This is the ranch where we went on vacation last week.
Posts Tagged ‘Video’
How I spent my winter vacation
February 22nd, 2010Hulu comes to the desktop
May 29th, 2009
I’ll be honest—I haven’t really been a fan of Hulu until now. I was one of the original beta testers before the site opened, and I could just never get into it. Frankly, watching a TV show in a little window inside a web browser had a few problems:
- The video screen was too small, and
- Being in a web browser had all sorts of distractions, such as, umm, the Internet.
I used (and still use) videos purchased through iTunes quite frequently. In fact, I own an Apple TV and we use it all the time; since we’ve gotten it, we’ve nearly given up on DVDs. The quality is great; it works on the TV; and, even when viewing it on my computer, the full-screen view feels like I’m watching TV.
Yesterday, however, Hulu released Hulu Desktop, a “browser-free” tool to view video content from the Hulu website. And, I have to say, this changes everything for me. Since it’s now a standalone app, there are no more distractions from the web browser. It can run in full-screen mode, giving it a feel that’s much closer to real TV. And, it works with my Apple remote control, which means that I don’t have to be moving a mouse around to make everything work.
Is it perfect? Well, not quite. The video quality is still limited to that which is available over the web (in other words, mediocre). Apple TV, for example, allows me to purchase and view HD content in, well, HD. And it’s stunning. On the other hand, Hulu gives me instant access to an enormous library of TV shows and movies, and all for free (ok, I have to watch a few advertisements, but it’s still a better experience than television). It’s almost enough to make me lose the DVR—almost; I can lose the DVR once Hulu supports high-def video.
Hulu Desktop is available for both the Mac and Windows PCs.
Mother’s Day, Internet Style
May 12th, 2009
It’s taken a while; I’ve had a Skype account since 2000. Quite honestly, I haven’t used it much at all. I usually didn’t even keep the client running. As an instant messenger client, it failed on two points: 1. it’s not Yahoo! (I work for Yahoo!), and 2. I didn’t have any friends (friends on Skype, that is).
What brought me back to Skype, so to speak, was my cellphone. You see, the team of engineers I work with is permitted to work from home on Fridays. We started this practice last summer, when gas prices reached $4.50/gallon. It’s proven to be pretty popular, as you can imagine; it lets people arrange things like bank visits, auto repair, and regular doctor’s appointments in advance, without having a severe impact on anyone else on the team.
However, working from home on Fridays means that all of our regular meetings are done via teleconference. Many of the team members (and myself) used our cellphones, until we realized that 2-3 hours of calls every Friday tended to eat up our minutes. So a bunch of people on the team started using Skype, since it’s free for calling toll-free numbers (and our conference calls are all toll-free numbers). I use Vonage at home but, frankly, the quality is inconsistent and the router constantly gives me problems.
So I tried Skype one week, and was hooked. Again.
This past weekend, I used Skype for video conferences with both my mother and my wife’s mother. My wife is now hooked, too. It’s a wonderful experience to be able to see the person you’re talking with; in my parents’ case, they recently moved to a retirement home that I had never seen. My brother (who supplied the computer running Skype for the event), took me on a tour of the whole complex. Very, very cool.
Now I just need to get more friends in my list.
My Skype name is gecampbell.
Vimeo: who’s right? whose right?
March 27th, 2009Vimeo is the latest service to become embroiled in a brouhaha over its Terms of Service (ToS). The specific language that upsets people is here:
By submitting your Submission to VIMEO, you hereby grant VIMEO and its affiliates, successors and assigns a worldwide, perpetual, non-exclusive, irrevocable, royalty-free, sub-licensable (through multiple tiers) and transferable license (with a right to create derivative works) to use, copy, transmit or otherwise distribute, perform, modify, incorporate into other works, publicly perform and display your Submission or any portion thereof, in or through any medium, whether now known or hereafter created. VIMEO shall be entitled to unrestricted use of any Submission for any purpose whatsoever, commercial or otherwise, without compensation to the submitter.
Vimeo, for its part, points out that they have been around for four years and have never abused a user’s content. The problem, of course, is not that they have abused it, but that they could.
It’s entirely possible to envision a future where some user creates a web clip or series that goes viral; Vimeo gets in a spot of financial trouble, and some advertising agency or TV producer comes along and offers millions of dollars for the rights to the video. Under the current terms of service, the user would have no recourse, since they’ve effectively given up all rights under Vimeo’s draconian ToS.
Vimeo further compounded their problems by responding on their forum:
Be assured that the carefully chosen language used in Vimeo’s Terms of Service, including the content license, is only as broad as is necessary to facilitate content for Vimeo.com and to protect the reasonable business interests of Vimeo, LLC.
Most readers immediately said, “Bullshit.” If this is only as broad as is necessary, then how is it that YouTube, Yahoo!, and other web services find it perfectly acceptable to allow user-generated content without claiming a full unrestricted license forever?
It’s obvious that an over-zealous lawyer once again tries to “do the right thing” for his or her client, only to cause the business to lose immense value in the process. Vimeo, frankly, has lots thousands of potential customers, and it will take years to win them back.
Vimeo has stated that they are “working on clarifying [their] TOS right now.” Hopefully, they’ll get their act together because Vimeo is one of the premier sites for hosting video (especially HD video).
Talking About My Desk from Glen Campbell on Vimeo.
