A program to view DVC entries
 

I am doing a program to view DVC entries without needing to go to Youtube website.
This is how it works: At startup, I look for Youtube videos with two keywords, "thedvchallenge" and "DVC#" where # is the DVC number. When I find something, I store it in memory so the user can browse the available entries. Clicking on an entry will play the video from Youtube directly in the application.
Right now it works with a few entries of past DVC, some of us were very clever in their choice of keywords ;)
What would be cool is if every one could update the videos already uploaded with the adequate keywords, for example "thedvchallenge" and "DVC9" for the DVC #9.
What would be even cooler is if every one could upload to Youtube the videos from past challenges. Well, that will be some work for the one who participated in every single challenge!
If you win a challenge, you can add the keyword "winner", for the winning entry only.

If you have ideas for naming this program, please go ahead. Its temporary name is DVC Entry Viewer, not very exciting...

Dylan, I would need to host one file on the server if possible and to put a SWF file in the new website. Please contact me off list for details.

I will post more info in this thread about the progress I make. Meanwhile, if you have ideas, feel free to post them here.

Benjamin.

EDIT: Added a screen capture.

Benjamin, that's cool!
Emailing you.

I finished the first version. It is not really polished but I wanted it to be available for the DVC #10.
Dylan hasn't find a hosting server yet so I put it temporarily on my company's server.

You can go to the install page now.

Features planned for futures version:
- Voting grids
- Automatic updates
- Storing entries info locally
- Author's info

And to make it work better, don't forget to put the adequate keywords in Youtube.

Benjamin.

This app works on my Macbook Pro Intel :) All ready found one DV10 Entry. I have edited my youtube description so hopefully mine will show sooner or later :)

Maybe it can be edited to watch the official channel which I think only will show the videos after they have been approved, that way entries don't show up too early?

I really like this app and I was very close to modifying the FLV player that I use to do a similar thing where the entries of the URL are fed into a play list that the player would go through showing the entries and the winner could also be noted :)

Great! Thanks for telling.

The problem is Youtube doesn't seem to frequently update its public feeds. So it could be a long time before your entry appears. It is why the best is to include the keywords when uploading the video.
I think Dylan wouldn't mind if you upload the video another time with the right keywords.

It is what I wanted to do at first. Unfortunately, Youtube doesn't provide this function.

;)

Hey Benjamin, going to take me a bit to get server space ready, thanks for hosting it for now.

I'm going to write a list of keywords for people to add to their Youtube entries, probably within a day or two.

Cool, the faster the better!

Hi Benjamin,

The Application works on my MacBookPro as well. I only have one entry that is viewable for the DVC10 (and its not the one I uploaded to youtube). I uploaded mine around 10 hours ago and I used the tags you suggested.

I did edit the tags after doing a test upload to see how it looked on the tube. I guess that is the reason for it not being picked up by your program. The info is updated on youtube though.

How often does AIR refresh?

Good idea. I'm sure that it won't take too long to work out the bugs.

Cheers,

DK

I know this is frustrating but there is nothing I can do as it really is a Youtube bug. It was already reported about one month ago and they say they are working on it. You can see the details here, it is the issue 111. If you have a Google account, you can vote for it by clicking on the star at left.
And thanks for the feedback,

Benjamin.

Huh? "This is a general index issue that we are working on a solution for." is not very informative.

Oh well its for free!

I was writing this when you responded to my last entry so I'll post it for what it is worth.

I did a search for DVC10 on youtube in the general video area; my entry doesn't show up on the results of that search.

It doesn't show up in the group set up by Dylan (but that is probably because he has to release it first).

It did show up in "the DVC'ers" group started by Bradley Loren Marlow (I guess he set it up so that he doesn't need to release the videos that collect there).

If my entry with modified tags is showing up somewhere in youtube way is it not showing up in the general youtube search results?

Weird.

Noticed one glitch today. Maybe two.

When you click the full screen on a Macbook Pro Intel the application goes full screen but the video does not. When returning to non full screen mode the video will then lay on top of the list of movies preventing you from selecting another movie, going back to full screen allows you to see the list of movies again but the video is still not full screen.

Let me know if you need more information.

:)

Now it shows in the search and in my program. I noted that a description I changed a few days ago has been updated. So I guess they update their "index" every few days.

I have also seen a problem with full screen mode once, but it was not exactly the same. It looks like an Adobe bug but I will monitor this.

Thanks,

Benjamin.

No problem. I also just fired up the app and the update must have happened in the last hour as I now see a few more entries including mine that I had edited in the keywords last night :) Another thing I noticed was that the discriptions seems to run off and expanding the player does not show them. Attached is a picture.

Got it. In fact, this part will change a bit in the next version. It will be much cleaner.