SocialMedia Rooms

November 18th, 2008 Posted in Anti-Social Behavior, Comedy, social networks, Video
6 Comments »

I’ve always thought that it would be so much fun if we could go to the movies online with a bunch of our social networking friends. We could watch a movie and chat while we watched it in real-time. I’ve actually sent the suggestion to Hulu, one of the best online video services available today but haven’t heard a peep or tweet from them yet.

Well, while researching another piece on HD video resources for Mashable, I stumbled across a new service from CBS called the CBS SocialRoom which delivers exactly what I’ve been looking for! I’ve only tried it a few times so I’m still not sure about all of its limitations such as how many people can it support in one room nor how it will scale as more people join a room. However, from what I have witnessed, it’s been rather fun and worth a look. 

The good news is that you don’t have to join yet another service because CBS allows anyone to jump into a room with a temporary nickname which was a smart move on their part. More sites should allow visitors to sample their services without requiring signing up.

Once in, you will see a good selection of TV shows to pick from. Obviously, they’re all CBS programs such as CSI, The Unit, Survivor, Amazing Race and others. In a clever move, they’ve also included some old shows too such as Star Trek, Twin Peaks and my personal favorite, The Twilight Zone. There are also some really crowd favorites such as The Love Boat and Dynasty which lends itself for great campy fun with online groups of friends.

Besides chatting, you can all take turns doing other things as well such as throwing tomatoes at the screen or other items like hearts, kisses or darts. If things get to be out of hand there’s an escape button that’ll let you go to your own private room to watch the movie which is a nice touch.

All this reminds me of Mystery Science Theater 3000 which had the host and his two robot sidekicks talking throughout a movie. Most of what they said was hilarious stuff which explains why it was on the air from 1988 to 1999. Of course, most of the conversations we will have won’t be nearly as clever as MST3K but I know there will be plenty of entertaining moments to make it all worthwhile.

CBS isn’t the first to attempt this type of social room service. Meebo, the universal instant messenger service released Meebo Rooms a while ago where groups of people can chat in the same room and watch the same videos that anyone could share by simply copying and pasting the video URL. However, the big difference with this service is the fact that everyone watches the videos at their own time and not as a group at the same time as CBS Social Room does. That’s a big difference because everyone needs to see the same portion of the video in order for all of the comments to make any sense at all. So, it’s a matter of close but no cigar to Meebo Rooms. Still, they were on the right track and came very close. They can easily add the ability to watch videos in real-time though as a group. We’ll see what happens there. Here’s a sample room I created called Film Lovers which has the entire “Pirates of Silicon Valley” playing 24/7.

I think this will become a very popular feature on many sites eventually. As mentioned earlier, I think Hulu would be the perfect place for watching movies with friends online. YouTube would be great too of course. It’s all part of the trend towards making browsing more social. New browsers such as Flock strive to bring co-browsing to the masses by integrating social networking sites with the browser. Others like SocialBrowse add a plugin to your existing browser so you can share links and stories. For more on co-browsing checkout “Collaborative Browsing”.

The future of the web involves real-time collaboration whether its for business (online presentations and meetings) or for pleasure (watching movies and chatting with friends).

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The Video Conversion Toolkit

November 15th, 2008 Posted in Video
8 Comments »

youtube-and-iphone_small Recently, I wrote “How To: Convert Videos for the iPhone (or any mobile device)” on Mashable.com. I covered some of the best ways to convert videos and copy them to your iPhone for free. Well, the beauty of blogging is that no matter how thorough you are when it comes to research there are always resources out there that you miss for whatever reason. Thankfully, however, readers are more than happy to share your omissions in the comments section (sometimes they do it politely, sometimes not so nicely). In any event, it’s wonderful to learn about new links and software that only adds value to your post thanks to the comments.

Well, unfortunately, it’s considered taboo to edit any post that’s gone to press on a big time blog such as Mashable so all of the golden nuggets must remain buried in the comments. So I’ve decided to take all of my links and resources and combine them with the valuable suggestions that readers have made in the comments and developed this list which I will continue to update whenever I find new resources, which I have since we published that piece only days ago.

So, save this bookmark if you want to track the best ways to convert videos to your iPhone or mobile device and check it every once in a while.

