The Inquisitr » youtube

YouTube Announces 1080P Video Streaming Capabilities

James Allen Johnson — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 15:11:20 +0000

Last year YouTube announced support for 720P resolution videos, the number of high definition videos since that time has increased to 10% of all uploaded clips and with that realization YouTube has announced that they are now increasing the maximum allowed resolution to 1080P (Full HD).

According to Hunter Walk, YouTube’s Director of Production Management, the company has already begun the process of converting all previously uploaded 1080P videos to their full quality, with nearly 50% of the process already complete. New videos can now be uploaded at that quality.

In some cases YouTube is even promising “better than source” quality on uploaded videos. It’s about time the company steps up to the full HD plate, although it should be interesting to see what that does to their streaming and storage costs, expenses that have already plagued the company with mounting costs. [Dvice]

Y,000,000,000uTube” As YouTube Hits 1 Billion Views Per Day

AHN — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 21:00:38 +0000

YouTube.com, the post and share video site, has ballooned into one of the largest websites in history, serving up over a billion videos per day – making for well over 30 billion hits each month.

The traditionally coy Website, which was sold to Google for $1.65 billion in 2006, posted a congratulatory logo after a blog post on Friday.

YouTube CEO and Co-founder Chad Hurley made the announcement; “I’m proud to say that we have been serving well over a billion views a day on YouTube. This is great moment in our short history and we owe it all to you.”

“Three years after the acquisition, our platform and our business continue to grow and evolve. We are still committed to the same principles that informed the site early on, but we know things have changed… we’re working hard to keep up with the fast pace of technology to bring you everything you would expect from the world’s largest video site: better quality,” Hurley added.

Video: All of them

Kim LaCapria — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 15:02:27 +0000

In case you missed it, someone’s made a condensed version of a hundred of them viral videos. Hosted by Boxxy.

100 Greatest Hits of YouTube in 4 Minutes

Duncan Riley — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 05:26:20 +0000

YouTube is well known for its memes, but what happens if you mashed the top 100 together? Well, you get this video of the 100 great hits of YouTube in 4 minutes.

YouTube user gets B of A to respond with calls for “debtor’s revolt”

Kim LaCapria — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 22:02:15 +0000

YouTube user Rockerchic4God, also known as Arlene from True Blood Ann Minch, couldn’t get any Bank of America employees pay attention to her when she had problems with her account.

So she turned to YouTube. After being laid off, Ann had her interest rate jacked up from 12.99% to 30%. Bank of America refused to negotiate the rate that she said would have been more reasonable if offered from a loan shark. Accusing the bank of “raping and pillaging” American public and destroying the middle class, Minch calls for a debtor’s revolt. Ann gives the CEO of Bank of America two choices: restore her interest rate or make her a payoff offer she can’t refuse.

The strategy worked. The video, now at nearly 350K views, got the attention of Bank of America’s senior VP of “existing credit card accounts”- as well as media outlets like Fox and Friends. The man, Jeff Crawford, allowed her to say her piece and allowed her to “negotiate some sort of agreement.” Crawford said that he blamed the high interest rates on two late payments, although one was in response to the rate hike. He tried to get her to agree to 16.99%, but Minch angrily pointed out that the Fed is giving the banks a 0% interest rate, so 12.99% is more than enough for her to be paying.

Minch reports that as of the second video, her interest rate is showing online as 23.99%. She also notes that Crawford didn’t even request that she stop her media assault. Minch says in her follow-up video that she will continue in her efforts, starting a website called Debtor’s Revolt to help people who are currently being overburdened by skyrocketing interest rates.

Watch Ann’s videos, below:

iPhone 3GS video is child’s play: here’s the proof

Duncan Riley — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 07:11:15 +0000

As I wrote the other day, I had no choice other than to upgrade my iPhone 3G to an iPhone 3GS after my son destroyed the former in an iPod/ iPhone speaker dock.

As much as I was tempted, I’d previously decided that having video and a compass wasn’t such as big deal, but little did I know that video had some appeal, at least with the same person who caused me to buy an iPhone 3GS in the first place.

I’ve posted this on my personal blog, but as a proud father I want to share this with a bigger audience again. What follows is my sons first video production. I say production, because he’s shot a number of videos previously, but they were all what was going on around him. At the age of seven (since August) he has another depth of understanding, one that had the depth of scope enough to shoot a mini-movie involving lego and space aliens.

If you’re a parent, I hope you enjoy the following video even a tenth of what I did. If you’re not a parent, you might not understand, but so be it.

Want to post a hit on YouTube?

