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

[Guest 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?.

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) 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. 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 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 and, of course, TCPMP (either the PPC (tcpmp.pocketpc.0.72RC1.cab) or the Smartphone (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. Copy this to the clipboard by tap-and-holding the selection and selecting Copy in the menu:

Here, I’ve copied the ‘x4arSJCWwpk’ parameter of the URL

.

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. Now, click Start. The video will be downloaded to the target directory:

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. However, it won’t be of help as the app won’t be able to connect to YouTube as can be seen in HERE (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):

Now, it’ll be played back:

(same on the MS Smartphone operating system)

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

PPCT

XDA-Dev

[Guest looeee]

You can use a site like this one to download the the .flv file on your PC so that you can view the FLV on Smartphone

Menneisyys, thanks for another excellent article :rolleyes: Who are you? and how to you have the time to post such long and interesting threads

[Guest mikeeey]

You can use a site like this one to download the the .flv file on your PC so that you can view the FLV on Smartphone

Menneisyys, thanks for another excellent article :rolleyes: Who are you? and how to you have the time to post such long and interesting threads

or this one:

http://vixy.net/

i wonder if tcpmp making .FLV plugings will encourage them to make a plugin for IE for .FLV movies. that would be great.

[Guest looeee]

or this one:

http://vixy.net/

i wonder if tcpmp making .FLV plugings will encourage them to make a plugin for IE for .FLV movies. that would be great.

Er yes but this thread is about playing flv files natively on Windows Mobile without any conversion.

TCPMP did not make this plugin, it is made by an independent developer.

[Guest 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 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 registerig yourself in the forum - don't be afraid, it's free).

[Guest mikeeey]

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 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 registerig yourself in the forum - don't be afraid, it's free).

so im assuming this just downloads the FLV files correct?

hm i sure wish tcpmp made a HTML media player, that way it could play youtube videos right in internet explorer or opera or whihcever browser your using. is there somewhere where we can send requests to them? i wish to request this..

[Guest RyanPittman7]

so im assuming this just downloads the FLV files correct?

hm i sure wish tcpmp made a HTML media player, that way it could play youtube videos right in internet explorer or opera or whihcever browser your using. is there somewhere where we can send requests to them? i wish to request this..

Don't listen to this mikeeey kid, he has no clue what he's talking about.

[Guest mikeeey]

Don't listen to this mikeeey kid, he has no clue what he's talking about.

what??

[Guest Menneisyys]

so im assuming this just downloads the FLV files correct?

hm i sure wish tcpmp made a HTML media player, that way it could play youtube videos right in internet explorer or opera or whihcever browser your using. is there somewhere where we can send requests to them? i wish to request this..

Yes, it only downloads stuff. Currently, it's iimpossible to "intregrate" this functionality to PIE / IEM.

[Guest Hardz]

smartphone version ?

The 2 FLV plugins (from the latest release 0.3) will not install on TCPMP 0.72 smartphone version.

Could someone confirm if the plugin works for TCPMP 0.72 smartphone and if so, which version of the plugin did you use ?

WM2003 (SPV C550)

Edited June 11, 2007 by Hardz

[Guest mikeeey]

Yes, it only downloads stuff. Currently, it's iimpossible to "intregrate" this functionality to PIE / IEM.

see the only thing i dont like about this is needing to copy the url and go to a different site just to watch a simple youtube video...

[Guest Menneisyys]

smartphone version ?

The 2 FLV plugins (from the latest release 0.3) will not install on TCPMP 0.72 smartphone version.

Could someone confirm if the plugin works for TCPMP 0.72 smartphone and if so, which version of the plugin did you use ?

WM2003 (SPV C550)

You absolutely sure? I did install it ad they did work on my Vox, with 72RC1 - see the screenshots above.

[Guest Hardz]

You absolutely sure? I did install it ad they did work on my Vox, with 72RC1 - see the screenshots above.

The Vox is WM5 but smartphones like the SPV C500 and C550 are Windows Mobile 2003 second edition.

It's strange that Windows Mobile 2003 second edition PPC's are supported but not smartphones?

Any chance some bright individual can get FLV TCPMP plugins to support Smartphones 2003 ?

[Guest Menneisyys]

The Vox is WM5 but smartphones like the SPV C500 and C550 are Windows Mobile 2003 second edition.

It's strange that Windows Mobile 2003 second edition PPC's are supported but not smartphones?

Any chance some bright individual can get FLV TCPMP plugins to support Smartphones 2003 ?

OIC. Dunno why it isn't WM2003(SE)-compliant.

(BTW, the Vox is WM6.)