SnapStream Media has launched a new tool called TV Trends that lets you track how frequently a word or term is mentioned on major US television channels. SnapStream is the company behind the BeyondTV personal video recorder software and the ill-fated Couchville web-based program guide.

The company also offers an enterprise package called Snapstream Server which can record up to 10 channels at a time, and store up to 9,000 hours of programming. It also captures data like closed captioning. So it's not surprising that Snapstream is recording thousands of hours of TV at a time and is able to process the data to look for keywords.

TV Trends doesn't promise to capture every single mention of a term on television. But Snapstream is tracking all of the major broadcast networks in the US as well we cable news networks.

You can track a single term or multiple search terms. And you can filter results by genres, TV networks, or term periods. You can also embed the charts on any web page. Sure, TV Trends is probably just a promotional tool to get people to notice Snapstream's commercial PVR products. But it's also a pretty nifty way to get a handle on what people are talking about on TV.

[via SnapStream Blog

Every time we write a story about Hulu, international Download Squad readers ask us when the streaming television site will be available outside of the US. And I get it. Because that's how I feel every time I see a story about the BBC iPlayer, which lets UK residents watch BBC programming online.

Well, Hulu is working on rolling out service in other countries as soon as it can get broadcast rights and advertising deals in place. The BBC iPlayer thing is a bit more complicated, because British citizens pay a licensing fee to support BBC content, which means that while iPlayer content is available ad-free in the UK, it's geotargeted to work only for computer users in the UK.

But now The Telegraph is reporting that the BBC is in negotiations with Google to roll out an international version of th eiPlayer. It's likely that any international version would either include advertising or a subscription fee.

And of course, there's a chance that this whole thing could fall through or that it's just a rumor. But if it's true, we could soon live in a world where you can watch episodes of Heroes, Doctor Who, or 24 in a web browser without resorting to the shadowy areas of the interenet.

[via Gizmodo]

Torrents have gained some infamy as a way for users to share resources and quickly download large files, but their potential as a way to watch streaming video is comparatively almost unknown. StreamTorrent is a Windows app that taps that potential to let you watch online TV, including HBO, the BBC, and plenty of sports channels. It works the same way torrent downloads work, with a collection of users "seeding" parts of the video to other users as they watch.

It might not be practical unless you've got a lot of people watching and seeding, but you could theoretically stream your own channel over StreamTorrent. Users would only have to search for it to connect. This could prove to be an affordable way of providing large video files when you don't have the cash to pony up for high bandwidth fees, and it can, at least in theory, stream to an unlimited number of users.

[via gHacks]

Pretty much every time we publish an article about Hulu or other web sites that let visitors watch full length streaming television episodes, someone leaves a comment pointing out that the service only works in the US. That's generally because these web sites don't have the distribution rights (and advertising deals) needed to stream these programs in other countries -- even countries that are as geographically close to the US as Canada.

But Canada's CTV Network has now launched its own streaming TV section. The selection of videos isn't nearly as rich as what you'll find from Hulu. But CTV does air a number of popular programs in Canada and many of them are available online including Mad Men, Fringe, The Daily Show, and The Colbert Report.

Videos are shown with limited advertisements, and you can watch in full screen. As you'd expect, the site only works if you're in Canada (or using a proxy network to make it appear as if you are). But blogger Dale Dietrech took the service for a spin and assures us that it works.

[via Zatz Not Funny]

PBS already makes some of its programs available through online video sites including Hulu. But today the public television network has rolled out a new beta web portal that acts as a central hub for most of the PBS original programming that's available online. You can find full length episodes of American Experience, Frontline, Great Performances, Masterpiece, Nature, Nova, The NewsHour and other PBS programs.

Videos can be sorted by program or topic. And you can watch videos in full screen or windowed mode. Taking a cue from Hulu, YouTube, and other online video sites, PBS has added some social tools including a share button that lets you link to the video on Facebook, Digg, StumbleUpon, and other social news and bookmarking sites. You can alsso email links to videos to your friends. But there's no simple way to embed videos on your own site.

The PBS Video player is still in beta, and I found that some videos simply didn't play. But overall, the new site makes it a lot easier to find PBS content in one central location.

[via paidContent]

Adobe Flash is the dominant platform for rich media content on the web. If you've watched an online video, viewed an interactive ad, or played music through a web site in the last few years, you've seen Flash in action. While Microsoft is trying to push Silverlight as an alternative, Flash pretty much owns this space -- on computers.

