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Daily Trick 16. Stream Download Video
If you have followed UsingMac articles for quite some time, I believe that we all have known how to download YouTube video easily even in HD quality.
For large videos, however, we will need to wait several tens of minutes before we can open the video. Hey, why don't we just stream download it? Like what we did while watching the video on YouTube?
If you want to stream download it, follow these steps:
- I assume that the video download process is already begun and you can see it in the Download Activity (Safari: Cmd-Opt-L; Firefox: Cmd-J)
- Now Ctrl-Click on the download item (the video) and choose Show in Finder
- The filename will be shown with format .download, you can't open it
- Ctrl-Click on it and select Show Package Contents
- Inside you can see the file with video format .mp4
- Run it and you've successfully stream download the video
This trick works well for downloading video from YouTube. I haven't tested it for other video sites.
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Free Download HD YouTube Video
Every internet users loves to watch YouTube, but ironically only some groups of people know how to download free YouTube videos easily with least effort required.
Initially, we can only download free YouTube videos in FLV format which can be learnt from previous article, Free Download YouTube Video with Safari. Until not long ago, YouTube has released high quality MP4 video as an additional feature for its users. It will be really satisfying if those MP4s can be downloaded.
The good news is, we know two tricks that can be used to download HD YouTube Video. And we feel that it's such a great honor to share these.
iMovie'08 - The Quick Shortcuts
Contribution of: Kelly Swee.
Ever felt that dragging the clips from the Event Library to the Project Library seems to be such a pain?
Add Selection to the Project
- Select desired clip in the Events Library
- Press E
The clip will be automatically copied down into Project Library from Event Library as it "flies" into it.
The orange line would appear at the bottom of the clip, showing that the clip is being used in the particular project.
Make a Clip as Favorite
- Select desired clip
- Press F
A green line would appear on top of the clip, showing that the clip has been marked as favorite. I would definitely recommend you to use this function as you could, at anytime, refer back to the best selected clips with minimal effort spent and it saves you from the trouble of renewing the clips again to find a particular clip that you want.
Exporting Keynote Presentation to QuickTime Compatible Movie File
Keynote - the most elegance, well-built application suitable for transforming ordinary slides into extraordinary presentation - maybe sounds unfamiliar to Windows users' ears. In most case, it's due to the fact that Keynote has its own extension; The slides and effects created in Keynote can be opened only with Keynote. However, Keynote is quite popular among Mac users; Perhaps, Steve Jobs also used Keynote for his presentations.
But, as I've experienced, presentations and/or movie effects made on Keynote can surely wow your friends who own only Windows. And for the sake of saving the trouble, I've found a way to export Keynote presentation into QuickTime Movie file (.MOV).
Let's assume that you've got your presentation slides and gorgeous effects ready and set. And now, you want to export your Keynote presentation into movie file, these following steps would be required.
Addictive iTunes 8 Built-In Visualizer
I've been too careless to overlook this new addictive iTunes 8 visualizer. I don't know what it's called, but I know how addictive it is for me.
Here is the video of iTunes 8 visualizer that's depicted from Beowulf soundtrack: Hero Comes Home.
Lucky for Windows users, I think iTunes 8 can be installed on Windows. So what you're waiting for, quickly Download iTunes 8 and Install it.
Apple Keynote Bloopers
Found on YouTube this morning: Apple Keynote Bloopers.
I think the title and the movie itself are pretty explanatory.
Trust me it works!
Anyway, the last keystrokes on the movie being used to force quit the frozen Quake III program is Command-Option-Escape.
Free Movies on iTunes U
Recently, I feel really bored tweaking my Mac. So, I tried to tune on my Apple Store and went to iTunes U. Even though some of the movies are free, but most of them are interesting enough and will certainly worth your time watching them.
Accessing iTunes U
To get access to iTunes U, first you will need to install iTunes and then..
