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Die YouTube DIE!

Those are the thoughts of many YouTube users. YouTubers are going so balistic about ads being placed onto videos that Google has temporarily stopped showing video ads altogether! Great job guys! Apparently the research and development team at YouTube really thought this one out…

I don’t have any issue with ads being placed on my videos if I had control over what is being shown and that I can actually make money off of it. If I’m embedding the video onto my website, do I not deserve a cut of the money made off of the ad? My viewers are watching the video – not YouTubers!

If YouTube is to survive, it needs ads everywhere. I don’t even think Google is willing to lose billions of dollars on this site if it can’t pull its act together.

But YouTube fans are so dedicated that they have already built a way to avoid YouTube video ads entirely! This FireFox browser extension called TubeStop specifically eliminates ads from your viewing pleasure.

If YouTube can’t guarantee that sponsors receive viewership, why would they want to advertise on YouTube?

Halo Short #2

HALO, Halo, halo…? Can you hear me now?

The second live-action short from Weta studios is here. It’s action packed with real Warthog action. The only question is why is Weta releasing these videos? Are these promotional stunts to try and get studios to fund the Halo film project? I’d probably say yes.

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It’s very interesting how they’ve changed some things in the Halo universe. I mean obviously Halo is a violent and serious game, but at times there is comedy. Shooting at a Grunt and having it scream and runaway are the great moments that Halo 1 brought us. I love how these shorts make the war seem real, upclose, and brutal – but currently as they are only fans will truly enjoy them.

How will Weta open up the Halo series to non-gamers? Does it even have to bother to try and get non-fans into this film series considering Halo 2 sold $125 million in its first day.

I’d love to hear anyone’s thoughts on these questions!

Justice League of America: The Movie – Casting Details

After the Comic-Con revealation for why Batman will not appear on Smallville Warner Bros. goes out and does more stupid shit yet again. This time it actually makes sense with what the producers of Smallville said, new series/movies are being seen as spin-offs so they don’t have to directly relate to one another. In the comic book world there are tons of series with the same heroes, but with alternative interpretations.

JLA cartoon

Warner Bros. is appears to be proceeding with the JLA movie (Justice League of America), but it will not feature Brandon Routh and Christian Bale. So apparently Warner Bros really wants Smallville to be destroyed because JLA will feature both Superman, Batman, and many other DC characters teaming up together. Maybe they didn’t want Superman and Batman teaming up in Smallville so their first live-action scene together could be on the big screen. Money makes the world go round and fans will definitely pay to see this.

The future is not YouTube?

YouTube is implementing video ads on user videos! Runaway, RUNAWAY! Here’s how their new ads work:
15 seconds into your video another video will overlay on top of that near the bottom, the video will stay up for 10 seconds unless the user clicks on it, by clicking on it the ad will play and the user video will pause, if the user doesn’t click on the video after 10 seconds the ad will disappear. This picture within picture sounds great if YouTube were paying the content creators!

While YouTube is still testing out ads there are a couple of services that already provide income to content producers:

Revver – Pre-roll/Post-roll ads. Requirements: original content, payments sent out after you’ve earned $20 or more.

MetaCafe – Banner ads at the bottom of the video. Requirements: original content, video needs at least 20,000 views and a 3 star or higher rating, payments sent out after you’ve earned $100 or more.

These two services are really the only ones that currently pay for your content. While Revver has less requirements before you receive a payment overall I’ve found it difficult to receive views from my videos on it. I don’t know if that’s because no one really goes onto Revver searching for videos or if the people using Revver aren’t interested in the content that I provided. MetaCafe on the other hand is easy to gain a couple hundred views in about a week, but the requirements of having to receive over 20,000 views and a 3 star rating or higher is ridiculous.

There is one more service that does pay users called Brightcove, but it’s really complicated to get your videos uploaded and just like Revver the videos that I did upload received extremely low view counts.

So while you might not get the view counts on these services as you do with YouTube at least you can start earning money today!

[Via SearchEngineLand]

HD-DVD Wins!

In a surprising turn of events Paramount Pictures has come out and said they will release titles on HD-DVD exclusively! This is huge considering the mega Transformers movie will be arriving on the HD format very soon. Kelley Avery, president of Paramount Home Entertainment, said that the reason why Paramount decided to exclusively release movies onto HD-DVD instead of Blu-Ray is because of HD-DVDs better quality and lower cost. Blades of Glory and Transformers will arrive on HD-DVD this Fall as the first batch of titles.

Dreamworks will also be using HD-DVD as their exclusive format and will be releasing Shrek the Third this Fall as well. Other related studios to use HD-DVD in this announcement are Paramount Vantage, Nickelodeon Movies and MTV Films. However Steven Spielberg’s movies will not be exclusive to HD-DVD or Blu-Ray. Considering how anti-HD Spielberg is to begin with it’s not that surprising.

So far Blu-Ray discs have been outselling HD-DVD because Blu-Ray has the higher install base as PS3’s are also Blu-Ray players. On the other hand the cheapest HD-DVD player is the add-on for the Xbox 360 which hasn’t sold spectacularly yet.

Looking at Fall’s HD disc lineup for Blu-Ray the major two titles are Spider-Man 3 and Pirates of the Caribbean 3.

If HD-DVD does not meet or surpass Blu-Ray sales this Holiday season, studios could begin to question the future of the format. For consumers waiting to adopt a HD format things have just gotten a little crazier.

I own the HD-DVD add-on for the Xbox 360, but I haven’t bought a HD movie since I purchased the unit. I can’t tell a huge difference between HD titles and regular DVDs so why pay the extra money per disc? The huge advantage to this next-gen formats is with box sets. Now you’ll be able to fit more hours of content onto a single disc which makes viewing extra features better for everyone.

Blu-Ray is here to stay because Sony is using it on the PS3. As long as the PS3 is bought by consumers, Blu-Ray will always have a stake in this war. If Microsoft truly wants HD-DVD to win they will have to integrate it with the system. I think Microsoft will release this combo system next year if HD-DVD can survive this Holiday season.

[Via Reuters]