YouTube introduced a new video editing tool this week that allows users to make basic changes to uploaded video content without losing the video’s URL, view count and comments.
In addition to basic trim edits to make up for shaky camerawork, the new editor includes features such as picture rotation, contrast and color adjustment, and image stabilization. There is also an option for reverting back to the original video at a later date.
“YouTube has joined up with photo-editing website Picnik, both Google owned, to offer some striking color treatments of videos, including Lomo-ish, cross process and thermal,” reports Digital Trends. “Whether YouTube will later offer Picnik’s premium color treatments, for a fee, remains to be seen, although no doubt it’s something they’re looking into.”
The post includes an interesting video introduction to the new editing options.
Netgear will roll out its smart TV box, the $80 NeoTV Streaming Player, which provides streaming media from Netflix, Vudu, YouTube, Pandora, Napster, Picasa, blip.tv, Crunchyroll, Revision3 and others.
“Looks like Netgear is taking what it learned from licensing Roku’s tech last year and streamlining its connected TV offerings,” suggests Engadget.
The company’s press release indicates the device “opens up a world of Internet entertainment with streaming movies, TV shows, music, videos, news clips and games.” Users can also connect to friends through Facebook and Twitter channels.
“On the hardware side you’re looking at a glossy black box with a 300Mbps Wi-Fi radio, Ethernet, optical audio out and, of course, HDMI,” reports Engadget. The media player also includes a regular remote control for those who opt not to use the NeoTV Remote app via their smartphone.
The Roku 2 XS is currently the CNET pick for best media streaming solution under $100, but NeoTV may provide some competition.
Turner Broadcasting has begun airing a series of television commercials on TNT and TBS that lets viewers know they can watch TV episodes streamed online if they have a cable subscription.
The campaign is designed to educate consumers about the concept of TV Everywhere.
“Consumers have bought tens of millions of iPhones and iPads,” explains Steve Koonin, president of Turner Entertainment Networks. “Our vision is that TV Everywhere kind of becomes the consumer-enabling technology that allows them to unlock the potential of those devices.”
An instructional video is also posted on YouTube that goes into detail about how to download the app and login (for example, viewers should be aware that they will need to have their cable bill account number available during the process).
It is interesting to note that Nielsen is crediting the viewing in its ratings if the show is watched within three days of airing.
YouTube co-founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen are taking over Delicious from Yahoo and will attempt to breathe new life into the social bookmarking service.
“Created in 2003, Delicious lets people save links from around the Web and organize them using a simple tagging system, assigning keywords like ‘neuroscience’ or ‘recipes,'” reports the New York Times. “It was praised for the way it allowed easy sharing of those topical links. The site’s early popularity spurred Yahoo to snap it up in 2005 — but in the years after that Yahoo did little with it.”
The two men want to change that. “Twitter sees something like 200 million tweets a day, but I bet I can’t even read 1,000 a day,” explains Chen. “There’s a waterfall of content that you’re missing out on.”
“You’re Googling around and have eight to 10 browser tabs of results, links to forums and message boards, all related to your search,” he said. The new Delicious, he added, provides “a very easy way to save those links in a collection that someone else can browse.”
Despite the lack of attention from Yahoo, Delicious still draws about half a million visitors a month, according to comScore. Chen and Hurley plan to “invite the earliest users to test a version of the new site and solicit feedback about the designs and features,” indicates the article.
The new TiVo Premiere Elite quad tuner DVR will allow users to record four shows simultaneously, while watching a fifth.
The device will reportedly only record from digital cable and Verizon FiOS, says Gizmodo.
“The THX-certified box uses the TiVo Series4 guts, has a 2 terabyte hard drive (~300 hours of recording space) and spits out video at up to 1080p resolution,” according to Gizmodo. “Plus, it has the standard array of outputs for connecting your TV (HDMI, Component, Composite, Optical audio, RCA audio). And of course, services such as Hulu, Netflix, Pandora and YouTube are also available.”
TiVo’s press release suggests the DVR will serve as an entertainment hub with “its ability to send content to other TiVo devices in the home, or integrate seamlessly with home automation remotes. TiVo Premiere Elite offers MoCA as a networking option in addition to its integrated Ethernet connectivity. By integrated MoCA support, custom installers can use the coaxial cabling within the home to connect the TiVo Premiere Elite to the home network in setups where an Ethernet connection is not available.”
As the bidding war for Hulu continues, Financial Times reports that Yahoo, Amazon and Dish Network are all expected to offer near 2 billion dollars for the company, its subscription service and the rights to exclusive content for at least two years.
However, Google is rumored to have proposed a significantly higher bid for an acquisition proposal on a larger scale. Details have not been released, but some speculate that Google may offer a couple billion dollars more in exchange for more content for a longer period of time. It is not clear if the Google proposal includes a longer deal for content or possibly something else — or if Hulu would even be interested in a new plan.
According to The Wall Street Journal: “Since that’s not what Hulu’s owners have put on the table, ‘normally we would have thrown people out if they’d said that,’ says an executive familiar with the sales process. But Google ‘indicated that there’s enough money’ involved so that Hulu’s owners are at least thinking about continuing the discussion.
The video site would fit nicely with Google’s YouTube, which has struggled in landing the type of long-form premium content that Hulu owns. And if rumors are accurate, Google is willing to pay.
But would the content owners agree to terms with Google, which is already the largest video website worldwide, when they were earlier holdouts on Google TV?
Yahoo will introduce a new lineup of original programming beginning in early October, reports Variety.
The eight short-form series will feature appearances from actors including Morgan Spurlock, Niecy Nash and Judy Greer.
