2008

YouTube HD for Dummies : Search, Watch, Download

by Sujoy on December 17, 2008

All about How to Watch YouTube in HD, Search for HD content on YouTube, and How to Download them

I have been receiving quite a number of emails complaining that my previous post on Youtube HD has been hard to follow. I have also received other emails congratulating me that the hack, google search code as well the downloading script worked perfectly. Just for the benefit of the people who did not get it, I am reposting it, in a simple plain layman language, so that everyone can enjoy Youtube in its full HD beauty. So here it goes.
First things first, only a few of the zillions of videos on YouTube have HD enabled in them. This solely depends on the quality of the original video that has been uploaded. If the original video being uploaded is a 1080p or a 720p video (from a Blu-Ray or an HD TV rip, in simple terms a video with a large resolution), only then we could see the HD option for that video. e.g. The KungFu Panda OST- Kungfu Fighting. It is available in 3 options.
Option 1: The Low-Quality flv version which is suitable for viewing in low bandwidth internet. The buffering of this video would be much faster but the video quality is the most inferior. This is in most cases the default video quality for all Youtube videos.

Option 2: The High Quality mp4 version which is suitable for viewing in high bandwidth internet. The quality is much better than flv. It is available for most videos on Youtube which have been uploaded recently. You can make buffering Higher Quality versions of the Video as default, by changing the Playback Settings in your YouTube account. Just follow the steps below.
Go to your YouTube account page. On the left hand side of the page, click on a link called Playback Setup. Now, you will get 3 options to choose from- low quality for slow connections, high quality for faster connections, or let YouTube choose dynamically depending on runtime connection speed.
Alternatively, even for videos which do not have High-Q viewing enabled, a better picture and sound quality version (not necessarily better resolution) is available if the video URL is tweaked.
e.g. If the Kungfu Panda OST URL is :
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=u3aTU-IJ8c4,
just append it with &fmt=18, to look like
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=u3aTU-IJ8c4&fmt=18
This would make it stream the High-Q version.

Option 3: HD version. Like I said, HD is only available for a few videos, but the number is expected to increase as we see more HD content being uploaded. All the videos available for HD can be viewed in HD by clicking on the “watch in HD” link below the video. The mentioned Kungfu Panda OST -Kungfu Fighting has the link as well.
Alternatively, HD versions can be viewed directly by appending &fmt=22 in the video URL.
So if the original URL is :
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=u3aTU-IJ8c4,
then the HD version would be
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=u3aTU-IJ8c4&fmt=22

How to Search for HD content on YouTube and Download HD videos after the jump.
[Continue Reading]

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Redesigning OKS-Part I~~ 1113 of Best Free WordPress Themes

by Sujoy on December 14, 2008

Choosing the Right WordPress Theme

I hope you people might have noticed that I have two blogs, one is this- Techkeyla, and the other one is OneKnightStands or as most of my mates call it- OKS. It was launched alongside Techkeyla, last year when I joined the independently blogging band-wagon and left the Blogger camp. Things have been great since. Visitors multiplied, my posts got linked and I got readers from all across the world. But unfortunately I haven’t been able to write as much. So to break the hibernation, I thought of redesigning the theme. I was happy with the previous theme for it supporting my long posts and clarity of font. But I needed change. After all it was a year old. So I began my hunt for the perfect wordpress theme to work on.

Sources of Free WordPress Themes.

My search began with a google search, but it was just not quite adequate. So, the search led me to multiple other blogs and other sources which I am sharing with you.

1. Smashing Magazine

Just love this blog and the exhaustive amount of sources these guys have. Check the following posts e.g.

100 Excellent Free WordPress Themes

83 Beautiful WordPress Themes You (Probably) Haven’t Seen

2.The next huge resource for anything wordpress is Mashable. For themes, I seeked help from the following posts.

30+ WordPress 3-Column Themes

30+ WordPress 2-Column Themes

And then there are numerous other blogs providing lists of numerous WordPress Themes. Some of them are listed below (after the jump). [Continue Reading]

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Search for HD videos on YouTube

by Sujoy on December 7, 2008

YouTube has enabled HD videos viewing now, in pure 960p beauty. As opposed to the normal 4:3 ratio, the widescreen 16:9 aspect ratio has been adapted, and the Videos have started to roll out. Initially, as written in my previous post , only a few videos were being enabled for testing. But the numbers have started to increase. But you would surely want to experiment various videos which have HD enabled and experience YouTube in all its maximum capacity. Here’s how to search for the HD videos available on Google. [Continue Reading]