UPDATED: The next iteration of Flip video cameras will reportedly be WiFi-enabled, allowing users to wirelessly upload their videos. Pocket Lint first broke the news, and CrunchGear claims to have confirmed it. This next-gen Flip will also reportedly have a slide-out screen that reveals the record and menu buttons underneath — the screen will not, however, be a touchscreen. Update: We had a chance to speak with a few Cisco/Flip reps this morning who said they had not confirmed this news and would not comment on any upcoming products.

The addition of Wi-Fi will would be a nice touch for the video camera, and an appropriate marriage with parent company Cisco’s networking tech. (Perhaps the Wi-Fi will even tie into the mysterious forthcoming Flip set-top box.) But the bigger question plaguing the entire Flip line is just how much life is left in a standalone product. Decent video-recording capabilities are being embedded in phones like the Droid, iPhone and iPod Nano. As we learned earlier this year, the video quality of the Nano doesn’t quite match up to the Flip cam yet, but that’s a big yet. Will people want to carry around a dedicated video camera when their phone will do just fine for capturing spontaneous moments?

When we’ve spoken with Flip reps in the past they’ve put on a brave face and said that there is enough room for lots of players in the space, but it’s hard to believe that. With multipurpose devices getting better at shooting video and the high-end HD cameras dropping in price, the better-than-good-but-not-great Flips are getting squeezed out.

In just the few months since it was released this summer, Apple’s video streaming to the iPhone has become a part of many business plans. Two announcements were made on that front today:

Multicast announced full support for transcoding, managing, delivering and displaying content on the iPhone, both live and on-demand. However, the company’s customers tend to be corporate — from internal teams like investor relations, human resources and sales that put on live events — while the iPhone is still mainly a consumer device. Nevertheless, it’s useful to have your main online video platform provide extensions to all sorts of devices.

Meanwhile, Stickam, the live video community site, today launched an iPhone SDK of its own. The idea is that other companies, for instance partner 211me, which works with celebrities, can build their own iPhone apps that include Stickam live streaming and chat. 211me’s first Stickam-powered app will be for Twilight star Peter Facinelli. Competitor Kyte already simplifies this process even further, enabling stars and their entourages to make video apps for various mobile platforms.

In other recent iPhone video news, Brightcove pre-announced an iPhone SDK and Livestream added iPhone streaming last week at our NewTeeVee Live conference.

Kyte on Android

White-label video vendor Kyte today said it is expanding the number of mobile platforms that its customers can distribute videos to, with the upcoming launch of new application frameworks for Android and Nokia mobile devices.

The new app frameworks are designed to make publishing videos from Kyte’s management platform into mobile applications as easy as possible. With these frameworks, the company enables its customers to build native mobile apps with features such as real-time chat, comments, ratings, and the ability to share across multiple social-networking platforms.

“Our customers can take a Kyte channel and deliver it as a fully branded mobile app very quickly, and there will only be an incremental increase in cost, as opposed to the cost of building and launching a standalone iPhone app,” says Kyte COO Gannon Hall.

With existing app frameworks for video on iPhone and BlackBerry devices, Kyte will soon be able to easily create apps and send videos to four leading mobile platforms. The company also supports video distribution through the mobile web.

Adding support for more mobile platforms plays to the company’s strengths; While other online video platform (OVP) vendors focus primarily on live and on-demand video distribution online, Kyte has tried to differentiate itself with advanced mobile and social features.

Mobile live-streaming service Qik announced today that you can download its app for the Droid phone from the Android Marketplace, and sign up for early beta access to a high-res version of the Qik client for the Droid that can capture videos in DVD resolution (720×480). The company says it’s the first live mobile provider to enable DVD-quality video capture.

Qik has also improved its capabilities to help users create shortcuts to make sharing Qik-created videos with your contacts or social media sites faster.

In the battle between the iPhone and the Droid, the Droid wins on the live-streaming front because, well, it actually streams live video. The iPhone lets you record video for uploading later.

The NBA has dramatically updated its mobile offerings for the 2009-10 season, including a new application for the iPhone and Android that provides live video streams of games.

NBA League Pass Mobile costs $39.99 for the season, and gives users access to more than 40 live games each week. It identifies a user’s location via GPS in order to block access to the nearest local team, but other than that, the MobiTV-powered app is all-you-can-eat.