Online Converters

ConvertTube is a free service that converts online videos to several formats including the MP4 format that you need for Apple devices. Simply paste the video URL from sites like YouTube, Google video, MetaCafe, etc. and select the desired output format.

While the service is extremely simple to use, it must be mentioned that it can take an eternity sometimes for this service to convert even the smallest video. Sometimes it just times out or fails without any explanations. Still, most of the time it will do the trick if you want to do a quick conversion or two. For more than a handful, you’ll be better off with another solution that handles batch processing.

VideoDownloader is similar to ConvertTube except it doesn’t provide you with any output options. What you see is what you get when you download the video from the services they support: YouTube, Google, BlipTV, DailyMotion and a few others. So, if you can’t download the video .mp4 format, you’ll have to convert it with another separate utility which isn’t a big deal or expense.

Movavi Online Convert is another online video converter that provides the unique ability to download and convert up to five different online videos as one video. You can add all of the URLs and the service will send you an email with a link to download when it’s done. It could take a long time, so it’s not good if you’re in a hurry.

Zamar converts online like the others and also converts other forms of media such as photos.

YouTube now allows you to download many of their videos in MP4 format which means you don’t even have to convert the the video! You simply download and copy it to your iTunes which will sync it on your iPhone! Look for the download MP4 link beneath the embed code.
youtube

Free Software Converters

Videora offers an impressive suite of tools for converting and editing videos for free. The video files can be avi, divx, xvid, flv, x264, vob, mpeg, DVDs, YouTube, etc. Any of these videos can be converted into the proper video formats (MPEG-4, H.264) that play on the iPhone 3G. Here’s Videora’s Video Converter for the 3G iPhone, which does an excellent job changing existing formats of videos you own into the MPEG-4 H.264 format. Their other converters will do the same trick for other devices such as the iPod, nano, Tivo, Sony Playstation Portable (PSP), Xbox360 and more.

There are many options when you’re converting your videos for your iPhone. Obviously, the better the quality, the larger the file size. Ultimately it’s a personal decision everyone has to make on what’s more important: space on your iPhone or audio/video quality. Personally, I prefer to stick with the highest quality video and audio because the experience is so worth it. You just have to pick and choose which videos you want to keep on your iPhone. If you have the 8 GB then perhaps you should compromise a little and choose medium or high levels of quality for video and audio. Play around and see which results you like best.

Note: All of the converters are free and appear to be spyware free without any problems. They do offer a Videora 2.0 software and service package for a fee but that isn’t required for any of these converters.

Free Studio Manager offers a staggering 20 free audio/video tools. You can choose to download all 20 utilities as one package or pick and choose those you need.

There are a few that focus on converting videos for the iPhone. For example, there’s the YouTube to iPhone converter that downloads YouTube videos and automatically converts them to the appropriate iPhone MPeg-4 H.264 format for you. Keep in mind that many of the videos on YouTube are now in the .MP4 format, so the conversion process will skip that part once it’s downloaded and determines what format the video is in. There’s a handy batch mode feature which allows you to download several YouTube videos at one time, making this process more efficient.

Here’s the Video to iPhone Converter which lets you convert any video file that you already possess without needing to download any videos from YouTube or elsewhere. The important thing to point out about this utility is that it provides the highest quality video output in this roundup, whereas Videora can generate a standard quality MPEG-4 H.264 file (24 fps, 480×320 ACC 128Kbits). Free Studio’s converter can generate a High Quality MPEG-4 H/264 file at 30 fps, 480×320 ACC 192Kbits. It might not be that big a deal to most people, but it will make a huge difference to many
of you.

Any Video Converter is another free converter for windows that will convert a boatload of formats to iPhone friendly format: DivX, XviD, MOV, rm, rmvb, MPEG, VOB, DVD, WMV, AVI, etc.

xviD4PSP is an excellent package for Windows
xvid4psp

Sucubus has a free windows tool for searching and downloading/converting videos

HandBrake is an excellent package for the Mac OS and now Windows too!

Squared5 offers a free converter for Mac OS and Windows

iSquint is no longer updating its converter for Mac users but you can still use the last version they released.