But HDTV and broadband internet are blurring the lines between web video and television. And Adobe wants to help bring the walls down by pushing Flash for TV and set top boxes including Blu-Ray players and cable boxes. Adobe has already partnered with companies including Intel, Broadcom, Comcast, Netflix, and Disney on the project.

In other words, you can imagine a future where you turn on your TV and in addition to video, on-demand programming, and a program guide, you can pull up weather, news, and other information provided through an internet connection, as well as quick and easy access to web video from any site like ABC.com or Netflix that makes content available for the platform.

Of course, if this all happens, it means you're going to need to get a new TV, set top box, or other hardware in order to enable the new features. Or you can just stick an old computer next to your TV and use Flash the old fashioned way.

[via NewTeeVee]

Over the last few years YouTube has successfully demonstrated that people will spend countless hours watching short user generated videos. But you know what else people like to watch? Professionally produced dramas, comedies, documentaries, cartoons, and news programs. Rival video site Hulu may not have anywhere near the audience that YouTube has, but it's choc full of professional video content (that you can only see in the US for the most part), which is much easier to monetize.

Now YouTube is stepping up its game, by offering content from TV and movie studios in a new section labeled "Shows." According to the New York Times, Google has signed agreements to distribute content from Sony, Lions Gate, CBS, MGM, and other studios.

The move will allow YouTube to place pre-roll, post-roll, and interstitial ads in video content, something it doesn't do with user generated videos.

Right now, the selection of TV shows and movies on YouTube is rather sad. Most of the content consists of old programs that you probably forgot existed, plus one new show from CBS: Harper's Island. Since Fox and NBC are the driving forces behind Hulu, it's not likely that we'll see their content on YouTube anytime soon. And there's talk that ABC could joing Hulu in the not too distant future.

Redlasso is a company that made a big splash last year by offering bloggers and web publishers the chance to find and embed television clips on their web sites. And then it was hit by lawsuits from NBC and FOX and it sort of faded away into oblivion.

Now Redlasso says the suits have been settled and the company has reached an agreement with Fox News Corp to distribute clips from local Fox affiliate stations. Clips from local news reports and other content will be available. And Redlasso will split advertising revenue with Fox.

It's interesting that Redlasso will be providing local content and not material from FOX's national programming. Techcrunch infers that this means the relationship is a trial run. It could also be an attempt to figure out a new way to monetize local news content at a time when local news outlets are having a hard time keeping afloat.

[via Business Insider]

The last time Download Squad took a look at MyMediaPlayer, Christina praised the concept of an Adobe AIR-based Hulu viewer, and the ability to watch shows and search for new ones at the same time. She also knocked MyMediaPlayer because it only showed the embedded versions of Hulu videos, which meant a serious restriction on viewing quality.

MyMediaPlayer 2 fixes that issue, adds Linux support, and is visually more appealing than the previous version.

Some of the new features in MyMediaPlayer 2 include a guide page for quick browsing of shows and movies, a full-screen TV listing mode, and, most importantly, full-screen video.

Since MyMediaPlayer shows Hulu content uncut and with all the ads, the main incentive to use it over your browser is the addition of nice little UI touches like these. It also only shows only full-length movies and shows, so you don't have to browse Hulu's endless clips for full episodes they don't carry.

Last month TV.com relaunched its web site as a video portal with full length streaming episodes of TV shows, social features, and IMDB-like info about TV show casts, episodes info, and other information. TV.com is owned by CBS, so obviously CBS content was available, but the bulk of the full length episodes were provided by Hulu -- until today.

It appears Hulu has removed its content from TV.com. And it looks like the move happened on short notice, because when you go to the page for a show that was provided by Hulu, there are still links to play the episodes. You just wind up staring at an unpleasant "Video unavailable" message once you click the link.

It's possible that CBS is planning to broker its own deals with the studios in order to increase the amount of ad revenue it receives (instead of splitting it with Hulu). But that wouldn't explain the whole Video unavailable fiasco.

Update: Hulu has released a brief statement that doesn't really say anything. But Hulu is also asking Boxee to remove its video content due to a request from Hulu's content partners.

NBC has relaunched its NBC Direct video download service. Honestly, ever since Hulu launched, I haven't thought much about NBC Direct, which I first covered back in 2007. There aren't any videos available from NBC Direct that you can't find on Hulu, and the clunky DRM and download application make NBC Direct much more difficult to use than the web based player.