I tried out League Pass Mobile last night and it looked great, especially on Wi-Fi. The app includes live DVR capabilities, adaptive bitrate streaming, on-demand access to games for 48 hours, live stats, push alerts, and the ability to turn off all that information while you’re watching a game and just want to experience it in real time.

The app is not yet available publicly, but it should be out ASAP, definitely before the end of the week. Update: iPhone version is here. And paying users of NBA League Pass Broadband will have to open up their wallets again; the two products aren’t bundled.

In my testing on an iPhone (see gallery of screenshots below), the 3G stream, which AT&T ratchets down to start at 240 Kbps, crapped out on me a bit, which sucks if you’ve paid 40 bucks for it. NBA Digital general manager Bryan Perez said to expect streaming quality to improve over the course of the season. “Convenience can be just as important as the content itself,” Perez said. “Just because it’s not in HD doesn’t mean it’s not adding tremendous value to your quality of life.”

Along with the big-money video app, NBA Digital is upgrading last year’s Game Time app to a paid version ($9.99) and still giving out a free “Lite” version. The paid version, available for iPhone, Android and BlackBerry devices, includes live audio feeds for every game — including those in your local market — as well as stats, video highlights and push alerts. The free app has scores, standings and schedules. So if you care most about not having your local team’s games blacked out, this app’s for you.

Perez told us he thinks the NBA stacks up well in digital vs. other major sports leagues because it has the youngest demographic, though he admitted that Major League Baseball has been pioneering the business models for sports delivered digitally. He contended the NBA has the immense advantage of having all its assets under one roof between television, Internet and mobile, along with a vested interest on the part of Turner to promote digital projects. Next up, Perez said NBA Digital is looking to partner with regional sports providers to try to offer in-market access to games, which would have to be a major boost to usage.

After slogging through two iPhone-less years, my contract with Verizon is up and finally — FINALLY! — I can catch up with the Techno Joneses and get the Jesus Phone. But with Verizon and Motorola launching their Droid line of phones today, suddenly, I’m not sure what kind to get, especially since I’ll have a newteevee slant to my usage. I could use some help from you, the reader.

To set the stage, I only use my phone as a “phone” for work, for personal use, I generally prefer texting. I’m interested in apps, and I use a Mac and Gmail. Here’s been my initial thinking:

Reasons to Get a Droid:
-Verizon’s network is better (or so the snarky commercial tells me)
-I’m already hooked in with the Verizon system
-Video recording is 720×480 at 24 fps (quite nice for those impromptu video interviews)
-5 mega-pixel camera (iPhone has 3.0), with image stabilization and location tagging
-YouTube baked right in
-I can play my cat videos on a 3.7 inch 854×480 screen (the iPhone is a 3.5 inches and 640×480)
-It’s on an open platform that many people (hopefully) will be developing all kinds of cool stuff for in the coming months

Reasons to Get an iPhone
-Not first-gen hardware
-Plugs into my existing Mac ecosystem at home and work
-Plenty of apps already available
-YouTube baked in
-Video recording with not-quite-livestreaming apps available

I’ve heard mixed things about the iPhone. Om chucked his, but other friends of mine still love theirs and don’t even mind the cruddy AT&T network. With the Droid not available until Nov. 6, I realize that you probably haven’t used one yet, but speaking in broad terms, what do you think? Should I avoid the Droid or does the Droid pwn the iPhone?

Can a cell phone take the place of your pocket camcorder? More and more phones are trying to serve as compact camcorders like the Flip models, as are MP3 players like the iPod nano. But few — if any — offer the same video quality and ease of use that you’ll find in a dedicated camcorder. One of the latest phones to attempt this feat is Samsung’s Instinct HD. And, though the Instinct HD does offer a very good camera and camcorder, I wouldn’t trade it for a Flip MinoHD…yet.

Samsung and Sprint, which is offering the Instinct HD for $250, are highlighting the HD features of the phone. And it can capture HD video; in fact, you’re reminded of this every time you fire it up. Before you can capture any video, you have to select your desired resolution: HD (1280×720), VGA (640×480) or QVGA (320×240). I found this constant reminder a bit annoying; I’d rather pick a default resolution and just change it via a settings menu.

That’s not my only complaint about the camcorders controls, either. You can launch the phone’s 5-megapixel camera by pressing a dedicated button on the side of the handset, but to change it to video recording mode, you have to press a teensy camcorder icon on the phone’s touchscreen. The icon was so small, I couldn’t accurately tap it without using the tip of my fingernail.

