Recently in YouTube Category

"Is there an easy way to link to a specific time in a YouTube video. For instance, I want my boss to watch something starting at about five minutes into a video, but don't want to waste his time with the first five minutes."

I'm sure your boss will appreciate your concern for his time. Here's hoping the subject matter of the video is actually relevant to your work. ;) YouTube makes it incredibly easy to start a video from a specific point in time by adding some additional text to the end of the URL.

"How can I download YouTube videos to my computer? I want to watch the YouTube videos when I'm not connected to the Internet."

Even with things like in-flight WiFi for watching YouTube videos on an airplane, there are plenty of times when it would be great to take YouTube videos with you. There are several ways you can download YouTube videos, but I will walk you through how to download YouTube videos using my favorite method.

"I found some great YouTube videos I want to play on a big screen during a party I'm hosting, but I don't have a way to make a playlist. I was thinking I could burn a DVD of YouTube videos instead. Is there a way I can do that?"

You definitely can burn a YouTube video to DVD, just make sure you're getting the highest resolution version available so that your DVD video quality looks good. There are a few steps involved, because you need to download the YouTube videos you want to burn to DVD, you then need to add the videos to a DVD authoring software, and finally burn the DVD. I'll walk you through the process here.

"I found a couple of YouTube videos I want to watch again later. How can I get video from YouTube and download it to my computer so I don't have to search for the video later?"

One of the disadvantages of YouTube is that you can't take it with you. If you're aren't online, or are connected to a slower 3G connection, watching YouTube videos can be painful. I've recommended a number of solutions for downloading YouTube videos in the past, but for the most part, I've settled on one solution that works better than the rest.

"How can I delete a video if someone else uploaded it to YouTube?"

If someone else uploaded a video to YouTube, there is no way you can directly delete it. Only someone with access to the username and password for the YouTube account that uploaded the video can delete the video. If the video infringes on your copyright, if someone included you in their video without your permission, or if the video you want deleted violates the YouTube terms of service in some way, there are a few other actions you may be able to take.

"I just started uploading videos to my You Tube Channel. Then I copied the embed code and loaded the video to my Wordpress Blog. All works great except a ton of other videos are listed as thumbnails beneath mine and can be played on my blog. I do not want these videos on my site. How do I get them off and why are they attaching when I copy my embed code?"

Part of YouTube hosting your videos for free is recommending videos from other YouTube users in the files embedded on other sites. YouTube does have a feature for turning off these extra video clips, but they hide it because they really want people to watch as many YouTube videos as possible.

Have you ever wanted to post a YouTube video on your blog or page, but automatically start it at a specific point in the video? Maybe the video is a speech and the point you are referencing is 3 minutes in to the video, or maybe it's your favorite motorcycle crash in a video montage of motorcycle crashes. Either way, you don't want to embed the video and then write instructions to fast forward to the 3 minute mark. There's an easier way. Simply grab the embed code and then modify it just a little to make the video start at the point you want. Here's how to do it:

"Is it possible to perform simple editing i.e.deleting part of a .flv flash video?"

FLV files create a kind of unique video editing challenge not readily solved by just opening the files in your favorite video editing application. The FLV format simply isn't supported by most video editing tools. You have two basic options for editing an FLV. Option 1: you can convert the FLV to another format and edit the converted file. Option 2: You can download an application specifically designed for FLV editing. In general I recommend going with editing software rather than conversion for a couple of reasons.

"I have audio files from my band's recording session that I want to put on YouTube. Every time I try to upload the files YouTube gives me an invalid file format error. I've tried both MP3 and WMA formats with the same error message. How can I upload my band's MP3 music tracks to YouTube?"

While YouTube may be among the best places on the Internet to find music by your favorite artist, it is not a music site. YouTube is a video site. The YouTube upload tool expects you to upload a video file format of some kind. YouTube specifically accepts MP4, MPG, AVI, MOV and WMV file formats. For your music files (or something like spoken audio from a speech) to upload successfully to YouTube, you need to convert it to a video format. Below are options that will make a video file with software from either a Mac or Windows PC.

Make a Photo Montage
If getting your music exposed to the YouTube audience is your primary goal, a photo montage may be the most cost effective route. Using software like Windows Movie Maker or iMovie, you simply build a photo collage using your song as the back drop. Slap some transitions and effects on the photos for something a little flashier, then save out a video and upload to YouTube. Based on the way the YouTube audience tends to respond to these sorts of things, the more attractive the people in the photos you include are the better.

Add Video Titles with Lyrics
A slight variation on the photo montage is using the title and credits building tool in the video editing software to build some moving text. This could be the lyrics to your song or a clever haiku, but either way, you're giving the YouTube viewer something to look at other than a blank video while they listen to your song.

Add the Bands Album Cover
If you don't have any good photos or are simply feeling lazy, a single image of the band's album cover, or maybe your publicity photo, can be an easy way to have something visual to accompany your music on YouTube.

Combine Your Audio with a PowerPoint Presentation
For spoken presentations, coupling the recorded audio with PowerPoint slides may help visually tie the speech and concepts together.

Hire an Animator
If you have a budget (or live near a college campus) hiring an animator to make a video for your music will up the marketability of your YouTube presence. A great animation might be the thing that brings your band from obscurity to international fame and fortune.

Shoot a Music Video
Along the same lines as hiring an animator, if you can get a video made to go with your song, chances are it will fare better on YouTube. An ad in Craigslist might find you some videobloggers willing to work on a budget or if you've got deeper pockets, making a bigger production might be your ticket to a giant YouTube fan club.

The bottom line here is whatever you do you really need to convert your audio file to a video file and you might as well invest some time in making it visually appealing before you upload.

YouTube is starting to roll out higher resolution versions of videos on the site. What this means for viewers is text that looks crisp; improved sound quality; and video that loses some of those soft moments and blocky transitions we've come to expect from watching YouTube videos. There are two ways to get better video from YouTube, depending on whether you do or do not have a YouTube account.

If you happen to have a YouTube account, you can tweak your account settings to improve the way YouTube videos look. Go to your account settings and look for the Video Playback Quality link all the way at the bottom. This gives you three choices, which are basically let YouTube decide what to show you (which means you get ugly video), the slow connection setting (which means you get ugly video), or the fast connection option (which provides a slightly improved video experience).

If you don't have a YouTube account, the only way to get this to work is to use the secret handshake. When you get to a page with a video you want to watch, you need to tack some additional code on the end of the URL before you'll get the upgraded experience. Hopefully this is a short term fix, but in the meantime it's like turning a Man into a Mane with silent 'e'.

Start with the basic video like this one I did on turning clips sideways in Windows Movie Maker:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlqqlS8CDv4

Now tack &fmt=6 on the end for a much clearer picture and slightly sharper sound:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlqqlS8CDv4&fmt=6

Six little characters and it's like stepping out of a fog. Supposedly there's an even higher quality setting achieved by adding &fmt=18 to the end of the URL instead of &fmt=6, but so far I haven't seen a video where this makes a difference.

You can also build your own high quality embeds using my YouTube code generator.