SeeSaw

SeeSaw is the service which has risen from the ashes of Project Kangaroo, an attempt to build a one-stop shop for all British TV catch-up services. And SeeSaw fulfills that original remit, drawing its content from the likes of the BBC, Channel 4, and Five.

Arqiva spent an estimated $8 million on the infrastructure for SeeSaw, and the company intends to turn a profit. That’s why although it’s currently a free, advertising-backed endeavor, the future will likely see paid-for options as well, possibly with international programming at its heart.

User Experience

Arqiva has taken the minimalist approach to online video. The colors are basic, the interface easy to navigate, the menu and program options simple enough for even a child to understand. Which is a good thing, and owes much to both the style of the iPlayer and Hulu.

The homepage currently displays a rolling carousel of content at the top, with ‘Catch Up TV’, ‘What’s New’, and ‘All-Star Casts’ sub-menus completing the line up. The latter is part of the offering that will change according to current events. So, SeeSaw’s editors will offer playlists of content that may appeal for a particular reason at a given time.

You can choose one of the shows on the homepage or navigate via a topbar listing categories (such as Comedy and Sport) and Channels (currently only BBC, 4oD, and Five).

Video Playback

Clicking on a show brings up the video, details of the chosen program, and further episodes if applicable. Navigating the site is quick, although that could change when more people begin using it after the full launch.

Starting the video means the pre-roll ads begin. There are typically two or three on each show. The quality of the video is brilliant, much better than seen on the MSN Video Player, and the option to choose from ‘Low’, ‘Medium’, and ‘High’ bandwidth settings is welcome.

Nothing Original

Watching content on the SeeSaw beta is a fine experience, but the problem is the content itself. The current offerings are a fraction of what you can get from the sources themselves, and there’s little reason (beyond the changing playlists) to choose SeeSaw over the source it’s drawing its content from.

SeeSaw has the ambition and the core components necessary to make it a great service. But as always content is key. Arqiva is no doubt busy behind the scenes forging new content deals to add to what is there already. But until they’re in place, SeeSaw is unnecessary in the big scheme of things.

Give it six months and a host of new content and then it may well be the service it promises to be.

The Present

At the present time, online video viewers are lucky. And I say that as one of them. Most video sites are free, with advertising (both text and video-based) paying the bills and ensuring we get to watch good content without having to pay.

What’s more, the advertising is nowhere near as intrusive or as frequent as it is on traditional television. There’s probably four times as much advertising on TV as there is on the Web, on average.

However, according to AdAge, that could soon be set to change.

The Future

Starting in September, Nielsen intends to unify its data collecting to include both TV and the Web. So the advertising attached to a particular show, whether it be online or off, will be noted. This may not seem important to us, the end consumers, but from February next year it will be.

That is when the data is expected to begin being used for advertising negotiations. And to make the data accurate for this purpose, shows broadcast online would have to show the same ads as when they’re shown on TV. Which will mean a significant ramping up of advertising against online video.

TV Vs. The Web

This is all part of the convergence which is happening between traditional TV and Web TV. More and more consumer electronics are Internet-enabled, and that means people have multiple options for watching TV other than the box in the corner.

Time Warner and Comcast’s ‘TV Everywhere’ is a reaction to that, giving consumers more viewing options while still retaining the ability to squeeze cable subscriptions out of people’s pockets. As TV and online video meld into one, more advertising is almost guaranteed.

Keeping It Free

That’s not necessarily a bad thing, as advertising is the only way content is going to be made available for free in the future. There are only two options for media companies seeking to make a mint from the Web: a subscription paywall or enough advertising to keep the content free.

And I know which one I, and the majority of other people, would choose.

Conclusions

So I say increase the amount of advertising. So long as it coincides with a commitment to keeping the sites free and an increase in the amount of premium content which Web TV viewers are crying out for.

Related Ad

Buy ‘The Online Advertising Playbook’ on Amazon

WatchUWant.tv offers an endless stream of videos to watch, based on your search criteria, and functions in a manner similar to streaming radio sites like Pandora and LastFm.

What is WatchUWant?

From their site, WatchUWant describes the internet as being a new infinite number of videos, but states that its site “automatically separates the wheat from the chaff, recommends new and interesting content, and moreover, tailors its selection to you.”

