Supported video / audio formats for uploading to YouTube

YouTube accepts a wide range of video formats uploaded by users. The below video formats are all accepted by YouTube. Some of them have the best visual effect on YouTube. You can take a look at them and tune your video formats for YouTube.

List of some well-known formats which YouTube supports:

WebM files (Vp8 video codec and Vorbis Audio codec)
.MPEG4, 3GPP and MOV files - (typically supporting h264 and mpeg4 video codecs and AAC audio codec)
.AVI (Many cameras output this format - typically the video codec is MJPEG and audio is PCM)
.MPEGPS (Typically supporting MPEG2 video codec and MP2 audio)
.WMV
.MP4
.FLV (Adobe - FLV1 video codec, MP3 audio)

YouTube accepts all of the above video formats uploaded from users. To most users, we find that the below video settings have the best visual effect:
Video format: H.264, MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 recommended
Aspect ratio: Original screen aspect ration without top or bottom black border, for example, 4:3, 16:9
Resolution: 640x360 (16:9) or 480x360 (4:3) Recommended
Audio format: MP3 or AAC Recommended
FPS (Frame per second): 30
Video length limit: 15 minutes (2 to 3 minutes recommended)
Video size limit: 2 GB

Tips:
a. If you think your video won't be accepted by YouTube, you can convert it to video format MPEG4 with audio format MP3 to get the best visual effect.

b. To convert any video format to the 'YouTube supported video formats', you can use some free or paid video converter. Good Freeware for this purpose are FormatFactory or FFMPEG. The former is graphic user interface, while the latter is command line user interface.

c. By default, Windows Movie Maker will save your video item as . MSWMM file. MSWMM is project file, which is not accepted by YouTube on uploading. To upload your Windows Movie Maker video to YouTube, please choose 'save it to my computer' option to save your video project as an accepted video format, and then you can upload the saved video to YouTube.

d. To download videos from YouTube, you can use Leawo Free YouTube Downloader, which is free and clean.

Is it illegal to download YouTube video?

YouTube becomes the biggest video database in the world nowdays. There are substantial of videos on YouTube. YouTube now exceeds 2 billion views a day and 24 hours of video uploaded every minute. I'm sure a lot of you guys want to download some YouTube videos. Now the problem comes: Is it legal or not to download YouTube video? Is it legal to upload videos to YouTube?

There are different viewpoints toward these problems. Of course, YouTube thinks that it's illegal to download video from itself. Here is YouTube's answer to the question in terms of their Terms of Service -

You shall not download any Content unless you see a "download" or similar link displayed by YouTube on the Service for that Content. You shall not copy, reproduce, distribute, transmit, broadcast, display, sell, license, or otherwise exploit any Content for any other purposes without the prior written consent of YouTube or the respective licensors of the Content. YouTube and its licencors reserve all rights not expressly granted in and to the Service and the Content.

However, this answer is very impracticable and ambiguous. For example, They do not imply it's illegal to download using third-party software like Leawo Free YouTube Downloader, only that the site provides no method to download videos. Second example, if I download YouTube videos just for watching them off line on my own computer or iPod, and not caught with illegal videos by the copyright owner or YouTube, then I can still download video from YouTube.

If copyrighted video was uploaded illegally, then it would be certainly illegal to download it. If you are caught with illegal videos, the penalties will cost much more than if you had just bought the item in the first place.

If you mean to distribute, broadcast, or even sell the copyrighted YouTube video to others without permission from video owner and YouTube, then it's surely illegal. For example, you can't share it with others or post it on your blog or Facebook page without permission, or you'll be banned by YouTube from their services for breaking the EULA terms. Or worst of all you could end up facing criminal copyright infringement charges that have substantial fines and possible jail time (at least in the United States). Depending on who your ISP is there could be issues there as well with their terms, you could get expelled from school or college if using their networks as a student, or get fired from work if using an employer's internet for copyright infringement.

The last thing I want to say is that a lot of people have downloaded videos from YouTube to watch them off line on their compuers or protable electronic devices, and they never get caught. Just remember that you won't reuse, distribute or sell the downloaded YouTube videos, you'll never get caught.

YouTube will launch its paid movie service at the end of the year

Sources say that Google's video site YouTube is being in talks for worldwide paid movie service with all major Hollywood studios. Movies would cost $5 to rent and would be available at the same time as on Blu-ray, DVD and Internet services. YouTube is going to lauch this service at the end of this year, which will compete with Apple's digital movie and TV distribution service.

Given the fact that Google is the the most widely used search engine in the world, and YouTube's traffic is much more than other competitors, major Hollywood studios tend to cooperate with YouTube. Google search and YouTube is widely used all over the world. Its total user amount has been more than any wired or satalite TV provider. It will be 'a huge number' of customers, which has been promising in Google's talk.

