Update: mxTube v1.5 with Walkthrough
- Background Downloader
- Video Descriptions
- The ability to watch videos on MxTube before downloading them
2. Run MxTube
When you first start MxTube you are asked to 'Accept' their license agreement and must do before proceeding. After tapping 'Accept', you are prompted with a one-time notice about how to donate to the author. I can't stress enough how much time these developers spend on creating these great applications for free, so if you have a buck to spare, please pitch in and contribute (especially if you find yourself using their app everyday, like we do).
The startup 'Featured' screen has a notice about where to find the developer for support, known bugs, and current features. In case you missed where to donate in the one time popup, the 'Featured' tab also has this information toward the bottom :).
3. Search for YouTube Videos
Tap 'Search' in the bottom tab bar, and type in your search words to find YouTube videos. You will see two search options appear as you start to type.
Apparently some videos available on YouTube Mobile are not available on the full site, and vice versa. Currently searching YouTube.com will display a message about "Feature Unavailable". From the developer's site, this feature will be available when v2.0 is released soon.
4. Select video to download from search results.
After tapping 'Search' you are presented with a listing very similar to the listing of the built in YouTube application on the iPhone. Select the video you wish to download and you will be prompted with two options:
Stream gives you the ability to watch the video now, letting you decide if it is in fact the video you are looking to download. I already know that my favorite "Salad Fingers" video is number 2, so I will select 'Download'. Had I selected 'Stream', the YouTube video player would have launched with the video requested.
4. Choose what kind of file to download
The program lets you choose whether to download a high quality version, or a low quality version of your selected video. Below I will show you two screenshots to illustrate the difference. Over an EDGE connection it could take a very long time to download a high quality video, but over 3G or WiFi you should be fine. We are using a 3G for this tutorial, so I selected high quality without hesitation, and also selected the Low Quality version to highlight the differences.
After selecting a download type, a notification will appear on the 'Downloads' tab showing you how many active downloads are present. Tap on 'Downloads' to view all active downloads.
NOTE: One advantage of mxTube v1.5 is that the downloads will run in the background even if you close the application. To test, we went to the SpringBoard and checked our email, and then came back -- both downloads were complete.
5. Play your downloaded videos
Once the downloads are complete they appear in the 'Videos' tab at the bottom. Notice it combined both the High Quality and Low Quality versions into one item on the menu. When selecting that video to watch I'm prompted to choose which version I would like to play.
Below you'll see the same screenshot from both for quality comparison.
Summary: MxTube 1.0 was a great offering to the jailbreak community. It allowed us to take our favorite YouTube videos with us regardless of whether WiFi or cell-tower service was available. This was especially useful for those using the iPod Touch. v1.5a beta offers us the great rock solid product that we got with 1.0, and even adds a few extras, making this app is a must have for anyone who is a frequenter of YouTube. mxTube v2.0 promises to offer access to even more content. It will allow you to download not only videos available to the Apple YouTube application, but any YouTube video available on the website as well. The reason why this isn't active yet is because grabbing the videos from the website will require converting them from their native FLV (Flash Video) format into mp4 (iPod's native format). The background downloader doesn't currently have this functionality, but according to the developer's site is coming very soon. We'll definitely be keeping this on our SpringBoard, and checking frequently for updates. If we missed anything, let us know in the comments below!
