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How To: Watch YouTube Movies in Full 720p HD Glory

By Scott Gilbertson November 20th, 2008 Categories: Multimedia, Software & Tools

YouTubePsst. Hey, wanna know secret? YouTube is offering 720p HD streaming on select videos.

We’ve already showed you how to hack YouTube URLs and embed codes to get higher quality video. While those tricks work on most videos, they only bump the resolution up to 480×360px — better, but still nothing close to HD.

Well, good news, as our friends over at Epicenter point out, some videos on YouTube are available in full 720p HD glory — the same format that sites like the iTunes Store and Netflix offer.

It turns out YouTube has been quietly offering HD for some time. The site began experimenting with 720p videos back in May of this year, though the selection was somewhat limited. But now that HD quality videos are more widely available on YouTube, the new option is getting more useful.

The trick to getting the hi-res versions is roughly the same as with the old, um, sort-of-hi-res option. First you have to apply the same URL hack, but this time the magic bit of code is &fmt=22. Tack that on to the end of a normal YouTube URL and, if an HD version of the video is available, then you’ll see it. If it isn’t, YouTube seems to fall back to the 480×360 video and then, if that isn’t there either, it goes back to the pixelated glory that is its trademark.

When it comes to embedding the HD videos things get a little more complicated. Here’s some generic embed code that seems to work:


<object width="480” height=”397“><param name=”movie” value=”(VIDEO EMBED URL)&ap=%2526fmt%3D22“></param><param name=”wmode” value=”window“></param><embed src=”(VIDEO EMBED URL)&ap=%2526fmt%3D22” type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” wmode=”window” width=”480” height=”397“></embed></object>

The results can be seen here, starting with the HD embed, then the old “high quality” method and finally the good old default (note that the HD video requires Flash Player 9 or better):

Naturally, our favorite YouTube download solution, the Firefox add-on Video Downloader can grab the HD mp4 files for offline viewing. It also wouldn’t be hard to modify this Greasemonkey script to load HD movies automatically (where available); just download the script and change all the lines with fmt=18 to fmt=22. And be sure to check out the How To Wiki for more YouTube downloading options.

Here’s a shot of the downloaded mp4 file playing in QuickTime:

High Res YouTube

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Why Adobe ‘Configurator’ Will Revolutionize The Way You Use Photoshop

By Scott Gilbertson November 19th, 2008 Categories: Multimedia, Software & Tools

configuratorFor newcomers, Photoshop can seem like a labyrinth. The photo editing app is very powerful, but with great power comes great complexity — figuring out how to do what you want can take longer than actually doing it.

To help make Photoshop more flexible and bit easier to work with, Adobe has just released Configurator — an add-on that makes it easy to customize Photoshop panels to suit your needs.

The customization options mean that you can take your favorite menu items, actions, palettes and other tools and create your own easy-to-access panel. All the menu items and tools in Photoshop are available within the Configurator panel builder, and adding then to your custom panel is as simple as dragging them into your creation.

While the customization features are very nice, the real power of Configurator lies in the ability to swap your creations and download tools from other Photoshop users. The packaged files work much like Flash extensions — just download the panel and double click the file so that Extension Manager can install it. Restart Photoshop and the new panel will be available at Windows >> Extensions >> (Panel Name).

Take the sharing idea a bit further and Configurator might make the web-based Photoshop tutorial obsolete.

Rather than simply spelling out the steps necessary to get a certain look for your images, Configurator allows Photoshop gurus to package their entire workflow as a script, create a panel to run the script and make the whole thing a one-click download.

For example, Photoshop maven Russell Brown has put together a panel that walks you through the process of of creating lenticular images — Brown’s panel includes instructions and then simple one-click buttons to execute the actual steps (screenshot, download panel).

Configurator panels can even have embedded live video files, which allows you to watch video tutorials in Photoshop and follow along using your own images — no more flipping between the browser and Photoshop.

To see Configurator in action, check out Nack’s video demo, which shows some of the possibilities. At the moment there aren’t any available, but keep an eye on this Adobe Exchange page to find out what others are doing with Configurator.

Configurator is a free download and you can grab it from Adobe Labs. Configurator requires Photoshop CS4.

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New Pixel Bender Plugin Expands Photoshop Filter Selection

By Scott Gilbertson November 17th, 2008 Categories: Multimedia, Software & Tools

pixel bender in photoshop cs 4It maybe overlooked on a day when Adobe mapped out plans to overhaul Flash for mobile devices, but the company had another announcement today, of special interest to web developers: the new Pixel Bender Plugin for PhotoShop CS4.

