A brand new way to play YouTube clips on your Windows Mobile device!

[Menneisyys]

Anyone into watching YouTube videos knows it has always been pretty problematic to play YouTube videos on Windows Mobile. This has also been explained in my related article Playing Flash Video (FLV) files on the Pocket PC - is it possible? (http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&title=playing_flash_video_flv_files_on_the_poc&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1).

The built-in PIE / IEM, because of the very bad JavaScript support, has always been unable to play them back and it was only lately that Opera Mobile (as of the first beta of 8.65) and NetFront (as of TP 3.4 007 released early June, 2007 (http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&title=web_browsing_news_new_version_of_opera_m&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1)) received YouTube support.

These solutions are really sub-par, particularly that of NetFront, which has a comparatively slow Flash plug-in.

This means, so far, the best way to watch YouTube videos was relying on external, Web-based convertor services listed in my earlier all-in-one article on playing back YouTube videos (http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&title=playing_flash_video_flv_files_on_the_poc&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1). These convertor services, unfortunately, need a lot of additional work and, in general, result in files that are (much) larger and/or of (much) lower quality than the original YouTube videos.

TCPMP Plugin for Flash Video on PPC (http://sourceforge.net/projects/tcpmpflvplugin/) for the rescue! It provides a VERY fast (MUCH faster than even Opera Mobile’s playback, let alone the far inferior YouTube support in the latest NetFront beta) and, what is more, conversion-less (meaning no additional bandwidth / quality loss because of the conversion) solution. What is more, it’s FREE, as is TCPMP itself, and runs on both Pocket PC’s and, with some restrictions, touch screen-less Smartphones.

In the following, I explain how it should be used.

1. download the latest (currently: 0.3) version from HERE (http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=196939&package_id=232906) and, of course, TCPMP (http://picard.exceed.hu/tcpmp/test/) (either the PPC (tcpmp.pocketpc.0.72RC1.cab (http://picard.exceed.hu/tcpmp/test/tcpmp.pocketpc.0.72RC1.cab)) or the Smartphone (tcpmp.smartphone.0.72RC1.cab (http://picard.exceed.hu/tcpmp/test/tcpmp.smartphone.0.72RC1.cab)) version).

Extract all the files from the tcpmpflvplugin ZIP file, (currently) tcpmpflvplugin-v0.3.zip, player and, after installing TCPMP, copy the two .plg files in the home of TCPMP (\Storage Card\Program Files\TCPMP when installed on the only storage card under WM5+ etc.).

Copy YouTubeDownload.exe anywhere on your handheld; for example, \Windows\Start Menu\Programs (it’s very small so you can even store it in the main storage)

2. in order to see a video, fire up a Web browser and go to YouTube. When you are on a page you’d like to see the video of, in the address bar, highlight the last part of the URL (the one after the ?v=) as can be seen in HERE (http://www.winmobiletech.com/062007FlashTCPMP/FLVPlayerPluginURLselect1.bmp.png). Copy this to the clipboard by tap-and-holding the selection and selecting Copy in the menu:

http://www.winmobiletech.com/062007FlashTCPMP/FLVPlayerPluginURLselect2.bmp.png

Here, I’ve copied the ‘x4arSJCWwpk’ parameter of the URL http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4arSJCWwpk .

3. Now, fire up YouTubeDownload.exe, (after selecting the right target directory) tap-and-hold the “Video ID:” field and select Paste in the drop-down context menu (http://www.winmobiletech.com/062007FlashTCPMP/FLVPlayerPluginURLselect3.bmp.png). Now, click Start. The video will be downloaded to the target directory:

http://www.winmobiletech.com/062007FlashTCPMP/FLVDownloadInProg.bmp.png

Note that the downloader utility is incompatible with the MS Smartphone (WM6 Standard) operating system. First, it doesn’t support focus transfer with D-pad / the Tab key (it’s been written for WM2003) – it’s only with a cursor emulator like SPHelper hat you can traverse the focus as can be seen HERE (http://www.winmobiletech.com/062007FlashTCPMP/FLVPlaySP1.bmp.png). However, it won’t be of help as the app won’t be able to connect to YouTube as can be seen in HERE (http://www.winmobiletech.com/062007FlashTCPMP/FLVPlaySP2.bmp.png) (tested this on my HTC Vox / s710 several times). I really hope the author of YouTubeDownload.exe will soon fix this problem so that Smartphone users can also download any YouTube clips. Until then, you’ll need to rely on files downloaded in other ways.

Also note that version 0.2 is the only version to offer a desktop-based (x86) downloader tool (as opposed to what the developer states). It, however, wasn’t able to download anything on my desktop when I’ve tried. That is, you’ll need to download directly onto your Pocket PC.

4. Then, fire up TCPMP and select the given file (File / Open File):

http://www.winmobiletech.com/062007FlashTCPMP/FLVPlayTCPMP1.bmp.png

Now, it’ll be played back:

http://www.winmobiletech.com/062007FlashTCPMP/FLVPlayTCPMP2.bmp.png

(same on the MS Smartphone operating system (http://www.winmobiletech.com/062007FlashTCPMP/FLVPlaySP3.bmp.png))

It’s very important that you can NOT invoke directly video playback from any Windows Mobile Web browsers – you will ALWAYS need to manually download the videos, manually switch to TCPMP and manually load it for playback.

It’s also worth knowing that the plug-in does NOT work with CorePlayer, the commercial descendant of TCPMP.

Related talk

Note that these threads are FULL of misinformation. It’s worth checking them out but don’t necessarily believe what you read in there.

MoDaCo (http://www.modaco.com/youtube-videos-t254283.html)
PPCT (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=55402)
XDA-Dev (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=308837)
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[Nurhisham Hussein]

Menneisyys, what's the impact of using the ffmpeg included with the flv plugin, as opposed to the ffmpeg plugin available with TCPMP?

[Menneisyys]

Menneisyys, what's the impact of using the ffmpeg included with the flv plugin, as opposed to the ffmpeg plugin available with TCPMP?

Frankly, I don't know - haven't tested it, interoperability / benchmark-wise. Hope it doesn't mess up anything with playing back other types of media.

[Menneisyys]

UPDATE (06/09/2007): as has been explained in the article, currently, the only way to download FLV files is using a Pocket PC-based tool. This is no longer the case: XDA-Developers forum member banannq has just released (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=1302214&postcount=11) a tool to do this on the desktop. Furthermore, it requires a full URL - that is, you don't need to manually chop off the not-required part of it. Just download the attachment from the post (after registering yourself in the forum - don't be afraid, it's free).

[phaedrus06]

Sigh...

I seem to be having this problem a lot. About half of the software I install on to my Pharos 600 (PPC and cell phone) say the install was unsuccessful, and the other half install no problem.

Well, that and the fact that I am constantly running low on memory for the phone/device itself. If you know how to change where the programs run (that is I want them to run off of my SD card not the phone) that would be a big help too.

Anyhow, the YouTube Downloader works great but the player won't install and therefore won't work. I thought that maybe that the program was just incompatible with my phone but I don't know why since it is running Windows Mobile 5.

Any help greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[Menneisyys]

See http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=440241 for a brand new tutorial.

[Menneisyys]

See http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=440241 for a brand new tutorial.