Some communities focus on a very specific genre, while all kinds of videos can be found in others. Check out the best video sharing sites for video broadcasting and viral marketing:

YouTube – It’s the most popular of all. New online streaming portals may contain some other functionality, but when it comes to traffic stats, YouTube is still number one.

Current – Interactive media where you can share and vote on videos, texts and photos. The best voted videos are broadcasted on TV.

Yahoo! Video – A Youtube competitor with no special features, but fair traffic.

Metacafe – A great choice in curiosity and fun videos broadcasting. Frequently used for viral marketing in other countries.

Google Video – Easy to use.

Revver – High quality streaming, slightly slow for video broadcasting.

Dailymotion – Alice’s video portal. Easy to use, indicated for viral broadcasting due to its functionalities.

Veoh – The successor to Stage6. Find a wide range of TV series and programs in streaming, besides users’ videos.

Sclipo – Self promotion, indicated to professional use. It’s a kind of LinkedIn video (or it aspires to).

Viddler – Ads profits are shared with publishers, but each video is manually checked under strict criteria of validation. Images on a connected TV can target a video refusal due to copyright issues.

Vimeo – Fine HD quality and definition, easy to use.

Graspr - Tutorials on just about… anything (how-to videos).

5min – Another video portal for micro courses of all kinds and demands.

Howcast - How to do…

StupidVideos.com – The name explains it all. Great gags for workmates.

Imeem – Plus music and photo, ideal for artists.

Break – Live recorded accidents and curious situations. Real online TV like.

Bolt – Lifecasting, life sharing. A must among teenagers.

ClipShack – Streaming geotagging and sharing.

Eyespot – Video sharing and remixing.

Jumpcut – The best choice in online video-editing and remix.

KMPlayer is a free video player and it’s perfect for PC2LCD connection. It has DivX, Xvid, Wmv, Mpeg, VPx, H.263, H.264 codecs embedded, and much more. In addition, it supports external codecs and can be used as a default videoplayer.

I tested KMPlayer in an 720 HD video and I was impressed by the images quality on my LCD.

KMPlayer offers a wide range of specific controls for TV out to which your pc can be connected (obviously, it is much better on an LCD TV).

Here I mention only some of them to give you an idea:

• Aspect Ratio (4:3, 16:9, etc.)
• Height and width control of video framing on the tv screen internal area (Pan)
• Positioning on the inside of the video (Scan)
• Light, contrast and color
• Subtitles positioning inside the framing

and much more. Subtitle management is really remarkable: KMPlayer really manages video subtitles as external files that can be edited by users and loaded as an additional configuration file for the video. Therefore, it is the user who creates movies subtitles in several languages, which can be downloaded as separate files and previewed on screen through a customized overlapping system.

The software is korean, but, just like for the subtitles, the users translate and provide access to all software translations into several languages.

Audio management is great, so… why don’t you just download it?

Download KMPlayer here.

It’s enough to start a small TV Player (about 10 Mb) in order to enter into hundreds of different channels.

TV Player set up

It’s enough to download the small Viviplayer and start it. This program is compatible with Windows, but it needs:

• Windows XP or Win 2000 (equipe with SP2)
• Source processor 300 MHz
• a 128 MB RAM
• 10 MB free room
• DSL Internet connection with at least 512 kbit/s up and downstream
• Windows Media Player 9 or 10

TVKoo interface

The channels list is in the down right position column, listed for their kind (and not for their nationality). Particularly we can find there:

• Cable TV Channels
• Cartoon
• Hot Movie
• Integrative Channels
• Music
• Opera
• Other TV & Movie Channels
• Test
• TV Shows

When you open the category menu you can enter into channels:

• If you click once you’ll be shown the preview on the little up right position screen;
• With a double click you can connect to the channel that will be then visualized in the central principal area.

For European and American users it is also available the English web control of channels, but sometimes entering the site is quite troublesome.

Not just sport on TVKoo

What can we find on TVKoo channels? Many things. A part from the famous CCTV (also available on PPLive), Chinese channels are famous in Italy  for the cases coolstreaming and calciolibero.com, as they provided links to live streaming of Italian championship football matches. You can also find other ones that broadcast the main world football matches and others important sport events.

Take care..

Even if the official site tries to reassure you about TV Player safety, you must pay attention that during TVKoo tests we found several times some malware (virus) in those web pages used for all channels lists visualization. Therefore, even if the application is a safe one, it can be dangerous anyway as it uses as sources virus or malware infected web pages.

We still don’t know if this one is a momentary situation or not. So, be careful!

Therefore, I personally made my own experience.

