[General Topics] Menneisyys:
1.2 Browsing the mobile version of the YouTube on the Web (Windows Mobile (WM), Symbian, BB(?))

If you fire up YouTube in your mobile Web browser for the first time, you'll be taken to the mobile version available at http://m.youtube.com/ - as opposed to the desktop one. This is vastly different from the desktop version in that it uses 3GP / RTSP - and has much less bandwidth usage even for rendering Web pages themselves.

This, of course, has both advantages and disadvantages. While it has much lower video/audio quality and is incompatible with firewalls (except for directly Net-connected Access Points, which almost all do decent RTSP NAT'ing), it uses applications most likely to be already present on your handset. For example, most Symbian handsets have the RealOne Player sufficient for playing back RTSP streams, but comparatively few have the latest, recently released Flash Lite 3. Similarly, on Windows Mobile, several, mostly HTC-branded devices come (but if your device doesn't have it, you can safely download and install it) with HTC's Streaming Media as is explained HERE. Finally, it MIGHT be compatible with more recent BlackBerries too as they too have an RTSP-capable media player; in my tests, however, it reset my OS 4.5.0.9 (beta)-based BlackBerry 8800 - unlike vTap's streams. (This doesn't necessarily mean it resets all other BlackBerries!)

Note that m.youtube.com already has ALL the videos available, unlike some months ago when it was first announced. That is, if you can live with the lower video / audio quality of 3GP streaming (and/or you don't have a network connection making RTSP streaming impossible), it might be a better choice than the desktop version - on both Symbian and Windows Mobile. Also, its interface offers exactly the same capabilities as that of the desktop version - in a much more bandwidth- and memory-conserving way. This also means you don't need to learn a brand new interface - your can safely rely on your already existing knowledge of the desktop YouTube interface. (Not that the alternative apps and interfaces would be THAT hard to master...)

Also note that if you ever click "View Desktop Version" link once (at the bottom of the page), after that, you'll always be taken to the desktop version.

1.3 Using the official YouTube MIDlet, YouTube for Mobile (beta) (currently, Symbian)

If you navigate to http://m.youtube.com/app from inside the browser of your (select) Nokia or Sony-Ericsson handsets (N73, E65, N95, 6120c, 6110n / k800i, w880i), you can easily download and deploy the client by just clicking the Download link.

This client is a standalone app; that is, you don’t need to fire up for example the Nokia Web browser to get to your videos.

It has both restrictions and advantages. The biggest problem with it is that it can’t work over Wi-Fi connections (even with RTSP NAT correctly working, which is pretty much the case with most current Wi-Fi access points), unlike other clients. That is, you can only use wireless data to access videos. Another problem is that it’s only able to access 3GP streaming, meaning low playback quality.

However, it has a very nice and capable GUI, much better and powerful than that of most of the standalone alternatives on all platforms (not only Symbian). For example, it supports upload, account; it has related videos and is VERY polished – for example, it has search history support, which is even saved through restarts. Some screenshots showing it in action:

(searching in progress)

IMG]http://www.winmobiletech.com//042008YouTubeBible/NativeYTJavaClientRelVideos.png[/IMG]

(related videos)

(search history)

(flagging videos)

(A GUI screenshot of portrait and landscape playback is HERE and HERE; unfortunately, the screen capturer app couldn’t capture the rendered video.)

Note that this app, currently, is NOT compatible with any MIDlet Manager on Windows Mobile, as has also been explained HERE. The reason for my not putting it in the strictly Symbian-only section is that it hopefully will be made compatible with Windows Mobile as well – if Google doesn’t release a native (C++) version for the operating system, as they have done with Google Maps.

Related threads HERE, HERE and HERE.