BetterYouTube is a free Firefox add-on that lets you download YouTube videos as mp4 format

MediaCoder is a free download for Mac

Gom is free for windows

 

Commercial Video Converters (NOT Free)

***Pai’s Favorite!***
Replay Converter is a media converter from Applian Technologies which is well-known for its Replay Capture Suite that includes the converter and several other products. Their most popular product is the Replay Capture tool that allows you to record any streaming audio or video much like a Tivo for the Internet.

Mac YouTube Converter works for the Mac and costs about $30

MelodyCan converts for a price

AimerSoft for the Mac $35

 

Video for Other Platforms

Okay, okay, we won’t ignore you CrackBerry heads. Here’s AVS Video for Blackberry that’ll help you convert videos for Blackberry devices.

All of the software packages referenced above were for the Windows OS, so MAC OS users won’t be able to use them. There was a free video conversion tool for the Mac OS from iSquint.org, but they’ve stopped supporting their product. However, it’s become open source on SourceForge, so others might continue the development for this tool for the Mac OS.

How to Copy Videos to Your iTunes and iPhone

After converting all your videos to the appropriate video format for your iPhone, you’ll need to store them on your computer in the right place so that iTunes can do its job and copy the videos to your device. The best thing to do is create a new folder on your system called, for example, iPhone Videos, and copy the newly converted videos to that folder. You can also get into the habit of converting new videos straight to that folder to save steps and time later on.

Once you have your videos in one place, simply launch iTunes, click on the Movies icon and click the File menu. Select Add Folder to Library, then select the new iPhone Videos folder that you created. iTunes will then suck in all of the videos that it finds in that folder.

Click on your iPhone under DEVICES and select the Video Tab. Then Enable the Sync Movies option, and select all of the videos that you want to copy to your iPhone. You can pick and choose which ones you want at any time.

The next time you sync, all of the videos you selected will be copied to your iPhone. You can view them by launching the iPod app on your iPhone and selecting the video option.

Must-Have Video Players & Utilities

Every system comes with a video player but these standard players don’t support that many formats. For example, Microsoft’s Windows Media Player does not support the Flash (.FLV) video format, which means you can’t download and play most of the videos you find online these days.

VLC Media Player is an open source media player that supports a plethora of video and audio formats. It loads quicker than most of the bloated media players and can handle most of the formats you’ll ever run into. Here’s a feature list.

Conclusion

This was just a sampling of the many cool tools out there that can help you download and convert videos into a format that you can use on your iPhone or any other device. In most cases, you can do so for free. However, some of the premium packages and services appear to be well worth their nominal fees when you consider everything they provide. In any case, you can now enjoy any of your favorite videos on your iPhone or other mobile device.

 

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Whole New Point of Vuze

August 9th, 2008 Posted in Video
12 Comments »

vuze Vuze provides an  HD & DVD quality video experience that is breathtaking and thoroughly enjoyable.  You can upload and share your own original videos as well as view incredibly high-quality content in a fast, slick player. There are thousands of TV shows, music videos, movies, video games and more. There’s even a way to monetize the original videos that you publish on Vuze and still maintain complete control and flexibility over the content.

High Praise from a Professional
My brother  owns his own home theater and automation business and I consider him to be the most knowledgeable person I know when it comes to video. So, when he highly recommended this technology I knew it was going to be fantastic and it surpassed all expectations.

mature New Mature Content Blocking Feature!
Even though I’ve known about this service for quite some time now, I resisted from sharing it with everyone because it did not provide a way to block mature content. Well, they’ve recently released the much needed feature for blocking mature content which is great news! That means anyone can visit the service and enjoy themselves without fear of running into something they rather not see, especially in incredibly high-quality!

So, checkout the future of online video services today! You will never look at YouTube or any video service the same way again.

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Create professional videos online

March 12th, 2008 Posted in Personal, Photos, Video
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Animoto is a new online video editing service but unlike any you’ve used before. You can quickly and easily create impressive videos with your own photo’s and music and share them instantly via email or by embedding it on your website/blog. The special effects are extremely slick and professional quality. If you don’t like how things have been generated you can click the remix button and it automatically recreates the video (without touching the original!). You can also remix the original video yourself and change the images or music and again keep the original intact.

Here is a sample video I put together in less than five minutes! I just chose 10 photos (the minimum requirement) from my computer and added one of my favorite songs from my mp3 collection (The Simple Things) and let Animoto do its thing. It actually took longer for the service to render and produce the finished video than it took to design it!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmNXl7v8vKY ]

But Wait There’s More!