Kim LaCapria — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 21:15:31 +0000

There’s a simple formula to follow.

[Via GraphJam]

YouTube Vandal Sentenced To 3 Years In Prison

AHN — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 06:06:05 +0000

Los Angeles, CA (AHN) – A Los Angeles man was sentenced Thursday to a suspended three years and eight months in prison for his daring daylight vandalism spree that were videotaped and shown on YouTube.

Superior Court Judge James Bianco also ordered Cyrus Yazdani, 26, to pay a restitution amounting to $117,196 for tagging the bridges in 7th Street and Cesar Chavez as well as painting graffiti in the 4200 block of South Broadway.

Yazdani was on probation when sentenced. He was recently released from a 10-month jail term, an offshoot of his pleading guilty in December to vandalizing buses, freeway walls, overpasses and the concrete lining of the Los Angeles River between 2005 and 2007.

Yazdani signed his tags with his moniker “Buket.”

YouTube in negotiations to stream new movies

Steven Hodson — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 22:45:00 +0000

YouTube, always on the look-out for ways to solidify its leadership in video and increase its revenue has been in negotiations with the major movie studios to start streaming movies on a rental basis. Granted there are already some full length movies available on the service but they are generally lesser known movies or indie films looking for exposure.

This latest move is seen as a way to increase their revenue as well as one of its first moves towards charging for content instead of going with the typical ad supported model. At this point YouTube is in discussions with: Lions Gate, Sony, and Warner Bros. about including their movies in YouTube’s site. Additionally part of the talks include making them available on the same day the the movie’s DVD comes out.

Many of the details involved with the ongoing discussions are still in a state of flux. Included is whether or not at some point users will be able to download the movies. The figure being tossed around for the rental is $3.99 with the possibility of the traditional ad supported model being used for some of the movies. As it is the movie studios already get a 70% share of revenue generated by movies already on the site and the word is that this would be the same for the new movies being streamed.

In addition the studios would be guaranteed a minimum fee of just under $3.00 per title viewed. The thinking behind this is that since it is a flat fee the studios would get regardless it give YouTube some wiggle room to offer special deals.

At this point 10,000 Google employees are set to begin testing the service at some point after September, which was the original date for the internal testing launch; but that has been set back as negotiations drag on.

hat tip to WSJ.comhttp://online.wsj.com/article/SB125192241524880801.html

I’m sorry- did that guy just catch a laptop with his ass?

Kim LaCapria — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 16:50:53 +0000

MSI is soliciting YouTube video entries for a contest to promote their new X-Slim series of notebooks.

Fifteen winners will be selected to win a trip to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef and a free X-Slim notebook. Users have been told to upload their most “extreme, crazy videos” to YouTube. Naturally, a bunch of “acrobats” submitted a video of a guy catching a computer with his ass.

Comments of “world class asslete” abound (I would have said ass-crobat, but whatever), and many commenters on YouTube are calling the video a fake or accusing the dude of propelling the laptop out of his ass somehow which seems… no less probable. Here is one commenter’s debunking with spelling errors preserved:

I’ts just some promotional campaign for some product, just like “man catches glasses with face”. It’s play backwards. Obvious is fake. LOOK AT THE HAIR. It moves before the guy moves. Search on youtube for “Catches Glasses Explanation” and you’ll know how this video is made.

I have to say, neither explanation makes much sense to me. So here’s a video of the laptop ass-catching in motion, and you can judge for yourself whether this guy is throwing or catching a laptop with his ass.

YouTube office space – are you jealous yet? [Office Porn]

Steven Hodson — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 21:50:00 +0000

If there is one thing you can say about the office spaces of the cool folks of Web 2.0 businesses is that they are just that – cool. Planned out with the idea of making it so the employees have it better at the office than they do when they go home there are a lot of perks and pleasures that go hand in hand when working in web related tech companies.

Mind you I’m not sure how many of them have a office pool. No I don’t mean the gambling type of pool either, I mean the real honest to goodness get all wet type of pool. Like the one that YouTube has in their building.

Of course that goes well with the putting green that they as well.

Yup it seems like YouTube has a pretty nice work environment full of all kinds of geek type goodness to help keep the natives from getting to restless. Now I’m not sure if this is a teleconferencing type monitor or if someone has the ultimate monitor geekiness to lord over everyone else.

But then who really cares when you have this kind of personal workspace to live and breath in – I want that monitor .. no make that two of that monitor.

Unfortunately though they broke my heart and probably any chance of accepting a job (ya. right.) because even though they have pretty nice full stocked drink coolers there’s no Pepsi .. and that just isn’t acceptable.