Sources say that Google will take advantage of its search and video technique to promote this service. It would launch in the US first, but it would eventually spread to other countries.

This paid movie service makes Hollywood feel excited, because Hollywood is looking for new income to replace the traditional DVD movie selling point. Before this, YouTube also announced that they have been testing rental movie service since January this year.

Tip: You can legally download YouTube videos for personal use. Recommended tool is Leawo Free YouTube Downloader. It's free and safe to use. It can download almost all Flash video from the Internet. What's more, it has the options for video conversion. You can learn more features of this download from its user manual.

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YouTube Instant creator accepts the job at YouTube and continue at Stanford

Stanford computer science student Feross Aboukhadijeh took three hous to make himself famous on the Internet. He is the creator of YouTube Instant site. Earlier this month he created the site in just three hours! He just announced two important things on his blog, his YouTube Instant site reaches one million visitors in ten days as well as a new job offered from YouTube CEO Chad Hurley. Aboukhadijeh also revealed that he's currently interning at Facebook, and he will finish his commitment there before starting at YouTube. He will continue his study at Stanford.

What's YouTube Instant? According to Wikipedia -

YouTube Instant is a real-time search engine built by nineteen-year-old college student and Facebook-software-engineer intern Feross Aboukhadijeh of Stanford University that allows its users to search the YouTube video database as they type. It follows on the heels of Google Instant, and has been described as a "novelty toy", a "catchy little title”, a "prototypical digit to tie the "instant" bandwagon as well as a "completely excellent way to waste 15 minutes".

Aboukhadijeh is going to add some new features to his YouTube Instant site, such as video playback controls, keyboard controls, shortened shareable URLs and Facebook integration.

Below is a YouTube video interview of Aboukhadijeh by NBC San Diego (You can use Leawo Free YouTube Downloader to download it to your computer. Leawo Free YouTube Downloader can accelerate the loading speed of online video, so that you can view online video smoothly) –


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Notable Video Downloader Tools and Sites (Part One)

There are a lot of video sharing websites nowadays, we can enjoy watching all kinds of videos in our free time. But we want more. We also want to download the online videos from the Internet to computer, for watching them off-line. The problem is that most of these websites don’t provide us a video downloader for doing that.

Now I show you some notable video downloaders that are being used by the mainstream web users.

1. SpeedBit Video Downloader
This downloader is a toolbar installed on your web browser. It supports Flash video downloading. There are 3 steps to download Flash video to your computer: Play, Click and Save.

2. Leawo YouTube Downloader
It is an all-in-one browser, video downloader manager, video accelerator, video converter and FLV player. It is a web browser that can download online video, and accelerate the loading speed of online video, so that you can view online video smoothly. It also has options for video conversion. What's more, you can play FLV video in its built-in FLV player.

It can download almost all Flash videos from the Internet as long as they are play through Adobe Flash Player.

Its free version supports comman definition online video download and acceleration while its pro version supports High Definition online video download and acceleration.

You can learn more details about this downloader from this user manual.

3. Video DownloadHelper - Mozilla Firefox Extension
It is an extension for the Mozilla Firefox. It enables users to grab video and images from websites. If you're a Firefox fan, you can use it to download and convert web videos from websites.

4. keepvid.com
It's a website. You can copy and paste video link to its 'URL' box and click 'Download' button to start to download an online video. You can also drag it to your browser's links tool bar to integrate it with your browser. Sometimes it doesn't work after some video sites changes.

5. YouTube downloader of altervista.org
It is a desktop downloader application. It supports video downloading and conversion for YouTube and some other websites.

To be continued..

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Roger Federer Hits Another Astounding Between the Legs Shot

In my last post about Federer, the living legend, he twice shot a metal bottle off a guy's head. This made him became a YouTube sensation. Now, and again, he just sets off another upsurge on YouTube with a astounding between the legs trickshot in his 1st round match in US Open 2010 vs. Brian Dabul.

It brought back memories of a similar shot Federer made in 2009 U.S. Open, late in the third set of a semifinal against Novak Djokovic.

Federer had called that one the most amazing shot of his life. But now he might give the vote to Monday's 'tweener'.

"Maybe in terms of difficulty, maybe this one was harder, because I had the feeling I had to run a longer distance, and I was farther back somehow,'' Federer said. "I had to really give the last big push at the end. I didn't have time to set it up. So I felt like this one was incredible again. I turned around and couldn't believe the shot landed in the corner.''

The YouTube video below shows both of these two trickshots.(Tips: You can use Leawo Free YouTube Downloader to download this YouTube video to your computer)


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YouTube history, events, statisctics

The below illustration shows the history, memorable moments and some main figure of YouTube.

The data in this graphic is based on the report by website-monitoring.com.

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