The Future of Media #80: Movies

Well we've come a long way since these....

I started by going to Hulu and searching just for movies and though I wouldn't use the term extensive in regards to its library, I was pleasantly suprised to find Of Mice and Men. Now when those young adults come looking for the movie for the book they are reading, I can tell them they can watch it online!

I do enjoy foreign films so next I went to The Auteurs and at first glance, I thought it might be promising but first it made me sign up in order to view a video and then after I joined the site I realized I was unable to view any videos I was interested in viewing. I kept getting this message:
"There are no films for Sundance Film Festival 2010 that are viewable in your area"
"There are no films for Festival de Cannes 2009 that are viewable in your area"
"There are no films for Tribeca Film Festival 2010 that are viewable in your area"
Three strikes - you're out...

My kids have used a Redbox a few times but I don't like the whole vending machine idea. I have lost way too much $ trying to purchase things in a vending machine so the last thing I want to do is use my credit card in one.

In my opinion the best place to view a full-lenth digital film would be on Overdrive via HCPL.
I recommend Super Size Me, The World's Fastest Indian, As Far As My Feet Will Carry Me and Paper Clips. And of course Of Mice and Men is always available on Overdrive via HCPL too. However for the exercise I went to Hulu and found What's Eating Gilbert Grape so I decided to watch it. Though there were plenty to choose from it wasn't like I was standing in front of Blockbuster's newest releases. I can and have watched entire films on my computer and it's ok when I'm in the mood for that but I still prefer to watch the real TV screen. I can also hook my laptop up to my TV and view it on my TV screen which I've done a few times.

I viewed a few trailers at Apple Trailers and at IMDB but usually when I want to view a trailer I'll go the studio or movie website directly. I use IMDB frequently to help patrons find movies if they don't know the title.

I would not, at this time, sign up for any fee based services as I get almost all the movies I watch from the library for free or we purchase them to keep. I don't like to buy them until I've seen them at least once but the one's my girls want they have usually already seen it in theaters. With a daughter away in college and another soon to be off to college renting movies is not something I'm spending money on right now. In addition, it seems with all everything else, work, genealogy, knitting, scrapbooking, etc... I don't have the time to spend watching movies that would make it a worthwhile purchase for us at this time.

YouTube Video Speed History

To go along with the latest iHCPL training module The Future of Media I thought this might be of interest. It's the YouTube Video Speed Dashboard. You can perform your own speed test. The image above is a screen shot of the speed test I performed on a college computer here at the Tomball branch of HCPL. To read more about it check out Google's Next Step in Speeding Up the Web.

The Future of Media #79: Television

I went to Hulu and searched for shows from the DIY Network, a channel I like but don't receive. They have shows I like including Desperate Landscapes, Bathtastic, Kitchen Impossible, and Blog Cabin. It appears that the full length shows are available. Not on the DIY network but also under the home and garden category was a show I wasn't aware of called Deserving Design with one of my favorite designers Vern Yip which airs on the HGTV network. Full episodes are also available of this show. Wanting to find a show where full episodes are not available I kept looking and found that though clips of The Ellen DeGeneres Show, "full episodes are not available for online streaming at this time." I also went to TV.com and searched for Deserving Design which is available as well as the other DIY Network shows I mentioned earlier. The Ellen DeGeneres show only had 2 video clips available to view on TV.com. I found that Hulu had a nicer presentation and was easier to search as compared to TV.com.

I have never watched a TV show on my cell phone and I don't think I would ever want to do so. When I watch TV now I'm viewing it on a 42" TV so going down to something that is 2.4" x 4.6" in the case of the Droid or 4 1/2" x 2 2/5" in the case of the iPhone just doesn't seem like an good thing to me.

I don't view any streaming programs or user "channels" regularly. I just don't have this much extra time on my hands. I have created videos but I don't usually post them to any sites on a regular basis. I have put one or two on Facebook and my blog.