You tube is one of the most popular video sharing sites in the USA so far. The only problem I have is how can I watch the videos over again on my Windows Mobile cell phone without having to connect through the Internet. Well I did the research and found what is the best way so far.
Downloading videos from the Internet:
The first problem was how to get the videos from sites like YouTube onto my computer. That was easily done when I changed from Internet explorer to Fire Fox as my Internet browser. Fire Fox has these little plug-in programs that enable all sorts of cool functionality. One of them being downloading videos. Through a little plug-in called Download Helper, every time I’m at a video site that is compatible, (And most of them are), all I have to do is click a button and the video will download to my desk top.
Watch Flash Videos on the PC:
After clicking on this strange little file called .flv i quickly realized that i needed a player that could understand the format. Windows Media Player didn’t, iTunes didn’t, Quick Time Didn’t. Actually, none of the programs that i had on my computer could play this file. And the fact of the matter is, I was tired of having all of those programs on the computer that were good for little, (But that’s a topic for another post). So I needed to find a more versatile player. I chose MPCStar because of the player controls and clean interface. There were many to choose from and several people recommended VLC player, but it was so bulky among other things.
Watching Flash videos on the phone:
Well now that I could play the videos back on my computer, what about the phone. Well since it is a Windows Mobile phone, I figured that it would not be able to play back the .flv file so I would need to convert it to something that it will play. So after a quick search I found no less that 1000 different media converters, some free but most paid. But then I thought, why convert it? Wouldn’t it be easier to just copy the files over and play them as I like? Of course it would be, so I found that I needed another player for the phone that would be better than Windows Mobile Player and I did. TCPMP version .72RC1 turns out to be a very popular Windows Mobile Player, but i don’t think anyone is working on it anymore. But that shouldn’t matter, you still see 1976 Volkswagen Bugs driving around the street and the owners seem just as happy as everyone else. I found out quickly that TCPMP has lots of different files it can play, but .flv isn’t one, so i needed a plug-in for this player, and I found it here. but that was a long time ago and I believe there may be some updates here.
Conclusion:
Well, that was easy! Now all I have to do is download the video and copy it over to my memory card and play it back as I like. But the added bonus is that I can go to YouTube.com on the phone and play the videos back directly. As long as I have a good 3G signal! Now only if I could figure out a way to download the videos directly to the phone…
