If you are like me, there are definitely times when you are traveling when do not feel like working, but don't want to waste your time. Other times, There are times when you are assigned a middle seat and it is hard to work. On board. the entertainment choices are limited and unless you are likely to be on a cross-country flight, wifi is almost never offered. A flight from San Francisco to New York is about 6 hours. This is a long time to read the airline magazine and flip through Skymall. I like to watch documentaries, and the major airlines rarely show these on their one movie fits all small selections screens. So what can you do? Fortunately, the combination of Real Player and Youtube does the trick.
How to dramatically increase your viewing choices during your flight or train ride. Youtube has a huge catalog of videos, virtually anything you can imagine. I prefer documentaries, but there are many other categories. Other sites have large libraries as well, so you can select sites of your choice, as long as it is for personal use. I generally have two fully-charged extended batteries with me, which is good for 8-10 hours, more than enough for a 6 hour cross-country flight. (OEM extended batteries can be bought on ebay for a fraction of the suggested retail costs of the genuine models.) Even if you don't have an extended battery, you can still view a couple of hours of videos.
How to download free videos. Download the latest version ( RealPlayer SP 1.1.4) on www.realplayer.com. After you have downloaded the realplayer, go to www.youtube.com, or your favorite site for videos. Select the video that you want to watch and scroll over the top right corner of the video. For videos that can be downloaded, the realplayer icon should come up. Click on this icon, and you should be able to download the video. (If you do not want to watch the video in realplayer format (.flv), at this point, RealPlayer will allow you to convert the file to a format to your liking for your audio / video device with RealPlayer Converter.) Since most computer hard drives are now 80GB or above. This is a lot of selection, and you can delete videos that you are no longer interested in watching.
How to minimize the time to upload. Unfortunately, most videos on youtube and other sites are divided into segments. This is an inconvenience when downloading, but fortunately, you can download multiple videos at the same time. Once you have selected a video for downloading, you need not wait for it to finish. Just check that it is downloading, Real Player will tell you, and move on to the next segment of the video to download. You can have many segments downloading simultaneously.
How to minimize disruption when viewing. For most people, the videos are in My Documents / My Videos / RealPlayer Downloads. All your videos should be there, unless you selected a different path. Select that videos (right click) that you want to watch, you will have the option of adding it to your realplayer list. Put the videos in order that you want to view them. Drag and drop works here. RealPlayer will automatically proceed through your list from top to bottom, and even play them continuously.
Since discovering this tip, my travels have been much more pleasant. Many airports, such as San Francisco International Airport, has free wifi, so even if you forget to download videos at home, at Starbucks or McDonalds, or your favorite wifi local hotspot, you can download some videos last minute.
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