Luckily, you can start and stop video recording by pressing the camera button on the side of the phone — which conveniently sits on top when you rotate the handset sideways so it’s in widescreen mode. But to zoom in and out you have to tap another on-screen button. This one is big enough that it’s easy to tap, but doing so does cause the camera to jerk slightly, and you’ll likely notice that movement in your video clips.

In the HD clips I captured, video quality was, for the most part, very good. Close-up subjects looked the best, while larger scenes tended to look a bit washed-out and less crisp. And while it’s nice that you can zoom in and out while recording, using the zoom degraded the video quality to the point that I simply wouldn’t bother.

One of the key HD features about the Instinct HD — it’s mentioned multiple times on the box — is the ability to play your photos and videos back on auxiliary HD devices. The phone even has a mini-HDMI video out port on its side. So, after I recorded my videos, I was all set to hook my phone up to my HDTV to see how they looked. And I would have been able to…if only the necessary mini-HDMI to HDMI cord was included with the phone. Alas, it’s a $30 accessory.

The Samsung Instinct HD does take advantage of some of Sprint’s cool video services, like Sprint TV (which offers a mix of live and pre-packaged TV and video clips) and the NFL Mobile Live service, which lets you watch live football games. Both of these services are included with the voice and data plans that Sprint offers for the Instinct HD, which start at $69.99 a month.

When compared to similar cell phones, the Instinct HD’s camcorder shines in some respects: The video quality tops most phones I’ve tried, and the video out port is a nice touch. But it lags in usability and that HDMI cable really should come with the phone. But what the Instinct HD — and any other phone I’ve tested — can’t do is replace a dedicated pocket camcorder. Cameras like the Flip and Kodak’s Zx1 simply offer superior usability and video quality.

YouTube Gets Channel 4 Content; all of Channel’s VOD catch-up shows will be on YouTube shortly after their broadcast — but only to users in the UK. (The Hollywood Reporter)

MLB Served Up 350,000 Live Streams Per Playoff Game; roughly 10 percent of those are viewed on the iPhone/Touch. (paidContent)

RedLasso Relaunches; news clip-sharing service is resurrected with content from more than 100 TV stations. (paidContent)

Edgecast Says It Is Profitable; the CDN announces that it became profitable in Q3 of 2009, and has been EBITDA positive since Q2 of 2009. (emailed release)

Honestech Releases FOTOBOX Plus; USB device helps you creat slideshows from photos and videos. (emailed release)

Monsoon Multimedia’s HAVA products have long been a lesser-known competitor to the Slingbox line of place-shifting devices. I’ve always been impressed with the HAVAs I tested, which were functionally better then most Slingboxes, though a little less refined. The same is not true of the newly released HAVA Mobile Player for iPhone app, which doesn’t quite live up to the standard set by the SlingPlayer for iPhone app.

The HAVA Mobile Player lets you view the contents of your HAVA-connected TV over your iPhone’s Wi-Fi connection; like the SlingPlayer app, it does not work over 3G connections. It’s available for $9.99 in the App Store. That’s a bargain compared with the $29.99 that the SlingPlayer app will set you back, but it still seems high to me. To use it, you need a HAVA set-top box, the cheapest of which costs $150. I’d love to see the mobile app come with the device.

I tested HAVA Mobile Player using a demo HAVA set up by the company for testing purposes. Connecting to the device was easy: I just entered the name and password, and within a few seconds, video was playing on my phone. Video looked good, too. The picture was clear, and audio was always in sync with video. I was even able to read on-screen print and graphics with ease when watching news channels like CNN.

As impressed as I was with the app’s video quality, I was equally unimpressed with the way the app’s controls were implemented. The menu reappears when you tap the screen; from there you can access favorite channels, the remote control, the controls for the set-top box, and the DVR controls. But once you delve further into these controls, the app stumbles. The remote control, for example, lets you scroll through or tune to a specific channel. There’s a slight delay while you wait for the channel to change on the remote TV, which is to be expected. My complaint is that once your channel comes on, the remote doesn’t disappear the way it should. Instead, it stays on-screen — occupying at least half of the screen — until you manually close it.

You access the guide through the set-top box control icon — and similarly, after the guide launches, the controls don’t disappear. They stay on-screen, blocking most of the guide info, until you manually control them. But the problem here is that there’s an X icon that says Exit, and another X icon, which sits in a circle. The “Exit” button is the one that you use to Exit the guide itself, while the circled X is the one you tap to hide the controls. Figuring this out, though, took some trial and error.

