened the need for better lossy compression, while lack of widespread compatibility for any of the alternatives forces people to use Mp3 to ensure compatibility. Xiph’s Ogg Vorbis is in fourth-place, but has carved out a respectable niche for itself among GNU/Linux enthusiasts and video game developers.

What wrong with this picture is that, among the four codecs listed, Vorbis is the only one you don’t have to pay to use. The Mp3 format is restricted by a variety of software patents that won’t expire for several years yet. The early years of Mp3 were marred by controversy when many people who wrote implementations of the Mp3 format under the impression that it was royalty-free found themselves facing royalties. Because of this, many GNU/Linux distributions will not play Mp3 files out of the box. Users have to download additional software (usually illegally) to play the same files that will play on the cheap Mp3 player they got for Christmas.

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Download videos from YouTube as MP4s

1
Posted by skullbochs on 4 June 2009 – 11:53 pm
Filed under ain't that nifty
Tagged as , , , ,

For a while now I’ve been wanting a way to download YouTube videos in 720p. I knew how to do it in Safari using the Activity Window, so it’s only been since I’ve switched to GNU/Linux as my main that the need has became pressing (especially since even Adobe’s proprietary Flash plugin has a hard time with HD and any video in fullscreen). So, tonight, having decided I’d download Home, I went looking for a way to download in HD.

I found a nifty little bookmarklet: Download YouTube HD. Drag that link your bookmarks bar, go to a YouTube video with HD, and click on it, and a link will be added at the bottom of the info box saying “Download as 720p HD MP4.” Right click on it, and save the video wherever.

I also found a bookmarklet for saving the high-quality (but no HD) mpeg4 version of any video: Download YouTube MP4. Similar deal: drag that to you bookmarks bar, go to a YouTube video, and click on it. This time, however, you’ll simply be asked by your browser to save the file. You don’t have to click any other links.

As I said, these are especially useful under GNU/Linux, where there are a million great desktop video players but the Adobe Flash plugin, let alone the free implementations of swf, is not that great.