Hulu has been trying to increase their “real” HD offerings of late.

Really, the only thing of substance (other than 5-minute documentaries and trailers) that interests me is Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, which they now have in HD, and still for free!

Don’t expect the free to last much longer: go watch it now if you haven’t already, or even if you have!

To Hulu: offer more stuff! A handful of mid-season television episodes from mostly shows I don’t watch doesn’t get me excited about your HD offerings.

Post from: EveryJoe

Hulu: Sort of in HD

In addition to HD content, Vimeo is trying to get in on the social networking market: it’s trying to put the “sharing” in “video sharing”. For example, you can subscribe to other people’s HD content, much like you might subscribe to people’s blogs on RSS. It imports your contact information to assist you in finding content you might like, and has various other community interaction options. If you want social abilities beyond other video sharing sites’ “Others are also viewing …” kind of features, check it out.

Putting back on my HD junkie hat: overall, the video quality on there is pretty great. I was getting download rates at 10 Mbps downloading from the site, which is probably due to the fact that they use Amazon S3 for their back-end.

However, I was a bit disappointed with their site’s responsiveness: moving from page to page was sluggish, and really dragged down my experience. With the fresh Web 2.0 interface, I typically expect snappiness and quick responses. This is a bit disappointing considering the high-quality video streaming. Another small gripe is that there never seemed to be more than a handful of videos on any page: looking for videos seemed to involve lots of browsing between pages. Normally, this wouldn’t be so bad, but the site being sluggish made this a bit much.

Overall, I think anyone who wants to share HD video on the Internet, or is interested in a more social video experience, should take a look at what Vimeo has to offer.

Post from: EveryJoe

Vimeo: Free HD Video Sharing

One of the best benefits of this? You can do it on Flash cartoons. Since Flash cartoons (not videos, though) are vector objects, they zoom quite nicely.

Post from: EveryJoe

Get your cartoons in HD with Firefox 3 zoom

It’s gonna be okay.

Well, first off, what’s so wrong with seeing the trusted ol’ composite cables? Well, first off, composite cable is really just a single channel of NTSC video thrown onto the yellow cable, with the audio split between the two white and red cables. In other words, the video information is all mixed together into a single cable, but the poor quality audio is split between two cables! And since it is transmitting NTSC video, you’re limited to a 480i video experience, and the mixing in the video cable (no separation of color information) causes the colors to be washed and mucked up.

This is all good and fine for VHS tapes and analog cable, both of which are nearly dead. But even DVD-quality is beyond composite cables.

What about S-Video cables? They have such a neat name, so must be better, right? Well, they are better: they separate the video into two channels (essentially a brightness and a color channel), which makes the signal much more stable and the color much better. But it’s still limited to 480i video. It’s still better than composite if that’s your only other option.

Then along comes component cabling: this is some good stuff. Component means that it breaks up the video signal into three component parts: one brightness and two color channels, giving you a rich color spectrum. Since it’s analog, it can run pretty much any video resolution (as long as the cable has thick enough shielding to protect it from outside electromagnetic interference, and the copper inside is thick enough to support the faster signals). This is the first of these cables to support true HD resolutions. If you are going with analog cables, component is about as good as it gets.

There are slightly better analog video options, like some 5-cable component systems used in professional video, as well as VGA, but the primary difference between these and component is the separation of signaling from the video channels. For most people, it makes nearly no difference.

But all of the above cables share one common flaw: they’re all analog. Most of us nowadays have a digital HDTV: LCD, plasma, DLP, or projector. This means there are two problems: the signal is going to have to be converted to a digital one anyways by the display, and the nature of the analog signal means that there may be syncing problems: getting the individual pixels interpreted from the video cable and lined up with the pixels of the display. The first problem of analog conversion you can’t do anything about. The second problem is why you sometimes get weird blurry text on your screen, especially with your HTPC. The only way to get around the syncing problem is to use quality cables and to use your display’s auto-sync feature to try to find the edges of the video signal appropriately.

Hope this clears up some of the confusion with your analog cabling options. Coming soon: audio and digital video!

Post from: EveryJoe

Analog breakdown: Composite, component, S-Video, oh my!

I ventured into another very male-centric movie today: Shoot ‘Em Up on Blu-ray. And this movie understands exactly what kind of movie it is: this is the perfect shoot-first-and-ask questions-later movie.

I can best sum up this movie with one word: excellent!

It was a fairly short (about one and a half hours), but every moment of that was filled with Clive Owen sliding around, chewing carrots, and most of all, shooting hundreds of bad guys, constantly He kills at least two of them with carrots, as well as anything else around him when he runs out bullets.

The movie is purely visual, so watching it in Blu-ray really adds quite a bit to the presentation. Seeing the ridiculous gore and fun fight scenes in the more detail helps a lot with immersion.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not purely a mantastic movie: he is, after all, protecting a baby the whole time! But really, while there may be a baby and a tad bit of ridiculous romance, don’t think that this movie is meant to appeal to anything but your heist-loving, gun-firing self, cause it isn’t.

I haven’t had this much fun at a movie since Planet Terror. Rent it, watch it, and enjoy it.

Post from: EveryJoe

Shoot ‘Em Up (Blu-ray)

However, Netflix also has a “Future” portion on the “Netflix Ready Devices” section of their website. If you are logged in, it’s here, and it says:

We are working to get TV manufacturers, Blu-ray player manufacturers, and game console manufacturers to make their devices ready for instant streaming from Netflix. The first of these multi-function Netflix ready devices are likely to be available in late 2008.

This gives some pretty strong hints that your favorite game console may start to support Netflix streaming.

Some intrepid folks have already created a workaround for a Vista PC (Home Premium or Ultimate) and an Xbox 360, neither of which I own.

In the future, I also wouldn’t be too surprised to see someone reverse engineer the Roku (which runs Linux) and get Netflix streaming support to your favorite Linux box, and maybe even the PS3.

Post from: EveryJoe

Netflix on my PS3 or Xbox 360?

All joking aside, the ZvBox looks like an interesting device. What it is is essentially a scan convertor: it takes your video card output and creates it’s own channel over the coax wiring in your own house. So where you have an HDTV, you have access to your computer. You can browse the web, write emails, documents, and things like that. This also means that you won’t have to worry about the ZvBox not playing a certain format: whatever your computer can play, the ZvBox can do.

The ZvBox will be shipped out starting on June 30 for $499. This is definitely a product to watch.

Via [CE Pro]

Post from: EveryJoe

HD Streaming over Coax with ZvBox

Planet Green’s original programming combines unique formats and the most up-to-date information on green living with pop culture icons and engaging personalities. For example, rapper/actor Chris “Ludacris” Bridges and rocker Tommy Lee will battle to see who can out-green the other as their entourages hit the tour route.

Oh dear… Ludacris and Tommy Lee, going green? Please, keep all comments to yourself.

Via [EngadgetHD]

Read [MultiChannel]

Post from: EveryJoe

Discovery Is Going Green with Planet Green

Via [EngadgetHD]

Read [BBC NEWS]

Post from: EveryJoe

Freeview in the UK going HD

Via [TechCrunch]

CBS Labs – HD Video

Post from: EveryJoe

CBS Streaming HD Content as Test