Dealing with ownership at YouTube

Make it 10 minutes or less... is a post on the YouTube blog, letting users know there have been intellectual property abuses on the system. Basically, most long-form submissions are pirated movies and TV shows. So, the quick fix is to limit the length of submissions.

Like Google Video, YouTube has set up a Premium Content Program for professionally produced videos. Looks like things are sorting themselves out.

The state of Digital Cinema

According to Variety's story, Digital Cinema might finally hit theatres this year.

Fox and Disney are now releasing their movies in both film and digital formats. Theatre chains have a variety of vendors to work with. Customers are asking for the digital experience.

The issue here is where will customers go? Over a million home theatre systems are already installed. Millions of consumers now watch movies (legally) using a variety of internet services. DVD sales have proven how much money can be made outsidee theatrical releases. Theatre owners have to move now, or see their franchises erode.

Apple's new Mini reviewed

The big questions in this review deal with playing (and streaming) HD video through the Mini. It sounds just a tad under-powered.

"There was also the little problem of the Mac mini being slightly underpowered for playing high resolution HD streams at an acceptable frame rate. To see just how much better the new mini is at rendering HD streams, we've taken some HD movie trailers from the Apple website and run them through QuickTime. We monitored the frame rate and took note of dropped frames. The trailers we used were the IMAX Deep Sea and IMAX Magnificent Desolation. Each of these were available from Apple in 480p, 720p, and 1080p resolutions. We ran all six trailers on each machine in QuickTime and monitored the Window > Movie Info palette while the video played. These two movies were carefully selected because each exhibited a different type of motion throughout. The Deep Sea video featured some medium-paced action interspersed with some heavy, quick-moving scenes. These are important to test, because they're generally more taxing on a system's ability to decode the stream in real-time. The second video, Magnificent Desolation was chosen because it is slow-paced with relatively few scenes with any action and is full of slow moving characters and slow scene fades.

"Playing the Deep Sea trailer on the Mac mini Core Solo had interesting results. It played the 480p version flawlessly with a constant frame rate of 24 fps. The 720p formatted film was a slightly different story. The video played very well, but when the video had quick-moving segments (schools of fish moving and changing direction quickly) the frame rate would dip slightly into the 18-20 fps region. The 1080p version was simply unplayable. There were frequent skips and jumps in the video playback and the actual frame rate hovered somewhere around 10-13 fps. By way of contrast, a dual 2.5GHz PowerMacintosh G5 with an ATI Radeon 9800 handled the 1080p video very well, with the frame rate dropping below 23.5 on three occasions. A 1.83GHz iMac Core Duo did better than the G5 on the 1080p video. Both the PowerMac G5 and Core Duo iMac played the 720p version without dropping a frame."

And now, in the Microsoft camp...

Interview with Microsoft's Joe Belfiore (Part I) and Interview with Microsoft's Joe Belfiore (Part II) provide a glimpse into what to expect as Microsoft brings Vista to market.

* Certified, digital cable ready PCs
* HD DVDs that allow copying programming to the hard disk

And, a comment about TV content by-passing cable and satellite distribution entirely:

"I think we're going to see content-providers/content-creators increasingly trying to make their content available directly to consumers through the web, and the announcements are coming from the broadcast networks and content creators bi-weekly. They're happening all the time. So the trend is clearly happening. As a result, we'll see cable and satellite do lots of innovative things to show that their value-add is more than just a pipe to deliver content. They'll aggregate effectively. They'll help you discover stuff. They'll tie things together in service packages that are inexpensive, compelling, and ease to use. I think that we'll see them invest more in the PC as a result of the fact that content providers will go directly to the PC."

Feature-length Movies, full-length TV shows

iTunes Offers First Feature-Length Movie

AOL launches In2TV with High Quality option

The world is embracing file downloads of 500 megabytes and more.

At the same time, Google Video is receiving full-length public domain feature films, of which there are thousands. This one is from 1927, and runs for over 2 hours. Google's approach is to let "packaging" and "promotion" to remain in the background while providing access tools.

Universities thinking like TV stations

UCTV now on Google Video
More than 1,000 hours of University of California Television (UCTV) programming is now available to be downloaded and viewed for free on the Google Video service. UCTV brings to Google Video its largest collection of educational video content, with programs from throughout the ten-campus UC system in subjects such as public affairs, science, health and medicine, humanities, and the arts.

Google is digging into a treasure trove, as they continue to acquire compelling, targeted content from trusted sources. This is starting to get interesting!

Walt Mossberg on Mac Mini as media hub

Not only is the content relevant, but note how the Wall Street Journal is bringing video into their publication. The credibility of top notch journalists can only be bolstered by this practice.

Read the story and then Watch the video interview

Certainly the video presentation brings out more of the story.

The light of day

American Airlines subpoenas Google, YouTube

The popularity of the internet has been due in part to "anonymous participation" (remember the "on the internet, no one knows you're a dog" joke?). Video changes that. This action by American Airlines is just the tip of the iceberg. How many amateur video producers have obtained signed releases from everyone in their works? They better learn how, and services need to evolve that support better record keeping. The video linked to this posting is not the one cited by United Airlines, but I wonder if those involved have signed releases?

The trend will be towards transparency here, in my opinion. Some contributors will continue to practice under the shroud of darkness, of course, but the sourcing of video content via the internet will have to develop practices for authenticating and authorizing materials. American Airlines and other enterprises have large training libraries and innovative ways they can deploy internet video resources. They need to know it is safe to do so.

Video Podcasting at ABC News

ABC News: PODCASTING

So Disney owns ABC, and Disney is buying Pixar, and Pixar is owned by Steve Jobs of Apple Computer, and Apple owns "podcasting". Connect the dots?

Apple reports more than 15 million videos purchased and downloaded.

"The iTunes Music Store is also the world's most popular video download store with more than 15 million videos purchased and downloaded. iTunes offers over 60 popular TV shows for just $1.99 for viewing on a computer or iPod and recently added new hit programming from ABC, Bravo, NBC, MTV Networks and SHOWTIME."

Digital Cinema college degree offered

University Film and Video Association and the School of Animation and Film
of Rochester Institute of Technology will be offering a new degree program next Fall. Digital Cinema comes of age?

Film as Teaching Tool

I'm struck by two news items today. One reflects the growth of "bottom up media" production. The other illustrates to decline of "top down" production approaches.

YOUTH-POWERED VIDEO:

This curriculum helps middle and high school teachers and out-of-school program instructors guide youth in producing documentary videos. It's a practical toolkit of instructional strategies uses media and technology to engage students in creative and rigorous inquiry-based projects on current issues of importance to them.

"Using this multidisciplinary approach, teachers can integrate English, social studies, art, and technology into video projects as students develop their literacy, research, critical thinking, and civic engagement skills."

Yahoo Says It Is Backing Away From TV-Style Web Shows

This is a huge shift. A year ago, Yahoo brought on-board the man responsible for hit ABC shows like "Lost" and "Desperate Housewives" and started up a large LA-based operation around him. A year later, this is what he says:

"I now get excited about user-generated content the way I used to get excited about thinking about what television shows would work," he said.