CBS Labs breaks out the high-def
CBS.com just joined the online HD party, streaming some low-grade, high-definition video.
You can’t find the content on the CBS home page, only on the labs.cbs.com site, where it was unearthed by someone at TechCrunch.
The player is your basic basic. The images look quite good, with no buffering issues whatsoever on a cable modem. Some clips had better contrast (and pop) than others, and everything looked on the soft side.
Don’t get too excited — the video streams at 480p, not high definition in my estimation. The content is limited to 2-minute clips of the usual suspect shows: “NUMB3RS,” “CSI,” “How I Met Your Mother” and four others. Like Hulu, the CBS content uses the H.264 video codec.
NBC Universal-News Corp.’s Hulu started its high-def activities at 720p, streaming a half dozen movie clips. Hulu streams some full-length content at “high res” 480p, such as “Ice Age,” the super-crisp animated movie (”Ice Age” was the first or second high-def content I ever saw, on a digital VHS format way back. Cool.)
By comparison, your Blu-ray player brings the funk at 1080p — which you won’t be seeing online anytime soon due to bandwidth limits.
Hulu’s HD Gallery has grown a bit, but they’re still trailers — of new movies like “Leatherheads” and old stuff such as “American Gangster.” The player is Hulu’s outstanding display system. The gallery is now sponsored by Intel, which kindly takes only a PBS-style sliver of your pre-viewing time.
‘South Park’ video streaming all its junk
“South Park” dwellers don’t have to go dumpster diving for streaming videos as of right now.
southparkstudios.com has launched with full-length episodes and clips from the cranky ani show’s 12 seasons.
“South Park” creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone said of their new home: “We got really sick of having to download our own show illegally all the time so we gave ourselves a legal alternative.”
As of this afternoon, all but the most recent of 169 episodes in the “South Park” library are up there.
The rollout scheme goes like this: New episodes will go up “as soon as possible” after they debut on Comedy Central and remain on the site for a week. Then it’s off to limbo. A month later, they’re back and in the archives.
So as of right now, you’ll have to be patiently wait a day for “Major Boobage.” Who wouldn’t. Headed for the netherworld soon is “Britney’s New Look” (embedded below, for a few days).
The site also offers those with no lives the “South Park” Avatar Generator, with which they can become one of the show’s twisted kids. Of course I did it. “They can pick from millions of combinations to create their perfect self portrait in the ‘South Park’ world. To date 35,000 Avatars have been created,” your MTV Networks press release said.
The generator worked fine, and the result (left) looked a bit like me only not barnacled enough.
Looks like another heh-heh public beta, open to the entire plant: “The site which rolled out a beta version last Wednesday has already received over three million page views, over two million video plays, and more than a million streams of full episodes,” the SP flackery noted.
Perhaps this “beta” will give them time to work on the s-l-o-w loading times.
The site seeks to go global, which should cheer the demented in Britain, Australia and the like. Here’s Ane Garefino of South Park Digital Studios:
“One goal in moving forward is to make every episode of ‘South Park’ available world-wide. Currently, full episodes are not available in the UK, Australia and a few other foreign territories but we’re not far off from making that happen. We have some contractual issues to sift through but we’re getting there.”
In other news of young superweathy men and their creations, Digg founders Kevin Rose and Jay Adelson are sending their own web-only “Diggnation” show to the slightly annoying Blip.tv, along with a few other series from their revision3.com
“More than a dozen Revision3-produced shows will be made available,” your press release raved. “Taking advantage of the open nature of blip.tv’s platform, Revision3 will make each show accessible in multiple formats ranging from Flash to Quicktime to DivX to 3gp for cell phones.” The shows also go out via the Blip distribution network.
Revision3 also has been encouraging viewers to get with the Miro open-source video player, a desktop ap good for Macs and PCs.
The shows already get a good ride around the Net but Blip provides some ad bucks and a decent platform.
Joost gets a March Madness assist
Joost says its “test” of live P2P video from the NCAA tournament went pretty well. At least it did for the marketing department.
Here was the warning basketball fans encountered in the days leading up to Joost’s premiere NCAA effort. Nothing unusual here. Sounds like the typical online sports experience:
“This is a test of our live P2P streaming service. It’s a pretty complex technology, and we fully expect things to go wrong. The stream may stutter, slow, or stop altogether. If your stream does stop, we recommend restarting the channel — that usually works. Otherwise, you might have to re-start Joost. We apologize for any inconveniences, but your participation will help us build a stable live service!”
Apparently this participation boiled down to filling out a fairly standard marketing form, with questions like “What live programming would you like to watch on Joost?”
