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Vimeo now hosting one million videos, 10% in HD
While the competition is stiff (and all but dominated by YouTube) in the online video sharing space, Vimeo is still finding a reason to celebrate. Last week, the site announced that it had surpassed one million video uploads, and potentially more amazing was that a full 10% of those were of the HD variety. According to it, that figure makes it the "largest repository of high-definition video anywhere in the world," though we'd be interested in seeing just how far behind Viddyou is. Also of note, IAC chief Barry Diller stated in a recent interview that it didn't see anything particularly huge in Vimeo's future, though it did plan to "keep tending it and letting it grow." So, is one (or more) of your videos one (or more) of those 100,000 referenced here? Or are you rushing to Google "Vimeo" in an effort to find out what this service even is?[Via NewTeeVee]
Viddyou launches High Bitrate video sharing service
Viddyou already took online video sharing to 1080p... if you were willing to pay. Now, however, the distant YouTube competitor is bringing higher quality to the masses with the launch of its High Bitrate service. The new feature gives users the ability to "share near original-quality video from their digital camcorder or camera without the quality degradation typically seen in online video." We'll let you be the judge on which is which in the comparison shot above.
Sony launches eyeVio HD Pro video sharing service in Japan
Although Sony's eyeVio service has been live since April of last year, a recent announcement from the company is trumpeting said program's leap into the high-def world. The aptly-titled eyeVio HD Pro service will enable users to post and share HD video files from their PCs as well as their HDTVs if using the PlayStation 3 or BRX-NT1 network TV box. It should be noted that Adobe's Flash Player 9 is required to view the clips on PC and file uploads are capped at 500MB apiece, but hey, it's a start. YouTube, you listening?
Motionbox online video player upgrades to 1080p
Sure Youtube still hasn't gone high definition, but Motionbox isn't hesitating to join the slew of Flash-based video players adding 1080p support. Free Motionbox users will have to live with merely DVD-quality video, however Premium members who've shelled out for the $29.99/yr subscription can take advantage of 1080p/h.264 web-based video editing, with AVCHD support to follow soon. Good to know, now that boring people with your home videos has left the living room to go online, we can at least share them in HD.
Viddyou takes online video sharing to 1080p
As the world at large waits for YouTube to support 1080p, Viddyou is getting a leg up by becoming the first online video-sharing destination exclusively for personal content to do just that. Of course, the ability to upload, store and share such high-resolution videos won't come without a price (unfortunately), and users interested in taking advantage of it are going to be forced to pay $34.95 per year. For those "Premium" members, they'll also get unlimited storage / delivery, the ability to download their original video source, embeddable HD widgets and access to all of their clips from their iPhone. For more on Viddyou, head on down to the full release -- as for us, we're just hoping this is a sign of things to come.
New Zunes to share video? Update: nope!
Microsoft just sent out the November Zune News email blast, and it's got a rather intriguing line in there: "... Zune Social where you can share music, videos and pictures that define you." We know Stevie B has spoken about the idea of Zunes sharing video, but we're suddenly concerned with the world of pain about to befall either us -- in DRM form -- or Microsoft -- in lawsuit form.P.S. -What the hell is up with "The Social" popping back up? Didn't Microsoft leave it behind? Or has "the social" just become the product's tagline-tagline? We don't know, but we don't like it when these guys try and mess with our heads.Update: We heard back from the Zune gang on this one. We misinterpreted Zune Social to mean the things you can do in the "Social" menu of your Zune (silly us); instead they were referring to the other Zune Social -- the social music network being launched with the new Zunes. Oh, and apparently "Welcome to the social" isn't dead yet, despite that AdAge piece reporting its premature demise, so we'll lay off Microsoft while they think different about tagline grammar.Update 2: Oh, Microsoft pinged to let us know that on top of the rest, there is actually no Zune Social video sharing -- that was just a mistake. Rocking.