Got to admit though that is a pretty big building that they have so it’s no wonder they have a pool and putting green

Which is a good thing considering that even their stockrooms, or is it the company store?, have enough room for all manner of geeky toys to amuse themselves with

Hmm. I wonder if this is their effort to be ‘green’?

hat tip to FreshPics for this Tuesday afternoon geek office porn.

Justin.tv proves to win live video wars, break the law

Paul Montgomery — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 13:20:21 +0000

YouTube got to the top of the online video clip industry by systematically flaunting copyright laws until it could get big enough to be bought by Google and let their lawyers handle it. It seems that in the fight between Justin.tv and Ustream.tv for the live video market, one side has taken the high road and the other is going to win.

Quite apart from an allegations of Justin.tv enabling child pornography, which the Inquisitr is also investigating, Justin.tv is the hub of a network of Web sites which provide global sports fans with links to live video streams of sporting events, openly flaunting international broadcast laws.

Atdhe.net and Channelsurfing.net are just two of a number of sites which maintain databases of sporting events and link to them as they are shown each day. These sites embed video feeds from Justin.tv which are blatantly stolen re-broadcasts from ESPN, Fox Sports, NFL Network and the free-to-air networks, and a list of international events like soccer from a variety of networks, plus Australian rules football and rugby league on Australia’s Channels Seven, Nine and Ten and a host of European feeds.

While some of the feeds are hosted on private sites, by far the most popular conduit for these feeds is Justin.tv, which even puts its watermark over the offending streams. Ustream, which in comparison has taken the responsible route of partnering with CBS and other content partners and squashing anyone who tried to use its site for infringing rebroadcasts, is being thrashed on traffic numbers in comparison, according to any metrics firm you’d care to ask.

Can Justin.tv hide behind the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which at least nominally protects them from legal action, long enough to get bought YouTube-style by someone who can defend them from the inevitably massive law suits they are risking? Allowing these feeds to stay up for so long that a subculture of sites has now spread up around them is pushing the intention of the statutes way too far for comfort.

Important public service announcements…from the future

Duncan Riley — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 06:49:09 +0000

What will public service announcements look like in the future? If you’re Jake Maymudes the best way to find out is to create them.

Co-directed by Colin Gill and Produced by Peter Harding, these three futuristic public service announcements warn against serious dangers such as robots, hyper-speed and time travel.

The public service announcements haven’t gone viral but are sitting pretty on 40,000 views on YouTube and are starting to get a fair bit of attention. I’m betting that give or take a couple of weeks that the number of views is going to be closer to 1 million.

Enjoy Important public service announcements…from the future.

Piracy down, streaming up in the UK

Kim LaCapria — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 21:23:34 +0000

Where are your lawsuits now, music industry?

Piracy was down by roughly a third in the UK in 2008, but streaming was way up in the same period. Savvy UK teenagers are using sites like Pandora, YouTube, Grooveshark and Spotify to stream content and music to their computers in lieu of filesharing. One former pirate and current streamer told the Guardian:

“I didn’t even realise it was illegal for a long time, until I heard that the government were trying to stop it. That did put me off, but one of the big reasons I stopped doing it was because I would get viruses, more pop ups on my computer. While I was at uni I started listening to streamed music using MySpace. Bands would be friends with other bands and it was a great way of discovering new music. I don’t really feel the need to own all that music, I know it’s always there.”

The shift seems largely inspired not by some moral obligation to maintain music industry profits, but rather, sheer convenience. As has been shouted at the music industry time and again, the business models that will flourish alongside technology are those that offer convenience and aren’t ripping consumers off left, right and center.

It seems that the music industry can accept that the entire revenue generating model has changed and change with it, using tangible merchandise like tour tickets, memorabilia and the like to boost profits alongside ad-supported streaming. Or they can continue to behave like litigious buggy-whip factories and keep trying to circumvent technologies that bring fans to music most efficiently. Which do you think it will be?

So, you wanted to know how to shave your groin? [VIDEO]

Steven Hodson — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 20:45:00 +0000

I’m not sure that this can be considered as a high moment in the use of social media but apparently Gillette has its own YouTube channel where among other video classics regarding shaving you can view a one minute how to about shaving your groin area. The how to video has been viewed some 1,197,165 times with over a thousand comments so I guess this is a pretty important area for us to be knowledgeable on.

So in the interest of keeping our readers well informed about all these important subjects I present to you – How To Save your Groin – Shaving tips from Gillette.

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thanks to Unique-Frequency for this socially important video

No related posts.

