The Chinese Government has signed a memorandum of understanding with US and UK industry associations for better protection of online copyright. China will receive lists of products that the associations wish to see protected and the Chinese government will hand over information about piracy cases that they detect.
The industry associations involved are the Motion Picture Association of America, the Business Software Alliance, the Association of American Publishers and the Publishers Association of the UK. This could mean that there is now one less country that piracy can hide in, so software such as TVUPlayer could be in trouble. This sounds like good news for content owners, but it all depends on how helpful the Chinese government decides to be in reality.
Philips is developing anti piracy technology that will help online video sites restrict use of copyrighted content. It could effectively automatically detect and stop users posting copyrighted TV clips and TV shows to video sharing sites. If the technology is proved successful content owner could very well force video sharing sites to use this technology or face a lawsuit.
The technology works by taking a bitstream "fingerprint" from a video clip to create a database of known material. When videos are then posted to video sharing sites the technology can detect and filter those videos with matching fingerprints. Sounds good in theory but its accuracy is yet to be proven.
2006 has really been the year for user generated content. In recognition Time Magazine has named you the "Person of the Year" for the explosive growth and influence of user-generated. While user generated content is not just video the main focus is of course all those clips that have exploded onto video sharing sites such as YouTube.
Time Magazine's Lev Grossman wrote. "For seizing the reins of the global media, for founding and framing the new digital democracy, for working for nothing and beating the pros at their own game, Time's Person of the Year for 2006 is you."
I stumbled across this video sharing website today called Muzility to find it was actually charging people to upload, store and deliver their videos. While what seems like hundreds of websites will share your videos for free, this site charges you.
Looking through the poorly designed website I found out that its selling point was you could upload unlimited file sizes and Muzility would host it on a website for you. For all this they would charge just $39.99 a year. Thanks but No Thanks. I think I'll just take my free pickings from Veoh, Brightcove and Google Video for uploading the big vids instead.
Web TV Hub has a summary of the top web videos from three sources: the top 10 viral videos of all time (BBC), the most significant YouTube videos according to nbc4.tv and the top ten viral videos according to vidfan. This provides a good summary of what is actually popular on the internet but to no surprise what becomes popular is very hit and miss.
If you are looking for the next viral video hit the best bet is probably to make a fat kid do something stupid. Either that or you can blow up a whale.
Pomfort has released a beta version of its new SilverStack software for viewing managing and exporting image sequences. Pomfort say that the software has been built in collaboration with the movie industry and it makes use of the powerful graphics capabilities of the Max OS X.
The SilverStack beta release is on a first come, first serve basis so if you want to give it a try you need to get in there quick. Normally the software would cost $200 or $525 depending on the configuration; I have no idea whether you get the software for free or at a discounted price when it is released if you take part in the beta testing. A full release is expected in January.
It is rumored that NetFlix may be planning a video download service after the company launched a film preview service where you can watch previews of movies that NetFlix thinks you might like. It uses Windows Media Player and the quality is good and like the Amazon Unbox service you need to install something first to watch the videos. This kind of feels like Netflix could be warming up ready for a video download service. If it is I somehow doubt that it will offer anything better in terms of price and DRM than the other services out there. Well at least there could be another web based video distribution channel that may hit the living room to join the lonely Xbox Live Marketplace and Akimbo.
Brandon Wirtz and Jake Ludington of XYHD.tv did a thorough test between the quality of HD from the Xbox Live marketplace and from that of a HD DVD by comparing two clips. Surprisingly they concluded that there was no noticeable difference if you don't have a 1080p TV that's been correctly calibrated. This is despite the fact that the Xbox Live WMV encoded video has 720p/1080i and only 6.5 Megabits per second (VBR) compared to a potential of 1080p and 36.55 Megabits per second on HD DVD.
It looks like HD DVD over the internet has potential after all despite the problems with sending such a big file over the internet. Either way high density video is the big thing at the moment and even semi professional producers should think about filming content in HD.
Anyone involved with content creation at some point may be presented with decisions about DRM. Do you make your videos freely available for people to use on any device or do you try to restrict them for extra money and to prevent piracy. Well my view is DRM sucks balls and any video producer should always value increased distribution over more money. Not to the point where you are giving your video away for free but you get what I mean (hopefully).
It appears that Bill Gates is also not a fan of DRM and it sounds like he hates it as much as the rest of us. It would be nice to think that the only reason that the new Vista is crammed with DRM is because Microsoft has to do it.
At a recent Mix Conference in Las Vegas Bill Gates said that DRM "causes too much pain for legitmate buyers" and that there are "huge problems" with DRM and "more flexible models" are needed.
Brian Hogg of DotBoom has created an online TV comedy featuring some "The Muppets-esque" puppets. The comedy is strangely about web startup employees but with puppets, so in a way it's like the MojoPages startup documentary but a little furrier and less serious. The series has been created by a team of five or six people with minimal costs. The main costs are the tape and simply feeding the crew. DotBoom has a few small sets and is shot with a Sony HD camera and edited with Premiere Pro on a Dell Laptop.
It's pretty common for film producers to release their trailer well before a film is due to stir up some buzz around the movie and entice investors and distributors to cash in. However, a new trick is evolving where film producers are uploading their trailers to video sharing sites. The viral effect can produce thousands of trailer views which is great publicity and will definitely please those investors.