You can actually use images you have stored online from Flickr, Photobucket, Picaso or other sites. You can also use music from Animoto’s impressive online music library.

When you’re done creating your videos they are all stored in your own library called My Videos. Another fantastic feature is its integration with YouTube! With the click of a button your videos can be exported to your YouTube account, tagged and bagged! You can also download your videos to save them to your computer.

Here’s their 60-second demo:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvjRzaUYoLw&feature=related]

How Much?
OK, creating professional videos can’t be cheap, so how much will it cost? Well, the basic account is free which lets you create unlimited 30-second videos which is a great deal! If you want to produce a full-length video then you can either chose the pay-per-video option which is only $3 per video or the incredible unlimited videos and download package for just $30 not per month but per year! Amazing, huh?

Final Thoughts
While I love the unique remixing feature that never produces the same exact video twice in a row, I hope they someday give more options and controls over that feature. It would be awesome to be able to pick and choose whatever effects and transitions we want just like we do with presentation packages and full-blown desktop video packages. Still, who can complain about an online service that can offer this kind of high-quality type of product that produces such professional results so quickly and easily?

One last thing, don’t think of this as just for home movies and personal use. I have no doubts that many businesses will make full-use of this technology to produce cool marketing and promotional videos for their websites and viral marketing campaigns.

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Free DVD Player for Vista

December 17th, 2007 Posted in Freeware, Video
2 Comments »

Free DVD Player for Vista

Ever try playing a DVD on Vista and see this screen?

dvd_error.jpg

 


Well, if so then the answer is this free and legal AVS DVD player for Vista !

 

 

 

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Hictu

December 15th, 2007 Posted in Blogs, Video
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Everyone is excited about Seesmic but it is going to be in private BETA for a long time before it is open to the public. In the mean time, why not try the original video twitter, Hictu ?

They launched a year ago in December 2006 and have not garnered much press or attention for some reason, but here is a good Mashable piece on Hictu.

Hictu lets you post short messages like Twitter (160 character limit vs the 140 limit for tweets) but here’s the twist, you can include a video message as well.

Here is the composition screen where you create your messages (text or video). Notice the option to send the message to your Twitter account.

Hictu also lets you create an online profile card with many of your different instant messenger contact information: Yahoo, MSN, GTalk, Skype and more. You can embed the card on any website too.

Final Thoughts: Until Seesmic does officially open its doors, we could give Hictu a shot. Here is an interesting post from Robert Scoble about Seesmic and Hictu. Checkout the comments where the people behind Hictu chime in with some interesting and valid comments regarding the love affair that Seesmic is having with the press and media and the unfair coverage that Hictu is receiving.

 

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Searchles

December 8th, 2007 Posted in Video
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Searchles is a unique service that lets you create playlists of videos from google, YouTube and MySpace (more to come). Their MyTV feature is the most impression and fun part because it lets you edit any of these videos online and actually select the portion of the video you want to play and share with others. Here is a brief but informative video demo of how it works.

Here is an example of someone’s channel they call The 8 Most Memorable Movie Cameos by Non-Actors . Notice how they’ve included 8 different clips that you can switch between or change like channels on TV. The possibilities are endless because it depends on the person’s creativity. Here is one I put together in 5 minutes with some Christmas videos. Tip: Click the menu button to change any video that is playing.

WorldTV and others need to study how Searchles does things and incorporate their slick and powerful video editing tools. Searchles was briefly covered in a previous piece on this blog called YouTV.

Al though Searchles does not provide a way to record your own webcam broadcasts at this time, you can still use your own videos and create your own TV channel and playlists if you upload your videos to YouTube, Google video or MySpace.

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YouTV

December 5th, 2007 Posted in Video
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It is becoming easier and cheaper to run your own internet TV station and broadcast from your webcam. The newer services also allow you to save all of your favorite videos in one place from multiple video sites such as YouTube, MetaCafe, Yahoo video and more! In essense, they become a sort of social bookmarking service for your video collection from all over the web, including your own webcam videos!

Here are some of the best services that can help you launch your own YouTV!