Sounds interesting enough, but does it work?

Getting Started

What’s interesting about WatchUWant is that there are NO user accounts. You just open the site and jump right in. And while this is nice to just get started, without user accounts, how are your interests and selections saved?

Anyhow, I ran a few searches, and there are some Pandora similarities, but as I’ll explain, there are also a number of notable differences as well.

Viewing Related Videos

My first search was for composer “John Williams”, so I entered these terms and started searching. Right away, I was presented with a number of related and semi-related clips on YouTube.

But what’s odd is that you can’t really rate the videos, but rather, if you don’t like it, you just click ‘Next’. So my question would be, what if you LIKE the clip, but just want to skip it for now? And what if you want to ban a clip you strongly disliked?

Strange and Somewhat Irksome Lack of User Accounts

Most puzzling is, unlike Pandora, you don’t have user accounts to remember what you’ve seen and rated, so in a frustrating way you have to reinvent the wheel every time you visit WatchUWant. I’m not crazy about that, as there were plenty of results from my searches that I definitely did NOT want to view again.

One of the nice things about having accounts with Pandora and LastFm is not just the ability to create accounts that retain personal interests, but also having the ability to share stations with friends and other folks. You can’t do that here, which is disappointing as well.

Following the Trends of WatchUWant

WatchUWant also offers a tab for seeing the current viewing ‘Trends’, or searches that are currently popular with WatchUWant users. Nothing really earth-shaking here, other than spring-boards for viewing currently popular topics.

Again, this would be more interesting to me if these were individually-rated accounts, but instead these just appear to be streaming channels of videos on certain topics.

A Notable Positive…

There are a few noteworthy positives to this system, though, that I think are worth pointing out. First is that, if you want to use WatchUWant as a radio player for music, you could pick a musician or band you like, kick off the station, then work on something else in another browser tab.

WatchUWant will continually stream content non-stop, so if you want to listen to video content like a radio, this is a nice option. The player will just endlessly stream related content based on your search without stopping.

Another Positive

Another thing notable about WatchUWant is that the site/player is VERY open and uncluttered. It’s a minimalistic player with no comments, ratings and other clutter, so if all you want is streaming video watching and nothing else, this is an ideal system.

Being able to use a back arrow to the previous film also makes this a notch better than Pandora and LastFm, both of which systems do not let you jump to a previous song.

Maybe with addition of user accounts this could be an ideal system in which one can rate films and retain these ratings for future viewing.

WatchUWant

• WatchUWant
• WatchUWant – Information about how it works

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Online Video Viewer Stats

Online video is showing no signs of slowing down in growth. As the latest comScore statistics for December 2009 show.

178 million Internet users in the U.S. watched online video during the last month of the decade. Which equates to almost 87 percent market penetration.

Between them they watched over 33 billion videos in December, or the equivalent of 187 videos each. The average length of video now stands at 4.1 minutes, up from 3.5 minutes around the same time last year.

YouTube Leading

As always, YouTube is leading the pack by quite a margin. 13 billion (40 percent) of the 33 billion video total were watched on the Google-owned site. The 136 million people who used YouTube averaged 97 videos per user.

With viewer numbers and loyalty like that it’s really no wonder Google is trying to shape YouTube into a site which can turn a profit, be it from movie rentals, a TV subscription service, or better advertising options.

Hulu Growing

Hulu ranks second again, as it has done for a while now. However, it’s a long way behind YouTube, with a 3 percent market share. Not that Hulu is complaining though, as it has broken the one billion videos barrier for the first time in its history.

Hulu is almost certainly to launch paid options this year, but it’s viewer numbers such as this which will ensure a free option always remains. Hulu would be mad to put all its content behind a paywall and lose that momentum at a stroke.

Conclusions

I cannot see anyone ever catching YouTube. The site continues to go from strength to strength, picking up new viewers, serving more videos than ever, and innovating to stay ahead of the chasing pack.

Online video as a whole is continuing its long march upwards. And that’s unlikely to stall anytime soon. The emerging tablet computer sector, as led by the Apple iPad, is promising to change the way we access media content, and that can only be good for Web video.

Boxee Vs. Hulu History

It was almost a year ago when Hulu decided to pull its content from Boxee. TV.com also lost out. The decision was made after the networks and cable companies declared they didn’t like the way their premium content was being viewed on television via Boxee via Hulu.

