4. Watching YouTube Videos
The whole point of browsing or searching for videos on YouTube is to find a video to watch. Watching videos is what YouTube is all about, after all.
The nice thing about watching YouTube videos is that they play back in your web browser; no additional software is necessary, save for the Flash plugin for your browser. So get comfortable in front of your computer screen and get ready to watch!
Viewing the Video Page
When you click the title or thumbnail of any video on a search or browse page, a page for that video is displayed, like the one shown in Figure 4.1. This page has several sections, including the following:
- Video player—Where you watch the videos
- Options—For sharing and remembering this video
- Information—Key facts about the video
- Related videos—A great way to explore similar videos
- Comments and responses—What other users think about this video
Figure 4.1. A YouTube video page.
We'll examine each section of this page in turn.
Using the Video Player
The most important part of the video page is the video player; this is where the video plays back. In fact, playback is automatic—the video starts playing almost immediately after you open the video's page.
Some large videos or videos played over a slow Internet connection may pause periodically after playback has started. This is due to the playback getting ahead of the streaming video download. If you find a video stopping and starting, just click the Play/Pause button to pause playback until more of the video has downloaded.
The video itself displays in the main video player window, as shown in Figure 4.2. The playback controls are located directly underneath the main window. From left to right, you use these controls to
Figure 4.2. The YouTube video player.
- Pause playback by clicking the Play/Pause button; to resume playback, click the Play/Pause button again.
- Return to the start of the video by clicking the Rewind button.
- Navigate anywhere within the video by using the slider control. (This control also indicates how much of the video has downloaded; the slider fills with red as the video stream downloads.)
- View the elapsed and total time for the video via the time display.
- Control the sound level with the volume slider.
- Immediately mute the sound by clicking the Mute button.
- Display the video at its original size (often smaller than the window in your web browser) by clicking the first size button.
- Display the video in a full-screen window by clicking the second size button.
To watch a video within your web browser, you don't have to do anything other than open the video page. To view the video full-screen (instead of in the browser window) click the Full-screen button at the bottom right of the video player.
When a video is finished playing, YouTube displays a screen like the one shown in Figure 4.3. Click the Share button to send a link to this video via email to your friends. Click the Watch Again button to replay the video. Or click one of the other video links to watch a related video.
Figure 4.3. What you see when a video is finished playing.
Choosing Video Options
Directly below the video player is a box full of video options. This box offers some interesting information and lets you use the video in various ways:
- Rate This Video—Move your cursor across the stars to rate the video from one to five (the more stars the better).
- Save to Favorites—Click here to save this video in your YouTube Favorites list.
- Add to Groups—Click here to add this video to any group you currently belong to.
- Share Video—Click here to send a link to this video via email to friends and family.
- Post Video—Click here to post this video to a blog. (Assuming you have YouTube configured for your particular blog—see Chapter 13, "Adding YouTube Videos to Your Own Site or Blog," for more details.) You can also use this section to post a link to the video at a number of social networking sites, such as Digg, Del.icio.us, and StumbleUpon.
- Flag as Inappropriate—Click here to tell YouTube that something's not acceptable about this video (sexually explicit, mature content, graphic violence, hate speech, or other Terms of Use violation).
- Views—How many times this video has been viewed.
- Comments—How many viewers have commented on this video.
- Favorited—How many viewers have added this video to their Favorites list.
- Honors—For some particularly worthy videos, the web honors the video has received.
- Links—For some popular videos, a list of sites that link to the video.
Learn more about favorites, groups, sharing, and the like in Chapter 5, "Managing and Sharing Your Favorite Videos."
Viewing Video Information
To the right of the video player is a box with specific information about this video. This box also includes a Subscribe button; click this button to subscribe to all videos posted by this particular user.
Learn more about subscriptions in Chapter 12, "Joining the YouTube Community—And Creating Your Own Channel."
The other information in this box includes
- When the video was added to YouTube
- The name of the user who added the video
Click the user's name to view her YouTube channel—which includes other videos the user has uploaded.
