Daily Bits

Online Video

YouTube Intros HTML5 Video Player, What Does it Do Again?

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It’s been pretty busy on the YouTube side lately. Awhile ago, YouTube announced a redesigned video home page. But before that, YouTube also announced something about its current testing of a new video player – this time it’s an HTML5-based video player.

HTML5 is a new web standard which is becoming popular recently, well simply because it offers new features to everyone’s web experience. And as a basis for its new video player, the YouTube HTML5-based player will support video and audio playback seamlessly without the need for additional browser plug-in. For as along as you an HTML5 compatible browser and support for the right audio and video codec, the YouTube HTML5-based video player will give you almost the same experience when watching YouTube video using its default Flash player.

While the YouTube HTML5-based video player seemed a fully functioning player, it however has several limitations. Well, that’s understandable because it is still at an early stage of development. Specifically the video player does not support video with ads, captions or annotations. It will also require a browser that supports video tagging and h.264 encoded video. Known browsers to support HTML5 are Chrome, Safari, Chrome Frame and Internet Explorer.  Firefox is not yet supported, but YouTube promises to include it and other browsers as well, in the future.

You can try using the HTML5-based video player by visiting the YouTube TestTube site and selecting HTML5 or simply go straight to this page to opt-in for the new video player. But honestly, if you don’t have a problem viewing YouTube videos with your browsers current setting, there’s really no point in trying it out. It’s basically the same thing minus the Flash component.

But still worth a try.

Google Takes 39% of the 30 Billion Videos Viewed Online

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comscoreonlinevideo

Whoa! According to comScore, 30 billion videos have been viewed online in November 2009. So, it’s either most people are watching one of those user-generated video showing the most funny human experience or viewing movie trailers of upcoming blockbuster movies.

Drilling deeper into the comScore data, we’d learn that 39% of these videos viewed online were from Google Sites, 99% of which are hosted on YouTube. Now here’s the interesting fact, Hulu is at distant second getting only 3% of the 30 billion videos viewed online. But that is understandable since Hulu is not accessible worldwide.

So, its either time for Hulu to open up globally or have some new video site that is worthy enough of challenging YouTube.

Looking into the Top 10 Video Content Provider though, the list becomes different. Google Sites is still at no.1 with around 129K unique viewers, followed by Yahoo Sites, Fox, CBS and Hulu.

Other highlights of comScore’s online video data include:

  • The top video ad networks in terms of their actual reach delivered were: Tremor Media Video Network with 20.0 percent penetration of online video viewers, BBE with 17.5 percent, and BrightRoll Video Network with 16.6 percent.
  • 84.8 percent of the total U.S. Internet audience viewed online video.
  • The average online video viewer watched 12.2 hours of video.
  • 128.1 million viewers watched more than 12 billion videos on YouTube.com (94.3 videos per viewer).
  • 38.6 million viewers watched 333.4 million videos on MySpace.com (8.6 videos per viewer).
  • The average Hulu viewer watched 21.1 videos, totaling 2.1 hours of videos per viewer.
  • The duration of the average online video was 4.0 minutes.

AOL’s Truveo Video Search Portal Relaunches

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When we talk about online video, YouTube always comes into our mind first. But the truth is, there are other video sites out there which may not be offering video uploads but could be a great source of finding video contents scattered all around the Internet. One such service is the seemingly underrated video search portal – Truveo. [Read more…] about AOL’s Truveo Video Search Portal Relaunches

Watching Live Football Online

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If you are a football (aka soccer) fan, I am sure that you have already tried to watch live matches online right? Finding the right place that will stream the matches for free and with a minimum of quality is a tough task though. It can get tremendously frustrating too, especially when the match is getting started….

In order to solve this problem the guys from Soccer Lens create a really comprehensive guide explain how you can watch live soccer for free.

They listed the advantages, disadvantages and a bunch of links to the sites that actually stream the matches. Here is a quote from the article:

There are two main ways to watch P2P streams. PC users can download one (or several) of the programs listed below. Typically, it will download as a zipped file or an executable file. Double-click on the downloaded file and take it from there. Unfortunately for Mac users, there are only a few programs that will work for you. If you have Windows XP or Vista, as well as the latest version of Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player, then you should be able to use any of these programs. Some of them will work with Firefox or with Linux, but you’re better off sticking with the Microsoft family. See? Bill Gates controls our lives when it comes to watching football, too.

Or you can go to a website that hosts live streaming video like www.justin.tv. Each method has its advantages and drawbacks, so you’ll probably want to try out several methods instead of relying on one.

When running P2P programs like Sopcast or TVU (more below), you will typically get an interface that will include a screen and a list of available channels. To take a look at the TVU interface, click here. Sopcast’s interface is similar, but more compact. To take at Sopcast, go here. Click on the channel you want to watch and you should be good to go.

A good idea would be to bookmark one of the pages listed below containing football schedules. That way, you can be sure that you’ll never miss a game!

Worth a look if you plan to watch some matches on your PC!

Understanding Arithmetic is Key

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There is this video on YouTube called “The Most IMPORTANT Video You Will Ever See.” One would think that it reveals some secret about our life right? Well not quite, the video is in fact about arithmetic!

The old professor is basically trying to convince us that “the greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function.” Crazy as it sounds, the guy almost convinced me! Worth watching.