MetaBroadcast Blog

Part of the research for our future consumer product is assessing the volume and quality of video content available online. One approach is to analyse video sources. A couple of days ago Chris pointed towards the Internet Archive as it has dedicated a whole section to public domain video content. They digitise it in several formats, host it, allow us to play it and offer it for download, as well. Regrettably, one cannot yet embed the videos. Why regrettably? Because they are literally sitting on a pot of gold: over 110,000 videos yet to travel the internets and, consequently, promote this amazing treasure and effort.

For more proof that free quality video is available online, let’s also consider:

• The success of YouTube, especially as a viable channel for small budget short movies and animations (rather than your everyday home video/ copyright-infringing publishing of a recorded TV show);
• More and more old movies, cartoons, documentaries a.s.o. are entering the public domain in one country or other (e.g. Mickey Mouse is still copyrighted in the U.S., but not in Russia);
• BitTorrent client Vuze, formerly Azureus, has topped 10 million unique monthly users this January* and a good number of them must enjoy free videos, legally made available in the Vuze library.

These said, let’s now find out where video content resides online, beyond the usual suspects (YouTube, Daily Motion, MySpace, Metacafe, Vimeo, etc.) and spread the good news—shall we?