Democracy Player changes name to 'Miro'
What's in a name? Lots of things, including the difference between confusing and creating potential users of your application, apparently. That's why the Participatory Culture Foundation is renaming Democracy Player, its open source internet television surfing program, despite sticking with the original name for over a year. "Our early Mac beta versions of Democracy Player were called 'DTV'– we didn't think that we could be 'Democracy' until we had something substantial to offer... In all our debates about whether you could call something 'Democracy' and how people would react to the name, we hadn't realized that so many people would simply assume that the software was for politicians and videos about politics."With that, the new name will be Miro, and a there's a lesson to be learned here in the meantime: if you've got a potentially creative, but ultimately too symbolic and image-burdened name for your software, think twice about it. You can't always expect casual users to look beyond the name of an application to see its real use. Anyway, check out the official word from the folks themselves to get the full lowdown.
Democracy Player 0.9.5 now available
For all the video sharers, viewers, and creators alike, Democracy Player version 0.9.5 has been officially released, introducing a host of new improvements and enhancements since the 0.9.2 release back in November of 2006. Here's a brief sampling of some new features: Simpler, more minimal interface New 'Share' menu on each item allows user to email a video or post to VideoBomb, del.icio.us, Digg, or Reddit Video downloads are now stored in folders by channel for better organization New pause and resume download functions Improved BitTorrent performance Drop-down menu feature for auto-download for individual channels Automatic thumbnail generation on OS X for videos lacking thumbnails The application is immediately available for download, and the development team still urges users to keep an eye open for any potential bugs that might be lurking about and to fill out a bug report where necessary. The program has really been shaping up nicely since its inception, and this upgrade will be worth the download. For 'Internet TV' surfing, there is no tighter application than Democracy, methinks. Anyway, check out the full list of improvements at the Democracy blog.
Cingular to demo video calls at CES
It's been a long time in coming -- and even its latest upcoming equipment doesn't seem to support it -- but Cingular (or should we say AT&T?) wants everyone to know that video calling is still very much on its agenda. Demos of the feature, made possible by WCDMA's capability to rock voice and data simultaneously, will be taking place at AT&T's CES booth next week. We don't know the full lineup of handsets Cingular will be using for the exhibition or whether said equipment will make it into Cingular's lineup down the road, but one device we know will be shown is the LG CU500v, a video call-capable update to the venerable CU500. Yeah, that's right -- that six month old, HSDPA capable CU500 is obsolete. Some of us haven't even worn the new phone smell off our 8525s and BlackJacks yet, but we doubt they're updatable; no front-facing cam, after all.
Sony snags Grouper video sharing site for $65 mil
In news from the "what are they thinking?" department today, Sony Pictures Entertainment has acquired video sharing site Grouper for a cool $65 million. What's that? Never heard of Grouper? You're certainly not the only one, with Nielsen/Netratings reporting just 430,000 visitors in July -- although Grouper's co-founder Josh Felser says it's actually closer to 8 million. Either way, it's well behind the current rockstar of the video sharing space YouTube, which, if you follow some analysts' reasoning, is now worth something in the $2 billion range. As a result of the deal, Grouper says it'll work with Sony to promote the company's movies and TV shows on the site. Another reason Sony apparently found Grouper particularly appealing is because it operates its own peer-to-peer network -- a way to distribute high-quality downloadable movies, perhaps? Either way, it seems a little bizzare, given Sony's Connect service, but hey, they really friggin' want you to put those clips on the PSP, because lawd knows most people aren't using it for games, or, ahem, UMD movies.
Cingular to offer video sharing while talking
Cingular's announced that it plans to launch a new service "within the next year" that'll let users share videos while talking on their cellphone, something that you may remember was being tested earlier this year. Assuming Cingular hasn't gone on a completely different route, the service will make use of what's known as the IP Multimedia Subsystem (or IMS), which is a UMTS implementation of (SIP). It's nifty to be sure, but we're guessing Cingular will have to make the service really affordable for most people to be able to justify adding yet another expense to their monthly bill.[Thanks, Mack S]
