Based on the length of the videos from Faculty Academy, it’s not a bad thing to have them broken up in smaller more digestible chunks. Not that all of our speakers weren’t SUPER compelling

The other nice touch of having the direct YouTube connection is that a playlist is automatically created if the videos are broken up. So, without too much fuss you can watch the “chunks” one after the other. If you decide to take a break, you can pick up where you left off quite easily.

So here are the videos, embedded as playlists from Faculty Academy 2011:

(Note: the Michael Wesch video is available at Justin.tv.

I’m getting back on my feet after a busy live-streaming week, and a bit of a hiatus from posting in this space. Anyway, here’s a quick post about an interesting follow-up to a great video from Michael Wesch’s Digital Ethnography project.

We’re working on a new video, tentatively titled “The Visions of Students Today.” We are hoping that a few students all over the world will be willing to show us how they see their world and how they learn.

The post giving the details is a call for submissions of a two-minute video of “critical learning moments” from the students perspective. Hoping some of the “ds106-ers” will see this and run with it.

Update: Here are the videos on YouTube tagged with vost2011.

A while ago I mentioned a cool program that could download and convert YouTube videos. It was a Mac only program called Evom. I lamented that I wished there was an easy program for Windows that could do what Evom did. Well, it’s here in the form of Fastest YouTube Downloader. I know, what a great name

It’s not quite the drag and drop goodness of Evom on the Mac, but it lives up to its name. IT IS FAST. Almost magically so (you hear that Apple?). There is also a version for the Mac, so this might be that elusive cross-platform beauty I’ve been looking for. It does what you expect, and after downloading the video, gives you a wide selection of files types to convert to – including MP3 audio files. I’m putting it through its paces, but it looks like a good one. The creators even have a quick video for further enticement.

I highlight this story because I continue to be amazed at the democratization that YouTube enables. Anyone with a video camera – in this case Mr. Dymovsky and his brother-in-law – can speak their minds and, hopefully, bring about change in the world, or at least in their world. To date, this video has been seen by a million or more people, a level that certainly qualifies as “viral”. It is also on the public record that is YouTube, and if Mr. Dymovsky does indeed disappear, it makes it more difficult to explain to the world what happened. If Russia is truly willing to change its corruption problem, he could be a true hero. The world is watching, and more importantly the world is now able to watch!

Do a search for “download youtube videos” and the results you get will offer up countless websites with instructions, services, tools, and videos dedicated to the subject. You would think that it was popular to download videos from the YouTube site, and you would be right. I’ve written numerous times on the subject of YouTube, outlining the benefits, but mostly I point out what a valuable resource the site is. Want to find a clip from a popular movie? Consult YouTube. Want to view that obscure music video from the 80′s? Consult YouTube. Want to watch your state’s governor deliver the latest information that will affect you? Consult YouTube.

Over the past year and a half I have written a few times on how to take YouTube videos and incorporate them into PowerPoint presentations (here, here, and here). Two of those methods involve downloading the videos and converting them to video formats that PowerPoint will recognize. One of them involves using the YouTube video live in the presentation. I received a comment on my post on Embedding YouTube in PowerPoint 2007 from “John” that was just a republishing of a section of YouTube’s Terms of Service:

5. Your Use of Content on the Site

In addition to the general restrictions above, the following restrictions and conditions apply specifically to your use of content on the YouTube Website.

1. The content on the YouTube Website, except all User Submissions (as defined below), including without limitation, the text, software, scripts, graphics, photos, sounds, music, videos, interactive features and the like (“Content”) and the trademarks, service marks and logos contained therein (“Marks”), are owned by or licensed to YouTube, subject to copyright and other intellectual property rights under the law. Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only and may not be downloaded, copied, reproduced, distributed, transmitted, broadcast, displayed, sold, licensed, or otherwise exploited for any other purposes whatsoever without the prior written consent of the respective owners. YouTube reserves all rights not expressly granted in and to the Website and the Content.
2. You may access User Submissions for your information and personal use solely as intended through the provided functionality of the YouTube Website. You shall not copy or download any User Submission unless you see a “download” or similar link displayed by YouTube on the YouTube Website for that User Submission.

