It’s great that the iPhone finally has the ability to record video, right? But once you’ve captured your video, the iPhone doesn’t allow you to do much with it, other than upload it to YouTube or MobileMe. Pixelpipe overcomes this limitation, by allowing you to upload your videos directly to a wide variety of online locations. But the service also suffers from a few shortcomings of its own.

Pixelpipe is available for free in Apple’s App Store; the startup also offers versions for Nokia and Android-based phones. The app lets you take content from your computer or mobile phone (including photos, videos, audio files, and more) and upload it directly to a variety of social networks, photo-sharing sites, blogs, and more.  On the iPhone 3GS, Pixelpipe supports uploading of video to more than 40 services; the iPhone itself only offers direct uploading of videos to YouTube and MobileMe. Read more of this story

True video connoisseurs are not likely to swap a dedicated video camera for a smartphone. But today’s phones are beefing up their video recording features, hoping to win over shoppers contemplating a low-cost video camera like the Flip or the Zodak Zx1. Thinking of making the plunge yourself? Not so fast, I say: I tested the video capabilities of Nokia’s N97, a smartphone that is capable of capturing “DVD-quality” video, and I’m not ready to give up my Flip just yet.

The Nokia N97’s 5-megapixel camera can capture 640-by-480 video at 30 frames per second, and using it is a pleasure. A dedicated button on the side of the phone activates the camera, so you don’t have to dig through menus to find it. And the N97 has a nice, big 3.5-inch touchscreen, which allows you to really see the video as you’re capturing it. It makes the 2-inch screen on the Kodak Zx1 look miniscule.

Read more of this story

PrimeTime2Go isn’t like most other mobile video services I’ve tried — and that’s a good thing. Instead of streaming clips to your cell phone, PrimeTime2Go lets you download shows to your handheld, so you can watch them at your leisure. Right now, the service is hampered by a few limitations, but it shows plenty of promise.

PrimeTime2Go works on a few of Research In Motion’s newer BlackBerry handsets: the Bold and the Curve 8900. (Sorry, Storm users, you’re out of luck, as PrimeTime2Go requires a Wi-Fi connection, something the Storm doesn’t support.) It’s available for download from BlackBerry App World, and costs $7.99 per month.

The service is designed to be more of a mobile DVR than a mobile streaming video service, says Mark Hyland, VP of marketing for QuickPlay, the company behind PrimeTime2Go. And he’s right — to an extent. Read more of this story

Qik’s live, mobile video-casting software will be pre-loaded onto all of Nokia’s Symbian S60 handsets, starting with the N97, the two companies announced today. According to the press release, the N97 will include:

• “nHD quality” video, which has widescreen 16:9 aspect ratio video with 642×358 resolution (see examples here).
• One-button sharing of live-streams to Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and other social networks.
• Touchscreen that supports 19 languages.

This tighter integration builds on the existing relationship between the two companies. Qik’s live-streaming software had already been featured on Nokia’s Ovi Store application depot and was integrated into Nokia’s Ovi Share online video-sharing platform.

Capturing and sharing video is becoming a bigger part of our mobile experience, and the space is starting to heat up with big players jumping in. The Android mobile platform recently added video capturing and sharing support through its Cupcake release. And yesterday, Apple unveiled its new video-enabled 3G S iPhone. Support for live video-casting wasn’t part of the iPhone announcement, but Qik has already surreptitiously put its software on the device before. Will it have to be sneaky to do it again? We’ve contacted Qik to find out what yesterday’s iPhone plans means for it, and we’ll update as we find out more.

Interested in watching web video as it was meant to be seen, but on your mobile phone? Then you need to get your hands on Skyfire. This mobile browser, which works with Windows Mobile and Symbian S60 series phones, displays multimedia-heavy web pages the same way they would look on your computer. I tested Skyfire, which is now available in version 1.0, on a phone running the Windows Mobile operating system. In a head-to-head test with Internet Explorer Mobile, Skyfire outperformed Microsoft’s mobile browser in almost every category.

Skyfire currently supports full Flash and Windows Media videos, including Flash 10, Silverlight 2.0, QuickTime and RealPlayer files. It displays desktop versions of web sites, which, of course, makes any text look miniscule, but Skyfire’s controls let you easily zoom in to get a closer view. This zoom function means you can see the video players themselves more easily, too. Read more of this story

Kyte Streamed 50 Million Videos in April; of the 215,000 user accounts, just 1,000 account for 90 percent of the mobile videos streamed on the service; also, company launching iPhone apps for MTV, NBA and Spin Magazine. (TechCrunch)

Versus Pits Fans Against Each Other in Fanarchy; seven sports fans to appear on the show via webcams to rant about on- and off-field topics; each week, the two webcammers who can’t keep up with the verbal tirades are tossed off the show. (Multichannel News)

Who Watches the Watchmen with Friends? (Blu-ray Owners); studio will use BD-Live to let owners of the DVD to simultaneously watch and comment on the movie with their Facebook friends. (The Hollywood Reporter)

G4 to Create Web Soup; new TV show, a spin-off of E!’s The Soup, will compile the web’s best and worst viral videos (hasn’t this idea failed many times before?), show will be hosted by the quite funny Chris Hardwick. (TVWeek)

People Who Switch to Digital Converter Boxes Get Better Picture; so says a survey commissioned by the National Association of Broadcasters. (Broadcasting & Cable)

Revision3 Launches New Comedy Show; ROFL features bits of stand-up acts. (Revision3) (some bits NSFW)

DirecTV Added 460,000 New Subs in Q1; satellite TV company’s churn rate is at a 10-year low (1.3 percent), and revenues for the first quarter of 2009 increased 7 percent to $4.9 billion. (DSLReports)