The Best Web Video Download Tools
Streaming web video is great and all, but every once in a while you find something that you just want to save and cherish for always. If your home Internet connection is as unreliable as mine you’ll understand what I mean. There are a bunch of web sites and little apps to help you save hard copies of web videos, but perhaps due to their teetering on the edge of violating video hosts’ TOS, they are less than user-friendly. So yesterday I decided to go through them all and figure out which ones are the best.
To start with, I tried to eliminate services that spew out overwhelming ads or restrict themselves to YouTube. After that, the tools fells into one of four categories: URL-entry sites, Firefox extensions, userscripts and software downloads. Among them, the trade-off seems to be convenience vs. power.
NBC Direct, Take Two, Out for Testing
NBC is opening a trial of the new version of its web VOD software NBC Direct, which now incorporates the download-speeding assistance of peer-to-peer startup Pando. The network sent out an email to beta testers inviting them to check out free episodes of The Office in 720p HD video (the better to see every single muscle contortion involved in John Krasinski’s facial expressions, from the privacy of your own laptop!). I tried to give the software a whirl tonight, but despite my best efforts to upgrade, restart, agree, continue, login, trouble-shoot and force-quit, it just wasn’t happening.
Brag about Violence via YouTube, Go to Jail?
Some people like it when public officials respond to actual problems affecting their community. Some legislators, on the other hand, prefer to grandstand on hot-button issues that might not solve problems but could help win re-election.
New York State Senate Republicans this week introduced legislation that would make it a felony to commit violence for display on Internet video sites. It’s unclear how this would change things for violent people, because prosecutors can already bring felony charges against them, whether they’re shooting video or not.
So what’s the point? Why do we need an Internet violence law that won’t necessarily change criminal behavior? We contacted Joe Conway, a New York senate staffer, to find out.
For Now, No Net Neutrality for Canadians
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) has rejected a plea by smaller ISPs to immediately stop Bell Canada from blocking BitTorrent traffic. Canadian providers requested such a step from the commission after Bell Canada started to use Comcast-type network management practices on its wholesale accounts, meaning it blocked BitTorrent uploads from users that weren’t even Bell Canada customers.
The issue quickly became Canada’s own Net Neutrality debate. It was fueled by the fact that Bell started to block P2P traffic right around the time that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) published its first show via BitTorrent online. CBC itself has stayed silent on the issue, but consumer advocacy groups sided with the smaller ISPs. There’s still hope for this new coalition: The CRTC declared that it will start a broader inquiry into Net Neutrality and network management issues this week.
Turner to Make TV Ads More Like the Web
During its upfront, Turner Entertainment (TNT, TBS, TruTV) unveiled a new TV advertising system that should sound a little bit familiar to web-savvy folks like yourselves. Dubbed TVinContext, the service provides relevant ad targeting based on the content of a show.
For example, a show featuring a wedding scene could be followed by an ad for diamond rings. Or a scene of people building a house would be followed by a commercial for a hardware store or power tools.
Targeting the ads makes sense, and will hopefully put an end to obnoxious truck ads while I’m trying to watch The View — errrr, disregard that last statement.
CBS Will Lonelygirlize its TV Shows
Wow, just when we question those EQAL guys’ reasoning for doing something dumb by pulling a hit series, they show they have something much more interesting up their sleeves. Today at CBS’ upfront, a major partnership between the network and the just-funded startup was announced.
Under the terms of the deal, CBS will have a first look at EQAL’s new shows (right now its roster is pretty light, with just lonelygirl15 and the soon-to-conclude KateModern). Meanwhile, EQAL’s Miles Beckett and Greg Goodfried will help CBS bring its current and future TV shows onto online and mobile platforms. That includes consulting but also writing, producing and directing “brand extensions,” and working with CBS writers to actually bring the online stuff into the plots of the shows.
