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Posts Tagged ‘ youtube ’

How to Filter YouTube’s Undesirable Comments

By Fei on November 23, 2011

By Rick Broida
November 23, 2011

SAN FRANCISCO – Recently one of my kids asked for a TankBot for Chanukah. I’d never heard of it, so I went to YouTube to see one in action. Turns out it’s a pretty cool smartphone-controlled tank.

However, when I scrolled down to read the comments for the TankBot demo video, expecting to see some user thoughts or reviews of the product, I discovered a lengthy, profanity-laden flame war between two idiots. I was glad my kids weren’t looking over my shoulder–and moritified to think what would happen if they were surfing YouTube without me.

Because, sadly, the service doesn’t filter out objectionable comments. You can flag a comment as spam, but other than that, there’s no way to block all the a-bombs, f-bombs, and the like. (And, believe me, YouTube has become a veritable cesspool of inane, obnoxious, hate-filled commentary.)

If you want to protect your children’s eyes (as well as your own) from this sort of thing, try Comment Snob for Google Chrome and YouTube Comment Snob for Firefox. These handy extensions remove undesirable comments from YouTube video pages. (And the Chrome version works with other Web sites as well.) It’s not foolproof, but it definitely helps.
Comment Snob blocks comments based on one or more criteria: all capital letters, no capital letters, excessive punctuation and/or capitalization, and so on. It can also kick in when it detects a certain number of spelling mistakes.

Most importantly, it filters comments that contain profanity (though this option is, curiously, disabled by default). And if you’re a Chrome user, you can set up filtering for custom words and phrases (great for blocking the more PG and PG-13 comments that the stock profanity filter misses).

I find it a bit ridiculous that Google doesn’t offer any kind of comment blocking or filtering, nor even any parental controls. Comment Snob is a good start, but it doesn’t go nearly far enough. I want my kids to enjoy YouTube, but I’d rather not expose them to foul-mouthed rants, inappropriate jokes, and outright hate speech. How about a little action, here, Google?

YouTube, Google+ Let Users Have Video-watching Party

By Fei on August 23, 2011

By Christina DesMarais
August 23, 2011

SAN FRANCISCO – Google+ users can now have a video-watching party on YouTube.

That means if you want to participate in making the latest viral video even more infectious, you can do it by combining the power of Google+’s Hangout and YouTube’s video-sharing functions.

Since the beginning of Google+, early adopters of the new social network have been raving about its Hangout feature, some even calling it G+’s “most interesting and useful feature.” Hangouts have been so well appreciated that soon after Google+ went live, Facebook made a counter move and announced its Skype-powered in-browser video chat service.
For Google+ users, taking advantage of the new YouTube feature is simple.

While watching a YouTube video hit “Share” under the video pane, then “Watch with your friends: Start a Google+ Hangout.” From there, you’ll be asked to install the Google Voice and Video Plugin if you don’t already have it. Then it’s just a matter of choosing the Circles you’d like to include in your video-watching party.

If you haven’t been invited to Google+ yet, you’ll have to wait to use the new YouTube function. Google’s social network is still in “field trial” and its floodgates haven’t yet been opened to the masses.

Imagine sharing a video of one of your kids performing in a school play with your parents who live in another state and watching their reactions via web cam. Or, see your skateboarding teenager showing off video of the latest trick he mastered to young cohorts across town and getting to hear and see their appraisals without having to wait for comments to post on Facebook.

Considering nearly everybody uses YouTube to some degree, the new share option just might propel more people to accept some of those unused invitations and get on Google+.
What’s your take? Can you see yourself watching YouTube videos collaboratively with others in a Hangout?

YouTube Tips: Embed Videos, Create Jukebox, Filter Comments

By Fei on June 30, 2011

By Rick Broida
June 29, 2011

SAN FRANCISCO – I recently ran across “Weekend Project: YouTube Downloads, Mashups, Screencasts, and More,” and it inspired me to share some of my own YouTube tips with you. Read on for how to embed a video in a blog (or other Web page), use YouTube as a commercial-free video jukebox, and filter out inappropriate comments.
How to Embed a YouTube Video

YouTube videos are meant to be shared. But the best way to share them is not by copying and pasting a link, but rather embedding the actual video in your blog, Web page, or the like. That way, your visitors can watch the clip directly without having to click away to YouTube proper.

Embedding a video used to be pretty straightforward, but recently YouTube has made some changes that make the process a bit more confusing.

Here’s how to handle video embeds.

