Tag Archives: youtube

Miro, Youtube Worldwide

See the World with Youtube

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We mentioned Miro in a previous post. Read about it here: Miro  We think Miro is superior to viewing Youtube and other video sites when compared to your normal browser. (That browser should be Chrome, by the way.)  One of the best things about Miro is that you can record most of the videos you see plus, and this is the best part, you can set it so you can view videos from around the world. Let’s just say that censorship in North America is quite different than it is in other parts of the world. Here’s how to tune Miro to let you see videos from everywhere:

1. Once you download and install Miro, sign in to Youtube. Remember that you don’t need a Gmail account for this, any email account will do. Why sign in? Well, if you’re signed in then you can change your settings and Youtube will remember them. You will also be able to subscribe to any Youtube account that you like. That way, you can keep track of any new videos that are posted by the accounts you subscribe to.

2. Down at the bottom of the page, you’ll see this:

Photo of Miro 1
Click the menu button. We’ve got ours set to WorldWide already.

 

3. Click the little arrow and this will appear (scroll down to see the full list of countries):

Photo of Miro 2
Choose a country or, better yet, choose Worldwide.

 

4. We’re suggesting ‘Worldwide’ but you can choose whatever you want. The best part of this setting is that you can search for videos using any language. While you’re using your own language on the main window, Youtube will search for whatever word you type into the search slot. We think you’ll be amazed at what you can see using this technique. Video production is not restricted to North America. People are the same all over the world as you’ll see. Now, the videos will be presented in other languages, obviously. Some have subtitles, some don’t. No matter. You can still enjoy the sight gags and silliness that you see, regardless. Pratfalls are just as funny in French or Russian or Japanese as they are in English.

Finally, the key benefit to all of this is that you’ll be able to see full length movies in some countries Youtube feed. Do a few searches, let Youtube get a feeling for your ‘type’ of video, then sit back and see what they suggest for you to see. As you know, once you take a lead and view a certain type of video, Youtube suggests others that are visually or thematically similar. We think that you’ll be surprised and thrilled with what you can see once you change the country setting to ‘Worldwide’. We were!

Thanks for reading! Like us on Facebook and you’ll be able to ask us questions, pretty much on a one to one basis. Here’s the link:  Computers Made Simple on Facebook 

Chinese Social Media

Alternatives to Youtube

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While the Western world seems infatuated with Youtube, the Eastern world, at least those in China, cannot access it. The strange thing about this is that the West can access just about any site in China. What good is that you ask? Well, if you’re stuck on Youtube then you’re missing Youku!

Youku.com is China’s answer, some would say copy, of Youtube. While both sites show many of the same videos, there is a vast selection of Youku-only videos. Yes, the site is in Chinese but any searches can be done in English. If you’re looking for Jay Chou, for instance, just type in his name, forget about the fact that you don’t read or speak Chinese. Looking for episodes of Friends? Type in Friends. It’s that simple.

Baidu.com is a bit different. Baidu is China’s answer to Google. When you get to the site, you’re looking at what is essentially the same menu as Google. If you’re using Google Chrome, and you should be, here’s the magic it can do:

Photo of Baidu site.
Oh no! It’s all in Chinese!
Photo of Baidu in English
Let Google work its magic and, suddenly, it’s all in English!

Once you’re feeling comfortable again, search for the videos you would like to see. Baidu is not as comprehensive as Youku, simply because Youku hosts its own videos while Baidu searches many other Chinese sites for its resources. We’ve only mentioned Youku, since it’s the most user-friendly, but there are many other Chinese video sites. We’d recommend that you stick with Youku, however. Some other Chinese sites, just like their counterparts in the West, are full of malware and adware. Stay safe!

Next time, we’ll show you how to record some of these videos to your computer. We’ll also take another look at downloading Facebook photo albums. We’ve had an update from one of the programmers of a plug-in we wrote about a few weeks ago. Stay tuned!

Thanks for reading!

Video Capture

Another way to save online videos

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We’ve written about saving online videos before using Freecorder but this time we’re going to look at Realplayer.  Realplayer is free, at least the version we use is free, but they offer premium versions as well. The premium software includes more features but we like free at Computers Made Simple. We feel that the no-cost version works just fine, thank you.

Real had some problems in the early years of the Internet. Maybe you don’t remember those days but Real was pretty much shunned by early Internet users because they included bits of malware in their software. OK, it wasn’t really malware but the original Realplayer kept track of many things that a user did on the Internet and sent that information off to Real, without the user being aware of it. Now, Realplayer seems pretty safe, even though Google’s StopBadware.org has named Realplayer as badware. We can’t find dates on any of the articles we researched on this but, to us anyway, Realplayer seems quite safe. The two knocks against it were that Realplayer would have pop-up ads, which weren’t there when we used it, and that it would not uninstall the Rhapsody part of Realplayer. Again, we didn’t notice that because we haven’t uninstalled it yet. It works perfectly.

Once you download and install Realplayer, you’ll be asked to install the browser plug-ins. These are the things that let you download just about ANY video that is playing in your browser. We use Chrome but we also tested the download feature in Explorer and both work equally well.

Head over to Youtube or some other video site and start any video. You should see a little ‘Download This Video’ as shown here:

Realplayer downloading plugin
Click the words ‘Download This Video’ and you’re all set.

If you don’t see the button, run your cursor (mouse) over the top right corner of the video and the ‘Download This Video’ menu should appear. RealPlayer will even tell you if it can’t download the video. Isn’t that handy?

After you click the download link, Realplayer will start to save the video on your computer. Don’t close the browser window until Realplayer has finished. Depending on your Internet connection, you may not have to wait for the video to play completely. In other words, the video will sometimes feed faster than it plays which will allow Realplayer to finish the download before the video is finished playing in your browser. This happens with Youtube more often than some other sites but Realplayer will work on just about every site that has streaming video on it. Because of DRM restrictions, not all sites will work with Realplayer but we found that most do.

Thanks for reading!