The major studios are hopping aboard the viral video bandwagon, sorta. This week sees the launch of two new services that allow you to watch, embed, and send to friends legally uploaded clips from mainstream movies and TV shows. Paramount is dipping its toes into the water via VooZoo, an application for Facebook users that lets you collect selected very short clips from well-known Paramount movies — from Breakfast at Tiffany’s (pictured) to Beverly Hills Cop to Forrest Gump — or send them like greeting cards to other Facebook users. There are still a few bugs and glitches — the lone clip currently listed from The Godfather is actually a clip of Godfather star Diane Keaton in Play It Again, Sam. (D’oh!) But if they build up the library and catalog it properly, VooZoo might become useful or fun.
The other new app is Hulu, a video aggregating site that launches tomorrow with a big library of clips from current and past NBC Universal and Fox shows, as well as handful of movies and NCAA games. The cool thing about Hulu is that you can stream either entire episodes or selected clips — or make your own clips. Now you can send people edits that feature just the 12 seconds you want instead of several minutes. (I tried it out with last weekend’s "3 a.m. Phone Call" sketch from last weekend’s Saturday Night Live, below.)
What do you think, viral video fans? Will VooZoo or Hulu change the way you view TV and movie clips online? Have you tried either one? Do you think either of these represents the future of online video? Or do the studios have yet to take the plunge into online video in a serious, medium-altering fashion?
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I have been using Hulu in Beta for the past several months. I really like the picture quality, which is vastly superior to the grainy YouTube clips, and the ability to cut up the clips is great. The problem with the embedded clips is that you have to sit through an ad before it runs and, as in the clip above, the commercial is longer than the clip itself. Kind of a mixed bag.
I think that Hulu will not solve issues of piracy if it is only available in the United States. Canadians have NBC and FOX in their basic cable packages, so why not allow us to view your online content??
I hear you heather. I can’t even watch the clip embeded here on popwatch because I’m not in the states. Hope EW.com doesn’t start relying on HULU too much.
I’ve also been using Hulu for several months now and keep trying to tell everyone I know to get on it. I don’t use it to watch many clips though, I prefer to watch whole shows, although I agree with Mardicus on the clip issue. It’s also true about not being able to watch the shows outside of the US. I was in France and tried to introduce my friend to Arrested Development (I know, where has she been) and it wouldn’t allow me to show her the episodes. All, in all though, it’s a pretty useful service. Now if only ABC would get on it, I could watch all my fav shows in one place.
can i watch on my ipod touch?
heather is completely right. I download pirated shows all the time, because NBC won’t let me watch the shows on their site in Canada, yet I can easily watch it on tv if I happen to be home. How does this make any sense, that I can access it legally on television only, but Americans can have it on internet and tv? Not discouraging piracy at all (sidenote: most pirated copies I find online come from Canada or France)
Hulu has been a required site for me for a while now. Working nights, and with a wife and new child, there’s just no way to record every show that I want to check out and watch it when we want to see other shows. Having everything in one place is nice. And it’s been nice to see some of the dearly departed shows that never got a chance to catch on or finish its initial run (The Tick! Kitchen Confidential!)
I think I liked Hulu when it was more exclusive.
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TV-LINKS is back as TV-LINKS.EU!
The biggest movie database on the internet is back. Movies, tv shows, cartoons, anime, documentaries. No flashy ads, no money, no pop-ups, just clean entertainment. Give us a good rating, because we deserve it!
Give us a try: http://www.tv-links.eu
Regards,
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