Online video industry continues to strengthen

This has been a good couple of weeks for the online video space. This morning Comcast CEO Brian Roberts, during the company’s earnings call, gave Netflix props for doing a “great job” in streaming video to its users. Netflix, for its part, last week reported solid, but not stellar earnings but did say its subscriber base was up to some 15 million households and said roughly 61 percent of them were streaming movies or TV episodes

YouTube CMO Chris Di Cesare on legitimizing online video as an art form in its own right

YouTube has been making a lot of news of late, not only for the massive amount of user-generated content it continues to upload (24 hours worth of video every minute), or for the billions of video views its serves up every month, but for the quality of the video its bringing onto its site and the expanding programs it’s offering serious aspiring video makers. YouTube, having just turned five, is growing up, and like any business that survives its first half-decade, it’s looking to refine its place in its industry. CMO Chris Di Cesare, who joined YouTube three years ago from Microsoft, talked to FierceOnlineVideo about how YouTube–without abandoning its massive community of users–is nonetheless making a special effort to legitimize and recognize video artists, independent filmmakers and is looking at developing a more serious side. Last year, it focused on the YouTube Symphony, which was assembled through open auditions on YouTube and with the help of the London Symphony and several other partners. The online, collaborative ensemble eventually played at New York’s Carnegie Hall in April 2009, directed by Michael Tilson Thomas

ZumoCast lets you stream your video content to your iPad

I have been looking at different clients to share my content from my home computers to my mobile devices and one of the best I have tried is ZumoDrive . Today, they announced a new service called ZumoCast that is designed to let you enjoy your personal video collection on the go with your iPad or iPhone. Their previous client was focused on music, photos, and files while this client starts out with a focus on video content

YouTube’s shiny new HTML5 embed code is now live

Most of you have probably embedded a YouTube video at one time or another, even if it’s just to share it on Facebook. Because copying and pasting is so easy, you might not have paid much attention to the embed code itself, though.

Hamster batch converts your video files for free

Like many of the apps in this category, Hamster Free Video Converter utilizes the open source FFmpeg to handle video conversion. Unlike a lot of others, it’s got a simple, easy-to-use interface which even the most casual users should be able to manage. Just follow the tabs! Step 1: choose a video or multiple videos ( Hamster does batch conversions, too! ). Step 2: select your desired format (AVI, MPEG, WMV, FLV, MP3, or 3GP) or your mobile device. Built-in options include the iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV, as well as Blackberry, HTC, Archos, and Sony devices (among others).

Nielsen: ESPN scores big in June with World Cup online streaming

New Nielsen data says online video streaming in June increased a modest 1.3 percent from a year ago, with more than 10.2 billion videos streamed by some 136.2 million viewers. The tracking company’s figures showed a slight drop in the number of streams per viewer, -0.3 percent to 74.9 streams, but a 3.1 percent increase in the amount of time viewers spent watching video last month, to nearly 195 minutes. As usual, YouTube topped the viewing rankings, streaming 5.8 billion videos last month, a 9.8 percent increase over the previous month

Redbox looks to tackle Netflix, weighs streaming video in addition to kiosk sales

Woe unto poor Blockbuster, the struggling DVD retailer that has seen its one-time category-leader status eroded by online- and streaming-movie purveyor Netfix. The latest news, and possible next nail that could spell its doom: Bloomberg reports that Redbox, the kiosk-happy dispenser of $1 DVDs, is contemplating bringing its own business online. While the entry of Redbox into that market may be a tad troubling to Netflix-although with 14 million subscribers and growing, it’s not much more at the moment than a burr under its corporate saddle-it’s just one more drain on the (mis)fortunes of Blockbuster, which continues to close stores and recently skipped a debt payment

Netflix ready to take off, eh? Streaming movie service heads to Canada

If we use heat as a metaphor for access to streaming movies, Canada really IS the frozen north. No access to Hulu and Netflix means a hard life for film-hungry Canadians.

Ad marketplace Adap.tv adds publishers, cites 90% repeat buy rate

Adap.tv, which launched an online video advertising marketplace earlier this year, has added some publisher partners from the comScore Top 100 list, and says that since its February launch it has seen a 90 percent repeat buy rate, an increase in average campaign budgets by 15 times, and more than 100 daily campaigns bidding on 900 market placements. Adap.tv’s new partners include Blastro, Clipsyndicate, Dailymotion, Mindjolt, Nabbr, Redlasso and Videojug. Adap.tv’s onesource platform enables publishers to maximize their online video inventory with agile video ad-trafficking, yield optimization, and simple syndication management tools.

Netflix to launch streaming video service in Canada this fall

Netflix, which is setting records for streaming online video-movies and television episodes-to television, PCs, Macs and mobile devices in the United States, says its going north of the border to Canada in the fourth quarter. The company added a link to its website that promises to let Canadians know when the service offering unlimited movies and TV episodes streamed instantly to TVs and computers would be available to them.

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