Joost says it “had a couple of glitches in the first round, but we learned a lot and are ready for the round of 32.” Reviews from users seemed mixed.
The video comes straight from March Madness rights-holder CBS. So why not just go to cbssports.com for its March Madness On Demand? As they say, “Avoid the lines.”
Someone trying to watch their team on CBS can end up waiting 15, 20 minutes to get a signal. Also, CBS really, really wants you to sign up first, then use Internet Explorer, although a plug-in or two might get the game via Firefox. A pain, just like it’s been since day 1 of the streaming Madness.
The Joost “test” seems like a pretty good marketing campaign, which many “betas” have become in recent times. At least emailing users about the NCAA tourney beats coming up with something about Joost’s latest offering, “Hercules vs. the Moon Men.”
Meanwhile, CBS is taking some Internet heat over the bogus results in its NCAA basketball bracket application on Facebook, TechCrunch reports.
Hulu gets the last laugh … for now
Hulu’s come-one-come-all beta is over. The NBC Universal-Fox video streaming site officially went public Wednesday to another round of cheers from the media.
Funny to think back on last summer, when they all laughed. The odd name inspired hate posts from bloggers, who cited the wanna-be-hip handle as evidence the old media didn’t get it and never would.
Even operating in public beta mode, Hulu quickly emerged as the nexus for “premium” (professional) entertainment videos online. The yang to YouTube’s ying.
As part of this week’s grand opening, the site paraded out its list of content partners to date. They include Warner Bros. TV, Lionsgate, the NBA and NHL. Not CBS, as hoped for and rumored. Full list below.
Hulu said that in the past 30 days, over 5 million people viewed videos via the Hulu or its distribution network. The big partner sites in the net are AOL, MSN, Yahoo, MySpace and Comcast’s Fancast.com. But of course any site can present a Hulu video, via YouTube-style emedding code. Complete with the ads that the Hulu loop gets paid for.
Having product from Fox, NBC and the Universal studio gave Hulu much of its initial momentum, but credit also should go to the interface designers, who came up with a bitchen intuitive set of controls. When watching videos elsewhere, I’m looking in vain for Hulu’s dim-lights feature. The video interface feels like something out of Apple’s shop.
Too good to last? Silicon Alley Insider thinks Hulu is headed for a meltdown.
List of Hulu content providers after this word from our sponsors:
FOX, NBC Universal, MGM, Sony Pictures Television, Warner Bros. Television Group, as well as Access Hollywood, AST Dew Tour, BNET, Bravo, Broadway Video, CenterStaging, Chic.tv, Chiller, CHOW, CNET, Comedy Time, Davis-Panzer Productions, E! Entertainment Television, ExerciseTV, FEARnet, Ford Models, Fox Atomic, Fox Movie Channel, Fox Reality, Fox Searchlight, Fox Sports, Fox TV Studios, Fuel TV, FX Networks, G4TV, Gamespot, Gamespy, Hidden Universe, IGN, Image Entertainment, Lionsgate, LX.TV, MEN7, Mojo, Movieola, My Network TV, National Geographic Channel, National Geographic Digital Shorts, NBA, NBC Sports, NHL, Oxygen, Paley Media, Reveille, Salient Media, SciFi Channel, Shout! Factory, Sleuth Channel, SpaceRip, Speed, Sundance Channel, Taste TV, The Fight Network, The Golf Channel, The Onion, The Style Network, TV Guide, TVG, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, Twentieth Century Fox Television, Twentieth Television, Universal Pictures, USA Network, Versus, Vuguru, WatchMojo, Wine Library TV and World Wrestling Entertainment
Xbox 360 with Blu-ray: talks under way
The synergistic successes of Sony’s PS3 game console and the Blu-ray format have convinced Microsoft that it’s time to play ball.
Microsoft and Sony are now in talks about adding a Blu-ray drive to the Xbox 360, the Financial Times reported. Sony needs to make a move: The Xbox 360 console currently offers an outboard HD DVD player
Incorporating Blu-ray functionality into the Xbox 360 Elite
Here’s hoping the Blu-ray drive goes internal, eliminating the pain-in-the-ass aspects of plugging and unplugging an add-on unit, and finding a spot for yet another hdmi wire. Microsoft had no comment, the FT reported.
Sony Electronics U.S. president Stan Glasgow told a media dinner that he did not agree with widespread crystal-balling that has the Blu-ray format being quickly run off by video downloading. Consumers want their shiny discs, he said.
“Downloading will build over time, but this will be over a period of years,” he said.
Apple, which has focused on downloads via its iTunes store and Apple TV, also is in talks regarding Blu-ray, Glasgow said.
