RSS Handler Blog

Service status and new podcasting application

2010-04-18T07:52:00.000-07:00

As many of you have already noticed some time ago, RSSHANDLER.COM stopped working as it was working earlier and stopped servicing podcasts. The reason for this problem are recent YouTube format changes. I can describe it in details, but basically, problem is that video, must be downloaded from the same IP that issues request. And it causes a lot of problems for hosted services like RSSHANDLER. Hopefully, something will change or someone will find solution and will share it with everyone and one day service will continue to work, as it was easiest way to watch YouTube podcasts.

But problem is still here and podcasts are not working. So, I decided to find some solution (maybe temporary), and today I am ready to make it public. It functions similarly RSSHANDLER.COM, but it is not hosted on server in the internet, but on user's own computer. So, it is standalone application. It is quite new, so expect some bugs and glitches, but it was already tested with several brave users, and general response is positive.

As special bonus, I have already implemented several long awaited features, like 50 results per feed and feed ordering. Also, as there is no traffic issues for application, now it is possible to return item descriptions.

There are pluses and minuses for application compared to service:
Pluses:

does not depend on service, so will work even if service is down
open sourced, so if you want, you can add your own features
better customization, it is possible to implement more features in application then in service

Minuses:

requires installation

Installation

Program requires Java to run. Download Java at http://www.java.com/. Download it and restart browser or computer if required.
Click at http://rsshandler.googlecode.com/files/rsshandler.jnlp . It will start launching and downloading of required components. Accept all prompts. It will start program and podcast server.

Usage

Create podcast URL

Start server
Enter type of feed you need: user (channel), playlist, favorites.
Enter feed id. It is user name for user feed (for example Google), playlist id for playlists (for example 288B4A1BBFEF7424), user id for favorites (for example Google).
Click Generate podcast URL button.
Copy/paste this url into your podcast application (for example iTunes)
Watch

Updating podcasts
Server must be running all the time when you doing updates (or all the time when podcast application is running, if updates are automatic)

Just launch application, server starts automaticaly

General application installation is described at http://code.google.com/p/rsshandler/, and all technical updates and documentation will be stored there. You can also find some tips there.

Application is still new and there is defenitely a lot of bugs, so please report anything you find here in comments or at http://code.google.com/p/rsshandler/issues/list, also please offer new features and improvements the same way.

There is Google Group at http://groups.google.com/group/rsshandler for technical and general discussion about application, so if you have some question please create new topic there or post comments. If you plan to contribute, also register and post requests to Google Groups.

As about what will be with RSSHANDLER.COM, I don't plan to shutdown anything yet. I plan to freeze web site for few monthes, put memos on every page about new opportunities with application. If it will not become possible to restore service in this period, I plan to turn RSSHANLDER.COM into application's web site.

Some new issues

2010-03-18T23:10:00.000-07:00

Looks like there are some new changes in YouTube request format. I'll try to investigate and fix as soon as possible.

too_many_recent_calls issue solved

2010-03-08T22:00:00.000-08:00

Issue seems to be solved, at least I don't have it and cann't see it from logs.
Do someone still experiences it? Please leave comment.

URLOF.COM will be shut down

2010-02-23T22:14:00.000-08:00

For some time ago I have created url shortening service called URLOF.COM, it was used here and there in RSSHANDLER.
But recently someone used it to redirect traffic to some sites and was sending emails with links to URLOF redirects in them. GODADDY send me emails, that my domain is involved in spam, I explained them that it is only url shortening service and I cann't be responsible if someone includes my sites name in some bad email, but they didn't wanted to listen and understand anything and demanded money for dealing with this situation, so as this service does not bring much money, I finally decided to shut down URLOF.
So if you are using links via URLOF for rss feeds, you probably will have to change them and use direct links or another url shortening service.
After some time I plan to built in some url shortening directly into RSSHANDLER, so it will generate shorter urls by default.

too_many_recent_calls issue

2010-02-23T22:02:00.000-08:00

There is frequently reported issue about YouTube quota. I am trying to solve it, did some requests optimization to see will it help or not, we should see results in few days.
If it will not help, I will also try to use YouTube developers key, as it may help to increase quota limits.
I am dealing with this issue.

Updates

2010-01-16T12:49:00.000-08:00

I have not detected any major issue. Only problem is that some videos are not being downloaded occasianaly. It is not really clear what is the reason, but it maybe related to service or YouTube load. Maybe some blocking of excessive requests or something. I increased number of retries for downloads and this problem should be less annoying. At least it was in my tests.
Please keep reporting when there will be some problem that I have not noticed.

Problems with YouTube feeds

2010-01-13T22:20:00.000-08:00

Several users report problems with feed updates. I'll take a look into the problem soon.

Adding YouTube videos to playlists EASY

2009-11-27T10:25:00.000-08:00

Recently I have created small tool to add videos to playlists via bookmarklets.
It is called UNEMB and can be found at http://www.unemb.com.
Reason why I have created it, is that it is quite difficult to add YouTube videos to playlists. First, you have to start video, then you have to go to YouTube page, then select playlist where you want to see your video and only after it you can add it. It is quite annoyingly complicated and I wanted to have just one click to do it.
So I have created UNEMB, where you can create bookmarlet that you have to drag and drop to your bookmarks. It can add videos to favorites or playlists, you can have several bookmarklets for different playlists.
After you have created bookmarklet, you can go to any page with embedded YouTube video (Google Reader works great too), and just click bookmarklet. First time you will be redirected to authorization pages (mine and YouTube), but it is only for first time and will be stored in your cookies later. After first time one click will be enough and video will be stored without any further actions.
This service works in perfect synergy with RSSHANDLER, but is good also for other use cases, that's why it is hosted separately.
I am using it myself for little time and already am perfectly happy with it.
My usual use case is that I am reading Google Reader to find something new and funny and once I see YouTube video I click UNEMB bookmarklet to add video to playlist. This is special playlist, it is called 'downloads' and is like my YouTube inbox. I have this inbox configured as podcast in my mobile and in YouTubeXL on TV. And when I have enough time to watch video, I just watch them: later share with friends when it is good or just delete them when it is not.
I found this scenario very usefull and simple for myself and that's why I want to share it with everyone.
Again, service is new and it is first time when I was using Google Data API, so it maybe buggy, so please let me know if you experience any problem.

