video

YouTube has added a new feature to its TestTube section as of last night, called Active Sharing. With this feature enabled, YouTube will keep track of videos you watch, for both archiving and real-time interaction with other users. If you're watching a video with other Active Sharing-enabled users, you'll be able to see their names with a little green dot next to it to signify they're watching too. Clicking on someone's profile name will show you the last five shows they've watched using the service.

Active Sharing joins the other TestTube projects, Audio Swap [hands-on] … Read more

Heard of Vudu? Neither had anybody else until this weekend, when the Silicon Valley start-up got a double shot of well-coordinated publicity that's been burning up the Web: a big write-up in the New York Times and a batch of exclusive photos on Gizmodo. Vudu, it seems, is the latest stab at a video-on-demand movie box--a little set-top device that hooks to your TV and downloads movies from a broadband Web service. But Vudu looks to have some key advantages over past efforts from the likes of RCA and MovieBeam. First, it has the backing of most of the … Read more

Nintendo said Friday that it would address shortages of its hit Wii video game console by ramping up production.

According to the Associated Press, the video game giant's president, Satoru Iwata acknowledged that "we have not been able to properly foresee demand."

The company said it would boost sales of the Wii--which has dominated the next-generation console battle against Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3 since it was released in November--so that deliveries would increase by next month.

The news came a day after Nintendo released fiscal 2007 results showing that revenue had … Read more

Recently launched SideReel wants to be a combination Internet video portal, TV guide and search engine, according to CEO Roman Arzhintar.

One of the largest hurdles confronting online video is how to help viewers find what they want. Plenty of companies are trying to solve the problem by offering either powerful search engines (Blinkx) or by hosting as much quality video on their sites as possible (Veoh Networks and Joost).

SideReel has an index featuring links to TV shows, movies and other popular longer-format video attractions found online. The Web site doesn't host a single clip.

Want to watch … Read more

GamePolitics.com is reporting that U.S. District Judge Paul Huck has dismissed anti-video game crusader Jack Thompson's lawsuit against Gawker Media, the publisher of game blog Kotaku. Thompson had claimed that Kotaku and Gawker Media had failed to honor his requests to remove "threatening" comments from several of their blog posts that were critical of his eagerness to blame video games for the tragic Virginia Tech shootings earlier this month.

On Wednesday, Thompson had added the blog-publishing company, which also operates other popular blogs like Gizmodo, Wonkette, and Valleywag, to a list of defendants in a … Read more

MySpace is teaming with reality-TV magnet, Mark Burnett, to find the next John Kennedy or Ronald Reagan.

MySpace and Burnett, the creator of such prime-time hits as Survivor and The Apprentice, are expected to announce Wednesday they are planning to launch a political reality show called Independent.

Burnett is producing the show and is attempting to sell it to one of the networks. Fox, owned by MySpace's parent company News Corp, is a potential partner said Jeff Berman, general manager for video at MySpace.

"Most people are tired of politics as usual," Berman said. "When you … Read more

It seems like the current Web 2.0 boomtown (figuratively speaking) is in broadcast tools that allow you to bring your self-programmability a few steps above the YouTube + 20-dollar webcam norm. We've seen Kyte.tv recently, which allows you to create your own live vlogging stream--a phenomenon that certainly got a boost from the popularity of Justin.tv. I recently heard about another emerging player in the business, Veodia, which appears to be catering to a slightly more highbrow breed of video blogger.

Veodia promises that it'll allow you to create professional-quality video in "one click,&… Read more

From the seller's site: "Sony's HDRHC5 HD DV Camcorder makes it easy to capture perfect Digital video, every time. Capture high definition (HD) and standard definition (SD) video to a MiniDV cassette. Record every detail of every moment, with the 10x optical/80x Digital zoom and Carl Zeiss Vario-Sonnar T* lens. As you record video, you'll also take still pictures at the same time with the 4.0 megapixel still image feature. Snap spectacular 2.3 megapixel photos while filming in dual record mode. The HDR-HC5 even slows down the audio."

Read the seller's … Read more

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has dropped a lawsuit that it filed against Viacom on behalf of a group that posted a parody video of The Colbert Report on YouTube, which Viacom demanded be removed citing U.S. copyright law.

The lawsuit, filed in March in federal court in San Francisco, accused Viacom of misusing the law and infringing on the free-speech rights of the makers of the video--activist group MoveOn.org Civic Action and Brave New Films. When contacted by CNET News.com last month, Viacom claimed that it had not asked YouTube to remove the video. However, Viacom later … Read more