HAVA Mobile Player also lets you access your DVR remotely, but the DVR features did not feel fully fleshed out in my tests. The DVR controls are basic, with options for playing, pausing and recording live TV. When I pressed pause, though, nothing happened; I saw a message saying that the app was sending a pause command to the remote DVR, but the show continued to play. Adding to the confusion, the DVR controls don’t actually allow you to access the content stored on your DVR; to do that, you have to go into the set-top icon, and then into the menu. It’s an inelegant solution.

HAVA Mobile Player tops SlingPlayer Mobile in price and in video quality, but lags in usability. If you already have a HAVA set-top box, this app is a decent mobile solution. The mobile app alone, though, is not enough to make me purchase a HAVA — not until those controls get revamped.

Showtime to Launch Animated Dexter Web Series; Early Cuts is a forthcoming 12 part series premiering on Oct. 25 on Sho.com. (emailed release) Also with a new web series is Eduardo Sanchez, co-director of The Blair Witch Project, who is sticking with ghostly themes (albeit with a humorous twist) for ParaAbnormal. (ParaAbnormal.tv)

Warner Bros. Getting More into Mobile; studio creates new position and taps Natalie Farsi to expand mobile video services and more across the company’s divisions. (Variety)

Spotify Eyes TV Service; details about the move to the big screen almost nonexistent, but it will only be in Sweden at first anyway. (MediaMemo)

RealNetworks to Appeal the RealDVD Court Decision; ruling bars the company from selling its DVD copying software and set-top device. (Video Business)

Magnify.net Adds Content Partners; video publishing and curation site to get content from Demand Media and Grab Networks. (Contentinople)

Qualcomm’sFLO TV is launching the properly-named-but-it’s-kind-of-a-boring-moniker FLO TV Personal Television device for those who want to watch television on the go. But do consumers want to carry around another device and pay another subscription to watch TV wherever they are?

The FLO TV Personal Television plays live and time-shifted video content over FLO’s multicast network, and promises no buffering or downloading to watch your shows. The 3.5-inch touch screen allows users to surf through channels with the swipe of a finger.

FLO TV does have a decent lineup of channels including Comedy Central, ESPN, MSNBC and MTV. But the Personal Television will cost $250 and requires an $8.99 per month subscription fee.

That’s pretty steep for a technology that hasn’t even caught on with consumers yet, and would be on top of what people already pay for mobile phones and pay TV subscriptions. Though recent research from Infonetics predicts that the number of mobile video subscribers worldwide will grow tenfold by the end of 2013 from the 41 million in 2008, that isn’t all gravy for mobile pay TV providers. In his analyst note, Jeff Heynen, Infonetics directing analyst, Broadband and Video, wrote:

“Though video-capable phones continue to become more widely available, subscriber uptake of pay TV services (not free-to-air video) continues to disappoint. A combination of poor macroeconomic conditions, subpar 3G network coverage for streamed video services, and pricing that puts mobile video services out of reach for many consumers is contributing to the lackluster growth of mobile video services around the world.”

The FLO Personal Television might be a tremendous device, but it’s a question of whether people need it. It doesn’t do anything other than display TV. FLO TV is already available on some mobile phone handsets through AT&T and Verizon, and more video is coming to competing services like the iPhone including live sports and breaking news. Will people want to pay (and find another pocket for) a device that just does TV? Maybe Liz can pick one up to replace her now-useless analog Sony Watchman.

frog design, the design firm with 40 years of experience advising clients on how best to create their consumer electronics and services, from Windows XP to Roku to TV Guide’s new web site, recently began making a few products of its own. Among the first is a social TV iPhone app called tvChatter, meant to be used alongside watching programs live or simultaneously with friends.

The free application will come out with frog client NBC as a launch partner as soon as Apple approves it (probably in the next week or so). It brings in a stream of Twitter updates that are deemed relevant to about 30 prime-time shows from various networks. When users give their Twitter credentials, they can tweet directly to a stream and follow along with either their friends or everyone else in the world watching the same show and tweeting about it.

I like that tvChatter fits into the common situation of sitting on a couch, watching TV while noodling around on your iPhone. And the urge to get social and interact around content is certainly making itself evident these days. frog also makes tvChatter lightweight by not having its own registration system, instead tying neatly into accounts on everyone’s favorite quippy comment service, Twitter.

