Waka Technologies

YouTube provides a wealth of video content that you can download and recode for viewing within Second Life. From video blogs to music videos, if a video clip is online you can probably find it at YouTube.

To convert a video from YouTube, start by browsing to the video you want to convert. Copy the link to the video from your browser’s address bar (for example http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHcDP_Yew-g).

Browse to http://video.qooqle.jp/dl/ and paste the URL into the box provided and click the Get Download URL button. In return the page will provide a download link, right-click the link and choose Save Target As… Give the file a meaningful name and the .flv extension (myvideo.flv) and save it to the C:\Recode working directory you created earlier.

Once the file has completely downloaded, open VLC and choose File > Wizard…

Select Transcode/Save to File and click Next >.

Click the Choose… button to bring up the source chooser:

Click Browse… and select the dowloaded file, then click OK to close the dialog and Next > to advance to the Transcode options dialog:

Check the Transcode video checkbox and select H.264 from the Codec drop-down list. Select a bitrate of 384 from the Bitrate drop-down list.

Check the Transcode audio checkbox and select MPEG 4 Audio from the Codec drop-down list. Select a bitrate of 32 from the Bitrate drop-down list.

Click the Next > button to advance to the Encapsulation format dialog:

Select the MP4 format and click Next > to set final options and begin the recode:

Click the Choose button to select a filename and path for the recoded file (use a .mp4 extension such as myfile.mp4) and click Finish to begin the recoding process:

Progress in transcoding will be displayed through a slider and also through the time position of the transcoder relative to the end of the video clip (0:24 out of 4:59 in our case).

Once the transcode is finished you are ready to upload your newly recoded video to a web server and show it on your land. We’ll cover both of these steps in a future installment. In the meantime you can view your newly recoded video by browsing to it and double-clicking on it.

You can watch a video tutorial based on this article at the video page.