ScreenFlow is here! And as you’ll see from the following review of it, I’m quite pleased that it has finally arrived.

It’s from Vara Software (who also make the awesome teleprompter-style software I use called VideoCue 2) and is an incredible, breathtaking work of genius that is going to make my daily screencasts less of a chore, and more pleasurable than they have been for a long time.

It’s release comes as a huge sigh of relief and wave of elation for Mac screencasters everywhere, me amongst their number.

An advertising funded broadband service which only launched fully at the beginning of January, has already been forced to suspend its services after complaints from British broadcasters forced its hosting company to pull the plug.

TVCatchup was/is a service which offers users the chance to record any TV show from 12 of the 19 free-to-air channels in the UK, which can then be watched online at a later date, and shared with other registered members.

After completing a test run last year with 5,000 beta testers, the site went fully live on January 1st of this year, and offered users the chance to “Never miss a show again”. The only problem is, right from its inception, the legality of such a service was called in to question.

Although CNN moved in to the world of citizen journalism over 18 months ago with iReport, most of the submissions made by users never actually made it to the site.

However, this week CNN have launched iReport.com, a site that will contain solely user created content, including videos.

Unlike the iReport feature, however, the content on iReport.com won’t have anyone vetting the content. Instead, it will be a wide-open format, and they’ve been marketing the new site to its frequent submitters. 

The fight against file sharers, and so called music and movie pirates continues, even though the organisations fighting it must know that they’re fighting a battle which was lost as soon as it began.

Regardless, Instead of working with the technologies and companies involved, organisations such as the RIAA and MPAA, along with the US government seem intent on going down this never ending road of criminalising otherwise law abiding citizens.

One of the biggest groups of people to be targeted is that of college and university students, and here, Art Brodsky outlines the latest legal move on this front.

Higher Ed Bill Passes House With File-Sharing Warning

The House yesterday passed a higher-education bill (HR 4137) that included language requiring colleges and universities to deal with what Hollywood sees as a problem in digital downloads.

The bill, which passed 354-58, said the colleges and universities “shall”, which means there isn’t much room for discussion, “develop a plan for offering alternatives to illegal downloading or peer-to-peer distribution of intellectual property as well as a plan to explore technology-based deterrents to prevent such illegal activity” and report on their policies.

Internet television is growing at a phenomenal rate, with services such as Joost, Hulu and Stage6 all providing more reasons than ever to turn to your PC or laptop rather than that square box sitting in your living room.

One of the biggest problems with watching television programmes, or movies online however, is the size of the screen you are being forced to watch it on. Unless you are rich, or an early adopter of future technologies, the chances are your PC or laptop screen just isn’t up to the job any more.

You do have an option though, and that is to hook your PC or laptop up to a projector, and have all your favourite video clips, and web episodes, in glorious full screen, home theater sized goodness. But, where’s the best place to begin?

Buying A Projector

First you’ll need a PC or laptop, and a home theater projector. There are plenty of places to find them, but I’d recommend reading through lots of projector reviews before you blindly purchase one which then doesn’t suit your needs.

Prices of projectors can vary wildly, but you’ll be looking to spend between $1,000 and $3,000 for reasonable quality and a good brand.

Be aware that there is a difference between a projector being HD Ready and actually outputting HD. HD Ready simply means it can accept a HD signal, but may output in standard definition so won’t look as crisp as you might expect.

If you want to make sure your new purchase is 100% HD then look at the output. An 800×600 output is not High Definition, whereas 1280×720 (720p) or 1920×1080 (1080i or 1080p) is.

Yahoo! currently seems to be on a mission to take over the world of online video, despite facing the immediate threat of a hostile takeover bid by industry giant Microsoft. They say all good things come in threes, and Yahoo! seem intent on proving that at the moment.

Last week saw the unveiling of Y! Live, a lifecasting site to compete with the likes of uStream, Mogulus and Operator11. As those sites do, Y! Live enables ordinary members of the public to become broadcasters in their own bedroom, setting up a video channel, and showing whatever footage reels off from their webcams.

Then a few days ago, we saw Yahoo! acquire Maven, an online video platform which could see the company up the ante on the advertising and monetisation side on web television.