Pixel Bender is a new platform that allows developers to create and share image filter and effects. Pixel Bender creations began life in Flash and it’s the technology behind many special effects in online photo editing apps.

But the underlying framework has moved beyond its Flash beginnings and is now part of several applications, including Photoshop CS4.

That means that all the filters Flash developers have created will now work inside Photoshop CS4 (and After Effects CS4) and, more importantly, it means we’ll likely see a significant increase in the number of filters available.

Like the default filters included with Photoshop, Pixel Bender tools allow you extend the Photoshop interface and create custom effects. The main difference from the filter system that’s long been a part of Photoshop, is that Pixel Bender filters will work in other apps with no additional effort on your part.

And don’t think that Pixel Bender filters are the red-headed stepchild of Photoshop filters, quite the opposite, they’re the future. The filters are very fast — though the speed will depend on your graphics card (GPU) — and much easier to develop than the older Photoshop-only interface.

Once you have the new plugin installed, just download the filters of your choice from Adobe Exchange and drop the PBK text files into the “Pixel Bender Files” folder that’s created in your Photoshop CS4 folder. To use a filter head to Filters->Pixel Bender->Pixel Bender Gallery and apply them to your images.

Adobe’s John Nack has a short demo movie that shows the new Pixel Bender Plugin in action. You can grab the plugin from the Adobe Labs page, but of course it’s experimental, so rough edges remain. It was perfectly stable in my (limited) testing, but the interface lacks the polish of other Photoshop panels.

Still, Pixel Bender filters are a diamond-in-the-rough release and we look forward to seeing what happens now that Photoshop fans can get in on the fun. At the moment there are nearly fifty filters available on the Adobe Exchange page, but look for that number to skyrocket in the near future.

[via John Nack]

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Songbird Inches Toward 1.0, Solves iTunes Import Problems

By Scott Gilbertson November 17th, 2008 Categories: Multimedia, Software & Tools

The team behind the Firefox-base Songbird media player has announced a second release candidate for the upcoming Songbird 1.0. While Songbird 1.0 is still not a final release, the latest version solves a big iTunes import bug that plagued the previous version.

For better or worse, most of us are stuck using iTunes and for a seamless transition to Songbird, it helps to be able to import your iTunes library and playlists. Unfortunately, the previous release candidate of Songbird would hang when importing iTunes data, but we’re happy to report that that bug has been fixed and we were able to import all our iTunes data without a hitch.

The result is that Songbird has truly become iTunes on steroids. Once your data is imported you have all the features of iTunes (sans the iTunes Store) and performance is roughly the same. But that’s where the similarities end and Songbird shows its strength — web content at the tip of your fingers, concert listings for your favorite artists, Last.fm integration, quick access to lyrics, an album art manager and much more, thanks to the Firefox-like plugin architecture.

Imagine iTunes latching itself onto the bottom of the Firefox web browser and you’ll have a pretty good idea of what Songbird offers.

One thing worth noting about Songbird 1.0 RC2, the previously available video support has been temporarily removed from the application while the developers work out some bugs in the new GStreamer back end tools.

For a full list of what’s new and changed, check out the Songbird blog post. To grab the latest version head to the nightly builds page, just bear in mind that Songbird isn’t finished yet and there are some known bugs.

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Adobe Improves AIR Platform, Hints at Flash 10’s Mobile Future

By Scott Gilbertson November 17th, 2008 Categories: Mobile, Multimedia, Software & Tools

AirlogoThe world of web-desktop hybrid apps is looking up — Adobe has released an important update for its AIR platform — and those apps may soon be migrating from your PC to your favorite mobile device.

In addition to the new version of AIR, Adobe has announced it will partner with mobile chip maker ARM to work on improving Flash support on mobile devices.

Will that mean Flash finally makes it to the iPhone? It’s too early to say, but if you’ve ever used Flash Lite, which is what most mobile devices currently offer, you know there’s nowhere to go but up.

By working direct with ARM, which makes the chips that power many mobile internet devices, Adobe hopes to create an energy-sipping, full-featured version of Flash 10 that fits in your pocket. Unfortunately, any potential Flash mobile improvements won’t be available until 2009.

But fear not, AIR 1.5 is very real and very available.

