The Queen (Yes.. of England) is set to post her annual Christmas message on YouTube competing with clips of skateboarders and somersaulting dogs (Egad!) according to the Times Online. The broadcast, her 50th since the message was first televised, will help to launch a royal channel on the video sharing website. Fans will be able to view rare archive footage as well as clips of royal tours overseas and users will be able to rank the videos by giving them a star rating. The channel went live just after midnight last night and is a royal first. By tapping into the YouTube community, the Queen’s advisers hope she will be able to broaden her appeal.
As the Beatles said: .. she’s a pretty nice girl.. 
PalBee.com announced today that is has begun a beta test of its Mashup API. The Mashup API allows beta participants to embed a PalBee video conference anywhere on their own web site. This is made possible by a widget that allows real time video conferencing to anyone who visits the web page. The Flash-based technology does not require setup or configuration; simply copy and paste the code and everything else falls into place.
RedHerring reports that Ustream.TV said Tuesday it has completed a $2 million angel round and that U.S. General Wesley Clark joined its board. Ustream and its competitors will need to attract large and consistent audiences before advertising dollars roll in. But they will be in competition with one another and mainstream broadcasters, who have content and are looking for ways to earn revenue from the Internet. Two major U.S. professional sports leagues, Major League Baseball and the National Football League, now broadcast games live on their web sites. Ustream hopes such interactive features as live polling and applause meters will draw users. Viewers can make requests and pose real-time questions with broadcasters. And much like YouTube, the site is a stage for people who otherwise don’t have a way to share their content with a global audience.
First it was Wired and now from RedHerring.. gotta hand it to their PR folks
Chicagolive.com debuts today and features video content about Chicago, by Chicago and for Chicago giving local users a chance to share their video creations in a uniquely Chicago setting, including videos from professionals and amateurs alike. Produced by Chicago Tribune Interactive, the site provides a chance to tell stories about the Windy City in a different way.
In addition to user-submitted footage, chicagolive.com aggregates video content from professional sources like Chicago Tribune, CLTV, WGN-TV and others as well as city-centric videos collected from sites across the Internet.
Based on the experience from Boston no doubt.
According to this post on the Sydney Morning Herald:
Should you buy one of Logitech’s new whiz-bang QuickCam Pro webcams? No, you should buy two. That’s not just because they’re far and away the best webcam we’ve ever used.
The reason to double-dip is that to take advantage of their superb “high quality video” mode you’ll need HQV-compatible webcams at both ends of the videochat. And only Logitech’s QuickCam Sphere AF and Pro 9000 desktop webcams, and the QuickCam Pro for notebooks, fit that bill. You’ll also need the latest Skype 3.6 for Windows (Mac owners need not apply), because HQV is purely a Logitech-Skype concoction. And a PC running an Intel Core 2 chip to handle the heavy video processing load. Plus a broadband line with at least a 384Kbps uplink speed.
HQV lets internet video calls scale up to a smooth 30 frames a second if the bandwidth is there at both ends, with a double-sized video window up to 640×480 pixels on the screen. You can immediately see far richer detail and truer colours and there’s minimal blurring during normal movement such as waving a hand.
Smells like a tech. reporter who got a couple of early xmas gifts?
Today marks an important milestone in Web video. Hulu, which is quickly becoming a favorite online video destination, has started to add HD videos to its site. The most recent release of Adobe Flash Player added support for streaming HD, using H.264 encoding. Hulu’s HD Gallery is a little bit limited off the jump, only offering nine HD movie trailers, but there’s little doubt they will be adding HD versions of other content in the future.
Via: cNet