Beckett and Goodfried have come a long way from being outed as the men behind the curtain of lonelygirl15. But it will be fun to watch them break out of their very specific genre of conspiracy-theory drama to show off the truly cool things they’ve done with interaction, community and integration.
Forrester: Get More Ads in Online TV, Stat
TV networks need to amp up advertising in their online streaming, and do it fast, says Forrester analyst James McQuivey in a new, very savvy research report. He posits that online streaming of TV-like content is only going to increase, so networks should start setting expectations for more advertising now in order to avoid a backlash later.
McQuivey says that since hit TV shows can get a 50 percent premium on online CPMs vs. broadcast, they should just go ahead and sell those spots (we’ll see if it’s quite that easy once the dust settles on this week’s upfronts). Online ads can also be required viewing, unable to be skipped over, he notes. Plus they stand out more because there aren’t too many other ads cluttering viewer’s experience (until his advice takes hold, that is).
Favorite Show Get Canned? Do It Yourself!
Despite cries from its online fan base, CBS has canceled the vampire drama Moonlight. And though Internet fans are protesting, the network isn’t budging, especially after it got burned by all those Jericho fans who demanded their show stay on the air — but couldn’t rally enough friends to join them once it came back. So what’s a Moonlight or Jericho fan to do? Make your own version of the show. Make…a fan film.
A fan film? Isn’t that for pasty nerds who play with dolls action figures? Well, sure, but if you (and enough other people) feel there are more stories to be told with those characters, go make them. For fun, of course, not profit (don’t want to rile up the copyright lawyers).
To find out what it takes to make a fan film, I spoke with Trey Stokes, the guy behind the Pink Five series of Star Wars fan films. He had some sage advice for anyone thinking about this type of endeavor.
Street Doctors: Right Idea, Wrong Host
The premise of Lifetime’s new web series Street Doctors is a good one: Get a real doctor to answer some of those nuttier medical questions you’re pretty sure you know the answer to, but would be happy to get confirmation on. Questions like “How do you cure a snake bite?”, “Are toilet seats contagious?”, and since it is Lifetime, “Is there really a G-spot?”
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The show combines footage of real people asking the questions with a straight answer from Dr. Ross. He’s a UCLA medical professor specializing in emergency medicine and international health. I feel kinda guilty writing this, because the guy is a bad-ass who worked with Lassa Fever patients in Sierra Leone as a war broke out — but he needs to work on his on-camera presence. He looks uncomfortable, which detracts from his message.
Vid-Biz: Sling, DVRs, Hulu
EchoStar to Introduce First-Ever Cable Product Next Week; SlingModem plugs into coaxial cable, acts as a modem with the place-shifting capabilities of a SlingBox. (Multichannel News)
Older DVR Users Skip Ads; 52 percent of men ages 55-64 skip ads all the time, compared with just 21 percent of men ages 12-17. (Advertising Age)
New Hulu Metrics; site has served 15 million uniques over the past month — up from 5 million during its first public month, and 100,000 Hulu vids have been posted to 12,000 different sites. (Silicon Alley Insider)
Accenture Buys Origin Digital; consultancy firm will add Origin’s experience with online video to grow its clients’ online, mobile and IPTV businesses. (paidContent)
LG and Samsung Partner for Mobile DTV; instead of competing, the two Korean electronics giants will submit a jointly developed mobile DTV technology to the U.S. standards body, the Advanced Television Systems Committee. (Broadcasting & Cable)
Two Pay-for-Content Plays; online rabble-rouser Loren Feldman to experiment by charging 99 cents for some of his videos; CrushedPlanet to forgo ads for subscriptions and merchandising. (Feldman: CNET; CrushedPlanet: The Hollywood Reporter)
PBS Picks thePlatform; content management company to publish video for PBS.org, PBSKids.org, PBSParents.org, and PBSTeachers.org. (Web Video Report)
Seesmic Hooks up with Disqus; partnership will allow the more than 13,000 blogs run by Disqus to offer video comments. (emailed release)
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