- Inside your iTunes, choose iTunes Store
- From the sidebar with header iTunes Store, select iTunes U
- Browse through and choose a movie from free movies collection. You can either download the movie by clicking on GET MOVIE button or streamline play the movie by double clicking on the row
- Anyway, you can easily find the movie's location by simply clicking on the link provided. In the rest of this article, I will provide you the link to some interesting movies that can be downloaded for free on iTunes U
Copying iTunes Store URL
In order to get the URL to your favorite movie on iTunes U, so that you can share that movie to your friends, who have previously installed iTunes, you can Control-Click on the row and choose Copy iTunes Store URL. When that link is browsed with web browser, your web browser will automatically open iTunes and redirect you to the selected iTunes Store URL.
Use MovieFX for Adding Movie Effect
Inside Quartz Composer, there is a demo application that can add effect to your movie. This demo application is called MovieFX and can be found in Mac HD ▸ Developer ▸ Examples ▸ Quartz Composer ▸ Applications ▸ MovieFX.
Launching MovieFX
After you've been inside MovieFX folder, you should search for MovieFX.xcodeproj file. Open that file with XCode and from XCode toolbar, choose Build and Go.
Up to this point, you should be able to see new pane opened with entitled MovieFX.
Exhaustive Tutorial for iMovie
This tutorials and all the details are written by Kelly Swee. Thanks, Kelly!
Starting Your Project (Command N)
After importing it into the mac, you will find your imported videos under the events library. To start, go to File ▸ New Project. The new project is found in the Project Library. Select and drag the video clips from the Event Library into the Project Library.
Addition of Audio (Command 1)
Click on the icon or shortcut key Command 1 to add audio tracks. You may choose a range of audio tracks from the default files, iMovie' 08 Sound Effect and iLife Sound Effects . There are so many different sound effects that you can choose from. I would advise taking some time off to go through them and get familarized so that you could refer to them as you shoot and edit videos from different ocassions. You may also obtain tracks from your iTunes and Garageband.
Mac Applications for Video Recording
Nowadays, I have been hunting for good mac applications to record screen of my Mac. And I found these five applications are good enough to do the task: ScreenFlow, SnapzProX, ScreenMimic, iShowU and Jing.
Their prices are varying. They also have their own uniqueness. Here are what I thought of them.
Jing
Price : $0.00 alias Free
Let's start from Jing.
With Jing, you can record video of your screen up to 5 minutes. The recorded video is in the swf format. The file size of the result is quite big so that it's not compatible for recording long video.
Get HD Trailers on Front Row
If you happen to have extra big display connected to your Mac and you'd like to watch all movie trailers inside your Front Row in HD (High Definition) format, you should try this command line:
defaults write com.apple.frontrow TrailerBypass http://www.apple.com/trailers/home/xml/current_720p.xml && killall "Front Row"
But you need to make sure that you've extra fast broadband internet access, or you would end up waiting for several minutes to stream-play the HD movie trailer. And you need to pay attention that with low resolution display, you won't find any difference in the trailers' quality, so it's better to keep the default settings.
How to download movie trailers faster?
Free Download YouTube Video with Safari
Most of us like to watch YouTube, right? (Hope so). And it's surprisingly simple and easy to download those YouTube videos. Do you want to know? Follow next three steps.
Song of MacBook Air - New Soul
Have you ever wondered who is the singer behind MacBook Air Ads? It's Yael Naim with her song New Soul.
Searching around YouTube, I got these links : one is the Video Clip of New Soul and the other one is the live video.
Yael Naim - New Soul Clip
Mac OS X - Startup Sound
Adjust Startup Sound Volume
I found this site useful, SilverMac, which provides us with .prefPane file to adjust your startup sound volume. This story was hot on Digg several months ago.
Hear the Chime with MacTracker
Some people would probably have forgotten how their Macs startup song sounds like. In this case, download MacTracker, which can get the info of any Mac along with the startup sound.