RedLasso: we're invited to the beta, you're invited to our first-look
It's about time we got our RedLasso beta invite!
RedLasso is a database full of the latest TV and radio programming, allowing bloggers and other online media authors to search for, edit, and embed short clips on their sites. The company asks users to not abuse the system (embedding whole episodes or watching extended amounts of programming for the sake of entertainment), but it also monitors accounts and imposes appropriate restrictions to prevent any copyright trouble.
On login, RedLasso users are presented with much of what you'd expect; a flash player on the left, a list of suggestions on the right, and a search box at the top. Searches can be restricted by geographic area, time-slot, or network, and since the service automatically indexes most of what is spoken, a good search includes keywords said during the clip. Once a program is found, members can browse through its video and text on the same page. Overall, we're pretty impressed.
Once a usable clip has been found, editing it out is pretty easy if you're not in Safari -- that's been our experience at least. We found the flash video player/lasso-er laggy in Safari, but it worked fine in Firefox. It's also possible that our test machine, a Macbook Pro running OS X, failed us... somehow.
A clip can be lasso-ed out of a video in two ways: mouse or keyboard shortcuts. The mouse method requires the user to move start and end-markers, and the keyboard method uses 3 sets of keyboard shortcuts that allow the start and end-markers to be moved more precisely.
Once a usable clip has been found, editing it out is pretty easy if you're not in Safari -- that's been our experience at least. We found the flash video player/lasso-er laggy in Safari, but it worked fine in Firefox. It's also possible that our test machine, a Macbook Pro running OS X, failed us... somehow.
A clip can be lasso-ed out of a video in two ways: mouse or keyboard shortcuts. The mouse method requires the user to move start and end-markers, and the keyboard method uses 3 sets of keyboard shortcuts that allow the start and end-markers to be moved more precisely.
Embedding a clip is as easy copying and pasting HTML code, though, we'd prefer a more GUI-friendly method of changing the size of the player/video when embedding. As useful/cool/awesome as the service is, the last time we reported on RedLasso, it was in trouble. The company received a few cease-and-desist-notices from some major TV networks, but it's not giving up yet. RedLasso publicly responded to the notices towards the end of May, announcing that it is working to create a "win-win relationship with the networks."