Congratulations Michael Jordan!

DeskTube Team

Want to watch YouTube without all the overhead of a browser? DeskTube (free) lets you do just that. DeskTube is, as you might guess, a desktop app which connects to YouTube and shows you videos. You have access to most of the functionality of YouTube through DeskTube, including the ability to see the festering pit of humanity which is the “Comments” section of almost any video. Because the interface can be designed without the constraints of a browser-based app, it is snappier and somewhat cleaner than YouTube.

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

We’re also cleaning up the navigation to expose the video recording module, making it easily accessible. Not only that, it will allow room for expansion for new modules in the future as well as make it easier to navigate all of DeskTube’s features.

Keep checking back for updates, and if you’d like to help test the new features that find their way into DeskTube, visit our Beta Program sign up page.

Search:
You can now paste in a YouTube video’s URL into the search field in DeskTube to go right to that video. The URL must be formatted as follows:

Example Video URL

Facebook Stream Photo Viewer:
You can now view photos that have been attached to a users status update.

Facebook Photo Viewer

Rating:
You can now rate each video you watch by clicking the stars above the video playing.

Rating

Playlists and Subscriptions:
We’ve corrected an authentication problem DeskTube was having, so you can now retrieve all your playlists and subscriptions, even if they are set to private.

Playlists and Subscriptions

Quick Capture:
Yes, it’s finally here. If you have a webcam or any camera device hooked up to the computer running DeskTube, you’ll notice a new button to launch Quick Capture called “Camera”.

Camera Button

That will launch the Quick Capture window and minimize DeskTube.

Recording State

You then click the record button to start recording your video. The recording button will change to a stop button, the recording timer will become active, and a recording indicator will appear in the top right corner of the recording screen.

During Record

When you’re happy with your video, just hit the stop button and you’ll be switched into preview mode. You’ll first need to wait for our servers to process the video to make it available, this normally only takes a few seconds. Once the “Please Wait…” disappears you’re able to begin playback of the video you just recorded by hitting the play button, you can record a new video if you’re not satisfied with your video, or decide to use the recording for your upload. If you decide to use the video, you’ll be prompted to first download the video from our servers to your computer. Once the download completes the Quick Capture window will automatically close and DeskTube will restore itself if it’s still minimized. Then you’ll be prompted to select the video you just downloaded to complete the process.

Preview State

Performance:
We’ve been working very hard at performance improvements and we are pretty happy at what we’ve achieved with this release. DeskTube is a very cpu intensive application, however we are confident this release will bring some relief in that area. We’ve seen 50% cuts in cpu usage, and memory usage. We’ve also added a new setting to the settings panel to help out when DeskTube isn’t being used. If you leave the check box unchecked, like it is by default, DeskTube will basically go to sleep when it loses focus. It will pause any video playing, and use none of the computers resources. If you check the check box, DeskTube will always stay awake, even if you change to another program.

Focus Setting

So, we think these upgrades were very needed, and are excited about what’s to come of them. Remember to stay updated, the next update will be a big one.

So, if you want to help us out, therefore directly helping out all DeskTube users around the world (shout out to Spain, our largest fans!), please visit the Beta Program page to get registered today!