Over the past day or so, I have been making changes to how this web site is deployed. This web site now utilizes virtualenv. Using virtualenv along with pip has allowed for a much easier transition between development and production setups. My development and productions Python environments can now be identical without much of a hassle and different environments can use different versions of similar Python packages; being able to specify dependencies and install them from pypi using pip is also a great feature. This method of deploying Django projects has become fairly common and working with virtualenv has shown me why it is becoming popular.

Also, I have cleaned up the code for this web site a little bit. To help ease pushing updates to the Webfaction servers and as a means of showing what components make up this web site, the code for this web site is now on GitHub at https://github.com/Ryochan7/asylum.

If you have been paying attention to my GitHub profile, you would have seen that I have been making improvements to my old programs. YouTubed-2x is an application that I wanted to fix up using the knowledge that I have gained over the past couple of months. YouTubed-2x has been a decent flash video downloader but there have been issues that have been a part of the program for too long.

I am releasing a new version of the main archive because there are still some downloads of the older archives. One thing that must be mentioned is that there is no pre-built Windows version. Running this application on Windows would require an installation of Python, the PyGTK all-in-one bundle, and pywin32 extensions; I cannot get py2exe to cooperate with my new setup. Some of the improvements in this version are more useful on the development front but there are a few changes that users would probably like.

• Test suite rewritten. Now each parser test is independent and can be tested separately. It is now much easier to test which parsers are broken using only one test run.
• Logger starting to be used in the application.
• The setup.py file has been altered to make it much easier to distribute the application.
• gsignals are now used in the videothreadmanager to help ease updating the GUI.
• Tweak for finding an appropriate My Videos folder in Windows.
• GUI no longer locks during video adding. Performing tasks on other video threads is now possible while one thread is parsing a video page.
• Download speed is now shown in taskbar.
• Fixed a long standing issue with locking which would not allow GUI elements to become sensitive after parsing a video page. This issue has annoyed me for over a year but I could not figure out what the problem was. A lock release was being circumvented when canceling a thread which would result in the starting of another thread to no longer be possible. Fixing this issue has shown me the importance of a debugger.
• YouTube and GiantBomb parsers fixed. This was primarily done in order to test the application.

This application will still not be under major development unless people want continued development of YouTubed-2x. I am happy with the new version and it works very well. Please post comments if you still have an interest in YouTubed-2x.

Screenshot:

Download: http://www.ryochan7.com/files/projects/youtubed2x/YouTubed-2x-2011.03.26.tar.gz

Long time no see. I am writing this post to mention that I have started using GitHub and I have been comitting a lot of my projects. So far, I have added 5 repositories although one was just a coding challenge for a prospective job. YouTubed-2x, StepMania Unlock Code Generator (Python and Java) and also Pizza Py Party are now on GitHub. Along with learning how to use Git, I have also starting using PyQt and I have converted StepMania Unlock Code Generator over to using Qt. The Qt version is in the master branch of the repository and the GTK version is in its own branch (gtkarchive).

https://github.com/Ryochan7

Other than this, I have not done much over the past couple of months. The only other thing is that I have started using Vim as my primary editor as opposed to using Gedit. That is about all I have to mention.

In a previous post, I mentioned an experiment that I did with NetBeans. The experiment was writing a version of StepMania Unlock Code Generator in Java using Swing for the interface. I finally found a copy of it again and I figure that I should put it up here. It should be equivalent to the 0.6 Python release in functionality.

http://www.ryochan7.com/files/projects/sucg/sucg_java.zip

It has been a while since I put out a release. I have done some experimenting but this version is similar to the last one. Updates

• Translation support in progress although I doubt this program will every be translated to another language
• Parsers slightly refactored
• Broken parsers fixed (can't remember which were broken)
• Queued items that have not been started are saved when saving a session now. Only items that had been started but were either paused, cancelled or finished would appear in the previous release
• Made a Windows version for this release
• Likely more but I can't remember

Downloads:

Linux: http://www.ryochan7.com/files/projects/youtubed2x/youtubed-2x_2010-01-22.tar.gz Windows: http://www.ryochan7.com/files/projects/youtubed2x/youtubed2x-win_2010-01-22.zip Archive: http://www.ryochan7.com/files/projects/youtubed2x/youtubed-2x_archive_2010-01-22.tar.gz

Screenshot:

It has been a while since the previous release. Not too much has changed since I have been busy with school so much this semester. Anyway, on to the changes.

• YouTube flagged videos can now be downloaded without user credentials
• Session support added. List of videos is saved on program exit and restored when program is started
• Pause support. Downloads can now be paused and resumed at a later time
• Audio and video bitrate settings completely split. The audio stream of videos is no longer copied but re-encoded. The old method caused problems with some videos from some sites
• Right-click video menu updated. Input and output videos can be played and the output directory for a video can be opened
• Bug with right-click video menu fixed. Items can be switched and the menu is updated properly
• Supported sites window now includes links to associated web sites
• 4 parsers added (HardSexTube, Spankwire, Spike, YouJizz) and 1 parser removed (Porn2PC)

Also to note, there will not be a Windows build of this version unless some requests it. It wouldn't take much time to make the build but I just don't care right now. There is no point to this release at all. This program is just a major timesink. I don't even use my GP2X much anymore and I think I am going to skip on getting a Wiz.

