Orangeinks

YouTomb: Where Copyrighted YouTube Videos Rests in Peace

YouTomb is a website created by MIT Free Culture (a student organization in MIT) that tracks videos taken down from YouTube for alleged copyright violation. We all know that there is a very large amount of videos currently uploaded in YouTube that violates copyright laws. Some of them we never got to see because they have been taken down almost instantly after hitting the YouTube pages while some are taken down after gaining popularity and the original content owner decides to pull the plug.

YouTomb catalogs most of the popular videos which are already taken down. If you are thinking that you can watch the videos in YouTomb then you are mistaken, screen shots of the video and information about the takedown is as close as you can get to the buried videos. If that is the case then you may be wondering what the point is. Ever since YouTube decided to automate its takedown process for copyrighted audios and videos, MIT Free Culture became interested on how the YouTube takedown algorithm works. The goal of this project is to identify how YouTube recognizes potential copyright violations as well as to aggregate mistakes made by the algorithm. Basically, anyone can file a DMCA takedown notification at any time that cause YouTube to immediately remove alleged infringing content. If the algorithm makes a mistake then this will usually cause inconvenience to the person submitting the video and the users of YouTube.

How the YouTube takedown algorithm works as explained by the MIT Free Culture Team:

Many rights holders believe that videos uploaded to YouTube damage their business or income stream. As such, rights holders can submit their works to a database of copyrighted work to be fingerprinted. Whenever YouTube’s automated system finds a matching fingerprint (or part of the fingerprint), it notifies the rights holder. At that point, the rights holder can optionally take down the video.

Since YouTube is the most popular video hosting site in the internet, it is good to know that there is a group like MIT Free Culture who takes interest in keeping tabs and constantly checking system faults. This will provide information for developing better systems and algorithms for startups and existing web services.

Tags: algorithm, copyright, copyright infingement, MIT, MIT Free Culture, you tomb, You Tube

Download YouTube Videos Using ExtractYouTube

ExtractYouTube is a simple YouTube Video search and download website. You can use their site to search for YouTube videos that you want to download or just paste the URL of the YouTube video in their search bar to begin the download immediately. There are other websites that offer the same service plus format conversion. The only thing is that most of them are slow and fails in the process of conversion.

ExtractYouTube is simple fast and readily available for use in any browser. If you want to convert the video into another format, there are lots of websites out there offering a fast service for this. I would recommend Media Convert for this task. It’s fast, reliable and the best part of all, it’s free. Sometimes it’s better to use a service that focuses on a particular task than use a service that offers several tasks rolled into one.

Note: You might also want to try using FreeMusicZilla for your YouTube downloads. It’s an online music stream downloader which also works on YouTube and other video streaming sites.

Tags: Download, extractyoutube, Free, freemusiczill, media convert, You Tube, youtube

Create a Flash-Based Website Online Using Wix

Wix is an online application that you can use to create and publish Flash-based websites without any programming knowledge. I was very curious to see what they are offering and when I got an invitation from the Wix team to test the app, I immediately took the plunge.

The Wix Editor is a flash based drag and drop tool which makes it easier for anyone to add, remove and arrange objects in the webpage project. Adding a page element like buttons and borders can be done in just a couple of clicks. Adding a new page and linking them together will not require you to place href codes, you can just click the image of the page you want an object to link to. Linking to an external page however will require you to place the URL of the external link, which is the only coding part of the website making process that you will ever encounter when using Wix.

Different forms of media like videos (from YouTube), music and pictures (from Flickr, Wix or your hard drive) can be easily inserted in the project. Widgets like photo albums, media player and mini pages are also available as enhancements. What is even more interesting in the editor is that the editing is not only limited to using the buttons and menus in Wix. You can also use keyboard shortcuts like Ctrl+X for cut and Ctrl+V for paste and other keyboard shortcuts. The right click mouse button can also be used when editing which is rarely seen in flash based applications. There is no undo function so one must be careful in deleting elements, instead use the cut command.

Once you have completed a website or a page, you can choose to publish it publicly which will be available to the Wix community and will be indexed by search engine or you can choose the private mode. An embed code is also provided so that you can place your work in social sites and blogs. You can also use the email option which can be useful if you to use the flash page for marketing or company brochures.

In conclusion, Wix is a powerful web app which can do wonders for anyone who wants to create a website without going to the process of coding. The user friendly and eyecandy user interface makes website design an enjoyable experience. The service is still in private beta and If you want to check out the cool app, just visit their site and sign up for an invitation. Check out a simple website that I made using Wix. I have provided an embedded version below. Check out the full size here.

Free Flash Websites – Wix.com

Tags: flash, web application, web search engine, website, wix, wix editor, You Tube

Amazing Slow Motion High FPS compilation

Tags: Slow Motion, You Tube

Disable You Tube Related Videos in Your Blog

When you post a You Tube video in your site it usually displays a “Related Videos” at the end of the clip, then you’ll end up promoting a video that you have no intention of putting in your blog. Some of these videos may result to a change the view of what you are really trying to show your readers (or viewers). You may or may not care about the related videos in your site but this can prove annoying to some.

Here is a simple tip on how to disable the ‘related videos’ in youtube when you embed a video clip in your blog.

When you copy and paste the code into your blog, you will see the text &rel=1 near the end of the clip URL. Just change the 1 to a 0. So &rel=1 becomes &rel=0. The video URL is referenced twice in the code, change it both times.

Here is a sample code:

<object width=”425″ height=”355″><param name=”movie” value=”http://www.youtube.com/v/AcT_ZyY3F0k&rel=1“></param><param name=”wmode” value=”transparent”></param><embed src=”http://www.youtube.com/v/AcT_ZyY3F0k&rel=1” type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” wmode=”transparent” width=”425″ height=”355″></embed></object>

If you don’t see the above text in your code, just add &rel=0 at the end of the You Tube clip URL in the code.

Tags: Blog, Blog Tips, Related Videos, You Tube