Hollywood, for some, is a place of fantasies and dreams considered unattainable by many. There’s a great many of us who at one point dreamed of making it big and entertaining millions. For some of us we watch movies and laugh, saying that we could easily have played that part better. Well now you can put yourself in a movie with Yoostar.
Yoostar provides you with a green screen, studio-grade webcam, remote control and PC software. The price for being famous comes in at the low cast of $170. The package comes with 12 movie scenes to select from, placing you in the middle of the action, but more scenes are available via download. So now reach that Hollywood status may not be something we all achieve from real life, but in all, this sounds like a fun way to approach a Friday or Saturday night, but how long does the fun really last?
Your recordings and placement into the movie scenes are spit out in a web-ready clip that can be posted online for all your friends to see. Personally this sounds like something I’d probably pass over, but for some of us, it’s as attractive as Karaoke. I know better that if I was not cast in a movie or allowed to sing a song I stay away…far away. The worst part of the whole experience?
“Playing at a home near Yoo!”
Is that what the marketing team came up with? This does not bold well my friends.
FreeMoviesTheatre pretty much does what it says on the tin and that is provide some great movies users can watch right within their browser. The site itself provides a great list of genres from Animated to Bollywood and Sci-Fi. All the latest movies are there too, plus they have a simple option to download the movies. I would like to see the site have a easier download function instead of using a third party, however if they did this them I’m sure their site would be illegal.
Currently, FreeMoviesTheatre has over 4500 movies online and they are growing fast. Im not entirely too sure how legal this site is, but make use of it before they get taken down!
Stagevu is a new site in which im not too sure how long it will be around, so make sure you check it out before it is completely gone. Stagevu is a basic service that allows users from all over the world to search and watch movies, movie trailers, tv shows and more, all for free and without having to download any software.
Stagevu to me seems completely illegal and im sure the site will get shut down eventually, but in the meantime it is completely legal for users to use the service. Most of the movies on the service do seem like they have been filmed illegally in China by handycam, but if you keep looking you are bound to find a good version of the movie you are looking for.
Here at Crenk we have previously talked a lot about sites like Movie Watch List and Trailer Reviews in which seem to offer a similar service and have been around a lot longer, so we will see how long Stagevu can stick it out.
Voddler is a new video startup that launch back in private beta back in July 2009. Currently it is rumoured that only 1,500 people have access to the site, so we wanted to run through the service for everyone else.
Voddler won’t be launched officially until sometime this fall, and then only in the Nordic countries for starters. The agenda is to go global, though.
Voddler aims to do for movies and TV series what Spotify is doing for music. Although in private beta Voddler already seems to be getting a lot of buzz in Scandinavia, so we hope to let everyone else know about it.
Voddler is available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux, Voddler will also be providing a Linux-based box with a pre-installed client that you can easily connect to your TV to get that home cinema feel.
Here below is a screenshot of the latest design of the landing page, designed to work best on widescreen televisions.
Movies are of course a lot more bandwidth-intensive than music. How well Voddler works for you will depend on your Internet connection. To get 1080p HD quality you should have an 8 Mbit/s connection, for 720p HD quality you should have a 5 Mbit/s connection, and for DVD quality you should have a 2.5 Mbit/s connection. Contrast this with Spotify which only has to deal with music streaming and therefore works just fine with a mere 256 kbit/s connection.
Ever been dying to go to a concert, football match or F1 Grand Prix but the most plausible thing happened and you went to buy the tickets two seconds too late. Despair and anger (mostly towards yourself). The only chance you stand now is going on a mission to hunt down someone who has tickets (that may or may not be genuine) and pay two weeks wages for them.
Fear not – seathound.com has the answer. It’s a pretty basic idea and that’s why I love it. Ask any businessman/entrepreneur and they’ll tell you that tackling everyday, well-known problems is the way to make millions in this world.
Seat Hound will locate dozens of tickets for sale. Some are on eBay, others are on independent ticket sales sites – but who cares where you get them? The point is that you’re going!
I typed in ‘U2’ to check it out. I was greeted by dozens of search results from their upcoming gig in Croke Park here in Dublin to events as far away as October in Phoenix. The guys at Seat Hound have clearly done their work. Even small artists that you wouldn’t hear of everyday are listed. This is a great service that I fully intend to use – a lot!
It also saves you money as it displays the ticket prices right next to one another so you can get the best one. Seat Hound will also be so kind as to tell you where the ticket is in relation to the stage, pitch or track etc…. so you won’t need to bring the binoculars.
One bad thing that I will say about it however (and I really am nit picking here) is that it is US focused. While you can still find gigs all over the world – the homepage is dominated by the stripes and the stars. A UK or European version wouldn’t go amiss. 9/10
Vuze is a handy piece of kit that lets you stream or download videos from the internet. Similar to services already available such as MegaVideo, only now you have the added functionality of a media player, library and subscription services for podcasts and specific genres.
