Tubular

We finally made it. Tubular 1.0 has just been released. I’ve fixed the last few memory leaks and bugs I could find, and just completed the awesome new web site, with the help of Tom Stoelwinder. He did an incredible job with the new site, and I want to thank him for his hard work. You can download the latest release by checking for updates within Tubular (Tubular menu > Check for updates), by clicking the download button on the main page, or by clicking the 1.0 badge up on the top. I’d like to thank everyone who preordered Tubular. I know how patience was tested, but the journey to 1.0 is finally over. To that end, I’m happy to announce that everyone who preordered Tubular will receive free upgrades for life. I’ve got a lot of plans for Tubular, and now those new features can begin to happen. Thanks again to everyone for their support during development.

I’ve been exploring several avenues for making videos stream, rather than needing to cache. In this post, I’ll be describing some of the techniques I’m working on, what their status is, and what is needed to make it work. Unfortunately, they will not be in the 1.0 version, as they’re not ready yet.

1. YouTube’s higher-quality videos are sometimes available in the codec MPEG-4. This is a standard codec that is supported by QuickTime, and so when available, it can be streamed right away. I have some proof-of-concept of this running. There are two problems with this approach. First, not all videos are available in this format, and certainly not on other video sites (hint hint), and so it can’t be relied upon; I still need an alternate approach for FLV videos. Second, I haven’t found a way to determine if the video is available in the MP4 format before handing it off to QuickTime without downloading the data twice. I haven’t spent as much time on this approach as the others, as it only applies to a small subset of videos. However, I will be spending more time on it for higher-quality videos after I can get streaming to work.
2. Tubular currently uses the open-source Perian QuickTime codec to decode the FLV files. However, it cannot stream them. Under the hood, Perian uses the open-source Ffmpeg library to decode the video; Perian then massages the decoded video into a QuickTime movie, which is played by Tubular. I’m working on another approach that bypasses Perian and uses Ffmpeg directly to decode the video in real-time. I’m currently able to decode the video and audio, but not get them into QuickTime yet, which Tubular relies on for both playback and iPod conversion (and will be depended upon heavily for upcoming features).
3. Most recently, Adobe released the full specification for the FLV file format for free, as part of their Open Screen Project initiative. This information was previously available, but it required a decent fee and was only allowed to be used in applications that create FLV files, not read them. Since then, I’ve begun working on my own FLV file decoder based on the specification. Getting it to read in files quickly and accurately, however, is difficult. One convenient thing with this approach is that I’ll have complete control over the decoding, which means I can optimize and enhance it for specific hardware (including, say, mobile devices…), and makes streaming trivial. Clearly, this is the most optimal solution, and it’s one I’m very heavily pursuing, but is far more complex than using the above two methods. It was also just released barely a month ago, and I haven’t had as much time to work on it.

Hopefully soon, one of these techniques will prove successful, making Tubular all the more useful. I’m certainly not happy about the fact that Tubular cannot stream, and that’ll be a major focus point in upcoming versions.

I’m happy to announce that Tubular 1.0 Beta 4 is available. There are a number of internal changes to fix some scattered bugs and improve performance, as well as a number of bug fixes. You can download the newest version by clicking the Download button above, or by checking for updates from within Tubular. The most noteworthy fixes:

• Tubular now has a Leopard-compatible 512×512 icon designed by Tom Stoelwinder.
• When a video is finished converting, the progress bar will fill and stop animating, instead of staying as indeterminate.
• The counter in the source table will now decrease when videos finish converting.
• Stopping or deleting a video conversion will remove the progress bar and cancel button properly
• Minor speed enhancements in video and category information loading.
• Memory leak fixes in the video data system.
• Under certain conditions, the cache would not empty properly; it should work correctly now

This will most likely be the final beta release. The 1.0 release is right around the corner, as I finish the help documentation and get the new web site, also designed by Tom Stoelwinder, in order. The goal is to have the final release before this year’s WWDC, which begins June 9th. I will be posting a preview of the new site very soon.

Fixes for everyone! It’s time for the third public beta of Tubular, bringing some much needed fixes for all:

• Changed the bottom bar back to white. And there was much rejoicing.
• Fixed a major issue where the app would lock a registered user out after two weeks
• Fixed an issue where the app would crash if you clicked the back button while a movie was loading
• Switched to a system-standard toolbar, which allows for customization and persistence
• Fixed the issue where a hidden window titled “Do Not Modify This Window” would be shown while videos were being loaded, visible with Expose
• Lots of little UI tweaks, such as pressing Command-W to close the current window, and having the Tubular window re-open if it was closed when reactivating the application

Almost all of these bugs were submitted by users. Also, each bug is tracked by who submitted it. One of the ways this is nice is that very soon I’ll be able to have an automated system that goes through the fixed bugs every release, and emails people who submitted the bug saying “this bug you submitted should be fixed”. But anyway, thanks to everyone who’s submitted bugs so far. Please keep them coming!

Due to some bounced and dropped emails, I’ve moved the support email system from one that’s hosted on-site to one powered by Gmail. This should hopefully mean better reliability for the support email system. However, there is a limbo period of about 72 hours before everything is definitely 100% set up, so it is possible that any emails between now and Friday may not be received by me. If you’ve sent an email between yesterday and Friday, and don’t get a response by Friday night, please send it again.