Today’s release of AIR 1.5 gives developers access to all of Flash 10’s cool new tools — like 3D effects, pixel bender tools, the new drawing API, dynamic media streaming, a new dynamic sound API and more.

But, the latest version of AIR isn’t just about Flash, it also includes a brand new build of the WebKit HTML engine, which offers vastly improved JavaScript performance.

Also new in this release of AIR is support for encrypted local databases, which means developers can now feel better about safely storing sensitive data in AIR apps.

At the moment AIR 1.5 is Mac/Windows release, though a Linux version is said to be in the works. That’s probably no surprise to Linux users, who should by now be used to Adobe to treating them like second class citizens.

However, there is one thing that should make Linux users rejoice — a native 64-bit Flash Player 10 for Linux. The much requested (and by “much” we meaning deafening internet roar) 64-bit Flash Player isn’t quite ready for prime time (you can download the alpha preview from Adobe Labs), but at least things are looking up for the high-end Linux crowd.

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Tags: flash
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Adobe Delays Photoshop.com Update

By Scott Gilbertson November 11th, 2008 Categories: Multimedia, Software & Tools

Photoshop CS4 boxAdobe has postponed the much-touted update to its Photoshop.com service. Originally set to arrive today, November 11, the update will be most notable for its increased storage options.

Webmonkey readers will no doubt be disappointed to learn that the delay also affects the Photoshop CS4 Configurator tool, which will allow you to customize panels and palettes in the new Photoshop CS4. Not only will Configurator offer a near-infinite range of palette customizing options, you’ll also be able share your layouts through Adobe Labs.

John Nack, Product Manager for Adobe Photoshop, says in a blog post that “we decided to give both tools a little extra bake time, so look for them to appear on Adobe Labs within the next two weeks.”

As for the Photoshop.com changes, you’ll soon have the option to buy additional storage space — there will be a 20GB option for $20/year, 40GB for $40/year and even a whooping 100GB option at $100/year. The coming update will also add some social features like the ability to import address books for various online e-mail services.

We’ll be sure to let you know as soon as both are available.

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What Language Do You Game In?

By Adam DuVander November 6th, 2008 Categories: Mobile, Multimedia

The developer of an online game-building platform is switching from Java to Flash. The reason? Users don’t want Java.

“Up front, I’ll say that the reason we are moving to Flash is because of Java’s adoption rates. It is not, in fact, because of the language itself but because of Java’s deployment model. We suspect that we lose somewhere between thirty and fifty percent of users due simply to the fact that we are in Java.”

Java -- DENIEDIt probably comes as no surprise to anyone who has ever tried to load applets on the web. They are slow and prone to crashing. To be fair, the same could be said of other technologies, including Flash. Java tends to get more than its equal share of criticism, for what I’d call legitimate reasons.

Still, Java has been embraced for most mobile game development, excluding the iPhone. Google’s Android open development platform uses Java. Sun estimates that its Micro Edition of Java is deployed on billions of devices.

So, is Flash the answer? Flash has been popular for creating web-based games. Adobe’s Flex framework has made programming Flash easier, giving developers a more standard environment than a timeline. But Dale Beerman, the developer making the leap to Flash, admits Java’s development environment is still “years ahead” of Flash.

Flash is also mostly unproven as a mobile language. Apple has not allowed it on the iPhone, apparently over worries of battery life. Adobe announced that it has an iPhone version ready to go, should Apple change its mind. So, Flash is getting some mobile love.

The iPhone, of course, has its own development framework, based on Objective C. There are major benefits to developing for a device as well-loved as the iPhone. Unlike Java and Flash, games written for the iPhone cannot be used elsewhere.

As we said recently, mobile casual games are going to be big. There will always be multiple platforms, but the fight for number one is still in the early rounds. Do you think it’s fair to rag on Java? Is Flash a viable alternative? Or, will all the world eventually have an iPhone?

[Graphic by Dale Beerman]

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Tags: Games, iPhone, java, Mobile
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Songbird 1.0 Poised to Rule the Jukebox Roost

By Scott Gilbertson November 5th, 2008 Categories: Multimedia, Software & Tools

The first release candidate for Songbird 1.0 is now available and contains all the features slated for the final release. Songbird, which is a free, open source media player built on the same technologies underlying Firefox, is just about ready to take on iTunes.

Unfortunately “just about” and “actually ready” are two different things. Songbird still has some lingering bugs to overcome, particularly for those looking to smoothly transition from iTunes to something much better.

