videos

Forget those all-in-one car media systems. The automotive convergence device of the future may be the rear-view mirror.

We've already seen versions equipped with built-in Webcams, back-up cameras, GPS tracking, and even heart monitors. And now there's one that comes with a DVR.

The "Camera Recorder Pro" isn't made for drivers who want to catch up on previous episodes of Lost while behind the wheel (we hope). Quite the contrary, it's meant as a safety device to document events at the scene of a fender-bender, according to Gizmodo.

There are plenty of other technologies … Read more

A San Francisco start-up is launching the first mobile video ads for the iPhone on Wednesday.

Ad Infuse is serving up ads from Esurance and the Partnership for a Drug-Free America on several sites, including Health & Fitness Mobile for Men and MondoMedia.com.

I visited the HFM mobile site (hfm2go.com) on my brand-new iPhone and clicked on one of its portable training programs. I waited four or five minutes while the ad downloaded and then a blank, white screen came on, making me wonder what to do next. The ad finally started playing, and I was able to … Read more

Gamespot recently posted an interesting story about the upcoming release of Metal Gear Solid: The Essential Collection for the PlayStation 2.

According to the report, "The Essential Collection will compile the original PlayStation edition of Metal Gear Solid along with Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance and Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence, both "director's cut" versions of the PS2 games. The compilation will sell for $29.99, and will feature commemorative packaging designed by series artist Yoji Shinkawa."

And as a fan of the Metal Gear series (and others, like Final Fantasy), I thought it would be a good time to ask you all a simple question, "what's the best video game series of all time?"… Read more

With HD DVD looking more and more like it's on the ropes, it would seem like the ideal time to commit to Blu-ray--right? Not so fast. There are at least five reasons to stick with your good old-fashioned DVD player--at least for the next few months. (And, as always, there are some key caveats and insider secrets for those who can't resist pullling the trigger as soon as possible.)

1. Nearly all current Blu-ray players are obsolete: The Blu-ray standard is still evolving. Most models currently available use the original Profile 1.0 standard, while some newer models … Read more

Renting movies on DVD could soon be a thing of the past, as cable operators experiment with new ways to get movies and even TV shows to viewers quicker, using their video-on-demand platforms.

On Monday, Comcast announced that it would provide some Hollywood hit movies on its video-on-demand, or VOD, service the same day they're offered on DVD. It also announced that some new television series will premiere on its VOD service at least one week before airing on regular TV.

Time Warner Cable started experimenting with a similar program in March 2007 in Austin, Texas, and Columbus, Ohio. … Read more

I know, it's already a portable video player--I mean one with a bigger screen. Buy.com has the Memorex iFlip on sale for $59.99 shipped, a pretty significant savings over the $199.99 list price.

Similar in design to a portable DVD player, the clamshell-style iFlip features a 7-inch widescreen LCD, stereo speakers, dual headphone jacks, and an iPod dock/charger that promises up to five hours of video playback from its rechargeable battery. It's designed for 5G iPods; I'm not sure if it'll work with 3G nanos. (Class? Anyone?)

I suspect that videos will … Read more

The field of freeware media players that claim support for most or all playback formats out there is growing. GOM, VLC, and KMPlayer tend to top people's lists. KMPlayer is perhaps the least known of the three, but if you haven't toyed around with the level of customization that it offers, you're missing out.

… Read more

If you've ever wanted to run a bunch of video widgets on your desktop, there's a new service for you called uvLayer. It's a tiny Adobe AIR application that lets you search, view, and organize Web video clips on your desktop and share them with others. The videos come courtesy of YouTube and Truveo--the AOL-owned video search tool.

What sets uvLayer appart from basic Web video browsing are its sharing features which are robust. The application lets you cobble together a instant-messanger-like friends list and drag and drop any video you think they would enjoy. If they're using the application, your shared video will simply show up on their desktop like a new e-mail would in your in-box. Likewise, you can simply hop over to see what they're watching if they're online.

For bookmarking addicts, uvLayer also lets you share entire sets full of Web videos via URL. If your recipient has the application installed, their screen will simply fill up with your video picks, complete with your original groupings. You can then syndicate these Webtops to both your uvLayer buddies, and your Facebook friends who will be able to view it right in the Facebook application.

The entire uvLayer experience is very reminiscent of OS X's Dashboard for widgets, as you can flip each item around and get access to some of the metadata like the rating and any user comments. It's very flashy. In fact, if you're running the latest version of OS X, then uvLayer might not be that interesting considering you can rip out nearly any Web video and put it on your Dashboard using Safari's Web clips feature.

I'm not sold on the value of watching videos in a virtual desktop environment. While convenient, I think there's a ton of added value to the community of users where the video's hosted. Admittedly when a video hits the front page of Digg or Fark, the user comments from those sites are usually much more entertaining, but the same can't be said when you're passing it along to a just handful of people.

I've embedded a live version of uvLayer after the break (taken from Ryan Stewart's first look over at his blog on ZDNet). Be sure to check out its stacking feature, which lets you group together several videos at once by drawing a box around them with your mouse.… Read more

YouTube may be the best-known mainstream video-hosting site on the Web, but it's certainly not winning any awards for the visual quality of its content. YouTube's creators have said higher-resolution videos are on the way, but until then, there are a handful of other services that do a much better job at making your uploaded video look a little less Webby.

There's another problem at hand: size. Video files are big, and a lot of the most popular services place tedious size restrictions. Those restrictions mean that you are either going to have to compress your video through third-party software before uploading or make smaller, lower-quality source recordings to begin with.

We've handpicked four services that have pretty lenient size limits and that don't force you to download software clients just to graduate up to the higher caps. To be fair, we're also comparing all four to the YouTube status quo.

So here's the deal. We took a source video of just less than 2 minutes at full VGA quality at 30 frames per second. It came off a recent-model Canon digital camera that saved it as an approximately 200MB AVI file. Your results for source material may vary, but based on the popularity charts on Flickr, Canons rule the roost both overall and in the point-and-shoot camera category, so we felt that it was a good control.

It's worth noting that Casio has several models of digital cameras with "YouTube capture" modes, though these are simply recording video in MPEG-4 H.264 at smaller resolutions, which takes up less space. You can accomplish a similar feat, albeit using a different video codec, if your camera has a "compact" or "e-mail ready" video-capturing mode.… Read more