Are we ready for longer user submitted video?

When some people start to shoot a video and air their artistic talents, 10 minutes can sometimes just not be long enough. This limit of course comes from the worlds biggest video website Youtube, but it has now extended the time limit of user submitted content by 5 whole minutes.

Youtube who are owned by Google, said in a blog post Thursday that the longer upload time was the single-most requested feature that its users have been asking for. The extension is also due to improvements in its Content ID system, which automatically removes copyright violations by digitally sifting through the site’s uploads

So as users will now struggle to upload any movies or tv show clips, YouTube can go wild with their time limits. They said in a blog post that “We will continue our strong commitment to provide advanced technology and tools to protect the rights of small and large copyright owners worldwide. We’ll also do everything we can to release incremental improvements like this one that benefit our video creators”.

As an incentive to users submitting a longer video, YouTube will give new submissions a chance of being featured on YouTube’s homepage as a reward. Whoopee.

With The BBC’s announcement of a second series of the online soap spin-off EastEnders: E20 it appears more likely that the future of TV, and the way it’s watched, is changing.

With that in mind how much of a threat is online video to the good old fashioned TV?

A few years ago, UK TV broadcasters were trying to produce a decent online on demand  TV offering. And so the internet TV services such as Sky Player, iPlayer, ITV Player and 4OD came to be. And it’s not just the big boys who are at it these days. US Hulu have been thinking over a move to UK shores for months now, while new kids on the block Blinkbox and SeeSaw are already making an impact.

Makeover hosts Trinny and Susannah are trying to recreate their flagging careers with an online spoof series on iVillage; The Fast Show’s Simon Day stars in the online only BBC comedy series Brian Pern; and Channel 4′s flagship soap is to follow in its competitor’s footsteps with the launch an online spin off, Hollyoaks: Freshers. Scotland’s ITV franchise STV has also decided to use its website as a proving ground as they this week announced plans for an online comedy project that will see popular content make the transition to online content.

But while the arguments for watching the box online are obvious and many, there’s surely no competition for the combination of a big screen and a comfy sofa as far as the average couch potato is concerned.

Is there? Who knows!. In the past decade, the telephone has gone from a box on a wall to the 21st century equivalent of a Swiss Army Knife, the computer has gone from geek to chic and TV, by contrast, has been left behind.

Reports are suggesting that in the coming months that’s all going to change as Google and Microsoft have a lot of plans in the pipline, plans that will allow us to display holiday snaps and even update our Facebook pages have a chat with friends and even watch TV shows, Google claim their service, Google TV, will “change the future of television” as the service will allow viewers to search the internet as well as search for their TV channels for shows giving them access to libraries of online content on their TV sets.

Virgin Media has launched the beta version of its media player for desktop and mobile, dubbing it, Virgin Media Player.

Although the Player is still in beta, the first to be able to access the player will be Virgin Media’s XL TV customers who also have broadband with the company, by registering at www.virginmedia.com/player.

Virgin mobile’s pay monthly customers will also be able to enjoy an hours worth of Virgin Media Player on mobile content every day at no extra charge.

Virgin has said that it has a broad selection of content available as part of the beta trial, from stations such as ITV, LIVING, Disney, Cartoon Network Geographic and, following a agreement with MTV Networks UK & Ireland, a selection of MTV, Comedy Central and Nickelodeon shows.

“We continue to explore innovative new ways to bring our customers’ favourite content to them and, with Virgin Media Player, we’re making sure they’re spoilt for choice.”

Sky has Sky Player that it already offers its viewers for the desktop and has a mobile TV app available for the iPhone and iPad.

Contestants on the UK version of hit worldwide quiz show Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? are set to have their questions thrown at them harder and faster, in an attempt to attract viewers back to the 12-year-old series in ITV1.

To begin with questions will be much more difficult than before, meaning the end of opening questions such as ‘What is the capital of France? And that could mean a few humiliating early exits for participants and even the unlucky celebrities that feature on the guest editions.

There will also be the small matter of a time limit to contend with, as most questions will have a set time limit according to their difficulty (with clock stops during lifelines), with any left-over time being added to the £1M question, should it be reached.

The new format will work by having the prize money start at £500 rather than £100 and there will be only 12 questions to replace the former 15. After reaching £1,000, five questions will take a contestant up to a £50,000 ‘safe haven’, previously £32,000.

Host Chris Tarrant said: “Sitting in that hotseat has always been a daunting prospect, but now the contestants are thrown in at the deep end almost as soon as they’ve sat down, facing questions worth literally thousands.”

The format will be unveiled in the first of seven celebrity charity specials beginning on August 18 on ITV1, and will continue throughout the new series. Celebrity pairings taking part in the coming weeks will include GMTV’s Kate Garraway and husband Derek Draper, Sky News presenters Eamonn Holmes and Kay Burley, Emmerdale stars Adele Silva and Nick Miles, and impressionist Jon Culshaw with actor John Thompson.

It remains to be seen as to whether the revamps will achieve their purpose, but the idea of the show remains the same, and contestants will still enter the studio with the same dream of adding to the 5 people who managed to win one of the UK’s biggest gameshow prizes.

Sky (BSkyB) has purchased the entire rights to the complete HBO TV catalogue. This includes a wide range of USA TV shows, including The Sopranos, Sex and the City, True Blood and The Wire.

