Category: youtube

Transfer videos from Youtube to Vimeo

Posted on by John McLear

Tomnomnom made a new set of scripts for automatically uploading from the Linux shell to Vimeo.

Use the scripts to create a super simple way of uploading videos you have downloaded from Youtube (see below) to write straight into Vimeo automatically..

Get started now!

Enjoy! 🙂

UPDATE: BELOW IS THE OLD INFORMATION LEFT FOR HISTORICAL PURPOSES.



Lately Iv’e felt a bit paranoid giving Google even control of my digital domain so I wanted to move all my videos to Vimeo and to keep a local copy for me. Google makes it easy for you to individually download your video files but I wanted to bulk copy them from my youtube account to my local box and at the same time upload them to vimeo…

This very rough and buggy PHP that allows you to move all of YOUR videos from Youtube to Vimeo. You should not use this script to steal anyones content. You should not use it for malicious purposes. The script is completely legal if used appropriately, it does not violate any of Google’s or Vimeo TOS. If you do use this to upload your files to Vimeo you should delete your videos from youtube as to avoid duplicate content.

Prereq’s & installation

1. php5 & curl..
2. php.ini for Apache w/ a large memory setting. edit memory setting in /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini or whatever
3. ssh/shell access (im too lazy to write a web front end <– scrap that I wrote a web front end cause I’m super cool.)..
4. Your videos must have a 720p download available else this is just a waste of everyones times. Let’s make video on the web better ey?
5. You get a Vimeo API key. http://vimeo.com/api/applications/new — When registering you will need to set it as a Write application and set a Callback URL as FullURL/vimeo/authenticate.php —
You also want to request perms to upload via — This can take up to a few days. After registration is click click Upload Access – request, then copy your consumer key and secret to the below options
6. Visit a URL where you extracted the files.

How it works

1. Query your YouTube account, gets a list of all videos
2. For each video get the ID, metadata (name, description etc.) and store that in an array
3. Get the video file for this Video
4. Upload the video file and metadata to Vimeo via the API
5. Return to Step 2, it’s a funking loopsi.

Limitations, because there be many

1. Unicorn rainbows are limited to 127 per session.
2. You can’t exclude certain videos
3. You can only do 50 videos at a time. // run it again w/ a higher value in the start-index if you want to do more than 50.
4. First upload fails right now, just a bug..
5. Breaks upload on many characters, just requires some encoding

Grab the source code here

Run by visiting /youtube/index.php

Note: Vimeo has a daily limit on the upload API, I think it’s ~10 videos a day..

Futube Youtube player review

Posted on by John McLear

Futube(Fubra Video) is a tool provided by Fubra and it’s a perfect example of a company providing some code that isn’t fit for purpose and it strikes me the company has no means to maintain it. This is also a perfect example of why open source is so important.

“Futube is a free to use flv video player that simplifies the default user interface of YouTube videos.”

Some things Futube doesn’t do that it really needs to:
No animation or message displaying “loading” so users are under impression site isn’t working.
Full screen mode doesn’t remove the controls from the page.
No ability to change font face
No ability to easily access play time / position of a video
No ability to store video state. This is an issue if you need to momentarily hide the video for any reason, if you do hide it and bring it back the video will go into “stopped” state and when you show the video it will be back at the start.

Some things Futube does do really well:
Easy embed & color customization
Harder to click on youtube link
Simple UI

Hopefully the developer of Futube will fix the 3 issues I have before too long!

Changing Youtube to get it unblocked in the Primary Classroom

Posted on by John McLear

Over the next month I will be working with the Youtube team trying to implement changes that will make Youtube a safer tool to use in the Primary Classroom.  We managed to achieve a relatively safe Google Search experience through Safe search and we hope to copy that successful process over to Video.

Google TV and Primary School TV are both due early 2011 and I expect that within 5 years the majority of TV content will be consumed on demand over the Interwebs.  This means now is the time to address this issue.

I’m pretty confident that if you are reading this blog then you are aware of the issues surrounding Youtube and why children can’t use it.  So instead of talking about the issues I am going to simply propose three changes Youtube can make that will make teachers more confident to adopt the worlds largest video resource.

Allow a Very Safe Search mode

VSS is a Google Search parameter that stands for Very Safe Search.  Youtube’s Safe Search is called “Safety Mode”.  Safe Search passes this parameter to Google when doing searches and then that users session is always in strict search mode and their is no option to turn this off. Simply put it’s a way to enforce a safer search experience. What Youtube shouldn’t do is expect for a user to login prior to making the experience safer.  This defeats the point.  The current API claims to have a safeSearch mode but I’m not convinced it works (proof here— WARNING: Contains explicit material).  Youtube could easily add a fourth category.

Make Safety Mode more visible

Did you even know Youtube had a safety mode?  To find safety mode you have to scroll to the bottom of the page, you are then reminded it is not 100% accurate.  All in the experience is hard work and doesn’t fill one with confidence.   This will be a tough sales pitch as it means altering the UI for everyone.  Ideally the Safety Mode option would be under “Search options” and only visible when VSS isn’t set.

Implement a Custom Search Engine

A custom search engine would allow content from certain websites/publishers to be emphasized in the same way that Google Custom Search performs. This will allow third parties to improve the search experience and remove any undesirable content without having to contact Youtube.   Youtube would benefit from this as third parties would pro-actively flag up any inappropriate content, allowing Youtube to optionally crowd source this should improve the Youtube experience.  This will act very much in the same way as Custom Safe Search and will give Youtube the option to allow Educators to remove Ads from content.  Educators would benefit from this as content from educational publishers would show up higher in the search results.

What do you think? Are there still issues with Youtube that I haven’t addressed?  Are you scared of pupils uploading inappropriate videos?  I would love to hear your thoughts, please leave a comment!  I am going to be putting my proposal forward later this week so all feedback is greatly appreciated! 🙂