Still, NBC Direct has two advantages over Hulu or other online video sites:

1. You can watch videos while you're not connected to the internet
2. Videos are available in high definition

There are a few caveats: The NBC Direct player is Windows only. Question number 1 in the FAQ is whether there are plans for a Mac version. NBC's answer? Use Boot Camp to install WIndows on your Mac. And while the videos you download look like normal FLV Flash video files, NBC uses DRM which means that videos will stop playing at some date in the future. And you can only watch videos on the computer you used to download them.

The downloads are pretty speedy. NBC uses peer to peer technology which you can off if you're willing to deal with "standard quality" videos instead of the "high quality" versions that are available to P2P users.
[via NewTeeVee]

MGM, Paramount, and Lionsgate are banding together to form a new TV channel called epix that will show films from each studio as soon as 9 months after the theatrical release. There's just one catch: No cable or satellite companies have agreed to carry the channel just yet.

But here's where things get interesting. The three studios, which are working together under the name Studio 3 Networks, plan to launch a subscription based web site that will stream on-demand movies starting in May. At launch, movies including The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Iron Man, Pink Panther 2, The Spiderwick Chronicles, and Tyler Perry's Madea Goes to Jail will be available.

In other words, the new epix web site will be a lot like Hulu, except the films will be more current and viewers will have to pay to watch them. So umm, it won't be that much like Hulu at all. But it does raise an interesting question - if Studio 3 Networks doesn't manage to sign a broadcast carriage, could the group still make money on a subscription based web site? Sure, people are used to getting online video for free, but personally I'd rather pay a nominal monthly fee to watch on-demand movies from a site like epix than pay an arm and a leg to subscribe to a cable channel on top of a monthly cable bill. Or at least, I would if epix had films from more than three studios.

In related news, while looking for any sort of publicity photos of epix, I discovered that epix.com, epix.net, and epix.tv among other web domains are already registered. So it's not clear exactly what the URL of the new page will be.

Cross-platform media player Boxee has added support for full length videos from ABC.com to it's Mac client. Boxee's Ubuntu and Windows software can't handle ABC video yet, but support is on its way.

Today's update is significant, because up until now ABC's web video player has been something of a walled garden. While CBS, Fox, and NBC have been making their videos available for distribution on Hulu, Fancast, AOL TV, MSN TV and a variety of other outlets, if you want to watch full length episodes of ABC shows you're pretty much stuck with the ABC web site.

ZeeVee's ZViewer does offer a full screen interface for perusing ABC videos, but video playback is rather clunky since you have to click a button on the screen to resume playback after each commercial. Boxee lets users navigate through the whole video with a remote control. No mouse required.

There's no shortage of places to find online video these days. Most TV networks offer full length episodes of at least a few shows, and video portals like Hulu and Joost offer content from a wide range of sources. First on Mars wants a piece of that pie, and has taken an interesting approach that's more akin to FanCast or AOL Video's strategy of aggregatings programs from multiple sources including Hulu, CBS, PBS, and other network sites.

First on Mars has an attractive, if busy interface built on Flash. You can browse a long list of shows and networks and add favorite programs or shows to a playlist with the click of a button. Unfortunately there's no easy way to search, which means things can get unwieldy.

The site also lets you browser programs based on "mood." For example, if you select "Bleak," you see tiles for shows like American Gothic, Battlestar Galactica, and Jericho. If you're in a "Financial" mood you get an odd choice of programs including The Colbert Report, Cribs, and My Super Sweet Sixteen. I'm not sure what that says about our culture -- or about the number of programs available online.

First On Mars displays videos by loading web sites in a frame, which means you'll see the videos exactly as they appear on the original web page. But for some reason the selection seems to be a bit more limited than what you'd find on some of those original pages. For example, clicking on the PBS icon brings up Nova, but not Frontline.

[via VentureBeat]

Hulu Schmulu. Some TV networks have been providing streaming content for ages. You can watch live or recent news updates from the BBC or CNN, music videos, or even movies if you know where to look. But where's the fun in that? RevoluTV is a Windows app that comes preloaded with a long list of video channels that you can stream using the built-in Windows Media Player interface.

Unlike previously mentioned LiveStation, which is mostly focused on news channels, RevoluTV has a ton of streams divided into categories like News, Entertainment, Lifestyle, Music, Movies, Sports, and Kids. And most of the streams I tried actually played, which is more than I can say for some other programs I've used that promise to let you stream internet TV content from around the globe.

Of course, I've kind of gotten used to the video-on-demand feel of Hulu and similar sites, so I'm not really a big fan of watching live television anymore. But if you can't find anything worth watching on Hulu, YouTube, or whatever online video site you're addicted to these days, RevoluTV might be worth a look.

[via gHacks]