On the TV network side, inspiring people to watch television in real time means they get maximum measurement, buzz and ad dollar value from their audience. And it’s only a short (and possibly sponsored) hop over to an official web site via mobile browser to get more information about a show and interact further.

On the downside, this app is incredibly spoiler-prone. For those of us on the West Coast, especially watchers who tend towards elimination reality shows or suspenseful dramas, social media is the enemy until you’ve actually watched the show. For now, frog does try to cut down tweets from previous airings in other time zones, and says that eventually the app might be location-sensitive.

Another potential casualty of the app is the quality of users’ tweet streams. Your Twitter followers who don’t care about the show you’re watching with tvChatter might be a little peeved about the influx of pollution in your stream. But then again, they might just be tempted to come join you.

Our fellow GigaOMers at jkOnTheRun note this morning that the free TiVo app for BlackBerries is out today.

BlackBerry, meet TiVo. TiVo, say “Hi” to BlackBerry. OK, now that you two are acquainted, let’s remotely get some television recorded, ‘k? Yes, the TiVo for BlackBerry software is ready for downloading from the BlackBerry App World. With the app, you can search for programming by keyword, actor, tile or category and set single episode or full season recordings right from the handset. There’s a definite TiVo “look and feel” to the interface, so there’s no major learning curve involved. We wouldn’t want it to be challenging to set up our precious recordings, now would we? ;)

We’ve mused on what the remote control of the future will look like, and one clear option is for it to just be our phones. Being able to record from afar with a device that’s already in your pocket is a huge plus.

Fall Season Start Not That Great; despite the rosy stories about strong debuts, NBC, ABC and the CW’s ratings are down. (TV by the Numbers)

Get Some Sony Movies on the Go; new feature on select Blu-ray discs will allow users to transfer movies from PS3 to their PSPs. (Video Business)

WGA East Signs New Digital Media Signatories; Dinosaur Diorama (The Burg) among the 11 new web creators that are now WGAE members, part of an active digital media push being made by the guild. (WGA East)

YouTubers Launch Record Label; DFTBA Records to focus on releasing music from up and coming YouTube musicians. (YouTube Blog)

Big Ten Signs thePlatform for Online Video; the cable sports network will use the Comcast sub’s video platform to offer live and on-demand game coverage from the Big Ten Conference. (Broadcasting & Cable)

WPP Case Against SpotRunner Dismissed; WPP’s securities fraud and breach of contract case against the TV ad firm was based on the selling of SpotRunner shares; WPP plans to appeal. (paidContent)

EyeTV Releases iPhone App; lets users access live and recorded content from Macs. (Zatz Not Funny!)

When I first heard of the concept of a 24-hour TV news station, I scoffed. “Who would want to watch that?” Of course, I was going into the fourth grade and at summer camp, so my lack of foresight can probably be forgiven. Something I definitely would have thought was cool then was the ability to watch live video from a 24-hour news station on my mobile phone, let alone shoot and contribute video with that phone.

CNN today launched its iPhone app, which provides news updates and allows users to watch live video of breaking news and highlights from the network (though, as paidContent reports, it doesn’t offer live-streaming of the channel’s own programming).

Additionally, it taps into the video recording power of the device, allowing users to shoot and upload video to CNN’s iReport citizen journalism site, as well as view other iReport stories.

The growth in citizen journalism has been a key NewTeeVee topic of interest since we launched, and the CNN iPhone app should help spur that even further by bringing together two strong brands. CNN, a name synonymous with round-the-clock news, and its iReport citizen journalism efforts are gaining some traction. The network said it saw a surge in iReport activity back in June of this year during the Iranian election protests. In addition, people are more accustomed to the video power now available in their hands, and uploading video from your phone is easier than ever. The iPhone 3GS has already proven its ability to drive mobile video uploads.

The CNN app (iTunes link) is available today and costs $2.

All eyes are on AT&T today, as the company has started rolling out multimedia messaging service (MMS) for the iPhone. Stacey at GigaOM pondered this morning whether AT&T’s network will be able to handle the crush of iPhoners sending videos and pictures to one another, and over at TheAppleBlog comes word that people aren’t just hoping for an AT&T fail, but are actively organizing to try and make it happen so that Apple ends its exclusive deal with the telco.

Have any NewTeeVeers tried the iPhone MMS? Let us know how it went in the comments. To activate the service you need to update your iPhone in iTunes (full instructions at TheAppleBlog).