Youtube mobile, some serious improvements!

Posted by BA on Mar 23, 2009 in Uncategorized | 1 comment

Just a few days ago I wrote about vtap. Here comes youtube to snatch limelight from it. I’m happy to see the new version of Youtube mobile application.

First of all, the reason of my happiness is the support for my Nokia N82. My handset was not recognized by Youtube earlier. I think it was too new for it :p . My N82 had no straight way of installing Youtube app. What I did earlier was, to download an app for N95 to my PC and installing it onto my N82.

Remember, I talked about some port blocking in my vtap post? Well, youtube had the same problem in the earlier version. Youtube could search and browse on my cellular network using GPRS/EDGE but when played a video, it used to fail. Same was the case with m.youtube.com. It used to launch the Real-Player which never played the video. Reason? The default media streaming on a mobile requires incoming data connections on a few ports. Many mobile networks block such ports (I dont know why, at least my network did).

I even tried running earlier version of youtube on wifi, and it failed due to the same incoming connection problem. But after a few tweaks to the router, I could get it running on wifi. All above sounds too complicated? Well, for most of us, it is.

New version of youtube application has fixed all these issues. Now I can play videos on my same old network without any problem. If you can surf the web, read the blogs or news and check your email on mobile, you can also enjoy mobile youtube. Search is simple, fast and results are displayed in a great scrolling manner that is readable enough. Recent searches are also stored and if typed in again, similar links drop down in a list, a real convenience!

Video qauality is good, its not as good as you see on the PC but the compression is reasonably lossless. Comparing to vtap, things are much better.

The application is very simple to use and has a great feature set. Simply press 7 and you’ll get the related videos searched for the selected one. Pressing 3 takes you to the home screen with the standard search box, top rated, most viewed and most recent link. All these links, search or related video result in a video list horizontally scrollable that caters to the small screen issue in a great manner.

Another great feature is the ability of changing the connection. In most applications, switching from wifi to EDGE/3G and back is not possible. Youtube has a menu option to select a different network if your currently selected network is not available anymore. No need to restart the app.

I believe a few features are missing at the price of the simplicity? Following are the features I was expecting in this release

• A login option that allows me to view my private videos, rate them, add to favorite etc.
• My customized searches (recommended by youtube) and videos that interest me mots, I love that on the web version
• Capability of uploading my mobile videos
• Sharing capability

vtap is a winner in the case of sharing. Youtube app is not letting me sms the url even. No email, no web and no text sharing of videos from the application. Its a big turn-off.

I was able to test it on a few series 60 nokias and it works like a charm. Moreover, it is not supported on my blackberry curve 8310. Do let me know what handset you are using and if the application is supported on your set or not. Simply go to http://m.google.com/youtube/download from your mobile browser. If you see a download link on the homepage, your handset is supported.
If you don’t see that link, your handset may still be supported but you will have to find it out the hard way. Please do share your experiences.

Start enjoying the mobile youtube today.

Download Link: http://m.google.com/youtube/download

vtap: Video for your mobile – Fast and easy

Posted by BA on Mar 19, 2009 in Uncategorized | 0 comments

Finally, I think we have a great video solution for mobile phones without any major glitches. I know many mobiles can play Youtube right away in their native browsers, but this is a wee bit more than only youtube. The site is a mashup of several video content sites and streams videos directly to your phone.

vtap’s focus is on easy mobile usage and fast access to the media. For easy searching, they’re using an amazing idea of typing a first few letters of the words to search for a video. For example, to search for Javed Mianddad’s six that he hit on the last ball of the match in sharjah, I simply tapped in “jav six” and walla!!! here’s your video

To keep the streaming quick, you can go into the settings and can select either high, medium or low end video streaming option. If you have a really slow connection and you can live with audio only, you can select that option too. Though I dont find high quality videos to be that high quality but its a great feature to have.

Phones with the integrated real-player can simply use the browser to search and browse the videos and can click to play the video in the built-in player. If you don’t have a built in player, vtap provides application download too. All the phones I tried, vtap worked like a charm.

The only issue is the incoming data ports. If you are using a network that doesn’t allow incoming connections for streaming and the ports are blocked by your network, you are out of luck. You can search and browser but you cannot stream the video content. This is a similar issue to that of Youtube app on some devices.

This is great to see videos optimized for a low bandwidth streaming and a very smooth playback on edge as well ass wifi, but once I’m on wifi, I expect a much better video quality. When watched on a PC, same video may play a great quality, but vtap rips the quality down on phone, regardless of type of connection you are using and type of quality settings on your software. Even HIGH quality video settings result in a lower quality video. I hope someone at vtap may read this and try to work on bandwidth/quality optimization even further.

Sharing is another great aspect of vtap. Either you use your mobile’s browser or the vtap application, you can simply share the application with friends via SMS or Email. You also have another host of option for a video like adding it to favorites, video talkbacks, related video search and smart video tagging etc.

Exact features may vary depending on your phone. According to their website vtap works with iPhone and iPod touch, a number of Windows Mobile based phones and even a bigger number of other phones. I tried it on an N82, N95-8GB, Blackberry 8310, E51. Note, all these phones that I mentinoed are not listed on their website but the solution works just great. So it may work on your phone as well.

You want to try it? I’m sure you’ll get hooked and wont stop using it for hours.

From your PC visit http://www.vtap.com
From your Mobile visit http://m.vtap.com