Portable Video

Open video, not Flash, is coming to Wikipedia

metrocarryzjj — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 01:45:08 +0000

In the ongoing web video wars — which have started to look a lot like Flash vs. Everything Else — the latest battleground could be Wikipedia. A coalition of forces, including Mozilla, the Open Video Alliance, Miro and Kaltura (which is the video partner for Wikimedia), has launched a site called Let’s Get Video on Wikipedia.

The site calls for video submissions to Wikipedia, and points out that “Wikipedia uses a 100% free and open source video stack powered by HTML5 and Theora. The articles are free to share and reuse, there’s no advertising, and the software that runs the site is free and open source.” Miro has even launched a video converter for Mac and Windows, so you can easily get your videos into the open format and contribute them to Wikipedia.

The new campaign specifically rails against propriety video technologies like Flash and even H.264, which is a competitor to Theora in the HTML5 video field. No surprise that Mozilla’s involved, here. A major site adopting Theora gives a big boost to Mozilla’s philosophical and financial decision not to license H.264 for Firefox.

Youtube launches “Musicians Wanted” program for indie music-makers

assevedut — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 01:45:07 +0000

YouTube has had some troubles in the past with labels asking them to remove music videos and generally giving them a hard time for users infringing copyrights. But users are still looking for music on YouTube, and now YouTube has found a way to embrace this and help out budding musicians in the process via their new Musicians Wanted program. Musicians and bands on the program get paid when their videos are played, even when they’re embedded on other sites.

Not everyone can get in on the program; you have to be accepted, and you need to post actual videos, as opposed to MP3s with still frames. Also, it’s US-only for now, which is a bit of a drag. I hope it goes global soon.

After the fold you can watch Pomplamoose, one of my favorite bands and one of the first to get on the program, introduce it. And you can read more about the program over at the official YouTube blog.

Google TV?: Google and Dish Network test a set-top box

assevedut — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 00:42:21 +0000

According to the Wall Street Journal, Google has partnered up with satellite TV provider Dish Network to test out a new set-top device powered by Google software. Although the WSJ doesn’t name its sources, they seemed to know an awful lot about Google’s plans with Dish.

The set-top device would reportedly allow users to organize Dish’s TV content, plus web video from YouTube, creating a custom viewing schedule.

Google isn’t commenting about this test to reporters, and the program is apparently limited to some Google employees and their families. The device allows you to search for shows using a keyboard, rather than a remote control. There are no details on how Dish shows will be tagged and organized, though, or how the Google box compares to recently-announced TiVo offerings.

Comedy Central’s Daily Show and Colbert Report get yanked from Hulu

amitg — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 00:52:52 +0000

Everybody loves the idea of Hulu, but a series of disappointing decisions and problems with content providers keep plaguing the service. Hulu is U.S.-only, it’s never gotten along well with anyone who wanted to provide a nicer client app for it (check out the Hulu/Boxee saga, which eventually landed in front of Congress), it’s not available on major mobile devices because it’s stuck with Flash, and now it’s losing its Comedy Central shows.

That means no Daily Show and no Colbert Report. Those two news programs are consistently amongst Hulu’s most-viewed shows, so losing them is a major blow to the service. In fact, I’d venture to say that there’s a not-insignificant demographic that ONLY visits Hulu to see Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert’s comedic takes on the news. The Hulu team knows it’s losing some top-shelf material, here, and the official blog post on the subject says as much.

What the post doesn’t say is why Viacom (Comedy Central’s corporate parent) decided to remove the shows from Hulu. Mashable says, “It’s presumably doing so because the income it receives from the online venture isn’t good enough.” Maybe Comedy Central will make a bigger profit by forcing viewers to visit thedailyshow.com and colbertnation.com, where the shows will still be available online.
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YouTube finally pulls the original Rickroll video

assevedut — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 00:45:00 +0000

After years of torturing innumerable unsuspecting web surfers, YouTube has finally pulled the plug on the original Rickroll video. The reason: it’s simply one of the most horrible abuses of the music video medium ever perpetrated.

Ok, not really, it was pulled due to terms-of-use violations — which probably won’t come as a shock to most of our readers. User-uploaded music videos have always been a takedown target on YouTube, yet somehow the Rickroll clip managed to survive long enough to pull in over 30 million views. That’s nearly double the number of albums Rick Astley sold in the 80s.