In essence, they were only happy with Hulu while it remained a computer-only affair. Boxee enabled Hulu to be experienced on TVs and that just wouldn’t do as it may influence people’s decision to cancel their cable subscriptions in favor of online video.

Boxee responded by issuing a workaround to the Hulu block. Which Hulu then plugged, only for Boxee to unplug it. The cat and mouse game has continued since then, with some Boxee users able to watch Hulu programming and others not.

NBC Explains To Congress

Congress is holding a hearing concerning Comcast’s proposed acquisition of NBC Universal. And it was during this that Jeff Zucker, President and CEO of NBC, was asked about Hulu blocking Boxee users from accessing its programming.

Zucker was clearly surprised by the line of questioning and faltered the answer:

“This was a decision made by the Hulu management to, uh, what Boxee was doing was illegally taking the content that was on Hulu without any business deal. And, you know, all, all the, we have several distributors, actually many distributors of the Hulu content that we have legal distribution deals with so we don’t preclude distribution deals. What we preclude are those who illegally take that content.”

He was then asked whether NBC would negotiate with Boxee, to which he replied, “We have always said that we’re open to negotiations.”

Why Hulu Is Wrong

Zucker, and consequently Hulu, is fundamentally wrong on this one. As Boxee explains in a measured blog response, Boxee accesses content using a Web browser. There is no taking of video, no adding of adverts. In fact, it works exactly the same way as Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, and the Hulu Desktop.

And yet Boxee has been singled out for exclusion from access while Microsoft, Mozilla, Google and the rest happily act as a go-between without any of these so-called “legal distribution deals” in place that Zucker referred to.

Conclusions

There is absolutely no logic to Hulu’s continued banning of Boxee. And Zucker’s response to the question about it and Boxee’s explanation of why he is wrong frame the issue in as succinct a way as possible.

Let’s hope Hulu and Boxee either do now come to some arrangement or that Congress pushes further for an explanation of the issues involved. Because it makes no sense whatsoever, especially as Boxee would increase Hulu’s potential audience.

The Slingbox SOLO connects to your home-theater devices and allows you to watch your standard-definition (SD) or high-definition (HD) TV programs on your computer or mobile phone over the Internet from virtually anywhere in the world.

Starting up the Slingbox Solo

The Slingbox Solo allows you to watch your favorite shows in SD quality over the internet via your desktop, laptop, Mac, or mobile phone from virtually any location.

Getting started only requires a Windows PC or Mac, a high-speed internet connection and a home network router.

Setup & Running the Slingbox Solo

The Slingbox SOLO comes with the unit, an AC adapter (100-240V 50-60Hz), Ethernet cable, Quick Start Guide, Composite AV cable and a remote control IR cable.

Once the Slingbox base station is setup and ready, you’ll need to install viewing software on a Windows or Mac PC. The software setup includes a video-optimization wizard to automatically calibrate the software settings to your PC’s CPU and graphics card. Once running, the video window is similar to a QuickTime or Windows Media Player window with channel-changing controls.

The Slingplayer Solo comes with an electronic program guide to view your TV programming schedule. The player allows you to change channels, pause, rewind and fast-forward. The player can also be setup to work as a DVR with the on-screen virtual remote.

SlingBox Solo Phone Options

Mobile software is also offered for viewing TV programming various phones, such as compatible Windows Mobile, Symbian, or Palm OS mobile phones.

Other compatible phones include the iPhone and BlackBerry models. A separete software download is required.

Minimum PC Requirements

• HD Streaming: Intel 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo class processor or equivalent with 2 GB of RAM.
• Video acceleration support desirable on graphics card.
• SD Streaming: Pentium 4 class or equivalent with 256 MB RAM.
• Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP, Windows Vista, or Windows 7 with latest updates.
• Browser Support: Internet Explorer Version 7 or higher, Firefox Version 3 or higher.

Minimum Mac Requirements

• HD Streaming: Intel 2.8 GHz Core 2 Duo class processor or equivalent with 2 GB of RAM.
• SD Streaming: Intel-based Mac with 2 GB of RAM.
• Operating System: Mac OS 10.5.7 (Leopard) or later.
• Browser Support: Firefox Version 3 or higher, Safari Version 3 or higher.

