How to convert YouTube videos for playing in Second Life

ATCHTULUNG! The below info is for HISTORICAL purposes and is largely OUTDATED.

» Please refer to this info-page for easier options.

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Ever seen a worthwhile YouTube clip you wanted to share on your land parcel in Second Life, but were frustrated because QuickTime doesn't play Flash video (which YouTube uses)? Until a time when we can easily play Flash inworld, here's a way to convert YouTube videos for playing in Second Life: 

• Go to VIXY, which offers a free service to convert YouTube vids into QuickTime-playable MP4 files.
   
• Before you start, make sure you have QuickTime installed, and in SL's Preferences > Audio & Video tab, that "Play Streaming Music…" is checked.
   
• Copy the URL of the desired YouTube page, paste it in the "URL" field, and set "Converts to" to "MP4…".
   
  
   
• Press "Start", and let the process begin. This will take some minutes, but pay attention, because when the progress bar completes, it'll offer you a file with an odd name like "a9add8b1e9aff307910f3e119f15c7fe.mp4" to download.
   
• Download it, and rename it to something more meaningful, likely similar to the vid's original title. But you'll prolly want to keep it terse.
   
• Try playing it to ensure it works locally. Note that there'll be a vixy.net watermark for the last 2 seconds of the video. If you have QuickTime Pro, you can use QuickTime Player's basic editing tools to remove this by scrolling all the way to the end, then holding down the Delete key until those frames are removed.
   
  
   
• Now here's where things get a bit more difficult: you'll need a hosting server to upload to. I use Dreamhost and FTP it, but if that sounds tricky, look into uploading to another online video service like Blip.tv, which will retain your original file and can be directly linked to.
   
• Once your file's up on the server, copy its URL into Second Life by pasting it in About Land > Media tab's "with content from this URL".
   
• If the movie's not already playing, try pushing the play button (it sits above the toolbar near the bottom of your screen). If all goes well, it should start within a few seconds! And then, feeling a warm sense of accomplishment, you can share this with friends.
   
  
    

More things to consider:

• I've personally found the above useful for making my video tutorials available in SL. A bonus is since the converting runs on VIXY's servers, aside from the download time, it saves your computer's power — encoding can be very processor-intensive and slow. So you can do this in the background.
   
• VIXY is sometimes unreliable, and will spit out "Error: URL resolve error". Ignore that and retry. Also, longer movies may not work; I've tried converting "How to fill in your Profile" several times, which is 14:51 min. long, and it keeps stalling near 90% and never makes it all the way. Argh.
   
• VIXY does a great job of not bloating the converted file; the MP4's filesize will be very similar to the original FLV's.
   
• Google Video has suckier quality in my experience, but if you upload vids there, an MP4 will be auto-generated. My hope is that since Google owns YouTube, that the two sites should unify and offer the best of both worlds, plus better comment moderation. Very few video-sharing sites allow you to download the original file, Blip.tv being one of them, altho I've had problems with slow speed (and hence, unreliable streaming) in the past.
   
• QuickTime in Second Life has a few quirks, and it isn't unusual for things to feel sluggish and jerky when a movie first starts streaming.

Hope this is of use to you — please let me know in the comments if you have tips 'n' tricks of your own!

Tagged as: General, Video