No YouTube for HTC Boobs

The first (and often default) stop of choice for many new smartphone owners is usually a great video site, like youtube or dailymotion. Sure, we're interested in the thousand other features that avail us, but what better way to show off those awesome handheld super powers than with full motion video?  For many HTC Tilt owners, your first visit to Youtube had to have been a nightmare.

I'm writing this blog to help those of you who are fiddling with this beautiful device right out of the box and feeling absolutely alienated, because you know your wifi link can handle the content you're looking for, but your phone keeps telling you to go scratch. After a while you gave up, thought "this 600 dollar piece of crap is going back", and started to play solitaire.. 

Fear not, all hope is not gone.

This baby can rock FMV with the best laptops out there. You just have to know where to look for a solution. I'm going to hand this one to you on a silver platter, because I'd hate to see another person hunt the web for weeks like I did for one complete fixer- upper.  For me, web research can be compared to "real-life" research in dog years. For every hour I surfed the net only to reach a dead end, I lost the equivalent of SEVEN years of my life in the real world. lol

Since I consider that a great sacrifice, I will at least torture you for the length of one blog while I illustrate the process I went through, before I surrender the info.    

Or, you can just scroll down to the highlighted link towards the bottom of the page. There's something for everyone here.

The first step in your quest for knowledge will leave you at a loss for words-keywords, that is. You're not initially sure where the problem lies unless you're a seasoned hacker (and I was out of the loop a LONG time ago!) You'll probably google phrases like "Tilt Windows Media problems" or "Can't see Youtube on HTC". You'll get lots of advice from bloggers that think you can fix this by adding a codec to your Windows Mobile player.

Does absolutely nothing.

Now your Tilt's memory is depleted and you're going to have to go into your file manager and remove all the crap you just downloaded that's corrupted your Windows player. You downloaded RealPlayer somewhere along the way, too, didn't you? Now it starts on it's own when you try to play the media you could play before and freezes all your functions for ten minutes...? You poor sap. Uninstall and resist the urge to wretch everytime you see the Real icon henceforth..

If you took the same steps I did, you'll then be drawn to Core Player references. Hmmm, that little black, ticker tape icon just feels like it's gonna' work when you click on it...

It doesn't.

Ahh, and let's not forget Flash Lite, Adobe's exciting new innovation that will revolutionize cell phone technology as we know it, by shrinking big daddy Flash into a neat, little mobile version of itself that your cell phone can read. I'm sure you hightailed it to the Adobe website and seen an ad where a download button should be, then scanned your sad, little Tilt screen for a that button. You've been looking for half an hour (time flies when you're in hell) and you're wondering if you missed it or if your phone just can't see it.

Sorry, button just doesn't exist. 

There is  an experimental version of Flash Lite out there, but (as stated on it's download page) this is a commercial-only bundle and will not work with actual applications on the web. Wha..? Don't you read the fine print? It's there for a reason!

Hacking Flash Lite for free won't solve the problem, but you're taking the right path as far as having figured out that the answer has to do with hacking a program.

Your neck's probably in pain at this point and you just might be sick of looking at your Tilt. Let's hope you'll fall in love with it all over again when you see what it can really do.

The following blogger is the only one I found who combines the correct procedure and the right 2 program extensions-because this one's not only about what you download, but where you download the file(s) to and in what order! Follow his instructions to the tee and you'll get to enjoy the fact that YouTube has now launched a version of it's website tailored to mobile watchers at m.youtube.com.  However, you won't even need youtube's mobile site with these codecs and this angel of a blogger has even included a folder full of other compatible websites you can visit. That folder will turn up in your Start menu once download is complete, so you can get straight to the good stuff. Without any further ado, here's the page: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=339269

If your TCPMP doesn't work the first time, you probably didn't follow his instructions in order. Bear down, focus and start all over again. If you're confused about whether the PPC or Smartphone download will serve you best, I'd go with the PPC. You'll have to register at a website to access the main codec, but the other is a piece of cake.

Now my only problem is saving too much writing onto my hard drive. Have they invented an HTC Tilt zip drive yet?!?! 

3:30 PM - August 23, 2008 - post comment