Given that many of Songbird’s potential converts have large iTunes libraries already, ensuring that users are able to easily switch over to Songbird is key. After all, Firefox would have far fewer converts if you couldn’t import you Internet Explorer bookmarks, which is essentially what Songbird struggles with.

That said, the first release candidate has much to offer and is an improvement over the betas we looked at earlier.

Songbird app

The big news in this version of Songbird is that GStreamer is now the main media playback system on all platforms (not just Linux, where it originated). GStreamer allows Songbird to have a cross platform code-base and, according the developers, offers better performance, better reliability, and more plugin options than alternative like QuickTime. You can read more about the reasoning behind Songbird’s decision to use GStreamer on the Songbird blog.

While the underlying support of GStreamer isn’t necessarily a flashy or even noticeable part of the app, it means that Songbird has a strong foundation on which to build.

Indeed, as with nearly every release, Songbird RC1 is much faster. The lags and stutters when scrolling large libraries that have dogged Songbird since the very early releases are gone. Startup times are still a bit slow, though, as with iTunes, startup times are largely dependent on the size of your music library.

However, while Songbird is definitely getting close to a final release it still isn’t perfect. The speed gains and unified playback engine are great, but as with virtually all the releases I’ve tested, Songbird still chokes when importing iTunes libraries and playlists.

When I tested the latest release candidate, Songbird dutifully detected and offered to import my iTunes library. The process appeared as though it would take around twenty minutes (I have somewhere are 120,000 tracks in iTunes), which isn’t too bad since it’s a one time import.

Unfortunately the app hung up with only a fraction left to go in the progress bar and was unable to recover.

songbird import

Worse, after I force quit Songbird, relaunching the app caused it to hang and required yet another force quit. In fact, the only way I was able to get Songbird to successfully restart again was by trashing the preferences and Application Support files, which had apparently been corrupted somehow.

I then tried a different tactic, telling Songbird to simply import my music from a folder to start with. That worked without a hitch and took a mere minute or two. Then I went into the preferences and started an iTunes import again. That was two hours ago, it’s still hung up.

The short story — there are some bugs still lingering in the Songbird release candidate. However, outside of the iTunes import issues, I found this release to be remarkably stable and bug free. Browsing MP3 blogs, downloading files, installing add-ons and a myriad of other things worked just fine.

songbird web

If you’d like to give this version a try, head over to the Songbird Nightly Builds page and download a copy for your platform. Just be sure to use the bug reporting features if you have any issues.

For the rest of us, hopefully it won’t be too much longer before Songbird reaches a stable, fully function 1.0 release. We’ll be sure to keep you posted.

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Awesome Election Content Map

By Adam DuVander October 30th, 2008 Categories: Multimedia

Washington Post TimeSpace

Washington Post released a map/timeline mashup called TimeSpace to view election-related content. The Flash app embeds what appears to be a Google map, with markers related to video, photos, news articles and more. You can scroll a timeline, to see content by time period on a particular day, and select which types of content you want to see. You can also filter by keyword, such as the name of a candidate.

The timeline only goes back to 10/27, but the interface is slick, and it’s a fun way to visualize the news geographically.


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Seam Carving GUI: a Free Way to Intelligently Resize Your Photos

By Scott Gilbertson October 28th, 2008 Categories: Multimedia, Software & Tools

seam carving gui

Seam carving, or intelligent resizing as it’s also known, is one of the more jaw dropping features available in the latest version of Photoshop. But seam carving isn’t something Adobe invented so, if the stock market crash vaporized your Photoshop CS4 upgrade fund, there are other options.

In fact, there are several options for seam carving tools that don’t involve Photoshop. The online editor Fotoflexer has long offered seam carving tools and there’s also a free cross-platform app Seam Carving GUI that offers the most of what you’ll find in the new Photoshop CS4.

Seam Carving GUI is a little utility app that allows to you to intelligently resize an image without distorting the main element. You can also remove elements that you don’t want in the cropped version.

To give it a try download the code from the Google code page and then open up an image. Just paint in green over the parts you want to keep and mark anything you want to get rid of with red. Then resize your image to your desired dimensions and be amazed. The photo above shows just how extreme seam carving tools can be.

We’re big fans of seam carving and it doesn’t take a genius to see that these tools are going to change the way we look at photographs. Fortunately, thanks to Seam Carving GUI and Fotoflexer even those of us on a tight budget can get in on the fun.

[via Download Squad, photo from the Seam Carving GUI site]

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Tags: photos
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