Performance

We’ve been hard at work at the DeskTube ‘offices’ and are ready to release a nice shiny version of DeskTube. This version marks a significant release. Performance has been a major issue with DeskTube so far, this being due to the custom look it was using. We’ll, we’ve gone through a redesign, as well as switched to using more familiar window chrome (the border around DeskTube). This has maximized performance to the highest level. In previous versions of DeskTube, even launching on a laptop or older computer was a painful experience. We’re happy to announce that this will no longer be the case, in fact quite the opposite. We’ve had DeskTube now running on a netbook, yes, a netbook!

To go along with the performance gains, we completely, ground up, rebuilt DeskTube’s video player. It now supports multi bit-rate streaming, so if you’re on a slower connection it will drop the bit-rate down so videos stream at a quality your connection can handle. We’ve also moved to a true full-screen implementation, rather than our “dim the lights” implementation. We must say that since Flash Player’s full-screen mode is hardware accelerated, videos play super smooth in full-screen. The videos now ‘live’ stream as well, so you can click to any portion of the video and start from there without it downloading first.

Add to Playlist

Another feature that is highly request is the ability to add videos to playlists. Ask and you shall receive because that’s just what we’ve done. You can now add the video you’re watching to an existing YouTube playlist, or even create a new playlist and add the video to it.

4 Way Video Chat

We’re proud to introduce 4 way video chat! Create your channel, have your friends create theirs, then you’re a few clicks away from video chatting with all your friends. While video chatting we’ve made it simple to share the video you’re currently watching with everyone you’re connected to.

Popout Player

We’ve resurrected the popout player, or mini player. Only this one is much more stable and is also based off our new video player. When you choose to use the popout player it will hide DeskTube and pop the video out into a new window. This window will stay on top of all other windows and won’t ‘pause’ if DeskTube looses focus. When using the popout player once a video ends a set of 3 related videos will appear. You can choose to watch one, or perform a search for another video you may want to watch. This is all within the popout player’s window.

Conclusion

DeskTube has come a long way over the past year and half, and we couldn’t be more proud of the product releasing on July 13th. Make sure to stay updated, you’ll be able to enjoy the new version by launching DeskTube on Monday the 13th and selecting to update. Otherwise, grab a new copy on the download page.

Thanks and enjoy!

- The Team