Nerdcoer for Life has done just that and the trailer has received nearly 250,000 views online and counting.
It was only yesterday that I was talking about using contextual adverts and google maps within online video as a more suitable advertising method that will provide revenue to smaller video producers. Now by using the Brightcove APIs one of Brightcove's publishing partners has developed an application that brings a "mashup of a video and time-based cue points marked in the video, synchronized dynamically to an embedded Google Map, and also to set of text links."
To see it in action click here, it is a diving video with links to information on the sea creatures as they appear on screen and also a location map with Google video. A little imagination can see how this can be used to insert relevant advertising links.
Short of ideas for a new video? Want to discuss your video ideas with other people? Are you great at video editing and want a project to work on? Well I think its time you started meeting some other video production enthusiast. A few weeks ago I started using meetup.com to meet up with other video and web enthusiasts. Unfortunately for me meetup.com is not that popular in the UK unless you are in London although I did get an invite to a Lesbian book reading!
However for anyone in the US meetup.com looks like a pretty useful way to find local people who share your enthusiasm for video, and who knows what ideas and ventures could spark.
The highly anticipated Venice Project has just opened its doors to invite only beta testers. For those of you that don't know the Venice Project comes from the founders of Skype and Kazaa. Using P2P technology, social networking and interactivity the project aims to challenge Cable companies and change the way people watch TV.
I think this presents a much bigger challenge than what Kazaa and Skype has achieved and will undoubtedly upset cable and TV companies that are set in their traditional ways. Already the beta release has received criticisms including a bad interface, lack of text descriptions and bad video quality. Keep your eyes peeled for more news on The Venice Project as it could be of huge benefit to smaller video production companies.
Daily Reel, a site which prides itself at bringing you the best of online video, has signed an independent web video celebrity to produce original content for the site. No it's not Amanda Congdon (who seems to be everywhere lately), it's Lisa Nova who has become a star on video sharing sites for her popular comedy clips which have received in excess of 6.7 million views.
Daily Reel will be working with Lisa to generate revenue for her videos which will then be shared with Daily Reel. Revenue will come from paid syndication partnerships and through yet to be finalized advertising arrangements. These arrangements will unlikely feature pre roll adverts (I recently touched on the use of pre-roll adverts for web based amateur content creators), but may make use of some form of product placement.
The Chinese Government has signed a memorandum of understanding with US and UK industry associations for better protection of online copyright. China will receive lists of products that the associations wish to see protected and the Chinese government will hand over information about piracy cases that they detect.
Philips is developing anti piracy technology that will help online video sites restrict use of copyrighted content. It could effectively automatically detect and stop users posting copyrighted TV clips and TV shows to video sharing sites. If the technology is proved successful content owner could very well force video sharing sites to use this technology or face a lawsuit.
2006 has really been the year for user generated content. In recognition Time Magazine has named you the "Person of the Year" for the explosive growth and influence of user-generated. While user generated content is not just video the main focus is of course all those clips that have exploded onto video sharing sites such as YouTube.
I stumbled across this video sharing website today called 
Web TV Hub has a summary of the 
Pomfort has released a beta version of its new 
It is rumored that NetFlix may be planning a video download service after the company launched a film preview service where you can watch previews of movies that NetFlix thinks you might like. It uses Windows Media Player and the quality is good and like the Amazon Unbox service you need to install something first to watch the videos. This kind of feels like Netflix could be warming up ready for a video download service. If it is I somehow doubt that it will offer anything better in terms of price and DRM than the other services out there. Well at least there could be another web based video distribution channel that may hit the living room to join the lonely Xbox Live Marketplace and Akimbo.
Anyone involved with content creation at some point may be presented with decisions about DRM. Do you make your videos freely available for people to use on any device or do you try to restrict them for extra money and to prevent piracy. Well my view is DRM sucks balls and any video producer should always value increased distribution over more money. Not to the point where you are giving your video away for free but you get what I mean (hopefully).
Brian Hogg of DotBoom has created an online TV comedy featuring some "The Muppets-esque" puppets. The comedy is strangely about web startup employees but with puppets, so in a way it's like the 
It was only yesterday that I was talking about using contextual adverts and google maps within online video as a more suitable advertising method that will provide revenue to smaller video producers. Now by using the Brightcove APIs one of Brightcove's publishing partners has developed an application that brings a "mashup of a video and time-based cue points marked in the video, synchronized dynamically to an embedded Google Map, and also to set of text links."
Short of ideas for a new video? Want to discuss your video ideas with other people? Are you great at video editing and want a project to work on? Well I think its time you started meeting some other video production enthusiast. A few weeks ago I started using meetup.com to meet up with other video and web enthusiasts. Unfortunately for me meetup.com is not that popular in the UK unless you are in London although I did get an invite to a Lesbian book reading!
The highly anticipated Venice Project has just opened its doors to invite only beta testers. For those of you that don't know the Venice Project comes from the founders of Skype and Kazaa. Using P2P technology, social networking and interactivity the project aims to challenge Cable companies and change the way people watch TV.
Daily Reel, a site which prides itself at bringing you the best of online video, has signed an independent web video celebrity to produce original content for the site. No it's not Amanda Congdon (who seems to be everywhere lately), it's Lisa Nova who has become a star on video sharing sites for her popular comedy clips which have received in excess of 6.7 million views.
