CNET Has New Groundbreaking Video Player
CNET Has New Groundbreaking Video Player
Late last month, CNET Networks quietly released a superb new Flash video player. The player is beginning to propagate CNET’s news and reviews videos. It was developed in house. Here’s what I think is very different and powerful:
*The player has a pop-up window for a text description along with hyperlinks to related stories. This is extremely valuable as videos don’t always present the entire story. The text can provide crucial context. Plus the text can be updated, so when an archival video becomes timely, the data can be updated. Very cool.
*There is a closed caption functionality. CNET is committed to transcribing all its video — a great benefit to the hearing impaired and for others at work who can’t listen. Presumably all the metadata will maximize search.
*I think the most clever piece of the new player is the pop up for related videos. This utility appears on the embedded player as well. So, viewers of the embed player who choose a relate video are taken back to CNET. I guess you could call it a widget within a video player.
*The player is embeddable, meaning the code from CNET videos can be place on blogs. This is not new for the industry, of course. The Wall Street Journal was the first major publisher to provide an embeddable player over a year ago, which was reported first on Beet.TV. Nonetheless, for bloggers being able to publish CNET video is very exciting.
Since I couldn’t get to San Francisco to report this story, I am grateful to producers at CNET who shot this interview with CNET TV chief Mark Larkin yesterday and shipped us the file. Amazing shoot! Our own David Kavanaugh edited the piece.
Mark give a great overview of CNET TV and a demonstration of the new player. You can see the new player below.
– Andy Plesser
Samsung Has “Full HD” Camera with Flash Memory — Shipping in May for $900
In a neighboring Chelsea art gallery last week, Samsung had a little show for some of its newest digital devices. David took our non-HD Panasonic over for this report.
He got a demonstration of the not yet released Samsung HMX20, a small and powerful camcorder with an 8GB internal Flash memory drive and a slot for more. The camera can shoot in full HD for 90 minutes with its existing memory.
By full HD, this shoots in 1080p 30 or 60 frames per second. Samsung’s first Flash memory camcorder shoots in 720p.
As I understand it, camcorders with Flash memory take use less battery life, which is important. I am told that the camera can shoot for 90 minutes on one charge.
The new camcorder, which was announced at CES in January, will ship in May and it has suggested retail price of $899, we have learned.
Looks like the shift to HD is becoming inevitable and affordable for many of us content creators.
David also saw an impressive LCD monitor that allows users to access RSS feeds through a remote.
– Andy Plesser
this post is from www.beet.tv