I don’t know whether anonymous John was trying to be helpful, or snotty, but there are several points I want to make about YouTube downloads. First, EVERY TIME you watch a video at YouTube’s site, or even embedded on another site, you are downloading it to your computer! You have no choice. You are not streaming it, you are using a technology known as Progressive download. Here’s proof (screencast “YouTube Video and Progressive Download“) Now if I download a video, then republish it in a PowerPoint video, then OK, you got me. However, if I’m sharing that presentation with students for their further enlightenment, then I have the start of an argument for Fair Use. Then depending on what content it is and how much, I hope to make my argument stronger. John posted his comment on the post that described the ability to embed a live video into PowerPoint, so if there is no live Internet connection, no video appears in the presentation. It is no different than embedding a video on another web page. It makes for a more seamless way of doing a presentation with web video, as opposed to switching out of Powerpoint and opening a web browser, then switching back to PowerPoint and continuing the presentation. Sorry John, the Terms of Service don’t apply here, or at best, it’s extremely muddy.

Which gets me to my next point. YouTube needs to rethink their download terms. Let me reiterate that the technology that YouTube uses to show videos breaks their own Terms of Service. They have begun to allow certain organizations the ability to offer “official” downloads and provide a download button. In an article from February, YouTube announced that they were exploring ways to offer videos offline. They were testing “testing free downloads of YouTube videos from Stanford, Duke, UC Berkeley, UCLA, and UCTV“. An example is “The Role of Creativity at Stanford“, a video from Stanford University that has a button to allow you to download an MPEG4 version of the video. YouTube is even experimenting with Creative Commons licenses, but I can’t see yet where an average YouTube member can implement these licenses. It is only open to approved partners, and the partners program isn’t a program you gain instant access to. YouTube is moving way too slowly for the average producer, and seem to bend over backwards to appease media companies with their shoot first, ask questions later take-down policy.

YouTube needs to catch up with Flickr in offering a streamlined way of licensing through Creative Commons. Instead, I see the monitization train coming on full speed ahead. Here’s an example of one of those partners participating in a test of revenue generation by offering downloads of their video, for $0.99. Copyright infringement is still rampant on YouTube, but I argue that it is good for the most part. If people are watching all ten parts of The Wedding Singer on YouTube, then more power to them. If they are using a program to download the videos and stitch them together again and burn them to DVD, then hire them as a New Media Specialist. Either way they are never going to make a good customer for purchasing the original DVD anyway. Now there are legitimate reasons to take down videos from sources that are already putting their content out on the web for free such as Comedy Central. They want the advertising revenue for their site, that makes sense, but come up with new models for other types of content. A good start is a link to the iTunes store for those obscure 80′s music videos.

Now I’m not saying that YouTube is doomed to fail (they’re obviously wildly sucessful), but they need to take a more balanced approach. YouTube is doing some good things with their YouTube EDU and non-profit sections. Now it’s time to make it easier to get the content out into the hands of the people who can make a difference, change things for the better, and do what the pioneers in this industry did in the first place – build on other people’s work. A little download help, please?!?

To this:

You can still view a given YouTube video in a normal fashion (with all the distracting images and adverts) by either clicking a button in the lower right corner labeled “Go To Site”, or you can hold down the Ctrl key while clicking the link to the video, which will prevent YouTube Cinema from kicking in. Then if you want to watch in cinema mode, right-click somewhere on the page and choose “Play in Cinema” from the menu. You can also play around with the background color used to display the film. By default it uses a dark-green color. I personally would go with black. It doesn’t appear to be an instant change, but will take effect on the next viewing.

YouTube may start to include a similar feature in all of it’s videos. It already has a “turn down the lights” button on some videos, including the Star Trek Original Series videos (for example). Also, it doesn’t appear to work with High Definition videos, and it also doesn’t work on videos where embedding has been disabled. You can display videos using the high quality setting and you can even make the video slightly larger than the normal size. It also will work with a playlist of videos, so you could conceivably watch an entire movie that has been broken up into parts and uploaded to YouTube – not that such things exist. Popcorn anyone?

President Obama not only makes his case for why we need the stimulus package, but he announces a new website to track the spending of it – Recovery.gov. If your reaction to all this is “We’ll see”, then you’re right. We will.

Hat tip to Eric Holscher for his tweet!

Sarcasm notwithstanding, the sentiment in the above video is held by many people – “YouTube is a site of millions of sucky videos.” I have, in the past, argued against that statement here, here, here, and here. Until recently, a valid argument for YouTube’s suckiness would have been that high quality video was not an option. Today, that is no longer an issue and it’s ushering in a whole new incentive to get YouTube into new arenas such as the home theater market, and mobile computing realms. So what new places is YouTube popping up? Would it be a gross overstatement if I said “everywhere”? Without addressing further the argument of there being good and valuable content on YouTube, here is a list of some of the interesting places that YouTube is rearing its far-from-ugly head.

