SightSpeed bought by Logitech

 Logitech Buys Online Video Provider SightSpeed For $30 Million In Cash
Swiss computer peripherals manufacturer Logitech International is set to acquire SightSpeed, an online video tech and services provider for $30 million. The all cash deal—which adds both the video conferencing technology and the R&D team behind it to Logitech's roster—is slated to close in early November. Berkeley, Calif.-based SightSeed was founded back in 2003, with technology that grew out of Cornell University's Discover Lab.

Microsoft, Akamai team up for 'no-buffer' video streaming
Microsoft and content delivery network services provider Akamai are collaborating to produce a new video service that promises to deliver high-speed video streaming that will not require any buffering.The new service, called AdaptiveEdge Streaming, will build upon Microsoft's IIS Smooth Streaming server technology that gives users the ability to watch videos without buffering by adapting the video quality to the user's connection speed. Thus, a slower connection speed will result in a lower-quality video while a faster connection speed will result in a higher-quality video

Netflix HD Streams Coming to Xbox

The Netflix hits just keep on comin’. We’ve known for a while that the movie rental company was going to make its streaming service available to Xbox 360 users. But what we didn’t know is that it was going to offer movies in HD. Hot diggety, the battle for your TV just got wayyyy more exciting.
Gadget sites Gizmodo and Engadget got a preview of the can’t-come-soon-enough (it’s being released on Nov. 19) update of the Xbox Live service, the “New Xbox Experience.” Part of the upgrade includes the Netflix capability, which appears to work similarly to the Roku’s Netflix player in terms of design and functionality.


Metacafe Chops Producer Payments
Metacafe has changed the payment conditions of its Producer Rewards program, lowering the the amount paid to video creators by more than half. According to a post on Metacafe’s blog today, under the new terms, producers accepted into the program will earn $2 for every 1,000 views. Previously, producers were paid $5 for every 1,000 views.Additionally, Metacafe now explicitly excludes views from outside the U.S. from counting toward those producer rewards. So producers will only get that two bucks when 1,000 views from within the U.S. are reached. These new payment terms start Nov. 1 and will affect both new and existing program participants.


White Spaces Vote Still on FCC Agenda
Despite a chorus of pleas from broadcasters, musicians, sports and concert producers, religious broadcasters and a number of legislators, asking the FCC to reconsider holding a vote on allowing mobile, unlicensed devices to operate in the so-called “white spaces” of the digital spectrum, the planned Nov. 4 vote remained on the commission’s agenda
It could still be pulled anytime up to the day of the meeting. The chairman is said to have at least two votes and is trying to get the third locked down. A source told B&C last week that there were three likely votes, but not set in stone.


Brightcove Scores AOL
Brightcove, which just saw its investors at the New York Times fully deploy its product, now has fellow investor AOL using its video publishing platform. Brightcove will take over from AOL’s terrible home-grown video product “beginning in early 2009,” according to an emailed press release. Brightcove will also be integrated into AOL’s Platform-A advertising offering.


Hulu's One Year Old -- and It Looks Like It's Winning
Hulu is one year old this week. Though it may not generate anything close to the traffic of rival YouTube Inc. , the free online video service appears to be succeeding on its mission by offering a combination of quality streaming TV series and movies that contain only a handful of short commercials.

TMZ Drops Brightcove for Digitalsmiths
It’s hard to measure total reach for white-label video providers, but at least in terms of marketplace perception, Brightcove leads the pack. Be it thePlatform, Ooyala, Fliqz — it’s a long list — no enterprise video player comes through our door without mentioning Brightcove as a competitor.