You download Vuze here (less than 10Mb) and install it in under five minutes. No need to restart your PC or do any complicated set up, so already it was in my good books. Upon opening the program for the first time I was greeted by a fairly simple interface that the average computer user could navigate. Search Bar, Library, Current Downloads and even a helpful ‘Getting Started’ section to guide you through the stages (although you really shouldn’t need it).
One thing that caught my eye was HD. Lucky for me, my new laptop was indeed HD compatible so I decided to search for a HD clip. I typed in ‘Public Enemies’ into the search bar and up popped a load of results. I could either watch the whole movie or simply a trailer. The HD quality was outstanding which surprised me as the download took less than a minute. Sound and playback quality was also top notch. No jumpy movies like you get with browser players.
Another section is ‘Devices’. Now, Vuze is fully compatible with a host of portable devices such as your iPod, iPhone, laptop, and other portables. It also works a treat on the PS3 and XBOX 360.
If you’re a videographer you can also publish your content on the Vuze network. This is great for publicizing your stuff to a large audience and also for Podcasts looking to branch out. It’s really easy to upload etc.. There are also special packages available for those uploading load of content to give them priority and good exposure on the Vuze Network.
One area I think that Vuze could improve is with the extra content. There should be a minimal browser built in to allow you to view the community pages without having to kick-start Firefox. This would give it a seamless affect and just be handy in general.
All things considered however, this is a spectacular piece of software and one I’ll be using a lot from now on. I think web based video torrents are having their final farewells. 9/10
It never fails that sometimes when I try to import my music CD’s that I don’t have the right album art to show in my music player. When it comes to music I’m picky, and I like my music to be labeled correctly, ratings, rankings, album names, and definitely album art.
If you’re like me, then All CD Covers might be the place to stop in order to fill the missing void of album art you might have in your playlist. With over 100,000 album art and growing, there is a good chance you’ll find what you need.
As an added bonus they also offer movie and game cover art for all of your media. It’s a nice one stop shop to get yourself caught up and make your file listings attractive and cataloged just right.
Sidereel is one of the best looking video search engines I have seen online. Sidereel is a video search engine that lets users easily find websites where they can watch their favourite tv shows and movies online for free. Sidereel doesnt host much of the content themselves, but they do have a lot of tools that help users discuss and share their favourite shows.
Sidereel is always upto date with all of the major tv shows on all the major networks in the USA and International. THe discussion section of Sidereel is a great place to see what other people are thinking about the tv shows or movies and the community is growing on a daily basis.
It is also great to see a professionally designed site that isnt cluttered without crappy ads everywhere.
Preview Networks has just launched a new iPhone application that brings the newest and most popular movie trailers to your iPhone for free. Preview Networks is the company behind filmtrailer.com and supplies film trailers to the Guardian, the Times and 1000 other sites in 9 European countries for free.
The App, Trailers International, came about because they were simply tired of seing on American film trailers on iPhones. Trailers International is completely free in the App store and it includes accurate release dates and meta data for 10 European countries.
The App contains both domestically made films, independent titles from across the world, as well as US blockbusters in Spanish, French, German, Italian and even Swedish. It contains great upcoming British films like Awaydays, In The Loop, Shifty and Dead Men Walking – that have never been seen in an trailers Application before. The App is built on platform of the existing app Trailers and is the fastest movie trailers App around.
The application can be download from the App Store for free, just click here.
YouTube has always been the number one destination online to see quick short videos of pretty much anything. Now YouTube has added a new feature to its USA site, tv shows and movies! Professionally produced dramas, comedies, documentaries, cartoons, and news programs.
So why the addition? Simple, professional content is a lot easier to monetize than user generated content. According to the New York Times, Google has signed agreements to distribute content from Sony, Lions Gate, CBS, MGM, and other studios.
The move will allow YouTube to place pre-roll, post-roll, and interstitial ads in video content, something it doesn’t do with user generated videos.
Right now, the selection of TV shows and movies on YouTube is rather sad. Most of the content consists of old programs that you probably forgot existed, plus one new show from CBS: Harper’s Island. Since Fox and NBC are the driving forces behind Hulu, it’s not likely that we’ll see their content on YouTube anytime soon.
Have you ever wanted to watch a movie online but don’t want to have to download anything to view it? Well the answer is Watch-Movies-Online.tv. All movies on Watch Movies are full length and there is no downloading required.
The site lets you search for movies, browse them alphabetically or by genre such as action, fantasy, drama, sci-fi, horror, thriller, adventure, comedy, war and animation. You can also check out latest releases. Each movie is rated by site users so you can easily find out the movie quality before watching it.
Over at Stanford artificial intelligence researchers have developed an amazing piece of software that im sure Google will purchase very soon. The software makes it easy to place and manipulate an image into a piece of video. Thus, could allow advertising to be simply placed in any video.
It works for videos as well – you can play a video on a wall inside your video. The technology can cheaply do some of the tricks normally performed by expensive commercial editing systems.
More information at ZunaVision but first watch the demo video:
This software would be perfect for video makers who place their videos onto Youtube, because they will be able to sell advertising very simply within the videos. This would also mean that they could place their videos and promote on Bittorrent related sites, cause the content owner is drawing an income. Just a thought!