Open the YouTube page containing the video you want to embed. Just below the video window, find and click the Share button. Then, at the bottom of the “Link to this video” box, click Embed. You’ll see a highlighted chunk of text. This is the “embed code,” which you’ll need to copy and paste into your Web page. You can do so immediately by right-clicking the text and choosing Copy. However, you may want to modify some options first.

Notice the five check boxes below the embed code. The one I have to enable most often is Use old embed code, which provides a different chunk of code that’s more widely compatible with blog tools. Make sure to enable any of these options you need before copying the embed code.

Also, you can choose from various sizes for your embedded video by clicking any of the gray boxes below the check boxes. If you need something smaller, use the Custom box. For example, I routinely need my videos to be no larger than 450 pixels wide, so I enter 450 in the Width field. (YouTube automatically calculates the height.)

Turn YouTube Into a Personal Video Jukebox

Now let’s look at a YouTube feature designed for music lovers: the YouTube Music Discovery Project, which is designed to serve up an endless supply of your favorite artists’ tunes.
Just type in the name of a favorite song or artist, then click Disco!. In a flash, YouTube creates a playlist based on that song or artist–the contents displayed in a scrolling thumbnail bar at the bottom of the screen. You can mouse over any song and click it to jump directly to it, or just let the playlist run in its regular order. You’ll also notice controls (on the right side of the bar) to turn Autoplay on or off and enable or disable shuffle mode.

This is a great way to discover not only new music, but also new versions of your favorite songs. For example, I put Disco to work on Coldplay, and the first song it played was an extraordinary cover of “Viva La Vida” by a group of schoolkids.

You can use YouTube Disco as a kind of video jukebox, or just as a commercial-free alternative to services like Pandora and Slacker, streaming tunes in the background while you work. As I’m sure you can guess, the service is free.

Protect Your Kids from Profanity-Laden YouTube Comments

YouTube doesn’t filter user comments, and some of them are downright atrocious. I’ve seen hate speech, profanity, and ridiculously excessive punctuation. Okay, that last one’s merely annoying, but the fact remains that YouTube can expose your kids to decidedly inappropriate language.

Thankfully, there’s an add-on for that. YouTube Comment Snob for Firefox filters undesirable comments from YouTube video pages. It’s not foolproof, but it definitely helps.
The tool blocks comments based on one or more criteria: all capital letters, no capital letters, excessive punctuation and/or capitalization, and so on. It can also kick in when it detects a certain number of spelling mistakes.

Most importantly, YouTube Comment Snob filters comments that contain profanity. If that amounts to snobbery, then a snob be I.

This is a must-have add-on for parents trying to protect their kids from the Yahoos (the “Gulliver’s Travels” variety, not the search engine) of the Internet. YouTube is supposed to be fun; now it can be a little safer as well.

Google buys video-enhancing company to boost YouTube

By Fei on March 17, 2011

By Juan Carlos Perez
March 17, 2011

MIAMI – Google has acquired an Irish company for technology that will allow YouTube to automatically improve the quality of videos stored on the site.

Green Parrot Pictures, based in Dublin, makes digital video technology that Google hopes will make clips on YouTube sharper, steadier and lower in image noise.

The technology may come in handy in particular for videos shot under pressure with low-quality devices, such as camera phones, in situations such as street protests, according to Google.

Green Parrot Pictures’ video improvement technology has been used in big-budget films such as “Lord of the Rings,” “X-Men” and “Spider Man.” Green Parrot Pictures CEO Anil Kokaram is also an associate professor at Trinity College Dublin.

“Their technology helps make videos look better while at the same time using less bandwidth and improving playback speed,” wrote Jeremy Doig, director of Google video technology, in a blog post on Tuesday.

“With the equivalent of over 170,000 full-length movies uploaded to YouTube every week, the team’s experience in this area — working on solutions for both video consumers and experts alike — will be a source of new ideas and further innovation at YouTube and across Google. We look forward to working with them to make the videos you upload every minute of every day to our site look even better,” Doig wrote.

Google sites, primarily YouTube, drew the most unique video viewers in January with 144.1 million, followed in a distant second place by Vevo with 51 million, according to comScore. Yahoo, Viacom Digital and AOL rounded out the top five.

Sony explores wider range of Android-based devices

By Fei on October 22, 2010

By Martyn Williams
October 22, 2010

TOKYO – Sony is considering employing Google’s Android operating system in more consumer electronics devices, it said Thursday, shortly after launching its first televisions using the software.

Last week Sony put on sale in the U.S. four models of TV that run Android and feature the Google TV platform. The sets are available in screen sizes from 24 inches to 46 inches and cost between US$600 and $1,400. A stand-alone Google TV box with built-in Blu-ray Disc player is also available for $400.