- A brief description of the video
- The category the clip is in
- The video's tags—keywords used to describe the video
- The web page URL for this video; copy and paste this URL into your own web page or blog to link back to the video
- The HTML code necessary to embed the video in a separate web page or blog; copy and paste this code into your own page to display the video on your website
Exploring Related Videos
Below the video information box is a series of three tabs, followed by a scrolling list of videos below. What you see in the scrolling list depends on which tab you select:
- Related—Displays videos in some way similar to this one
- More from This User—Displays other videos uploaded by the same user
- Playlists—Displays playlists that have something in common with this video
Whichever of these tabs you select, YouTube by default displays the first 20 related videos or playlists. Click the See All Videos link to view a search page filled with related videos; you can then filter these search results by category, date, and the like.
One of the cool things about YouTube is how you're easily led from one video to another. Find one video that you like, and it's easy to discover similar videos via the Related list.
Reading and Posting Comments and Responses
On most video pages, the bottom left of the page is taken up by a series of viewer comments. Users can post their comments about any video; comments can be considered or just exclamatory ("Cool video!"), depending on the person doing the posting.
Next to each comment are two links. The Reply link lets you reply to that comment; the Spam link reports the comment (and the person who posted the comment) to YouTube as unwanted spam.
To add your own text-based comment, simply scroll to the bottom of the Comments & Responses section and use the Comment on This Video box, like the one shown in Figure 4.4. Enter your comments; then click the Post Comment button.
Figure 4.4. Posting a text comment about a video.
You can also post another video as a response to a video. To do this, click the Post a Video Response link; this displays the Video Response page shown in Figure 4.5. From here you can choose to record a video response (using a webcam and microphone), choose another video you've already uploaded to YouTube as your response, or upload a new video as your response. Follow the onscreen instructions to choose/upload the video you want to respond with.
Figure 4.5. Recording a video response to a YouTube video.
Viewing Your Videos Full-Screen
By default, all YouTube videos display in the video player window in your web browser. If you would rather watch your videos larger, however, you can display any video in its own full-screen window.
You may not want to watch all videos full-screen. Because most YouTube videos are optimized for the smaller video player, blowing them up to a larger size might make them too grainy or blocky to watch.
To view a video full-screen, click the Full-screen button at the bottom right of the YouTube video player. As you can see in Figure 4.6, this window functions as a freestanding video player, with the same transport controls underneath the video itself. You can maximize this window to appear full-screen on your computer desktop, or minimize the window to appear in a smaller sizeable window. Click the Close button in the lower-right corner to close this window and resume viewing the video in the normal browser-based video player.
Figure 4.6. Watching a video in a full-screen window.
Rating the Videos You Watch
Here's another cool thing about YouTube. You can give a rating to any video you've watched. Think a particular video is really hot? Give it a five-star rating. Think a video sucks wind? Then give it a one-star rating. Your voice will be heard.
To rate a video, all you have to do is drag your cursor across the stars beneath the YouTube video player in your web browser; stop your cursor over the star rating you want to give and then click your mouse. As you can see in Figure 4.7, you can give a video anywhere from one to five stars—the more stars, the higher the rating. After you've rated a video, your vote is added to the ratings given by other users to create an average rating. Thank you for voting!
Figure 4.7. Rating a YouTube video.
To browse for the highest-rated videos, go to the Videos tab and then click the Top Rated link on the left side of the page.
Reporting Offensive Videos
There's one last thing to discuss when it comes to viewing videos. What do you do if you see a video that violates YouTube's content guidelines—a video that contains nudity or adult language? Well, YouTube is a self-policing community, which means it's your responsibility to report any offending videos you see. Then YouTube can check it out and, if necessary, remove the video from the site.
To report an offending video, click the Flag as Inappropriate link under the video player. This displays the box shown in Figure 4.8. Pull down the Choose a Reason list to tell YouTube what you find offensive about this video:
Figure 4.8. Reporting an offensive video.
- Sexually explicit
- Mature (over 18 only) content
- Other Terms of Use violation
- Graphic violence
- Hate speech
After making your selection, click the Flag This Video button. Your report is then forwarded to YouTube staffers, who will investigate the video in question and—if they agree with you—pull the video.
Just because you report a video as offensive doesn't mean that YouTube will agree with you and pull the video. It's up to YouTube to make content-related decisions like this.