Gizmodo: Internet Video

Hulu Private Beta Goes Live Tonight; Will YouTube Blink?

Matt Buchanan — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 15:40:33 EDT

The bastard child of News Corp. and NBC's love-hate relationship with GooTube, Hulu, is making its public debut this week, with the private beta going live tonight. The log-in form's already up, but those of us at Giz who've signed up for the beta haven't gotten our invites in the mail yet, so we haven't stuck our foot in the front door. Hulu's YouTube-killing voodoo is supposed be the fact that it's going to be awash in full-length episodes of TV shows, from Buffy the Vampire Slayer to The Pretender to Heroes, along with movies (The Breakfast Club!) and content from Sony, MGM and others, lojacked with "25 percent as much advertising as broadcast norms." NewTeeVee has a thorough rundown laying out most of what you'd want to know before sending your email address into the corporate mystery chute. [GigaOM]

Joost, DivX Working Together For DivX Connected Content

Jason Chen — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 14:30:43 EDT

The DivX connected platform, which we had a hands-on with back in August, may just get an injection of Joost internet video. DivX founder stated that their two companies were working together to enhance DivX connected—which already lets you stream music, photos and video from your computer—to add a Joost plug-in by the time the platform launches in November. No specific details are known, but unless Joost gets much more content, it still doesn't compare to broadcast or cable. [Pocket Lint]

Building B Promises the One True Set-Top Box, Without Wires, PCs or Details

Matt Buchanan — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 13:40:15 EDT

The do-it-all set-top box market's about to get even more crowded, the newest kid on the block coming from start-up Building B. Their hook: wireless delivery of traditional TV content in HD, plus VOD and web video without a PC. The catch: They're not so forthcoming with the details in regards to the tech it's using for delivery or prices for either the box or the service.

WiMAX seems like an ideal delivery method, given the range it covers and its beefy bandwidth, so what Building B wants to do is definitely possible. But, the service launches in the fall, and WiMAX won't exactly have most of the country blanketed by then.

Either way, their vague assertions without hard specifics leave Om Malik (and us) "inherently skeptical of their claims." Topping off our saucer of skeptic's milk is the fact that their targeted ad partner is Claria, better known in its past life as Gator Corporation, proprietor of the eponymous adware client that plagued tens of millions of PCs in the late '90s.

The bottom line is that we'll believe in the One True Box when it's sitting atop our TVs—we've heard way too many empty promises from far too many prophets to be true believers before then. [Building B via NewTeeVee/GigaOM]

Open-Source Democracy Video Player Updated: Tastes Great, Less Filling

Charlie White — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 10:53:23 EST

If you're fed up with Windows Media Player, the QuickTime player or any of those other pretenders to greatness, there's a new version of the open-source Democracy Player just released that's reportedly faster and more stable than its predecessors.

Version 0.9.2 was rolled out yesterday, and its makers say lots of its performance problems have been solved, particularly with the Windows version which is said to use 50 to 75% less RAM than previous versions. It's free. Get it now.

This is a cool piece of software, pretty much a Tower of Babel for all video formats, and it automatically links up with BitTorrent, too. Even though it's available for Windows, Mac OS X. and Linux, we are a little frustrated that the Ubuntu version hasn't been released yet. – Charlie White

Product Page, Free Download [Democracy, via boingboing]