“We’re thinking about using Android in more consumer electronics products,” Yoshihisa Ishida, head of the company’s TV division, told reporters in Tokyo. He didn’t specify what kind of products those might be.

To date, Android has been most widely used in smartphones, and Sony Ericsson already offers an Android-based device, the Xperia X10. Some companies have also shown Android-based tablet PCs, but Sony has not yet announced development of such a device.

Sony and Google agreed in May to work together on pushing Android into consumer electronics. The recently launched TVs were an initial target of the collaboration.

Google TV allows users to access Internet-based services from their televisions or while watching TV. For example, a few clicks of a remote control can bring up Twitter so the user can tweet about the current show or read what others are saying, all while the show continues playing in a window in the corner of the screen.

The Internet link also allows users to connect to on-demand video services. Free videos can be watched via Google’s YouTube service and the Sony TVs also offer links into Sony’s own Qriocity video on-demand service and third-party sites like Netflix.

Facial recognition software being made publicly available

By Fei on August 24, 2010

By Carrie-Ann Skinner

August 24, 2010

LONDON – A new program that will scan a face and then trawl the web for photographs of that person is to be made publicly available.

The software, which was developed by Israel-based Face.com, is thought to be correct 90 percent of the time and is already being used by 5,000 developers, although the reasons they were using the software was not disclosed.
It scans the position of a person’s eyes, nose and mouth and then selects images on the web of faces with their features in the same positions.

“You can basically search for people in any photo. You could search for family members on Flickr, in newspapers, or in videos on YouTube,” Face.com’s CEO Gil Hirsch, told the Sunday Times.

Until now, similar software has only been available to government organisations such as the UK Border Agency or those developing social networks.

However, privacy campaigners including Simon Davies, director of Privacy International, have raised concerns over the software.

“I think this will make many people very uneasy. The regulators have been hugely behind the curve of protecting people’s privacy on the internet. We need to push for much tighter international rules.”

According to the Information Commissioner’s Office there are currently no laws regarding the use of facial recognition software.

Fixes for YouTube, Craigslist, and Internet Explorer Hassles

By Fei on July 28, 2010

By Rick Broida
July 28, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO – In response to a recent Hassle-Free PC about YouTube, a reader wrote me to ask about YouTube buffering. Specifically, he was wondering why YouTube sometimes starts and stops playback rather than buffering the entire video (or most of it, anyway) and then playing it.

Good question! YouTube? What do you have to say for yourself?

Nothing. I see. Well, the fact is that YouTube isn’t the only video site that does a mediocre job of buffering. Even if there’s network congestion or a slow connection, most video sites start playback immediately, which can result in those annoying pauses.

The solution? A free utility called SpeedBit Video Accelerator, which is expressly designed to make streaming video play without buffering interruptions.

SpeedBit relies on something called multi-connection technology to establish faster video downloads on sites ranging from AOL to Yahoo, with more than 160 others in between. (Alas, Hulu and Netflix aren’t among them–though I think those two are much better at buffering.)

The free version works this magic on “normal” and “HQ” videos (those streaming at up to 200 kbps). If you want the same acceleration for “HD” videos (200Kbps and higher), you’ll need to shell out $20–per year–for the Premium version.

That strikes me as a little steep, but hopefully the free version will get the job done. In my tests, SpeedBit worked as advertised, particularly when my connection was congested with other things like file downloads and VoIP phone calls.

I love Craigslist, but does the service have to be so user-unfriendly? I mean, would it kill Craig (or whoever’s in charge these days) to offer some kind of image preview in the listings? As it stands, you have to click through every single item to see whatever photos lie beneath.

To paraphrase a popular slogan, there’s a Firefox add-on for that. CLIP (aka CraigsList Image Prefetcher) adds thumbnail image previews to all Craigslist listings and search results. Even better, CLIP adds previews of the listings themselves. Just mouse over the little arrow to the right of any item and the underlying ad text appears in a pop-up box. That should save you a lot of unnecessary clicking.

While you’re at it, be sure to check out CL Genie, a free service that sends you an e-mail whenever a new Craigslist listing matches your search term(s).

Solve Internet Explorer 8 Crashes

A reader wrote me about a problem he’s having a problem with Internet Explorer 8:

“Whenever I try to access mail.yahoo.com, the page shows up and immediately IE 8 crashes. It happens with most [other] Web sites, too.”

