Capturing and Converting YouTube Video for Blackberry Pearl, Curve, or 8800
Downloading YouTube videos and putting them on your Blackberry keeps getting easier. And why not take advantage of the media player built into the phone?
It only takes a few tools and a little bit of time and you can be playing any videos you want on your Blackberry.
I keep watching videos at lunch, on the bus, waiting for a doctor, or even when I just have a few minutes and nothing else to do. And the great thing is if you get a call the player will pause the video while you are on the phone.
Now, here are the 3 things you will need to do to put YouTube video on the Blackberry.
3 Steps to Putting YouTube Videos on a Blackberry Pearl, Curve, or 8800
1. Download YouTube Videos with FireFox & Video DownloadHelper Plug-in
2. Convert YouTube (FLV) Files to MPEG-4
3. Copy the Video to Your Blackberry
Battery Life
Lasts a long time, much better then my iPod Video player.
Video Storage
Get a media card. Files can ger rather large when it comes to video. For a converted DVD for your blackberry they average 100-600 Megabytes.
This is why you want the microSD storage card. They are cheap and I wouldn't use anything less than a 2GB card. 4GB cards are better and think of all the movies you can get on it. :)
FireFox
Download and start using it!
Here are some more details on what this plugin will do.
Downloading YouTube videos and putting them on your Blackberry keeps getting easier. And why not take advantage of the media player built into the phone?
It only takes a few tools and a little bit of time and you can be playing any videos you want on your Blackberry.
I keep watching videos at lunch, on the bus, waiting for a doctor, or even when I just have a few minutes and nothing else to do. And the great thing is if you get a call the player will pause the video while you are on the phone.
Now, here are the 3 things you will need to do to put YouTube video on the Blackberry.
3 Steps to Putting YouTube Videos on a Blackberry Pearl, Curve, or 8800
1. Download YouTube Videos with FireFox & Video DownloadHelper Plug-in
2. Convert YouTube (FLV) Files to MPEG-4
3. Copy the Video to Your Blackberry
Battery Life
Lasts a long time, much better then my iPod Video player.
Video Storage
Get a media card. Files can ger rather large when it comes to video. For a converted DVD for your blackberry they average 100-600 Megabytes.
This is why you want the microSD storage card. They are cheap and I wouldn't use anything less than a 2GB card. 4GB cards are better and think of all the movies you can get on it. :)
FireFox
Download and start using it!
Video DownloadHelper 2.4.5 by mig
You will need a plugin to download YouTube Videos. I like Video DownloadHelper. It is easy to use and works well.Here are some more details on what this plugin will do.
DownloadHelper is a tool for web content extraction. Its purpose is to capture video and image files from many sites.The easy way to download Web videos from hundreds of YouTube-like sites. This works also for audio and picture galleries.
Just surf the Web as you are used to, when DownloadHelper detects it can do something for you, the icon gets animated and a menu allows you to download files by simply clicking an item
For instance, if you go to a YouTube page, you'll be able to download the video directly on your file system. It also works with MySpace, Google videos, DailyMotion, Porkolt, iFilm, DreamHost and others.
Most of the videos you will download from YouTube will be FLV files. These will not play on your Blackberry by default. They will need to be converted.
Option 1 - Videora - IPod Video Converter
Yes, we are going to use an iPod video converter for our Blackberry videos. The Blackberry has similiar characteristics to the iPod.
The most noteable difference in the lack of support for H.264 video on the Blackberry.
So we will create a custom profile for the Blackberry and then the videos will play fine.
Profile Details
Create a new profile with the following settings:
Codec
Video Codec: MPEG-4
Bitrate
Bitrate (kbps): 576
Resolution
Width: 320
Height: 180
Audio
Bitrate (kbps): 128
Also, uncheck the "send videos automatically to iTunes" option. This will keep the videos from showing up on your iPod as well (if you have iTunes installed).
Finally, Videora can be setup to automatically convert videos. Simply define a conversion directory and leave the program running. When files are placed in the directory they will automatically be converted.
Option 2 - Blackberry Video Converter
Watch the Videos
I take the converted files and copy them to a thumb (USB) drive. Then I add these to Roxio Media Manager for the Blackberry. You can also copy the files to the phones media card as well.
Once the files are copied over you can watch them through the media player.
Now start downloading all your favorite videos and converting them for your Blackberry.
Was this helpful? Anyone else have a better tool(s) for doing this? Let me know ...
