VIDEO

Have you ever made a screencast? A screencast is when you capture and record all the action that takes place on your desktop so you can view it as a movie. Many people use screencasts for presentations and instructional videos for software, though there are many other uses. Sometimes you probably wish you could make a screen recording for less computer-savvy friends and family so you wouldn't have to have those exhaustive phone calls: "No grandpa, I said Save the file...no...SAVE it."

I found a program for Mac today that makes creating screencasts easy. It'… Read more

Once again, Nintendo released a quarterly earnings report that not only solidifies the company as a major player going into the next generation, but shows that it's certainly onto something with both the Wii and the DS. But according to that same report, not everything is perfect with the company's handheld system.

According to Nintendo, it's only forecasting 9 percent growth going forward as sales of the DS continue to slide and expectations of higher sales continue to dwindle. Nintendo contends that DS sales could fall to 28 million units from 30.3 million units sold.

And while some market analysts are disappointed with the news of the DS slowing and the company itself not growing as fast as they would like, they fail to fully understand the nature of the beast they're trying to gauge.

If analysts were worried about the Wii, I would probably agree. But why would anyone be worried about Nintendo's plans for the DS? Will it sell fewer units this year? Maybe. But if nothing else, I think that we'll soon find that Nintendo has something up its sleeve that will jump-start sales and send those same, misguided analysts into a frenzy.… Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--The company behind Photophlow, a site that presents a lively chat room interface around the Flickr photo-sharing site, plans to demonstrate on Thursday a similarly elaborate presentation of Google's YouTube video service.

Start-up Oortle's service, called Videophlow, lets people post videos into a chat room and lets those in the room control the video playback. And as with Photophlow, people can use Videophlow to take advantage of YouTube features such as searching, adding comments, or marking videos as favorites.

"You'll even be able to throw a tomato at the screen for everyone to see," … Read more

HDMI has certainly had its growing pains, but the connection is finally beginning to deliver on its original promise: a single-cable solution for delivering high-bandwidth, all-digital HD video and multichannel audio. HDMI is nearly universal in the home video market, present on all current HDTVs and Blu-ray players, as well as nearly all HD-capable cable and satellite set-top boxes; DVRs; game consoles; AV receivers; upscaling DVD players and recorders; and network video streamers such as the Apple TV. In fact, you realize just how convenient HDMI is when you come across a product without it--I'm looking at you, Nintendo Wii--and then have five cables (three component video wires plus two-channel stereo) instead of one crowding the back of your home entertainment system.

But one aspect of the HDMI promise remains unfulfilled: wireless HDMI. It's an attractive idea, especially for anybody with a wall-mounted flat-panel TV or a ceiling-mounted projector: have all of your HDMI-capable gear running into an AV receiver or HDMI switcher with a wireless HDMI transmitter, and have the TV equipped with a matching receiver--thus allowing you to have all your AV sources across the room from the actual display. We've been hearing about it for years, but to date, there are few--if any--products that you can actually buy. Here's a quick update on the wireless HDMI products we've heard about to date--including when (or whether) we can expect to see them: … Read more

Here's a cool little collectible vinyl toy we saw this weekend, in the form of a quirky anthropomorphic video game cabinet. Apparently, there's an entire subculture of fans who collect these limited edition vinyl toys (although they're not really very toy-like, with no moving parts and limited production runs).

Designer Erick Scarecrow created the $30 Soopa Coin-Up Bros. as an homage to classic arcade machines, and its blank surface (available in white, black, green, orange, and a few other colors) can be customized with paint, markers, or stickers--giving a new twist to the old games-as-art debate.

Because this guy sure does...and he might have some communication issues as well. This is a cute ad from iLuv, an iPod accessories maker with products such as the iLuv i1055, a combo DVD player and iPod video screen enhancer.

Natali Del Conte, star of CNET's hit show Loaded, joins the boys of the 404 to talk about Jeff's visit to see Shigeru Miyamoto, digital copy of Juno, and movies coming up this weekend.

Listen now: Download today's podcast

Remember the Memorex iFlip from a couple months ago? It's an iPod dock that plays videos on its 7-inch widescreen LCD. It was $59.99 then, but OnSale.com has the iFlip on sale for $49.99. Plus, you can get back the cost of shipping (around $15) via a mail-in rebate.

The iFlip can dock, charge, and play most iPod models, though the 3G nano isn't listed among those that are compatible. You can watch videos and photos on the big screen or just listen to music through the built-in stereo speakers. The iFlip has dual headphone … Read more

LAS VEGAS--A year ago Wednesday, Google CEO Eric Schmidt delighted an audience of TV and radio broadcasters when he promised to roll out a system that would mean the end of piracy at YouTube.

"We are in the process of developing tools which are called 'Claim Your Content,'" Schmidt said at the National Association of Broadcasters 2007 conference. "If people tell us this is a licensed copy, our computers will automatically detect that an illegal copy has been uploaded and then automatically delete it."

Schmidt went on to say YouTube was "close to turning this (system) on&… Read more