Browser crashes can be tough to troubleshoot–especially when you don’t provide information about your PC, operating system, and so on. (ahem). That’s something everyone should remember when asking for help with system problems: the more details you can provide, the better.

You did mention that these crashes don’t happen in Firefox, meaning you already know the smart short-term workaround for any browser problem: try another browser.

Anyway, you’ve got two likely culprits here: a corrupted add-on or a bad Flash plug-in. I suspect the latter, so let’s start with that.

You’ll need to uninstall the Flash Player plug-in and its ActiveX component, which you can do with a small utility from Adobe. Reboot after you’ve run the utility.

Next, close Internet Explorer and reset it to its default settings (which will also remove any problematic add-ons). Now, click Start, type Internet Options, and then press Enter. Click the Advanced tab, then click the Reset button at the bottom of the window. (o not select the box marked “Delete personal settings.” Click Reset to complete the process. (Note: This process works for Vista and Windows 7.)

Stop related videos from appearing at the end of YouTube vids

By Fei on June 28, 2010

By Rick Broida
June 28, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO – One thing I really don’t like about YouTube is those “related video” suggestions that immediately pop up at the end of each clip.

I rarely want to see them in videos I’m watching, and I especially don’t want them showing up in videos I’ve embedded for others to see.

If you feel the same, you’ll be glad to know there’s an easy way to disable related-video suggestions in videos you’re embedding on your Web site, blog, etc. Here’s how:

1. Go to the YouTube page for the video you want, then click the Embed button below the player.

2. Click the checkbox next to Include related videos. (In other words, remove the checkmark.)

3. Copy the code in the Embed field, then paste it wherever you need it to go.

Presto! The video will be embed without showing related videos at the end.

Download YouTube videos for offline viewing

By Fei on June 24, 2010

By Rick Broida
June 24, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO – Ever wish you could watch that piano-playing cat at 35,000 feet? Alas, YouTube requires a live Internet connection, and Wi-Fi is still pretty hard to find in the friendly skies.

Fortunately, you can download YouTube videos to your PC for anytime, anywhere viewing, no Internet required.

There are countless ways to “rip” YouTube vids, but I’m partial to Keep Tube. It’s available as both a Firefox extension and a browser bookmarklet, the latter compatible with Chrome, Internet Explorer, etc.
What’s more, Keep Tube works with not only YouTube, but also CollegeHumor, Facebook, Google Video, Metacafe, and countless other sites.
When you see a video you like, just click the Keep Tube icon (in Firefox) or bookmarklet. From there you’ll land at a Keep Tube page where you can download your video in one or more formats and sizes.

My advice: choose MP4 whenever possible, and always at the highest available resolution. YouTube’s native FLV format requires a special player, whereas MP4 works in Divx, QuickTime, and other more-common players.

Also, MP4 files usually play nicely on smartphones, so you can take your saved videos to go.

YouTube Makeover Designed To Keep You Watching

By Fei on April 2, 2010

By Jeff Bertolucci
April 2, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO – Two months after entering beta, YouTube‘s video page redesign is ready for its close up. Google’s video-sharing site first unveiled the makeover in late January, and today the streamlined interface goes live to all users.
The new look comes after a year of planning, and serves two purposes. First, it provides a cleaner UI that’s “more subdued, stripped down and simple than before,” according to a January blog post by Yahoo designer Julian Frumar and software engineer Igor Kofman. Second, it’s designed to improve the site’s stickiness by getting visitors to watch more videos and (hopefully) never leave.
The revamped video page is structured to appeal to power users and novices alike. At first glance, the changes are subtle, but longtime YouTubers will spot the changes right off.

Additional information about the clip you’re watching has been consolidated in one place–underneath the video window. To see more details about the video, you click an arrow to the right of the description snippet, or in the “views” box.

Better Search Integration

The “next up” video list on the right side of the screen is now smarter, in that it takes into consideration how you arrived at the site. If you reached the video via search query, for instance, the suggestions list shows the other search results. If you arrived via a playlist or recommendation, however, the list displays other playlist or recommendation suggestions.

In addition, you can now conduct a search while watching a video–a boon for multitaskers. Results appear on the right side of the page and won’t interrupt the video.

New Ratings

Gone is the old 5-star rating system. Google says that most people used either a “1″ or a “5″ to rate a video–a love-it-or-hate-it scenario–so the new rating system reflects that by featuring only two buttons: “Like” and “Don’t Like.” Click “Like,” and YouTube adds the video to your favorites list.

The “subscribe” button is easier to find now: Above the video right near the title. This change makes it easier to take a quick peek at other videos from the creator’s channel.

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