I think it was about a decade ago now when I downloaded my first camcorder movie off the Internet and a love affair was born. Why bother going out and renting something from Blockbuster or forfeiting your first born for a movie ticket and a bucket of popcorn when you could nearly replicate the entire experience, for free, on your couch with Orville Redenbacher at your side?
As time went on and peer-to-peer file sharing grew - and the movies went from shaky, "down in front!" home movies to near-DVD quality replicas - it only got worse. And then, suddenly, it all came to an end. "Cold turkey," as they say. But why?
Android phone owners will soon be able to video chat with each other using Google Talk over WiFi, 3G or 4G networks, Google announced in a blog post this afternoon. The feature will roll out first to Nexus S phone owners over the coming weeks and to Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) and newer devices "in the future." It's a start!
The offering, when it ships, sounds like it will be more compelling than Apple's Facetime but less useful than independent mobile video chat apps like Tango that offer iPhone to Android video chat. A number of mobile video chat apps have been launched in just the past few weeks from Skype, Qik, Fring (now with group video calling on iPhone!) and others. But how long will we have to wait until Android users can video call iPhone owners without any more thought than voice calls require today?
According to a report from the Hollywood-tracking news outlet The Wrap, Google's YouTube will soon be expanding its on-demand movie rental service to include mainstream Holloywood films. Major movie studios including Sony Pictures Entertainment, Warner Brothers and Universal are all said to be on board, as are a number of independent studios.
The sources cited by The Wrap are "movie executives with knowledge of the deals," but YouTube itself said it would not comment on rumor and speculation.
Streaming video and DVD subscription service Netflix announced its first quarter earnings for 2011 today. In its letter to shareholders (.pdf), the company showed off its continued growth, with 3.6 million new subscribers worldwide and $719 million in revenue, but the real story might be the company's continued march away from its once-bread-and-butter offering - the humble DVD.
The company barely pays lip service to DVD subscriptions, and spends the majority of the letter discussing plans for first-run TV series and movies, expanded network offerings and competition within the streaming video space.
Last week, Google notified owners of video content on Google Video that the site would be officially shuttered, giving them what felt like very short notice on its closure. Effective April 29, videos would no longer be available for playback, and users had until May 13 to download content.
Although Google Video hasn't allowed uploads since 2009, the site still contains almost 3 million videos according to Google Operating Systems. Many users complained that Google had made no easy way to port content over to YouTube.
On Friday, Google announced that it was making some adjustments to its plans. It's eliminating the April 29 deadline. Furthermore, it's working on a way to automatically migrate videos to YouTube.
YouTube is announcing this afternoon that all videos uploaded to the site are now saved in WebM format, as well as other supported formats including Adobe Flash. 30% of the YouTube archives, making up 99% of the views, is now available in WebM as well and the full archives are being put in the new format as we speak.
WebM is a format that many different companies have been working on, in an effort to create a way to show and view videos that is better suited for the web than Flash and is royalty free. Firefox added support for the format last month and Internet Explorer announced a plug-in that would add WebM support. Google and Opera also offer browser support for WebM. Where's Safari? Google added WebM support to Android's Gingerbread version in December.
It's a common problem with many services that offer personalized recommendations: if you share an account among family members, it's pretty difficult for a recommendation engine to get a sense of what one individual actually likes. Netflix is the perfect example in my household, as our "Recently Watched" videos will include things like iCarly (my boyfriend's ten-year-old daughter's favorite) and Man v Food (my teenage son's). Needless to say, neither are really what I'm looking for in a recommended video, thank you very much.
Netflix is certainly aware of that problem, and according to an FAQ posted on its Investor Relations page, it's looking at a number of tweaks to its offerings in order to make its streaming service work better for households - and for households' individual members.
Kinect support for Netflix is arriving today, Microsoft just announced. The update will allow the motion-controlled gaming system add-on to control Netflix content on the Microsoft Xbox 360. According to Larry Hryb, also known as "Major Nelson" among Xbox fans, with the updated software installed, you'll be able to control the Netflix interface with just a wave of your hand or the sound of your voice.
iPad Applications can be broken into two categories: those that port a particular browsing or reading experience from the Web (or from a smartphone) to the tablet, and those that completely re-invent what it means to interact with digital content. Flipboard may be the premier example as an app that changed the way in which we read our feeds, our blogs, our tweets.
So add to the list of apps that "change everything" ShowYou, a video application that may just well change the way in which you interact with video content.
Along with today's launch of HTC's latest flagship phone, the powerful HTC Sensation, the Taiwan-based mobile handset maker debuted a new video marketplace called "HTC Watch." This iTunes-like store will offer TV shows, movies and trailers through a pre-installed mobile application that will ship first on the Sensation. The TV shows and movies will be available for both rental and purchase, and will be paid for via either carrier billing or credit card, depending on your mobile operator.
The service uses progressive download technology, says HTC, which means your content will start playing almost immediately. This is different from the iTunes model, which requires users to download the full file before being able to view the video.