It probably won’t be long before the same crafty types who brought you gems like Tayroll’d or Fresh Prince Roll’d resurrect the clip. You may not know when, you may not know how, but one day soon one of your jackassy friends will once again wield the Sword of Astley against you.

[via NeoWin]
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Megazoomer: Full-screen mode within any Cocoa app

assevedut — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 07:51:42 +0000

Do you yearn for a button that expands your application windows to full screen like those lucky Microsoft Windows folk? Full-screen can be extremely useful, especially if you’re using a laptop or any other shrimpy screen.

Megazoomer is a free, SIMBL-based bundle that fakes full-screen mode within any Cocoa app, including Safari and Textmate.

The only downside of Megazoomer is that you have to have SIMBL installed (head over to the official website to download it). Once installed jump to the Finder and navigate to ~/Library/Application Support, a reboot is not required. Create a folder called SIMBL, and another one called Plugins inside it. To finish the installation copy megazoomer.bundle into the newly created Plugins folder.

Running this tool is very, very simple: press Command-Return, and the front-most window grows to fill your entire screen, covering the Dock and menu bar. Press the same keys, and it shrinks again.
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Apple considers dropping the price on US TV shows to just $1

marykay — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 02:20:32 +0000

The Financial Times is reporting that, coinciding with tie iPad release in April, Apple may drop the price of US TV shows to just $1 each on its iTunes digital media store.

It seems Apple is ready to experiment with its vast pool of 120 million credit-card-on-file subscribers. After the massive success enjoyed by Steam in 2009, I can only assume that Apple wants to give the whole ‘half price is OK if you sell twice as many copies’ method that Valve experimented with in multiple fire sales. Steam even went as far as to offer $30 games for $1 — we can but hope that Apple decide to follow suit!

The only real stumbling block is, as always when it comes to ‘old media’, getting the publishers and distributors to fall in line. Getting comfy with an iPad in the living room, reclined comfortably on the couch, watching the latest TV for just a dollar certainly sounds appealing… if you waive the $500 white-and-shiny ‘entrance fee’…

Vimeo gets even more mobile friendly

olcia1802 — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 03:13:42 +0000

Smartphones are taking over! We certainly all knew that by now. Vimeo has decided to hop on board and start making their service a little mobile-friendly. A while back, Vimeo announced that their site was compatible with both the iPhone and even Android phones.

Yesterday, they took it a step further and announced that users can now quickly and easily create a “mobile version” of their video that can work on most smartphones. You can “mobilize” your video in two ways: directly from your smartphone or if you are a Plus user, you can do it without a phone via your account.

Making a mobile version simply makes a copy of your video and applies the right codec to be displayed on mobile platforms. Vimeo is expecting a big rush of users making mobile versions so they said they’ll be rolling the feature out slowly and are expecting some slowdowns while people check out the new feature.

Netflix plans to unleash streaming video for the Nintendo Wii

irrannash — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 02:48:57 +0000

First there was Wii Fit, now there’s the ultimate Wii couch potato app: Netflix. Starting this spring, Netflix subscribers will be able to stream movies directly to their TVs using Nintendo’s popular console. This should help the Wii catch up with the Playstation 3, which has a built-in Blu-ray player and the Xbox 360, which has Microsoft’s Zune movie store. It’s also a good move for Netflix, which is seeing more and more of its total business come from streaming.

To use Netflix on the Wii, you’ll need a broadband connection and a free disc from Netflix. Unfortunately, the Wii’s hardware isn’t powerful enough to stream Netflix’ selection of HD videos.

As people struggle to save money, a Netflix account is one of the first things to go, but users are increasingly cutting back their plans and streaming movies instead of quitting Netflix altogether. Streaming also saves Netflix money. According to the New York Times, it’s 60 cents to mail a disc, and only 5 cents to stream a movie.

KeepVid lets you download videos from popular streaming sites

sealliarfarry — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 02:48:57 +0000

It’s been almost 4 years since Jordan Running first told us about KeepVid, a site that allows you to download YouTube videos for offline viewing. Since then, KeepVid has continued to evolve, now offering the ability to download from many other popular streaming video sites like Dailymotion, Metacafe, iFilm, and others.

KeepVid works by using a bookmarklet on the page that is hosting the video you would like to download. If you’re not sure whether KeepVid supports downloading from your favorite site, just give it a shot; you might be surprised!

The home page for KeepVid is surprisingly sparse, and doesn’t really give any clues about KeepVid’s true power. It’s unusual (and kind of refreshing) for a service like this to be so understated. I guess they figure the service speaks for itself.