Let's face it: Video search blows. It's easy to use YouTube's search box to find straightforward Internet video memes like cats playing pianos, skateboard tricks, or Rick Astley remixes; try for anything more intricate and you might be out of luck. There are established companies in the space, like the U.K.-based Blinkx, but none of them has captured the market share that video search potentially could.
Enter VideoSurf, a company launching later on Wednesday at the TechCrunch50 conference that's been getting a choice spot in the tech-blogger limelight thanks to a Los Angeles Times preview.
VideoSurf CEO Lior Delgo told the Times that instead of only being able to search text tags and descriptions, the company's search technology goes frame-by-frame to recognize specific people. Additionally, VideoSurf says it has already indexed multiple video sites, from hubs like YouTube and Hulu to the digital libraries of networks like Comedy Central and ESPN. The company has attracted investment funding from former Vice President Al Gore and Joel Hyatt, the co-founders of Current Media; Hyatt is chairman of VideoSurf's board of directors.
But there's a caveat: nobody in the tech press has actually seen this company in action yet. Search Engine Land was very impressed by a demo, calling the company "genuinely radical," but doesn't appear to have done anything hands-on. The last shadowy video company that was this hyped was arguably Joost, which is still trying to stay afloat after failing to catch on. So don't count the chickens before they hatch, even if we're talking about a grainy cell phone camera video of chickens playing "Never Gonna Give You Up" on a piano.
Updated at 1:50 p.m. PDT with more details.
SAN DIEGO--Imagine storing all your DVDs onto your computer like you do now with music CDs.
RealNetworks launched new software called RealDVD that lets people save DVDs to their PCs and create film libraries for watching any time, without needing the disc.
RealDVD, unveiled Monday here at DemoFall, saves an exact copy of the DVD and puts it on the PC, a USB hard drive, or thumb flash drive. For people who have very large DVD libraries, the software saves the DVDs to external hard drives.
It allows people to save the box cover art and special features, as well as sort the collection by genre, rating, or actor and set parental controls. Users can also save a DVD and play it at the same time. It works on computers running Windows XP or Vista.
The company says the software is "legal," but acknowledges that people will be able to make digital copies from any DVD, even if rented, because the software can't distinguish between rented and owned DVDs. However, the software won't let people post copies to peer-to-peer networks or send them via e-mail.
"It's a good story for studios. We have stopped the worst violations people can do (peer-to-peer distribution)," Eric Fox, senior product manager at RealNetworks told CNET News. "We're letting people get more value out of the DVDs they own and encouraging people to buy more DVDs."
Additional copies of a DVD can be saved to a different computer or storage device for $19.99 each.
RealDVD will be available by end of the month for an introductory price of $29.99, which will rise to $49.99 later.
For a more information on the software, see this post on CNET's Crave.
- prev
- 1
- next
