Flash: January 2010 Archives

First seen by me at LXer, I can confirm that TinyOgg indeed takes the URL of a YouTube video and converts it into the free, open Ogg format, allowing you to watch said video in the Web interface or download the .ogv file and watch it in the comfort of your own Totem player or other player that is friendly to the Ogg format.

This is more important to me these days because of my fix for the dead sound on my 9-year-old Toshiba laptop.

To fix my dead sound, I spent less than $4, including "free" postage, to get a USB sound card at DealExtreme.com (the DealExtreme site isn't working right now, but I can confirm that I ordered the thing and it shipped from Hong Kong to here without a hitch).

I risked the whole $3 and change only because the item in question popped up in a search for USB sound devices and Linux.

I easily got the thing working in everything ... but Flash. Yep, I can listen to all manner of audio and hear all kinds of video. Except for Flash. I'm not getting system sounds either, but I can live with that.

And I've been using Keepvid.com to convert videos since my OpenBSD days (which lasted through November 2009).

But Keepvid.com converts from Flash to freedom-hating MP4.

TinyOgg explains all in its brief FAQ.

So until we get freedom-loving, platform-agnostic video over the Web, via HTML 5 or another way, TinyOgg is making the world a little better place for those of us who for one reason or other have trouble with Flash.

Hint: Use the "long form" for your TinyOgg conversion if you want to download your video.