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68kTube - YouTube for Classic Macs

superpete

Well-known member
Hi All

I've created a special YouTube proxy and client for Classic Macs to search and view videos on YouTube. 

If you want to give it a go I'm currently running a server. Download the client from https://github.com/pgodwin/68kTube/blob/master/Client/RealBasic/68kTube%20Alpha.sitand use the default settings. You'll (at this point) need a PPC Mac, OpenTransport and QuickTime 4.1 or greater.

The client is written in RealBasic 2.1 and the server is in C# targeting .NET 4.5. Both the client and server source can be downloaded at https://github.com/pgodwin/68kTube/

Some of the development can be seen in https://68kmla.org/forums/index.php?/topic/28217-supersocket-for-realbasic/

Obligatory Screenshot:

DkoQ7ly.png.00d4fed9e0050e033fb8cfb6e5ca5375.png


Let me know how you go!

 
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CC_333

Well-known member
You mentioned in another thread somewhere that you will only run the server for a month due to high costs, but it could conceivably be run in a VM on a modern machine on one's own network, right?

I ask because I have a very nice server that's basically little more than a repository for my files at this point, and I'd like to use it for more stuff (I have to learn how first, and that's what's been holding me back).

Also, could a client for, say, Windows 3.x or 9x be written that could still communicate with your server-side program? I have a few machines running these OSes, and I'd like for them to be *somewhat* useful. Since you use QuickTime 4.1, which, if I remember correctly, is available for at least Windows 98 and higher, it shouldn't be too difficult, but I don't know.

c

 

superpete

Well-known member
Absolutely. I'm hoping to release a binary build for you to run your own servers this weekend. You'll need a YouTube API key, but that is very easy to get. The server is just a console app, so all you need to do is run an EXE, make sure Windows firewall doesn't block incoming connections and away you go. 

The architecture certainly would support clients on other platforms. It's a rather simple API, so building a client for Win3.1 or NeXT or whatever should be doable. QuickTime 4 is required right now because it added the Http Handlers, but QuickTime 3 onward support progressive downloads, so that could a minimum longer term.

Edit: now you've done it - I don't think 3.1 is doable as the latest QuickTime is 2.1.1. RealVideo might be another container/output.

 
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Anonymous Freak

Well-known member
Aww..  "This application was built with a demo license or REALbasic and has expired. Please contact the original author for a new version."


Edit: Or I forgot to set my clock before trying it out...

 
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superpete

Well-known member
Bugger sorry, I forgot to fix that up. Yes setting your clock will fix it. I'll try and do a release tonight.

 
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superpete

Well-known member
Forgot to put QuickTime on the server. So Cinepak is crashing it out. I'm fixing it right now.

Edit: All fixed, try now. If your hardware can do it, try h263 as the encoding is very, very fast. 

 
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Anonymous Freak

Well-known member
Also, for a run-your-own server, OS X support would be appreciated. I have an always-on OS X machine, I don't have an always-on Windows box.

And hah! I'm probably the one who was trying Cinepak right then...

 

superpete

Well-known member
I saw the crashes :) I'll look into an OS X port. I don't see it being an issue as it should run under Mono and encoding is done externally. FFMPEG is obviously ported to OS X. For QuickTime, on Windows I have written a small console app which lets you specify an encoding profile XML, source file and destination file. It's using the ActiveX QuickTime controls, so the same code isn't going to work in OS X. However coding a quick console app should be trivial...

 

Anonymous Freak

Well-known member
So I installed QuickTime 4 on my SE/30, and tried a couple local sample files to make sure they'd play.  Missing the "Video" codec, so it offered to download it.  Holy crap, it succeeded! 

Looks like crap - I took the iMovie 1 "tutorial" (washing the dog,) and exported it as Video codec, 10 fps, 320x240 with uncompressed 8-bit, 11 KHz mono audio.  Slideshow. *MAYBE* 0.6 fps.

Tried Cinepak, same basic settings, only as 256 grayscale (I don't know what Video does, it doesn't let you configure.). Slightly better, maybe 2-3 fps.

Any way to configure your server-side to select 256 grayscale to transcode to?

Yes, I'm attempting to run this on an SE/30...

Unfortunately, it seems to fail when making the server request.  (Yes, I have working internet, as evidenced by the QuickTime codec download, and the fact that MacWeb 1.1 browses just fine.)

 

Anonymous Freak

Well-known member
Aha, it appears that MacTCP 1.1 doesn't like either the virtual domain or the port you're running your server on - I can't even get MacWeb to get a result, it says http://68ktube01.cloudapp.net:9000/is unreachable.  Yet my PowerBook on the same network (plugged in to the same hub) can get a result just fine. (I type in a full http://68ktube01.cloudapp.net:9000/api/search/ URL, and get back the text that is obviously used to generate the UI.)

And yes, 68ktube works fine on my PowerBook G4.

Great project!  Once I get my Color Classic back functional, I'll have to use it regularly!

 

Anonymous Freak

Well-known member
Shoot, it gets further on my PowerBook 520c, in that the results page loads, but I can't get any videos to play.  It attempts to load, then can't load in-player, so it says to use the Movie menu to download.  

Any format, QuickTime errors "Couldn't open the file RB http 8 because it is not a file that QuickTime understands" (QuickTime 4.)

So I try "Open in Netscape" and (first, it loads iCab, not Netscape...) it just opens to the URL, blank.  I don't think your server is sending a proper MIME type.

When I copy the URL and paste it in iCab, same thing.

When I paste it in Netscape, it downloads a file to my desktop.  Plenty big to be a video file, but with no type/creator properly assigned.

When I try to open it in QuickTime manually QuickTime just crashes.  (I've tried all of the formats that are 68k appropriate, they all fail.  Yet I can play other files of each format just fine.)

 

superpete

Well-known member
Thanks for testing Anon. Despite it's name, it's not currently working properly on 68k Macs.

QuickTime (via RB) doesn't like opening from a URL. It works on PPC for some reason, but not 68k. I can't find anything in the QT 4 documentation which says its limited to PPC so I think its a RealBasic limitation. 4.1 introduced async flags for loading movies, so RB might be using that (and obviously 4.1 doesn't exist on PPC). I have some code samples for Http opening, so will have to brush up on my C again and make sure it actually works properly on 68K Macs. Failing that, it might have to be renamed to PPCTube...

The MIME types are set correctly so not sure whats going on there. I've confirmed that 68k Browser do progressive downloads of the videos (Netscape 3 Gold), but admit more testing is needed.

 

techknight

Well-known member
What version of RB are you using? You may need to go back to an earlier version. 

Before RB changed hands, I downloaded their entire archive from their hidden FTP server. So if you need an earlier version (Demo, gotta find keys yourself) let me know. 

 

superpete

Well-known member
What version of RB are you using? You may need to go back to an earlier version. 

Before RB changed hands, I downloaded their entire archive from their hidden FTP server. So if you need an earlier version (Demo, gotta find keys yourself) let me know. 
I'm using 2.1.2 I think. I found 3 to be rather buggy (strange changes to the run timetime as fast as I can see). However, I've found some odd issues in 2.1.2 with the project manager (files disappearing out of it, yet still be included during build) - so if there's a new 2.x series update I'd be very keen for it!

 

techknight

Well-known member
I gotta dig through my files, but I do recall the RB IDE being very very buggy in the classic mac environment. with random type 1, and type 2 errors... 

 
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