Post-It stop motion video

Dennis Bjørn Petersen — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 09:14:37 +0000

Cool doesn’t justify this must-see video. This is his senior project at Savannah College of Art and Design.

It most have taken ages to make this, but dang its impressive!

Sweet: YouTube coming to your TV!

Kim LaCapria — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 21:20:40 +0000

In a small gathering of press this morning, YouTube unveiled YouTube XL- a new service that brings your favorite cat falling off stuff and shoddy folk cover videos straight to your TV!

While online computer-to-tv streaming services and Hulu and Boxee offer content optimized for TV, YouTube videos often didn’t even really do well in monitor full-screen mode. But YouTube XL changes that, optimizing content for viewing even on huge-screen TVs.

Although YouTube XL lacks some features of regular YouTube, (most notably the comments, yay!) YouTube XL supports playlists, HD video and even has an application called Gmote for Android phones. (Where’s the iPhone love at, YouTube?) And unlike Hulu Desktop, which needs a computer to rock and roll, you can use YouTube XL on devices with a browser such as the Wii, XBox and PS3- making the interface friendly for a larger group of users.

Wanna take it for a spin? Go on!

YouTube: 1 – UK’s PRS: 0 and kissing a lot of butt

Steven Hodson — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 20:55:23 +0000

Back in March Duncan wrote a post about how U.K’s Performing Rights Society (PRS) decided to go ahead with their gouging of online video sites like YouTube only to have YouTube say basically – screw you. At which point YouTube started blocking most music videos on the site to United Kingdom viewers.

YouTube said in a blog post that it would block premium music videos in the UK until it can agree to a new contract with The Performing Rights Society (PRS) that is “economically sustainable.”

“But PRS is now asking us to pay many, many times more for our license than before,” YouTube’s Patrick Walker wrote. “The costs are simply prohibitive for us – under PRS’s proposed terms we would lose significant amounts of money with every playback.”

Fast forward not even a month and that groveling sound you hear is the PRS sweet talking YouTube to come back after PRS halved its royalties. Mind you it is no wonder that PRS wants the video giant back as YouTube contributed 40 percent of PRS members’ plays during one point last year.

But Shaw was clear that won’t see Google’s site treated as a special case and denied the rate slashing was specifically designed just to lure it back: “Our organisation is here to license the entire market… This consultation period started long before the YouTube dispute arose.” Shaw admitted that YouTube was significant but said PRS has lots of online payees like Spotify and Napster.

Source: paidContent:UK

Okay, sure, whatever helps you sleep at night. The fact is YouTube traffic carries some pretty heavy weight and increasingly trade groups like PRS are realizing that they need YouTube much more than the video giant needs them.

US Military in Afghanistan embraces Twitter, YouTube, Facebook

Kim LaCapria — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 20:10:37 +0000

After informally utilizing Twitter, YouTube and Facebook to communicate their message quickly and without news media restrictions, the US Military will begin officially dispersing information via these channels later this week. Military spokesperson in Afghanistan Col. Greg Julian was quoted as saying ”There’s an entire audience segment that seeks its news from alternative means outside traditional news sources, and we want to make sure we’re engaging them as well.” (You know, I have heard the exact same thing.)

US officials have long expressed a perceived disadvantage in less traditional forms of media, frustrated with what they deem propaganda from the Taliban and Al-Qaeda operatives in the region. Incidents involving the deaths of US troops or civilian casualties in the region are often initially misreported and often inflated, and US Military social media efforts are aimed at readers worldwide to combat misinformation quickly and efficiently.

Troops are also being encouraged to share photos, stories and other bits of information that illustrate daily life in Afghanistan.

YouTube to Stream Obama News Conference Live

JR — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 15:24:09 +0000

YouTube will stream President Obama’s news conference live tonight, Google has announced.

Obama News Conference Live Stream

Obama is set to address America at 8 p.m. EDT to discuss his first 100 days in office. YouTube will offer a live stream of the speech on its “White House channel,” along with commentary by various news organizations. The site will also, of course, offer links for you to upload your own thoughts via video and have them linked to the coverage. Google promises some viewer videos will be featured on the main YouTube news page by tomorrow.

President Obama’s news conference will be covered by most major networks tonight. Fox, however, has said it will not broadcast the speech, sticking instead with its regular schedule of “American Idol” and “Lie to Me.” The network says it will provide an on-screen graphic to inform viewers they can watch the Obama news conference live on the Fox News Channel or Fox Business Network.

YouTube White House Channel

The following is an embed of videos currently featured in YouTube’s “White House channel.”