You don’t have to update any email addresses or anything like that. The support email address is the same as it was before, and all correspondence from me in the future will still look exactly the same. I’ll put up a post when the process is 100% complete. Sorry for any inconvenience ahead of time.

Just a quick update tonight. Tubular 1.0 Beta 2 is now available. This release is nothing but bug fixes, making it now the most stable release of Tubular yet (there aren’t any more crashing bugs in the database). Specifically:

• Fixed the issues with people being unable to register. If you were affected by this issue, please go into the Registration section in Preferences, and re-enter your information.
• Fixed a bug that caused Tubular to crash if you entered a YouTube user name with no favorites
• Fixed a bug with the importing preferences pane that caused undesirable behavior

You can download it directly, or get it through the auto-update in Tubular by selecting “Check for Updates” from the Tubular menu inside the app.

Also, as a reminder, I am updating the Tubular Twitter account as the new releases come out, so feel free to follow it.

Update (2/4/08 11:18 PM ET): It appears that you may have to activate twice if you’ve already tried and failed.

Update (2/4/08 10:26 PM ET): From what I can tell, the problem occurs when the user types in their name and email address, and then clicks the Activate button (as opposed to pressing the Return key). This causes whichever text field you last typed in, typically the email address, to not get recorded by the program. This isn’t a problem with the algorithm, and it’s something I didn’t pick up on in testing because, well, I’m primarily a keyboard user. I have a fix for this issue, but I’ll need to gather some information from people affected to make sure this is the actual cause before I put this one to bed. To work around, simply type in your email address and press the Return key instead of clicking on the Activate button, and it should work. If it continues to fail, please contact me by email or in the comments.

Registration with the beta released last night seems to be broken for many people. I’m aware of the issue and am looking into it. If you’re concerned about the app not working without being registered, don’t worry. The app is 100% functional without registration for 2 weeks from the first day you opened the Tubular public beta. During testing of registration, I did test every single actual registration, and they all worked, so this was an unexpected issue.

I have not handled the Tubular project properly. I admit it. I have not kept my customers up to date on what’s been happening, and have been misguided in handling the delays. And I let the lack of information go on for way too long. I’m truly sorry for the way that I’ve behaved over the course of this project. I’m going to use this post to explain everything that has happened, to hopefully answer all the questions everyone has had about what I have been doing. I know that many of you are extremely upset with me about this course of action, and I accept that. I’m not looking for pity or expecting anything out of this, but it’s the explanation that everyone rightfully deserves.

The first signs of trouble with Tubular began developing at the end of December, 2006. At this point, we were still using the default Flash-based YouTube player. Up to that point, it was ugly, but it worked. However, suddenly, using this method stopped working. When you’re writing an app like Tubular, any change to YouTube has the possibility of breaking the app. I quickly noticed that there were changes to the way that Flash players were created on YouTube’s site. A small “key” string was being passed around, and was generated from YouTube’s servers. I couldn’t find a way to work around the issue while still using Flash. This is what led to the decision to switch from the Flash player to a QuickTime player based on the open-source Perian codec.

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Tubular is now finally ready for public beta. This release brings with it:

• Registration support
• Leopard compatibility
• Increased reliability with locating the video raw video file (so playing or converting videos will be quicker, and will be less buggy)
• An all new preferences window, with settings for registration, auto-updating, caching, and your YouTube account
• Bug fixes for the bottom bar, video conversion, and the player

The update is available through the usual methods, as well as the download link above. The beta is now open to the public, but is time-restricted to two weeks before it must be registered. For everyone who has preordered, I’ll be sending out emails with the registration information, but all that is needed is the name and email address I have on record for you.

To do this, Tubular is using server validation to process registrations. This means that the app will be sending the name and email address you provide (again, the ones I have on file from your purchase) to our server, which will communicate back down to the program if you are registered. The server does not record any identifying information about your computer, nor does it keep history of previous validations, and the only time that registrations will be turned off is if they’ve been identified on an actual piracy site.

However, if there is still serious concern about using server validation, please let me know in the comments or by email. Otherwise, if you find any issues with the new version, please email support.

We’re wrapping up work on Tubular 1.0 Public Beta 1. The biggest changes involve the addition of registration - you will be required to enter in your information into the app come next build. The details are still being worked out, but there will obviously be some restrictions if you’re unregistered, such as a cap on the number of favorites. If you’ve already preordered, you’ve got nothing to worry about. We’ll send out all the details for registration via email when the beta is released.

Speaking of emails, we’ve been hearing reports from people who aren’t receiving release emails. Some people are getting email A but not B, some are getting B but not A, some are getting both, and some aren’t getting any. For that, I apologize. It seems to be a problem with our side of things, and we’re looking into some alternate systems for getting emails out.

Finally, we’re on Twitter! If you’ve got a Twitter account and would like to receive updates through there, you can follow us at our profile page. We’ll be posting new releases, tips for using Tubular, and maybe even a funny YouTube video or two.