Erin McPherson, VP and head of video at Yahoo, indicates this is the first phase in a planned increase for 2012 regarding originals hoping to “yield even bigger names, longer programs and maybe even scripted fare.”
“While Yahoo isn’t about to overtake Fox or CBS as those nets launch their fall schedules, the company will mix some traditional TV programming tactics with its own new-media savvy,” suggests the article.
Yahoo reportedly leveraged user metrics to determine what types of shows would sell and has plans to redesign its video platform to be more like Netflix and YouTube.
According to Variety: “Of the 47.3 million video streams Yahoo generated in July, its original series alone garnered 27 million — more than the 24.4 million Hulu scored in its entirety that month.”
Since Fox implemented its 8-day delay of content availability on Hulu, downloads from BitTorrent for shows such as “Hell’s Kitchen” and “MasterChef” have increased 114 percent and 189 percent, respectively. Others are watching Fox shows on video sites including YouTube.
Moreover, the situation is creating negative consumer reactions as consumers are forced to find content elsewhere.
“One of the main motivations for people to download and stream TV shows from unauthorized sources is availability,” reports TorrentFreak. “If fans can’t get a show through legal channels they turn to pirated alternatives.”
The post suggests that some consumers have indicated they will be returning to their DVRs and may even dust off their VCRs in response.
ESPN has selected Mountain View-based Ooyala to power the sports broadcaster’s streaming video content. The platform will replace a proprietary model administered by ESPN.
Ooyala’s platform will reportedly increase the quality of playback, reduce load times and streamline back-end management.
“It’s a serious feather in the cap and vote of confidence for the four-year-old video startup, as ESPN is one of the biggest producers of online video content, with 400 unique visitors hitting play on ESPN videos every second (and serving over 1 billion streams per month),” reports TechCrunch.
The media technology site sees the move as positive: “All in all, it’s great to see ESPN finally offering a quality player with fast load times and a more linear on demand experience in which video queues and layouts feel more akin to a television viewing experience — and can compete in ease of video use with YouTube.”
The new Elite brand of premium LCD TVs is the result of a collaboration between Pioneer and Sharp.
Two LED-based LCD models (60- and 70-inch) are 3D, THX certified, claim a refresh rate of greater than 240Hz and feature full-array backlighting instead of edge lighting. They also feature online services such as CinemaNow, Netflix, VUDU and YouTube.
Elite TVs include a yellow sub pixel with the standard red/blue/green, that when added together, creates more than 8 million dots on the screen.
“But the feature that the company is most hyping is something called Intelligent Variable Contrast,” reports Electronic House. “Found only on the new Elite TVs, it automatically controls both the brightness and backlight to enhance color depth, brilliance and detail in dark areas.”
The 3D Elites will ship with active shutter glasses — MSRP of $5,999 for the 60-inch model and $8,499 for the 70-inch.
Yahoo has introduced the beta version of its new “flexible and universal” online media player named WebPlayer.
The app (written in HTML and JavaScript) can play YouTube videos and other content, and is available for use on blogs and websites for posting an array of content.
The Web-based media player supports a variety of media formats, including MP3 and WMA.
ZDNet reports: “The idea here is that it should be much easier for bloggers, publishers, or whoever that wants to publish digital media on their websites on a regular basis as all they really need a line of code and a link rather than copying over a giant embed code from YouTube.”
In an effort to help emerging artists reach wider audiences, the Sundance Institute has partnered with online video outlets including Hulu, Amazon, Netflix, iTunes, YouTube and SundanceNow.
The deals are not exclusive to any one platform, so films can be made available simultaneously on competing sites.
Films will be packaged under the Sundance name as part of its recently launched Artist Services Initiative. Marketing guidance will also be provided to filmmakers through the new Web-based program.
New Video will serve as the aggregation partner for online distribution, taking a small cut of the revenues. However, the online services will not purchase the movies, enabling the filmmakers to retain their copyrights.
Sundance hopes that the online initiative will provide an audience for films that typically do not find conventional distribution. First to be distributed: “Connected: An Autoblogography about Love, Death & Technology” by Tiffany Shlain and “On the Ice” from Andrew Okpeaha MacLean.
YouTube announced that it will live stream two music festivals — Lollapalooza in August and Austin City Limits in September — in a deal with sponsors Dell and AMD.
Two free streams will be offered for each concert — one for live performances, and the other for backstage content and interviews.
The popular video site is teaming up with producer C3 Presents for the festivals. YouTube says it has no interest in producing these events and prefers working with partners.
AMD says this is a way to efficiently reach the under 30 crowd. While they didn’t disclose the dollar amount for the sponsorship, AMD described the deal with YouTube as “significant.”
YouTube’s front page attracts a daily viewership of 50 million in the U.S.
Acer has announced that the new Gateway NV and ID series laptops will provide one-touch access to social networking sites such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.
Social networking hot keys will activate integrated widgets that enable activities such as status updates, message posting, uploading media and more.
However, some laptop makers — including HP and Dell — suggest that hot buttons could potentially overwhelm users, and prove to be an unnecessary feature when software could easily do the job (in some cases, such keys are even being removed from business laptops).
Computer users spend on average one out of every six minutes of online time on social networks, according to comScore.
Eric Schmidt, executive chairman and former CEO of Google, says his company is continuing to experience strong demand for invitations to the new social network, Google+.
As previously reported on ETCentric, the network allows people to share links and media with others they have divided into “circles” of relationships.
If demand continues, Google will be looking at applying the social “circles” relationships to its search functionality and YouTube.
On Hulu, which Google is rumored to be bidding for, Schmidt explained that if there were any sort of deal, Hulu’s current TV shows would complement, not replace, YouTube’s online-only content.