What devices can you connect?

• Basic Cable TV Set-top Box
• Digital Cable Set-top Box
• DVR such as TiVo, Comcast, ReplayTV, DISH
• DVD Player/Recorder
• HD component input support with resolution up to 1080i (down-converted for streaming)
• Satellite Receiver such as DIRECTV or DISH
• Video/Security Camera
• Apple TV
• Windows Media Center

Video review of Slingbox Solo

Various Slingbox Solo Feedback from Online

The Amazon reviews of this device are fascinating in how some praise it as wondering while several others label it as “the worst product ever” (worse than Betamax?)

CNET’s review identified this as a nice choice for those who need HD compatibility, or pass-through outputs, but don’t need the extra features of the Slingbox Pro’s multiple device control. Reviewers like on Amazon were just a mixed in the praises, some stating that it worked as expected, and others saying that the device never worked properly.

Slingbox Solo – Prices, Deals and Discounts

On Amazon:
Available to buy at Amazon
On eBay:

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Hulu – From Zero To Hero

After a short beta, Hulu launched fully in early 2008 with few people predicting it would become the success it has done. But the last two years has seen the service grow in popularity by a huge amount, with only a slight dip in the middle of last year.

But that trend now looks to have been reversed, with Hulu once again growing. With Disney now on board, and content partners and sponsors increasing in number, things are definitely looking good for Hulu.

One Billion Videos

The last time we looked at Hulu usage stats the monthly record was 924 million streams. But that has now been superseded, with ComScore reporting Hulu served more than one billion videos in December. In an interview with USA Today, Hulu CEO Jason Kilar described it as “a great milestone.”

At the end of 2008 Hulu was serving 240 million videos a month. In the space of a year that figure has been quadrupled, which is growth I think most sites (with the exception of Google and YouTube) would be happy with.

Paid Vs. Free Options

Hulu may well already be profitable but the company is refusing to disclose this information. However, profitable or not, Hulu is looking at new ways of making money. Last year the first talk of charging for access, with Rupert Murdoch being the driving force behind the effort.

Kilar has now promised there will always be a free version of Hulu but that still leaves a lot of scope for charging for access.

Forrester Research analyst James McQuivey believes Hulu is eyeing up two different pricing tiers. $4.99 a month would buy viewers an ad-free Hulu, with $14.99 a month ending the four-episode limit and open up complete seasons and a huge back catalog of content.

Conclusions

This seems a sensible approach: keeping Hulu free and ad-supported for those who want it, while also giving people more options. The premium package will be most attractive to people who currently buy box sets of TV shows on DVD or Blu-ray.

2009 was a good year for Hulu and I suspect 2010 will be even better.

The NinjaTV remote allows you take control of up to 500 brands of televisions discretely, just like a ninja!

Remote Television Control from a Keychain?

The NinjaTV remote device, that fits conveniently on a keychain, allows you to take control of television sets at virtually any location, including the power, the channel, the volume, and even volume controls.

For someone stuck in an auto mechanic shop and forced to watch ‘Oprah’ on an inaccessible ceiling-mounted television set (not that this has ever happened to me personally) having such a device could present some interesting potential, giving you the ability to change channels at whim.

History of the Ninja and Remote Television Control

The Swamiware site, makers of the NinjaTV remote, offer an interesting insight into the design behind the NinjaTV remote. With a tongue-in-cheek nod to ancient history, we learn that…

“…Around 794 A.D. the wealthy regularly feuded and required intelligence and assassination of their detractors. The Ninja was born. His skill and exactness desired. Ninjas flourished and legendary figures were born. Ninjas brought justice to an otherwise unjust world.”

And now somehow, that need for justice has seen its modern day translation in situations of folks being stuck at a bank with figure skating on the flat screen behind the tellers, unable to change the channel (or adjust the volume). Hence the arrival of the NinjaTV stealth remote.

Tech Details Behind the Ninja

Within this tiny device the Ninja Remote is powered by a 16-bit RISC, with infrared micro-controller (MCU) technology and very low power consumption. The development of this ninja weapon took over three years, according to the manufacturer’s site.

Also per the site this product will work on NTSC, PAL, and SECAM televisions.