The first thing to say is that I am not speaking about commercial services. For web Tv I mean:

• Having a boundless net use;
• Freedom in choice of any software (such as Mediaportal,  Streamerone, PPLive, or Miro/Democracy and so on), without being forced to choose any others;
• No subscriptions, apart from web line that I use for my streaming connection.

For this kind of freedom I have only one solution: connecting my pc to my cable Tv.

My tools

1. An LCD 32” Tv with VGA entry;
2. A docking system I connected my notebook to;
3. A medium level quality notebook;
4. A Bluetooth keyboard and mouse (up to 15 meters capacity);
5. An internet line supposed to be 1280 Kbps, but on contrary supporting  670 Kbps (I tested it).

So, there’s nothing particularly expensive or of hard technology.

How to create your own Home Web self branded system

Here you have all the connections I made:

1. First of all I connected my notebook and docking, and then I set the driver too. A docking system allows your laptop pc to interface to other peripheral devices as, for instance, another monitor, Tv, keyboard, etc.;
2. Then I connected the docking VGA port to Tv VGA, in order to send my pc video signal to my home Tv;
3. I connected the docking exit audio jack (usually the headphones one) to the Tv audio jack (you can either use a couple of amplified speakers suitable to your pc);
4. At last I set on my notebook the Bluetooth keyboard in order to control all the system in a really comfortable way.

At this very moment I met the first real problem: notebook display and Tv screen syncronization. Either one and the other have a series of limited resolutions: you should find the same one for both and set it either on the notebook (interfaced to the docking) and on the Tv in order to see all images and controlling your PC from Tv using a wireless keyboard.

You need to pay attention then to the notebook video mode setting: it must be set in “clone” or “mirror” mode as the image sent to the Tv must be the same one we see on our pc screen.

When I succeeded in solving this problem:

1. I started my notebook and tuned my Tv in the VGA entry port;
2. I sat down on my sofa with my wireless keyboard and mouse;
3. I started Coolstreaming mediaplayer test (but you can either use any internet Tv program).

Streaming quality: the most important test

Here we are at the core of the problem: can an ordinary user with a simple 640 Kbps ADSL succeed in watching web Tv in a real proper way, with no interruptions and good image and audio quality? I started the visualization of streamings from lower speed ones, such as 150/200 Kbps, to gradually rising speed ones.

Leaving all tricky streaming, I discovered I could have an excellent web TV quality also with 800 Kbps streaming transmissions.

I was particularly stroke by Desync quality, that during my tests was transmitting very good films, with a very surprising quality: I imagined thet if in that particular moment I had had some friends at home, I think that none would have understood he was watching a web Tv. I suggest you to do your own experience!

These are all results I had by a 700 Kbps line.

So, now, I can say that web Tv can really substitute the traditional cable one!

I can choose among thousands of online channels and then choosing which programs I can use to watch streaming Tv. You now have only an embarrassment of riches! Of course everything depends on your line speed and quality, but even with a very simple one you can substitute your traditional Tv with web one.

Here you have a short list of useful links:

Peer-to-peer Tv or web Tv softwares

• Mediacenter di Coolstreaming
• PPLive
• TVKoo
• TVAnts
• SeeTV
• Miro
• MediaPortal

An important statement

If anyone of you may think I did all this just for seeing football matches for free is doing a big mistake: as much as about this I created my personal slogan with a sort of stadium banner: SKY I won’t clone you, as I won’t subscribe to you. (Italian: “SKY, non ti clono. E non mi abbono”).

I just wanted to give my tribute to fight all that bad quality promotion carried out by web companies, trying to convince all consumers that best quality web internet products are just theirs.

Web Tv means:

• Watching all your favourite programs;
• The way you prefer;
• Whenever you want;
• No contracts;
• No subscriptions ( a part from the connection one);
• No need of any particular technological support.

All the rest is not web Tv, but we are dealing with private services for sale. Internet Tv is not for sale: that’s already yours.

Compared  to Mogulus TV, USTream and Yahoo! Live, CSLive is defined by its ease of use. Free from Mogulus complex functionalities and from USTream shows management, it could become an ideal tool for those who want to approach live streaming on internet not having to go through more complex video broadcast configuration.

CSLive Functionalities

The best CSLive feature is that it allows the beginning of an online streaming almost instantaneously while you chat with your viewers. All you need is a webcam online and a mic.

Main functionalities:

• you can set the quality of video broadcast on-the-fly
• embedded  ascii chat
• adjustable audio level
• external video player for your blog (or others web pages)
• you can broadcast private shows locking your streaming with a password

Here’s the control panel:

And the control toolbar below the video panel:

After your subscription you have to login into your control panel and click on Publish button to start an audio/video streaming. You can also set a  name and a category for your channel which will be listed on the home page.

