Hey: 2 surprises today in vista-features that I didn't know:

1. Media player can rip audio to mp3 instead of only to wma.
   (seems like a huge step forward to me :-) )
2. Windows media player (and media center) can play flv video files (using the vista codec pahck)

Wow: especially the flv support is a HUGE improvement for me: now we can watch all those Youtube video in our standard media setup, without the need for flash-based flayers, and without the need for further Youtube integration.

Now if only we could get a Youtube rss feed to include the link to the flv file ...
Oh wait ... we can!

This article describes how to obtain the flv file from a Youtube video id.
And the video id is in the Youtube rss feed
And last month i updated my blog software to be able to automatically add a post when an rss feeds updates ...

So I whipped together a script that takes a youtube feed, retrieves all the links to the flv files, and puts that link as the enclosure in the feed, instead of the Youtube player.

Here's the script:

and the results are ...
Youtube feeds with flv enclosures!

The main feeds:

Recently added
Recently Featured
Top Favorites
Top Rated

Most Viewed Videos Today
Most Viewed Videos This Month
Most Viewed Videos All time

Most Discussed Videos Today
Most Discussed Videos This Week
Most Discussed Videos This Month

You can search Youtube by retrieving a tag-based feed.

Or you can get all the video's from a cetain user.

Put those feeds in your favorite aggregator (that knows how to handle flv files) and your done.

For example: to watch the youtube video's from within media center, I use Media Center RSS Reader for Windows Vista
The experience is excellent; video's download automatically, play full screen, and can now be controlled with your standard media center remote.

The next step would be to turn this into a nice media center plugin and expand it to other video sites as well.

Excellent! One reason extra to ditch the standard national tv-channels all together.