Back in February I wrote an article, 4 Youtube Tools You Probably Don’t Know About. Today I am going to do a follow-up on it. Although we all use Youtube on a regular basis there are plenty of awesome things about it most of us have no idea about. Here are my current 6 best things about Youtube.
As you probably know some Youtube videos can be watched in higher quality. For all such videos Youtube displays ‘watch in high quality’ link right below the menu. Clicking on it will refresh the page and start playing high quality version.
Now, wouldn’t it be a lot easier if Youtube played high quality version automatically whenever there is one. If you’re up for it, just head over to your Youtube account settings page, scroll down to the very bottom and look for ‘Video Quality’ link. Click on that link and you’ll land on a page where you can set Youtube to play higher quality videos by default.
Being able to download Youtube videos is a must for me. Whether it’s a music video, some cool commercial, or a funny standup piece, I need to have an option to download them to my PC or iPod.
Enter xVideoServiceThief. It’s a video downloader designed specifically for Youtube and other video sharing websites. I tried lots and lots of video downloaders but this one beats them all.
Here are some of the things I like about it
- light on your system resources
- very simple to use
- can download multiple videos simultaneously
- supports over 50 video sharing websites
- can automatically convert dwonloaded video to AVI (Windows), WMV, MPEG 1/2, MP4 (Apple iPod), 3GP (mobile phone) and MP3 formats.
At the moment xVideoServieThief available for Windows and Linux users. Their site also says that Mac version is coming very soon. However if you don’t feel like installing anything and rather use something web-based then try Anjoto.
As I have mentioned just recently Youtube is by far the best website for watching standups online. You’ll find pretty much any episode for all popular comedians out there.
You can use the above xVideoServiceThief to get your favorite episodes to your iPod or mobile and watch them while on the road.
With nearly half a million downloads, Videoembed is one of the most popular Greasemonkey scripts ever. Here is what it does. It automatically embeds videos after links to sites like (youtube, metacafe, google video etc) so that you can watch the video without opening a new page. See screenshot for Digg Video section below.
Before:
After:
How about automatic Youtube playlist that plays videos matching certain tags?
That’s exactly what you can do with Infinitube. Just enter some keyword describing the videos you want to see (funny, rihanna, car commercial etc.) and wait for InfiniTube to create the playlist for you.
Once the playlists is ready hit the full-screen button and let it roll.
If you share videos on a regular basis you’ll find this one invaluable. Splicd.com is a website that makes it easy to share only certain part within any Youtube video.
Copy and paste Youtube link. Select your start and end points on video timeline and get Splicd link that can be shared with others. When a person clicks on the link he’ll be taken to the video page where he can play the part you selected.
Are you aware of any other websites Youtube users should know about? Share them in comments.
(By) Aibek, the guy behind MakeUseOf.com
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Filed Under: Lists of tools
Tags: converter, downloader, online video, Youtube
Ref point #3, yes I try to get some time to watch stand-up comedy on Youtube at least two or three times a week. Keeps me uplifted!
Thanks,
Art Gonzalez
Check my Squidoo Lens at: Quantum Knights
Ok, I’m not a troll, but _have_ to comment, seeing the video you put up for point #6. IT Crowd really rocks. LOL.
Yep, they definitely Rock !
That’s a pretty useful list - dugg!
>>”Back in February I wrote an article, 4 Youtube Tools You Probably Don’t Know About.”
lol….
my bad mate, that was ur post, I only did the edititing :-). I REALLY forgot abt it.
I want to be able to search for a term and do a “Download All” like Miro. I dont like Miro because it does not preserve the names of the downloaded videos. Copy Pasting individual URLs to download videos is just plain trouble.
You might want to try File2HD
http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/file2hd-download-mp3s-videos-myspace-imeem/