Reviews of Other Online Ninjas

Amazon had a mixed bag of reviewer comments: some praising the brilliance of this device, while others knocked it for not working on certain televisions. Having personally suffered with non=programmable remotes in the recent past, I know all to well that there can be frustrations getting some remotes to work with certain televisions, so there might be something to this.

As a curious side-note, the Swamiware site, in addition to the ninja remote, also features an obscure lineup of additional products such as iPhone apps, USB polygraph machines, foam missile launchers and, oddly, a back hair shaver(?)

NinjaTV Remote – Prices, Deals and Discounts

On Amazon:
Available to buy at Amazon
On eBay:

X10 VK74A NINJA PAN n TILT XCAM2 REMOTE CONTROL MOUNT US $23.99   Auction Ends: 27d 1h 4m Make it yours…

X10 XCam2 Ninja Scanpad Remote Control CR14A US $9.99   Auction Ends: 3d 9h 50m Make it yours…

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YouTube Trials Rentals

YouTube has now officially entered the market for movie rentals, having offered movies from the Sundance Film Festival for $3.99 apiece for the ten days that the festival lasted.

YouTube has had a relationship with independent filmmakers for a while now, as it offers another opportunity for them to get their work out there and in the eye-line of a bigger audience. And audiences don’t come much bigger than YouTube’s.

The trial run has now ended and the results are in.

Movie Rentals Trial Results

According to the New York Times, YouTube’s movie rentals trial ended with the company bringing in $10,709.16 in revenue. The five films combined were bought and viewed a total of 2,684 times.

This breaks down further into the results for the five films that were initially offered. The Cove was watched 1,103 times; One Too Many Mornings, 340; Homewrecker, 355 times; Children of Invention, 490 times; and Bass Ackwards, 396. Each was available for $3.99.

Success Or Failure?

Some have suggested this total signals a failure for YouTube, but I disagree. This was only ever intended as a small trial with films only a niche audience would appreciate.

What’s more, YouTube didn’t make a big deal out of it, letting the experiment find its own course rather than be influenced by high-profile ads on YouTube and its parent company Google.

YouTube spokesman Chris Dale even stated, “It definitely exceeded our expectations given all the barriers.” Which implies YouTube is happy with the results and has seen enough revenue and, more importantly promise, to up the ante next time around.

Conclusions

$10,000 isn’t much money in the big scheme of things, but it shows there could be a future there for YouTube to offer movie rentals in a bigger way in the future.

As always content is key. Independent films are one thing but if YouTube could make deals with the big studios for recently-released movies then the prospects move onto a different plain entirely.

And I have no doubts YouTube is already making those deals.

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Any Video Converter is Freeware that allows you to convert video clips of various format into numerous video output formats.

What Any Video Converter Does

As far as freeware goes, Any Video Converter (AVC) does a decent job of quickly converting video files between different formats. From my own tests the conversion results were satisfactory.

In addition to just conversion, the software can also clip segments and merge or sort them to make new movie clips, in addition to trimming frame sizes of videos.

Install and Getting Started

Download and install when quickly, and one of the nice things about AVC is that, as freeware, I wasn’t bombarded with ads as soon as the application started. In fact, it started right up and I could go right to work selecting a file and converting it.

Having started the app on my desktop, I was impressed that the converter had no problems running even with other apps running on my PC at the same time. I selected a VOB format file and opened this, then selected ‘Convert’.

AVC went to work with the conversion, and after a few minutes had rendered a new conversion of the file. I experimented with different format conversions and each of them seemed fine for me.

The Professional Version

While working with AVC, I learned that if you want to rip DVD movies, or need additional output formats, such as iPod, Zune, PSP, etc, that I would need to upgrade to the Professional Version. But considering that there are many free options, this is fine with me.

AVC can convert video formats such as:

• avi
• asf
• mov
• rm
• rmvb
• flv
• mkv
• mpg
• 3gp
• m4v
• vob

YouTube videos can be imported and converted as well.

Output formats include:

• avi
• mp4
• wmv
• swf
• flv
• mkv
• mpeg-1 and mpeg-2
• mpg (PAL or NTSC)
• mp3
• wma
• ogg
• aac
• wave
• m4a

Video Example of the Any Video Converter in Action

Any Video Converter

• Any Video Converter
• Any Video Converter – Reviews and Feedback

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