Category Archives: funniest video on you tube

Youtube have been hd

Thats right the most famous video sharing network of them all has gone HD. Is this a necesary addition? No. does it look and sound good? Yes

This seems to be part PR behaviour and part future proofing. As we all know, eventually there will be just a single piece of kit in your living room through which you can access all media formats; TV, music, the internet (and so Youtube) and probably all manner of other things things that haven’t even been thought of yet.
This has garnered a lot of attention and so has done the PR bit well.
By providing videos in an HD format Youtube is making itself the video browsing site of choice for the home viewer of the future. As we have all believed the hype that our non HD TV’s will soon be obslete we may feel validated by the fact that such a market player is heading in this direction.
Glanceable content. Thats the media of the future. Its all around us with Youtube clips, mobile/web only TV shows and mainstream TV programmes like Rudetube being born from the web. As I believe it though, the videos have to be recorded in HD form to be then shown in HD. This can only be done on expensive camcorders. Youtube is the land of the cameraphone so until we have HD quality camera phones…this may be ahead of its time.
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2009…The year of total digital integration?

Hmmmm not possible…such a convergence is not! Is what a Yoda type digital marketer would have written 4-5 years ago. Only two years ago do I remember reading with interest (and seeing the ‘tellyvision’ ads) from Virgin advertising their new Lobster 700 TV phone. It was the “first handset in the UK to offer such a feature without users having to incur data costs.”(Pocket Lint).

Gosh, I thought, wouldn’t that be amazing? I can watch TV where ever I want, when ever I want on my mobile phone! It didn’t catch on though or take off and the likely, most contributory factor to this failure may be sited (well i’m siting it!) as… on demand internet TV. That and the fact that it weighed 140 grams and was named after a crustacian.

Now here we are 2009, the year of integration. All of the major television providers in the UK provide some form of ‘watch again’ or ‘on demand’ television service. BBC (i player), ITV (ITV player), Channel 4 (4OD) and Sky (Sky Player – subscibers only). I can sit here in my lunch break and watch Eastenders that I missed last night…should I wish to. If I have a 3G mobile such as an Apple i-Phone I can watch these digitally streamed programmes at my leisure. Obviously I can’t watch live TV only repeats but does this matter (although ITV does stream almost live TV)? Not to me it doesn’t. If I want to watch my favourite programme it doesn’t matter where on when I watch it, just so long as I can, in fact, watch it.

So where are we headed?

The final destination is centred around a single entertainment centre can can allow the user to view digital television, play music or even order their shopping. Myspace (an internet company) have just signalled their intention to launch ‘Widget TV‘. This will allow viewers to interact with their Myspce accounts through their television. One suspects that had they held back a year or so then the majority of televisions would be able to browse the internet anyway, thus doing away with the need for a seperate TV channel.

The second series/programme of Rude Tube was shown recently on Channel 4. This again flips it around and has the internet providing the content for a mainstream, terrestrial TV show. and just the other day I was walking around Tescos only to come across a TV with an integrated (there’s that word again!) ipod dock for playing music/tv shows/films straight from you ipod.

Next they’ll be telling me I can make a phone call on a portable telephone?! Crazy.
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