YouTube is the most well-known video service on the Internet. YouTube lets anyone share videos online, either from their hard drive or recorded using their computer's Web cam. It uses Flash and a simple video player that starts playing videos right away. While the quality isn't that great, it's become incredibly popular for the sheer amount of content that's made its way onto the site from its massive group of users.
YouTube has paved the way for a variety of other services and evolved its own services with new features such as user profiles, video rankings, and a system that lets anyone reply to a video either with text or another video. It's also introduced some controversial features such as video viewing history, and displaying who's watching a video at the same time you are.
Winner: YouTube (YouTube.com)
Category: Video
VoiceThread is a photo- and video-sharing tool. It lets users upload photos , videos and documents from their hard drive or other online services, and add voice, text, and video annotations to each slide. These 'VoiceBooks' can be embedded in blogs, Web sites, or social networking profiles. Other users can comment on each slide, draw doodles, or leave voice messages of their own.
In addition to the standard methods of adding voice comments to a photo, one thing that makes VoiceThread especially cool is the telephone integration, which lets you record messages using a standard landline or mobile phone.
Winner: VoiceThread (VoiceThread.com)
Category: Video
Vimeo is a video hosting and sharing site. Users can upload as much as 2GB of video a month, including high-definition video that plays in a gorgeous wide-screen player. One thing that sets it apart from other services is that it gives video creators the option to share the digital copies of their videos with others--not just the streaming version. When enabled, it lets registered Vimeo users download the original file to their hard drive for offline viewing.
Vimeo is also a social network, with a friends and subscription service, along with a way to both rate and favorite videos. This information goes into a new feed that you can monitor, helping you discover new and interesting videos that your Vimeo friends are enjoying.
Winner: Vimeo (Vimeo.com)
Category: Video
Veodia lets you create video recordings in one click, eliminating the process of capturing, encoding, uploading, streaming, and the like. As a result, you can broadcast it live or opt to serve it up on-demand. You can instantly create an RSS feed to syndicate to a podcast download service like iTunes. You're also allowed to retain control and ownership rights to the videos you create.
While consumer friendly, Veodia is aimed mainly at professionals, or small companies who want to do video broadcasting or distribution to a carefully selected group of people instead of the entire world like competing services offer. The latest version has added native Flash Player 9 support, and higher-quality/smaller-file-size recordings using H.264 codec technology.
Winner: Veodia (Veodia.com)
Category: Video
uStream is a video-broadcasting platform that lets anyone with a Web cam and a fast connection create their own live video show. It mixes a video stream with user chat, asynchronous commenting, and places for show creators to post archived clips and links to their other work. It's completely free to use and has been a launch pad for people looking to create video shows with no professional equipment or experience required.
What makes the service especially useful is that it blends live and archived footage seamlessly. Users can watch a show as it's happening, or simply go back and watch shows after they're off the air. The player can be embedded on third-party Web sites or sent to more than 20 social networks.
Winner: uStream.TV (uStream.tv)
Category: Video
Netflix is a DVD rental service that's run entirely on the Internet. Each user gets his or her own queue for movies to rent, and the service will ship out as many as four at a time via postal mail. The service doubles as a review network, as each user also can review movies they've seen and view other community members' takes too. Users also can give movies a thumbs up or thumbs down to receive suggestions for future rentals, based on what other users have rented.
Netflix has achieved its popularity for its low-priced rentals and lack of late fees. It's also well known for its WatchItNow service, which lets users stream entire movies on their computers.
Winner: Netflix (Netflix.com)
Category: Video
Poised to become the ultimate desktop video app, Miro is across between a media player and a Bittorrent client. It handles every major video format including MPEG, QuickTime, AVI, H.264, DivX, Windows Media, Flash Video, 3GP, and others. It downloads torrent files and has a wealth of settings geared for user customization. You can e-mail videos, autodelete, autodownload, set favorites, organize your video collection, and more.
Miro arranges content feeds into "channels," showing that there's no need to reinvent television terminology when it's useful. And unlike other software-based Web video viewers, Miro's double duty as a Bittorrent client makes it a worthy addition to your desktop.
Winner: Miro (GetMiro.com)
Category: Video
Joost is a video-viewing service that runs on Windows and Mac. It was created by the founders of Kazaa and Skype and has a sizable library of free programming that's supported with small bits of advertising before and after video viewings. The service made a splash before opening up to the public by holding an extended private beta that made use of invite tokens in a similar fashion to Google's Gmail.
Now some of the excitement for Joost has faded, but the service is still a fantastic way to get access to free TV and film content. It's also got some built-in social networking features such as live user chat, a built-in blogging tool, and user created channels where Joosters can create their own video programming.
The service is expected to release a browser-based version that will let users watch Joost programming without the software later this year.
Winner: Joost (Joost.com)
Category: Video
FixMyMovie is a service that takes your pixilated digital video clips and does its best to make them look better. The technology stems from MotionDSP's processing technology, which is similar to what's used in government intelligence operations to improve those dark and grainy security films--like you see in movies.
Most recently, FixMyMovie added the ability to create a single high-resolution 1,280x1,024 JPEG image from a 320x240 video. The company also is contemplating use of the technology to stitch together smaller frames into a wide panorama, to improve image tones to retrieve detail in bright highlights and murky shadows.
Winner: FixMyMovie (FixMyMovie.com)
Category: Video
Amazon's Unbox service, once the bane of our very own CNET reviewers, has come a long way. The service lets you download movies and TV shows to watch on your PC or portable device. Through a partnership with TiVo, you can also rent and watch the movies on your TV without a computer if you've got a compatible TiVo device hooked up to the Internet.
What makes the service especially cool is its RemoteLoad feature, which lets you buy and download a movie to another computer. It's a distinctly competitive advantage to systems that require users to be at the computer or device they intend to download, meaning you can start downloading a video to watch at home while still at work.
Winner: Amazon Unbox (Amazon.com)
Category: Video
