Video Sphere

Did you see how trends are changing in terms of “illegal” videos on the Internet ?

First it was easy to found tons of links towards P2P (peer to peer) software  such as Kazaa or eMule. Then .torrent files swept out any other P2P solution when dealing with video downloading.

Now, new websites are streaming videos, allowing to watch them without the need to download a single file !

After TV Links, a brand new one, namely peekvid, allows to share links towards videos that will be proposed in streaming. You can of course browse through categories and watch the video you like… But is it really legal, not sure…I doubt that website owns rights to broadcast the latest series and movies…

Peekvid is also planning the possibility to upload your very own videos…but this option is not activated yet.

If you prefer to remain in a (probably) more legal area, I suggest to use Internet Television software such as BabelGum, but do not expect to find  (as for now) the latest series and movies…

(via Bleebot)

If you’re passionate about Fly Fishing, Hook.TV is your website.

The Hook TV community was created so you can view and share professional Fly Fishing videos or create and share your own personal videos.

The core of Hook TV platform, is an interactive user generated broadband TV channel that hooks up outfitters, guides and consumers, with professional and user generated content as well as up-to-the-minute news, information, products, travel tips, lodge booking, and e-commerce shopping opportunities.

But, more important than that, Hook.tv gathers every feature to make it a real successful web video community: you can register to specific user channels, add you very own content by uploading your videos and embed them into your website or blog, add tags, …

Most video file format are accepted: AVI, FLV, MP4, WMV, MOV and MPG.

Are you a happy fisherman ? So don’t wait and register immediately !

Other example of niche video community: Zapiks: the YouTube of extreme sports.

Zapiks is a YouTube like video site dedicated to extreme sports, where passionate snowboarders, skiers, surfers, bikers, skateboarders but also brands can store and share pictures and videos.

Compared to big video sites such as YouTube or DailyMotion, it has the huge advantage to focus only on extreme sports action!

Of course everything is free. You just need to register to create your account and then start uploading, and commenting other people’s material.

Note that Zapiks is available both in French (http://www.zapiks.fr) and English (http://www.zapiks.com) !

There are so many options proposed on each page, that most people does not even know about everything.

With more features to be added soon (see previous article about YouTube Remixer & AudioSwap), the user interface could be more and more complicated, and the overall ergonomics has to be improved.

But things could change rapidly with a new way of displaying pages, more ergonomic. For the moment, this new display format is only available through a small button in the top of the right menu:

Changes are not as impressive as we could expect, but remember that this new display is under beta test and that ergonomic added values are not always visible. It’s rather the experience that user are having than the design itself. Indeed, the new organization of pages seems to be more effective.

Related & Promoted videos (left: old version / right: new version)

Old version:

New version:

YouTube just introduced new online tools to change the sountrack of your videos (YouTube AudioSwap) and to mix videos (YouTube Remixer).

AudioSwap allows to replace the audio on your videos with officially licensed music provided directly on the YouTube AudioSwap interface. Don’t expect to upload your own mp3, that’s not allowed as for now !

With YouTube Video Remixer you can cut and aggregate videos, add transition effects, pictures and text. The Video Remixer is powered by Adobe Premiere Express, but don’t expect miracles, this is very basic and buggy for the moment…

Both tool are available through the Test Tube, where “YouTube engineers and developers test out recipes and concoctions that aren’t quite fully baked and invite you to tell how they’re coming along”.