Streaming quality

Quality depends by your internet connection bandwidth. I’ve performed a test on a 10Mbps ADSL in Downstream and 256kbps in Upstream. Here’s the outflow during the test:

In order to let a friend of mine (connected from home with a 7Mbps DSL) watch a fluid video streaming  with a 7Mbps ADSL, I had to configurate the video quality rate on my video panel at 50%.

Finally, it’s a good service that focuses on simplicity and it might come up as a great solution for those who don’t have the need for complex functionalities or an advanced managing of script programs.

An excellent user interface will allow video mash-up, broadcast and packaging in order to create your TV channel in streaming completely online without need to install new software or configure hardware.

You can embed your streaming channel into your website with a simple html code in the same way you embed YouTube videos. Mogulus is different from others streaming solutions (as UStream for instance) because does not require new video production: it let you to aggregate live channels in order to build an authoritative media.

Being able to aggregate existing video contents means broadcast your own authoritative streaming channel with no need of video production. Out there there’s already all you need: just select, aggregate and put it live.

In few words Mogulus finally provide to all site owners and micro publishers the requirement number one for a killer web site: give to your users a reason to visit your site once a day.

From the Broadcast Your Own Live TV Station Online: Announcing Mogulus Video of Michael Pick:

“ Mogulus simplifies the process of working together whether you are mixing together storyboards of video content brought in from YouTube or your own computer, or preparing captions and motion graphics to display between live straight-to-camera presentations and pre-loaded video clips.

Effectively, I can be speaking straight to camera, while my co-producer at the other side of the world is cueing up the next clip, adding graphics to the screen or putting together a storyboard of news videos to run concurrently as soon as I hand over control.

And you don’t even have to be in the room to broadcast your channel live, thanks to the addition of an ‘auto-pilot’ feature that will run through a list of videos that you have presented it with, sending them out as a live broadcast

With Mogulus you can do everything. Video producers can mix their video contents with live streaming channels. But also the laziest users who do not want/can produce new content will be able simply to aggregate streaming TV channels and package an original video channel in a simple way. Imho this is the real innovation. Summing up you can:

• Create your TV in streaming
• Create new video co-operating with other producers, or …
• Mash-up your videos with live streaming channels or …
• Select and aggregate only existing videos …
• …and finally broadcast your streaming TV into your web site

Take a look at the official Mogulus video introduction:

Mogulus is still a beta application beta testers are activated time by time upon system availability. Therefore, if you want to subscribe probably you need to wait a little for the account activation.

In other words, everyone will be able to make his/her own TV.

This happens thanks to an extremely interesting technology used by Streamer One that applies the concept of peer-to-peer to internet TV. Up to now the difficulty of sending a constant flow of data was due to the exorbitant price of the band used. StreamerOne is an application that actually removes this obstacle by fragmenting the video flow to a restricted number of users, who in turn transmit it to others through to a cascade procedure.

The software can be downloaded and installed for testing and trials, but we firmly believe that Streamer One possesses the bases to become the final agent of the ultimate break of the monopoly on written, audio and video information. We quote from streamerone.it site;

What is StreamerOne

StreamerOne is a web broadcasting system able to distribute high quality audio/video streaming to a theoretically unlimited number of contemporary users. Till yesterday the broadcasting on internet of live or TV events that would involve thousands of users at the same time was pure fantasy. As a matter of fact, video distribution through conventional (unicast) streaming on internet is deeply influenced by technical parameters referable as:

• Provider’s capability to digitally connect to internet backbone
• Processing capability of the streaming server(s)

This implies unicast service supply costs are directly proportional to the number of users to reach and to the quality (number of pixels per frame, number of frames per second) of the video to distribute. StreamerOne is the first P2P streaming system to use a completely Italian technology making available its international experiences, know-how and infrastructures in order to meet professionals’, companies’ and organizations’ requirements.

Technology

Unrestricted number of user and superior image quality are the main features of StreamerOne, made achievable by the use of Peer to Peer technology applied to video flow distribution. In practice the stream source starts fragmenting and supplying the flow to a limited number of users, who in turn re-distribute it to other ones who get connected through a mechanism of cascade sharing. Sophisticated algorithms manage users connection and disconnection to the streaming, while data exchange between source and peerer is secured by the use of public and private key.

Original flow quality is unimportant.