Beyond YouTube: New Ways to Find Video on the Web
Type "home improvement video" into a traditional search engine and you're likely to get clips of the TV show starring Tim Allen, how-to segments on lawn sprinklers and video of groundbreaking ceremonies of a new Lowe's in Derby, Conn. Now, some video search engines are creating new tools that make it easier to search and sift through the results. Some video-search sites are moving beyond tags and keywords. For example, San Mateo, Calif.-based VideoSurf Inc. is using technology that can search the actual content of the video. Inside YouTube, Google Inc. is experimenting with speech-recognition technology to identify the words and phrases spoken in videos. Some sites, like CastTV, comb the sites of publishers' such as CBS.com and ComedyCentral.com and compile an index of links for one-stop surfing. Other search engines are supplementing traditional search technology by mining for additional details about video clips, such as how they have been rated by viewers and how many times they have been viewed.

Roku, Inc. Receives Funding From Menlo Ventures
Roku Inc., a leading innovator in digital media technology and maker of the popular Netflix Player by Roku, today announced it has received Series C financing from Menlo Ventures. This round follows a Series B investment from Netflix, Inc. that closed in January of this year.Shawn Carolan, a Managing Director at Menlo Ventures, will join the board of Roku. “For years we’ve been looking for a company to bring the convenience and selection of Internet video to the television in a compelling way,” said Mr. Carolan, “when we met the Roku team, observed their success with the Netflix player, and came to know their roadmap we knew our search was over.”

Sony Names Eric Berger Head of Crackle Online Video Network
Pictures Entertainment on Wednesday named Eric Berger, currently its senior vice president of digital networks, to head Crackle, the company's online video network. Berger, who also manages operations for Sony's Minisode Network, the Vault and PIX, will oversee content development and programming, marketing and distribution for Crackle.

Blip.tv Inserts Ads Into iTunes Video
Blip isn’t the first company to offer such a service. VoloMedia and Kiptronic both insert ads into QuickTime videos. The news was announced at a Beet.TV Online Video Summit in New York this morning. These podcast-friendly ads use DoubleClick’s DART platform, but can only support clickthrough when the viewer is watching video within iTunes on a computer. Ads inserted into videos won’t be clickable when watched on other devices like an iPod or an Apple TV. The ads are dynamic, so they can be updated to reflect new campaigns or targeted to reach particular audiences. Examples of ads can be found here and here (both launch iTunes).


Video The Vote
Founded two years ago by Ian Inaba of Guerrilla News Network, John Ennis of Shoot First, Inc., and James Rucker of ColorOfChange.org, Video the Vote seeks to ensure "timely, complete, and accurate reporting of voter suppression and election irregularities by organizing citizen journalists to document elections and then using their footage to raise awareness about the ongoing challenges facing American voters."

Report: Online Video Ads to Surge
Surfing the Web without being fed ads seems more unlikely everyday, especially with the boom of online video. Whether it is pre-, mid- or post-roll, overlays or banner ads, substantial growth in online video ads means most people have seen one, even if they aren't aware.

Growth for online video advertising depends on the audience and the inventor--enough people to watch the ads and enough space to encourage mass marketers to buy the ads.

With 66.8 percent of all U.S. Internet users viewing some form of video advertising (in-stream, in-banner or in-text) at least once a month in 2008, the audience has reached critical mass.

According to eMarketer, by 2012 four out of five U.S. Internet users will view video ads--not surprising, since such ads will be ubiquitous by then.

Anystream Becomes Grab Networks After Acquisition
Anystream, a provider of Internet TV and video distribution services, has renamed itself Grab Networks, following its takeover of content-syndication firm Voxant last month

Online video advertising performance rises during holidays, says Eyeblaster
Digital media advertising solutions provider Eyeblaster released its Analytics Bulletin showing the increased potency of online video during the month of December, including big surges in video ad start rates and average duration among consumers.Eyeblasters’s Analytics Bulletin mentions that according to an eMarketer report, 37% of all Q4 2007 sales in the US were in December – an obvious tie-in to heavy purchasing done during the Christmas season. That data also translates to highest shopping periods online over other months, both with purchasing online and researching products online before conducting an in-store purchase.