Feature request

2009-05-14T12:33:00.000-07:00

Please write in comments features that you want most and that is not implemented yet.

Content type bug fixed

2009-05-14T12:32:00.001-07:00

Fixed bug when for mp4 files, content type was flv.
It was a problem for some client applications.

Changes in YouTube RSS format

2009-04-30T13:59:00.000-07:00

New changes in YouTube format. Service was not operating for some time, now should be fine.
Let me know if there are any problems with new changes.

Few notes: Seems that YouTube have excluded enclosures from their feeds completely (even for online users). Hopefully it does not mean anything bad for us.

New features - HD, bookmarklets, standard feeds and playlists

2009-04-15T21:50:00.000-07:00

There is small reward after last week downtime - it is a new release of the service with several new features.

Standard feeds - like Top Rated, Most viewed, etc. In the converter section.
Playlists - it is possible to convert playlists too.
HD format support - only when video is available in HD, so it is mostly usable for downloads and channels, not good for favorites, playlists and standard feeds.
Bookmarklets for downloads - it is no more necessary to copy/paste URLs, just click link.
Banners! - you may notice several new banners on the page.

Please check it and let me know if there is any issue.

Problems seems to be resolved

2009-04-10T15:36:00.000-07:00

After few days of broken service, it seems now to be fixed.

Thanks for everyone who reported about it and please check if everything is working again.

Problems with service

2009-04-06T23:25:00.000-07:00

There seems to be problems with using service, probably due to YouTube changes.
I'll try to fix it in today.
Thanks to everyone reporting this issue.

Changes from YouTube

2009-01-24T15:00:00.000-08:00

YouTube changed format of the channel feeds, and they were not working for some time. Now everything should be fine again. Please leave comments if something still is broken.

New design

2008-11-23T04:54:00.000-08:00

New template for RSSHandler. Previous was more complicated to handle and less customizable, also looked different in different browsers, this one should be more stable.

Also links to blog made public, so any interested can now follow site updates.

Short url for video feeds

2008-11-21T14:21:00.000-08:00

URL generated by RSS Handler are quite big and ugly, and if you are not using Nokia Bar Codes, or not sending links by SMS or e-mail, it is quite difficult to enter these URLs into mobile.
Now on each page there is link to create short URLs, that are easier to enter or remember, and that are much shorter than handler's links.
To create links is used site URLOF.COM and it can be used to shorten all kinds of links, but not only links from RSS Handler .

Favorites feed converted from ATOM to RSS

2008-11-19T13:56:00.000-08:00

Now it is also possible to subscribe to YouTube favorites in iTunes and other podcast viewers from RSS Handler.
Also few minor bugs fixed.

Minor bug fixes

2008-11-15T04:30:00.000-08:00

Empty url gives error and not exception.

Now it should accept various youtube sites like in.youtube.com, etc. Not only www.youtube.com.

Support for Sony PSP

2008-11-04T14:04:00.000-08:00

Support for Sony PSP video RSS feeds. Now you can choose FLV, MP4 or PSP format for your feed and subscribe to youtube feed directly from PSP console. Resolution is only 176x144, but PSP does not support 480x360 videos.

YouTube Favorites RSS

2008-10-28T12:17:00.000-07:00

Now it is possible to subscribe to your favorites RSS feed. Now you can select YouTube videos you like and construct your own feed and subscribe to this feed in reader. Again in MP4 and FLV.

Videos and channels in MP4

2008-10-27T13:53:00.000-07:00

Now it is possible to download and subscribe to feeds and individual videos in high quality MP4 format. There is still option to subscribe to more compact FLV version.

Download page added

2008-10-25T11:15:00.000-07:00

Added new page to download videos from YouTube. There are many sites that allow to download YouTube videos, but this also generates Nokia Mobile Code for each download, what makes it a little bit easier to download video to mobile phone.

Downloader supports both: embeddable and not embeddable YouTube videos.

You can find new page here, and it is available from the main menu of the site.

Youtube changed format for downloading flv video files

2008-10-23T13:54:00.000-07:00

RSS Handler was updated to support new YouTube video download format. Previous format (Location header of http://www.youtube.com/v/#### with link to get_video.php) stopped to work and was redirecting to SWF player.

New format is supported transparently, users of RSS Handler don't have to update their feeds and all links will work as is.

RSS Handler launched

2008-10-16T23:38:00.000-07:00

RSS Handler is online service that allows to subscribe to YouTube RSS feeds and get feed of FLV videos.
Problems with usual YouTube RSS feed is that it provides content for online RSS clients, where each item is SWF Flash player. This is not very convenient for podcast players, where you can subscribe to feed, download it and watch videos later, while you are not online.
So far, service does nothing more than downloads requested YouTube RSS feed or channel and replaces links to SWF files with links to FLV files.
If you want to know more about FLV, podcast, etc. you may check F.A.Q. section or Google.