Alright, that tutorial is a great tutorial and Im’a let you finish…..
Sorry. I could not be the only person in the world who didn’t make fun of Kanye West.

The tutorial on picking apart youtube that I started yesterday will continue, but I have to pause it just for the time being. The Fall Tour of Interactive Studios has taken off and there is much to do. The studios participating are all locked down, and the registration is going bananas right now.

I planned for that, that always happens.

But in addition to this I have an opportunity to take in a very interesting event called Conversuasion, that is happening at the historic Arts and Letters building tomorrow night.
This is another event conceived by the folks at AdLounge. I really enjoyed the last one I attended, and so I’m quite pleased to take in another of their offerings.

I very much like the theme of “playtime with purpose” that they seem to have going on at their events. This time around it is storytime.

You can read more about Conversuasion here.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

And don’t worry, I’ll be back to committing more Youtube mayhem before you know it.  In the interest of science of course…

A little while back we created a custom video player.

I did it from scratch, working with the netconnection object of Flash, in order to really understand everything that happens under the hood of a video player (and net connections in general).  The player that we made was quite good from an OOP standpoint, and you could mix and match the media that you gave it to play.  One of the things we were asked to do for the project was have the player consume youtube video.  We did this, and all was well.

It was only more recently that I discovered this technique has issues when using the FLVPlayback component that comes with Flash CS3 and up.  Having custom rolled a video player, I knew that the problem had to be in the component itself, and not in the ability to play the video from youtube.

Now before I go further, I should state that what I did next was an academic exercise, because officially Youtube does not support loading videos outside of their approved player.  Doing so is subject to breakages for that reason.  Still I wondered how it would be possible to grab youtube video into a custom player that used the playback component of Flash.  I couldn’t let it go, because the component actually has a lot of nice features that simplify working with video greatly, and I’ve recommended it often to people that I tutor.

I found a lot of good hints at this URL.

However, I’ve come to understand that there are a few key omissions in that post, that I have discovered through much digging.

Namely, contrary to the comments that state so, the method listed does not return high quality video.  Note that I say ‘high quality’ rather than high definition.  You see, youtube publishes various sizes of all videos, above and beyond what is called high def.  And if you want to get, say the 600 pixel size, the method outlined at the url above will not work.  I discovered that it always returns the low quality version, and I set about figuring out a way around it.

In the next couple of posts, I will go on to explain how youtube videos work, and how it is possible to locate the various qualities of the video in flv format, as well as mp4, and even the thumbnail images generated.

But for now, I’ve got to get some sleep…

-t.

We have a day: The Fall Tour of Interactive Studios will take place on Friday October 16.

We are hard at work now confirming all of the shops for the tour.  I’m happy to say that we have already confirmed over half of our studio stops with a day of making the announcement.  We are looking to add another three shops this year – these are outstanding Toronto-based creative shops, each with their own unique strengths.  I am certain tour attendees will not be disappointed by the lineup.

Speaking of which, though the registration page has not gone up yet, we have already received 42 requests for booking the tour.  Spots will go FAST when they are made available, so keep watching this  blog for notice when the registration page goes up.  Better yet plug the feed into your reader for instant updates.

2008 Fall Tour Graphics by Sabrina Rossi

I am also pleased to announce that we are welcoming back Sabrina Rossi, the graphic designer behind the stylized and beautiful materials from last year, and we are adding on Trevor Henry, one of the artists to come through the Oddly in-house artist program.  Trevor is an extremely skilled new talent and will be a fantastic addition to the design of this year’s tour.

Last year was incredibly fun, and this year promises to be even more so.  I’m greatly looking forward to seeing friends again, as well as making new ones.  I can’t wait to meet all the eager new talent heading into their digital media programs, introducing them to the industry professionals they will encounter.

Something magical happens when you combine the experience of industry veterans with the energy of new talent.  With the tour in its fourth year now, the industry continues to benefit from this event, growing stronger each time.

If you are interested in learning more about the Fall Tour of Interactive Studios, you could take a look at the video from 2008.