New LCD and plasma panels – Manufacturers are starting to experiment with the idea of networked flat panel TVs. YouTube is one of the services included in Panasonic’s Viera Cast TV, and Sony’s Bravia Internet Video Link Module, an add-on that attaches to Sony’s Bravia televisions.

Streaming Media set-top boxes – These devices are connected to the Internet, either through WiFi or wired Ethernet. Apple TV was one of the first to offer YouTube as an option for video content, in addition to playing movies, music, photos and podcasts from your iTunes library. Vudu is a set-top box for movies on-demand and adds YouTube access.  Netgear, makers of networking hardware, is dipping its toe into the YouTube pool, and Tivo looks to have a pretty robust implementation as well.
Update: Add a Kodak box to the list.

iPhone – Though Apple is now boasting that it has had over 500 million apps downloaded and 15,000 apps are available in the iTunes store, there is a built-in You Tube application for the iPhone. It connects directly to YouTube and plays the h.264 versions of the videos. The quality and the experience is first rate, unless you’re trying to access it over the slower EDGE network, then the fun subsides quite quickly. Oh, and Windows Mobile (ick!) has a YouTube Player too.

Computer (well duh?) – I know, you can go to youtube.com and access the videos, but the popular Miro software will search and play YouTube videos, in addition to managing video podcast feeds.

DVD players and game consoles – Soon, in addition to watching your Blu-ray movies and Netflix Watch Now content, owners of the new line of LG networked Blu-ray players will also be able to connect to the YouTube service. Also, recently announced was the addition of YouTube interfaces for Sony’s PS3 and the Nintendo Wii.

PowerPoint – I’ve talked about this before, but just in case you don’t know, it is fairly simple to Embed YouTube videos in PowerPoint.

SlideShare presentations – Speaking of PowerPoint, the great SlideShare service now offers the ability to insert YouTube videos in between the slides in the online version of your presentation.

Plugins for WordPress – Again not anything new, but a reminder that there are easy plug-ins available for the WordPress blogging (excuse me, web publishing) platform to embed your YouTube videos into posts. Anarchy and Viper’s Video Quicktags are two examples. There is also a built-in YouTube Plugin for Microsoft’s Windows Live Writer, which I still use (and am using now) to write my blogs posts, even though the WordPress interface is much improved with version 2.7.

Now that’s a lot of places to put your lame videos!

A little over a year ago I posted Embed YouTube Video in PowerPoint Offline using various tools to allow the embedding of YouTube videos in PowerPoint presentations. In the mean time, YouTube has added a bazillion more videos, and some new tools have become available to make it much simpler to use that wonderful resource to enhance your presentations. If you didn’t click the link above to my previous post, I used a website (at Techcrunch.com) to download a YouTube video, and then converted the Flash video file to an mpeg file using Riva FLV Encoder. It wasn’t all that difficult a procedure, but it had it’s clunky moments.

Now, short of PowerPoint directly supporting the use of Flash video, which it still does not, there is now a much simpler way of accomplishing the YouTube embed. The basic difference from the previous method is that this approach is more streamlined. The download of the video is accomplished with a Firefox add-on, or plug-in (instead of a website), and the video is then converted to a Windows Media video file (instead of mpeg), which retains more of the original quality of the YouTube video. Converting it to Windows Media also allows the side benefit of the ability to further edit in Windows Movie Maker.

Starting with the add-on, called Video Download Helper, we take the approach of having the tool available wherever the media is, instead of having to go to YouTube, copy the URL of the video, and then paste that URL at another website. What Video Download Helper does is “discover” any videos that are associated with a given webpage. An icon will then animate in the toolbar of the Firefox web browser indicating that it has found one or more media files. Clicking the icon will reveal a drop-down menu showing the file(s) that are available. Selecting a file will begin the download. It will download the file with the .flv extension included, something the Techcrunch tool did not do.

Now with the Flash video on the computer, it is time to convert it to Windows Media format. A free, open-source tool called WinFF comes to the rescue, as previously the only way to accomplish the conversion with a free tool was using the VLC player/converter. Every time I have ever used VLC to convert to WMV it left a few seconds of what I’ll call “compression garbage” at the beginning of the video. With WinFF, that garbage is gone. WinFF is just a simple GUI interface on top of the FFMPEG program, a dreaded command line program, and not for the faint of heart. A few clicks in WinFF and your YouTube video is soon converting and ready for inserting into PowerPoint.

Watch the screencast Embed YouTube Video into PowerPoint.