Sky has signed a deal with the USA channel HBO, the deal is believed to be worth around £150 million over the next 5 years, which gives Sky access complete access to HBO’s archive as well as forthcoming TV shows. HBO shows will also be available on Sky+, the catch-up TV service.

With This deal Sky now has the rights to some TV shows that are currently being shown by rival channels, such as Curb Your Enthusiasm on Channel 4, and Entourage on ITV2. Sky will begin to show these series when the current deals have ended.

Martin Scorsese’s gangster drama, Boardwalk Empire, will be among the first HBO series to get aired. The show starring Steve Buscemi, and set in 1920s Atlantic City, it will be shown shortly after its September debut on HBO in America.

Sky (BSkyB) has an annual programming budget of approximatly £1.7 billion, most of which goes on sports deals and film rights. To make a comparison, Channel Five spends around £165 million on content per year, and BBC2 spends around £500 million.

This all follows on from when Sky (BSkyB) had reported an 11% increase in revenues to £5.9 billion in the three months to June. Its operating profits also rose, 10% year-on-year to £855 million.

The company also announced 90,000 new customers, and is aiming to reach 10 million subscribers by the end of the year.

Just as well there are other things to do in Hawaii

Over 400,000 customers of Oceanic Time Warner Cable in the US state of Hawaii had temporary outages of Internet tv, phone and cable television signals on Tuesday due to a break in a deep water undersea fiber-optic cable in the Molokai Channel.

The service that was lost at about 1 a.m. Tuesday was restored on Oahu and Kauai about two hours later, while service was back up on Maui and the Big Island by Tuesday afternoon, the company said.

Repairs to the cable, about 3,000 feet below the ocean’s surface, will have to wait until a cable-laying ship arrives in three weeks, OTWC Vice President Norman Santos stated. He added that the company didn’t expect to learn the cause of the problem until that time. The cable leased by Oceanic and other companies is owned by TW Telecom Inc.

Meanwhile, Maui County officials reported its office phones with the prefix 270 were expected to be back in service by Wednesday morning. The county’s service provider is Wavecom Solutions. Hawaiian Telcom, Hawaii’s largest telephone company, said it wasn’t affected by the outage.

The situation as a whole, though, brings up the question: Why are we all in the process of ridding ourselves completely of analouge signals, when they are a useful backup in situations such as this?

Hulu viewing figures are pants

Imagine being the coolest guy in school and then someone finds out your a secretly into flower arranging. Your popularity would take a dip. And that is just what has happened to number two most popular tv/video site on the net, Hulu. Hulu has enjoyed the plaudits thanks to the ComScore viewing numbers. However, Comscore have changed the way they measure internet traffic. This has had a catastrophic effect on Hulu numbers for the last couple of months, with an astounding 45% drop in traffic.

Of course, it would be impossible for a site like Hulu to become so unpopular so quickly. That leaves us with the assumption that previous numbers were wrong and the data gathering was flawed.The news was reported in The Los Angeles Times, saying that the previous viewer number estimates fell 45% to 24 million for the month of June following Comscore’s overhaul. This sent Hulu from a cosy number 2 position down to number 10 out of the video websites.

une of this year, according to the Los Angeles Times. Hulu’s numbers in May hit an estimated 43.5 million while, post-overhaul, ComScore recorded a mere 24 million in June.The numbers and accuracy are very important for Hulu because it is the numbers that bring in advertising revenue.The advertisers pay depending on internet viewer numbers and until the new Hulu Plus subscription service takes off, the free advertising model is what keeps the sharks from the door.

Although traditional viewer numbers for TV are regarded as pretty accurate, viewer numbers from the web are gathered from a variety of sources, and the fluctuating data leaves much of it open to interpretation, and making advertisers nervous is never good for revenue. On top of this Netflix beat Hulu for traffic in June, for the first time.

So could the downturn in numbers be because you have to pay for watching older episodes now? Are viewers looking elsewhere? Or is it simply down to a combination of changing data collection and the fact that there are no good TV shows streaming right now? When the new season starts and everyone gets out of the sun,we may have a more accurate picture.

After Simon Cowell’s departure from American Idol (in his pursuit of creating an American version of British singing talent show X Factor (X Factor USA), which starts in 2011), producers are wanting to line up an equally big name for the vacant seat on Idol’s judging panel.

Pop star Justin Timberlake, and English music legend Sir Elton John, are the main attractions on a shortlist of 4 potential replacements for music mogul Cowell. The two superstars are the preferred choices of show founder Simon Fuller, who is also hoping to be rejoined on the production team by Nigel Lythgoe – who started ‘Pop Idol’ with Simon back in Britain in 2001.However, it has been claimed that Nigel’s return to the show could mean the current members of the judging panel – consisting of Kara DioGuardi, Randy Jackson and Ellen DeGeneres – could be completely altered.

The website Hollywood Report claimed: “Industry rumors have been circulating for weeks that show’s creator Simon Fuller and Fox are considering not just replacing Cowell, but dumping the entire judges panel.”

Back in April, Nigel admitted he would make a complete shake-up of the remaining members of the panel if he still worked on the show. Meanwhille, the other shortlisted judges competing against Timberlake and John for a slot on the new series are lesser-known Chris Isaak and Harry Connick Jr., with a decision set to be made in advance of the launch of the new series in January 2011.