WorldTV is the latest player in town and it is impressive. They make it easy to launch your own video TV station in minutes along with your own logo and URL (www.worldTV.com/PaiTV).
Upload your own recorded webcam sessions or add videos from just about any of the video services out there and arrange your playlists and start broadcasting. You can drag and drop videos from your locker to the playlist any time because you are the program director. Here’s a Scoble video interview of the founder of WorldTV.
***Breaking News***
WorldTV just announced they will provide a new feature that will display the globe where we can click anywhere in the world and watch the TV stations in that area.

UStreamTV is purely a webcam broadcasting system that makes it very easy to launch your own TV show live on the web. It recently partnered with Meebo the web-based messenger which means you can now launch a video chat session during text chats.


Stickam lets you broadcast your own TV shows live as well as video chat with friends.


Kyte.Tv does things a little differently. It lets you mash many types of media onto your TV playlist such as webcam video, audio, text, and more.Vidd

Non-Live YouTV Services: These sites let you create your own channels or playlists of your own videos but you can’t broadcast live like the other services.


Viddler has the best video player which allows viewers to post comments on the timeline.


Vimeo Excellent quality videos and lots of creative things you can do to videos you upload.


Veoh Offers high quality video because it does not convert them.


YouTube is the most popular video site ever so not much needs to be said about them. The biggest complaint is their low-quality resolution videos.


MetaCafe is similar to YouTube.

Here is a comparison of video services from wikipedia.

And now for something completely different:


Searchles does not broadcast or record webcam video but it lets you create playlists of videos from google, YouTube and MySpace. The most unique thing about this site is that it will let you edit any of these videos online and actually select the portion of the video you want to play on what they call MyTV. Here is a brief but informative video demo of how it works. Here is an example of someone’s channel they call

The 8 Most Memorable Movie Cameos by Non-Actors . Notice how they’ve included 8 different clips that you can switch between or change like channels on TV. The possibilities are endless.

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Best Free VMail Services

December 4th, 2007 Posted in Video
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Sending video mail (vMail) is much easier these days thanks to the following services. Many of them don’t even require any software downloads or installation as in the old days.

All you need is a webcam and a computer with Internet access and you are good to go. Here are some of the best vMail services:

mailmotion.png
MailEmotion.TV is a new service that requires no downloads or installations to send video emails.

voxlite.jpg
VoxLite is another no install service that lets you either record from your webcam and send video message thru email or even upload an existing video file to email. There’s even a no sign-up way to use their service.

btvheader.gif
BedroomTV (Formerly SpringDoo) appears to be the market leader when it comes to web-based video/webcam recording that you can share on websites or emails.
They call their video mail feature SpringMail. They also have SpringMob for mobile access. SpringCast and SpringBlog for posting videos to websites and blogs.
No service comes close to the features that SpringDoo offers and all for free!

EyeJot has a free account that allows 60-second messages, 30 days of storage and webcam recording. There is a widget for your websites and blogs.

There is also something unique called EyeJot This which lets you send a video of yourself along with a link you want to share with someone.


GabMail Very simple service that makes it easy to record and send vmail.


VLIP Offers a nice interface and a public directory of other vlips. You can embed the videos or vmail it.


HelloDeo is a free video/webcam recorder from Odeo, the same people who brought us the world famous Twitter ! Don’t expect anywhere near the same level of wow here though.

All of the above services are web-based video mail sites that do not require any installation. Here is one site that offers an excellent webcamm recorder client for free (for windows and Mac)!


SightSpeed offers a premium package and a free version.

oovoo_logo.gif
OoVoo offers free video mail and the ability to group video chat with up to six people.

Summation:
If you have a webcam then you can send video emails instantly with any of these services. In many cases, you don’t even have to install anything. Here’s a list of all these video email services that will be updated with new services when they are active.

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PodTech:San Jose Mercury News photojournalist uses VuVox to tell photostory

November 26th, 2007 Posted in Photos, Video
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Incredible new technology that brings still photographs to life! Could be the future of newspapers online as well. Awesome for family scrapbooks and perhaps for blogging too?

[podtech content=http://media1.podtech.net/media/2007/11/PID_013087/Podtech_VuVOX_demo.flv&postURL=http://www.podtech.net/scobleshow/technology/1693/san-jose-mercury-news-photojournalist-uses-vuvox-to-tell-photostory&totalTime=2330000&breadcrumb=c4d0be62016d45538ea5e761dd9997fd]

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