Downloads:

http://www.ryochan7.com/files/projects/youtubed2x/youtubed-2x_2009-11-29.tar.gz

Screenshot:

New version. Now this program is around 4000 lines. I have to focus on other things, particularly regarding the upcoming school semester, so I will not be working on this application for a while; I have to commit myself to that decision this time around. This release has also been posted on SourceForge.

• New parser plugin system has been implemented. It is simple but it works. I should mention that there is no documentation on how to make a custom parser. If you want to make a parser, look at the code of existing parsers
• Fixes to allow application to work on Windows 7 and Windows Vista
• Added "Time Left" column to GUI. Works with downloading and transcoding
• Transcoding progress is now more accurate
• Right-click menu updated. "Play Video" and "Copy Video URL" options added
• Added button for opening the output folder using the desktop environment default file manager. Uses xdg-open command on Linux and start command on Windows
• 4 parsers added (ScrewAttack, GameTrailers, Yahoo Video, The Escapist). Now a total of 21 sites are supported
• Fixed regular expression for determining video resolution. Padding now works for mp4 video consistently
• Media paths are now found in a more flexible way

Downloads:

Linux: http://www.ryochan7.com/files/projects/youtubed2x/youtubed-2x_2009-07-07.tar.gz
Windows: http://www.ryochan7.com/files/projects/youtubed2x/youtubed2x-win_2009-07-07.zip
Archive: http://www.ryochan7.com/files/projects/youtubed2x/youtubed-2x_archive_2009-07-07.tar.gz

Screenshot:

YouTubed-2x is now being hosted at SourceForge. After I released the last version, a member of the OpenHandhelds community, CSXM, asked about the status of the project and offered to help a little bit with the development of the project. So, it looks like YouTubed-2x will continue to be developed for the time being. Since there is interest in this program, I will work on it again as well; I will likely not be that involved since I want to do some other things. If this experiment doesn't go over well, the program will go back to being abandoned.

The first order of business is implementing a plugin system for the program. A plugin system will allow parsers to be added to the program and updated without releasing a new version of the program. I still don't know exactly how such a system should be implemented; the main problems at this point are how users will add the new plugins and what data structure will hold all the instances of parser classes.

The scope of this program has gone beyond what I originally intended. At this rate, it is basically becoming a mini-xVideoServiceThief.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/youtubed-2x

Lately, I have been using YouTubed-2x less than usual. Also, coding the program is not as fun as it used to be. The little time that I spend working on the program anymore just seems like a waste of time to me. So, I will package the changes that I have made and release a new version. This will likely be the last version I will ever publish. There have been some good additions with this version. Here is a list of the most significant changes.

• Icons are placed next to a video title in order to show which site a video is hosted at
• A downloader class has been made. Wget is no longer a dependency for this program
• Anonymous HTTP proxy support has been added
• 640x480 resolution option has been added. This option should be useful for watching videos while using the Tv-Out option of the GP2X
• Automatic download support has been added and enabled by default. Videos will immediately begin downloading once a URL has been added and a page has been parsed. Manual downloading is still available
• Process limit added. The default is 4 but setting the option to 0 will count as unlimited
• Right-click menu added. Only has a copy URL action
• Porn2Pc parser added. Videos listed on the site that originate from a website supported by this application will work
• Google Video parser updated, PacoPorn parser added, RedTube parser updated
• 17 websites are now supported by this program

Downloads:

Linux: http://www.ryochan7.com/files/projects/youtubed-2x_2009-06-17.tar.gz
Windows: http://www.ryochan7.com/files/projects/youtubed2x-win_2009-06-17.zip
Archive: http://www.ryochan7.com/files/projects/youtubed-2x_archive_2009-06-17.tar.gz

Screenshot:

Based on what I have seen, the videos converted with this program should also work with the new GP2X Wiz so I might start working on this application again if I get a Wiz and I find this program useful again. That is not very likely though. I do plan to get a Wiz sometime but I don't think that I will have a need for this application then. It is a shame that I am going to stop now since this program is close to being 3000 lines long. I still consider writing 1000 lines of code to be a major undertaking; I didn't even realize that this program was so close to 3000 lines until about a week ago. I don't know what I am going to do with the little amount of time that I will gain by not working on this app but I hope that it will go towards something more useful.

This is an incremental update but there are some neat changes made. The main motivation for releasing an update is that YouTube changed the format for high quality videos so the YouTube parser would only get the low quality version of videos. Now, the mp4 version of the file is used as the high quality video file on YouTube. Changes:

• Changed YouTube page parser to get the new default high quality format
• Experimental Windows release. Both the GUI and command-line versions work
• Site directories option added. Videos from a particular site are saved in their own directories
• Small preferences window added. FFmpeg location and site directories option can be set
• GirlsInTube parser added
• Timed updating of GUI. Download and transcode information is updated every 1/2 second. This is mainly for Windows since updating after each message from ffmpeg or wget was too intensive and would cause Windows to slow down
• Changed regular expressions used with ffmpeg due to new Ubuntu package
• RedTube and DailyMotion parsers fixed
• Fixed some issues with the padding code

Downloads:

Linux: http://ryochan7.webfactional.com/files/projects/youtubed-2x_2009-03-21.tar.gz
Windows binary: http://ryochan7.webfactional.com/files/projects/youtubed2x-win_2009-03-21.zip
Archive: http://ryochan7.webfactional.com/files/projects/youtubed-2x_archive_2009-03-21.tar.gz