However, it is worth considering the kind of internet connection the target users may have. For instance, for ADSL connections with an upload nominal speed of 512 kbps a flow of 280kbps is preferable, corresponding in terms of video quality to VHS with FM audio. In order to display the streaming, user needs installing a player made for the purpose of activating P2P both with Windows Media Video(WMV) and Real Player (RP) flows. The player is offered as free-ware. Once the player is active, user has to wait a few seconds to access the system and to start receiving the video signal without any interruption. The main feature of this P2P utilization mode compared to file sharing systems, often blamed for copyright violation, consists in the public acquaintance of the video flow source which is unique, known and identifiable beyond any doubt.

Services

Services connected to the use of StreamerOne are addressed to those operators who intend sharing out through internet, in a continuative or simply occasional way, high quality video contents to an unrestricted number of users:

• Access to the channel from the complete list of broadcasting station residing in the platform
• Access to the channel from a custom web page
• Access to the channel through username and password
• Detailed statistics regarding the access to the channel
• Multibitrate trasmission

This software is supplied in 2 languages, Chinese and English, even if some texts such as the name of some channels are not translated from Chinese in the English version.

Many of the sport events in Italy are paid for, can be watched for free on the channels provided by PPLive as well as sport events of others countries.

These channels obviously have the broadcasting rights in their own geographical jurisdiction but, clearly enough, in internet borders and geography do not mean much. Thus, by sending the streaming signal in the network, everybody can follow these events.

How it works

The PPLive set up file has a size of 5 Mb; once installed the programme icon appears on Windows taskbar. By double-clicking it, a small interface is open, with the video on the left side and a list of channels, many of which with indecipherable names, on the right.

In order to open a channel, one has just to double-click on its name, wait for PPlive to connect to the streaming and preload, and the video will start.

We tested some of them and, honestly, have been struck by the image quality, considering that the signal is a streaming via internet and underlining anyway that, in order to get a satisfying image quality, it would be better to support a streaming of at least 300k, that is to have a good connection supported by a good modem.

Channels and events

Obviously many, most of the channels are Chinese or from East Asia, but some of them have the rights to broadcast events which here are charged and, anyway, also programmes in many other languages are provided.

I contacted Miguel and Ana Belén  before the final event because i liked the idea of the project; it allows storing and sharing with other users your travel information and xperiences.

You can find the interview transcription under the videoplayer but it was impossible to transcript a little part because of a very high background noise (sorry for this).

Dan Di Gregorio: Hi guys, i’m dan from ikaro. I’m with Miguel from Wolpy. Wolpy is one of the finalists of  StartUp 2.0 event here in Barcelona. So, Miguel let’s explain what Wolpy is.

Miguel Abad: Well, wolpy.com is a web application where you can store informations about travels and share it with your friends and other Wolpy users. We are very focused on usability and ease of  use and also we want to develop features as users final feedback shows what’s requested by them.

Dan: Did you had a business plan from the beginning or did you started the project with your partner just for fun?

Miguel Abad: At first we started for fun and also because we wanted an application like that for our travels. At that time we knew some applications but they were not exactly what we wanted… Right now, some time after we started to code some sites appeared but still we feel that we can do it better in some aspects.

Dan: How do you plan to improve the service in the near future, what is your priority list?

Miguel Abad: Right now we’re developing a very requested feature by users, a system to leave comments between them and improving the social aspect of the site. That’s important because it allows people to feel closer and interact better.

Dan: I hope the best for you. I like your project because the idea is really simple but in the same time is very useful because everyone travels and (wolpy) it’ a kind of word-of-mouth automation. Good luck.

[viddler id=6eab077d&w=437&h=370]

UnLtdWorld got the second prize. It’s a social netwotk which enables social entrepreneurs, socially-minded people and socially-driven organisations to share, shape and use social insight to generate greater positive impact in the real world.

iFoods.tv is the 3rd most interesting StartUp of Europe.  It is the new and hip way of interacting with other food lovers worldwide with tons of hi-quality video recipes.

Our Article Marketing Italia reached the 35th position on a total of 187 admitted partecipants. Thanks anyway for your votes! We’ll try again the next year with the english version of the service.

So, the future seems to be…. social

Daniela (who take care about the portoguese version of ikaro) and me also liked Wolpy, a social network for travellers which allows to share experiences of journey worldwide. We had a little talk about Wolpy with the co-founder Miguel Abad and we’ll publish the video interview soon.
TechCrunch UK organized a meetup after the event for those who was not invited to join the official prize giving dinner, but we decided to fight against tons of fresh fish in a nice restaurant  at the BCN olympic port

This is our video streaming that shows a little part of each presentation and the winner announcement.