Microsoft launched a site dubbed the MSN Video Player in the U.K. Thursday that aims to be something of a U.K. version of Hulu, featuring TV shows like Peep Show, League of Gentlemen and Doctor Who. It’s pretty standard fare, as far as British online TV content is concerned. In fact, the recently-launched Seesaw platform offers an almost identical catalog. However, there’s one feature worth noting: MSN Video Player uses Microsoft Silverlight to stream video if possible, but it defaults to a Flash-based player for users without Silverlight.

That’s an important departure from Microsoft’s earlier habit of forcing users to download Silverlight to access any content at all, and it acknowledges that Silverlight is still far from being as omnipresent as Adobe’s Flash.

MSN Video Player isn’t the only site that has adopted such a dual strategy for Silverlight and Flash, and Adobe has been making inroads with content providers previously signed up with Move Networks as well. YouTube and some other sites have recently been experimenting with HTML5, and Apple’s decision to ship the iPad without Flash has gotten some people to wonder whether a big switch to HTML5 and H.264 is on the horizon. But for the time being, it looks like Adobe is stronger than ever.

Visit the MSN Video Player site without Silverlight installed on your machine, and you’d barely notice a difference to other Flash-based platforms. Videos start in Flash without any hiccup, or warning message for that matter, and playback in full-screen mode isn’t an issue either.  Granted, the site does feature a small button labeled “MSN Video Player works best with Silverlight” somewhere in its upper left corner, but honestly, it’s barely noticeable, and there’s no explanation as to how installing it will improve the experience.

The MSN Video Player site isn’t alone with offering Flash as a substitute for Silverlight. March Madness On Demand, a CBS-affiliated site that is expected to serve tons of live streams as the NCAA Men’s College Basketball Tournament goes underway starting this Sunday, also offers a Flash stream, albeit with a lower bit rate than their Silverlight player is going to offer. One reason for CBS’s reluctance to go all out with Silverlight could be that NBC has been taking a beating for forcing users to install Silverlight ever since the 2008 Olympics.

Biut what about HTML5? Google rolled out a test of the standards-based way of playing video straight in your browser without any plug-in in January, and Wikipedia is gearing up for a major HTML5 video roll-out across its site as well. However, differences about the codec used in various implementations have delayed the adoption of HTML5, and advertisers haven’t signed on to the format yet either, making it unlikely that it will be chosen as a default solution by any of the big commercial platforms any time soon.

Flash, meanwhile, continues to make inroads. This week, ESPN announced that it is dumping Move Networks for MLB Advanced Media, a switch that includes transitioning from Move’s video plug-in to Flash. ESPN isn’t alone in abandoning Move for Flash — Fox.com left the erstwhile high-flying start-up in January for Flash delivered by Brightcove, and ABC.com is reportedly working on a similar transition.

The fact Move lost all these high-profile customers may have a lot to do with issues related to pricing and the overall direction of the company; the fact however that those customers went right back to Flash, and not to Silverlight, should give HTML5 supporters pause. It was easy for the FSF to get headlines when it recently suggested killing Flash. Following through with that goal could prove to be much harder.

Image courtesy of Flickr user Cameron  Russell.

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It’s a tricky thing to pull off, producing a show that can’t be pigeonholed into any one genre, but new indie entry Off-Key has somehow managed to carve out a place for itself in the space between drama, comedy and thriller.

In fact, upon closer inspection, that lack of genre distinction is a key part of the show’s original voice. In the four episodes to air so far (premiering Tuesdays and Thursdays), Jonas (Jonathan Northover), a famous singer-songwriter who’s on the run from agents, reporters and maybe even the mob (though that last one might have been a joke) is hiding out with his old high school friend Norah (Liz Beach) — who’s not too sure what he’s doing there. Meanwhile, the outside world threatens to invade in the form of Anika (Chris Farishon), a tabloid journalist who’s sure she can track him down.

Told in short, tight increments written and directed by Jaz Garewal, Off-Key episodes manage to give the actors breathing space while planting intriguing developments. But it could use a lot more momentum. While the short length of the episodes does keep scenes from dragging, the series might have worked better if framed around Anika’s attempts to find Jonas, with less time spent hanging out in the woods with Jonas and Norah initially. Mysteries are always less intriguing when you know how they end, after all, and the episodes focusing on Anika are a lot more compelling.

Of course, the actors involved play a part in this. I really enjoyed the tough yet quirky performance of Farishon, but Northover and Beach both felt awkward in their scenes together, struggling for that all-too-elusive chemistry. However, production values are extremely solid, and the show’s visual style, especially the use of graphics on screen, creates a presentation worthy of a show with a much higher budget.

One great touch: The opening shot of each episode is a stylized comic book-esque frame that holds for a second before coming to life. How that ties into the actual themes of the series isn’t quite clear yet, but it still drew me in as a viewer.

I wouldn’t necessarily consider Off-Key a show for everyone, though web series fans will definitely appreciate the quality of production and brevity of the storytelling. There’s talent here, is what I mean. And that’s always something to encourage.

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Good news for online Australian sci-fi fans: The upcoming fifth season of British Doctor Who, which will premiere Sunday, April 18 on ABC1, will actually make its first Down Under appearance two days earlier on iView (LINK?), the Australian Broadcasting Company’s iPlayer equivalent.

The one-day head start that online Aussie fans are getting probably won’t do much in the way of preventing piracy, as episodes will premiere in Australia two weeks after the UK (in the United States, BBC America will be on a similar schedule). It’s a much improved delay, though, from the past, when fans outside Britain would wait for months after the UK premiere for their fix — or learn how to use torrents.

But fighting piracy, or creating a buzz for the show, doesn’t seem to be the goal here: as opposed to Warner Bros and ITV’s decision to release episodes of The Vampire Diaries ahead of their British airing, it appears that the purpose of debuting Doctor Who online early is to get Australians using the free video service.

According to Kim Dalton, director of Television at the ABC, “iView is a fantastic offering, an additional way for Australian audiences to watch ABC TV’s content — generally after, but in this special case before, its television broadcast. We hope the lure of Doctor Who — and what a fun and exciting lure it is — will provide incentive for more viewers to discover iView, and experience how convenient and easy to use it is.”

iView first became available in July 2008, and is available on the PS3 through the Playstation Network. So, hey, f you’re reading this and you’re in Australia, we’d love to find out whether you’ve used the iView service, and what you think of it, in the comments!

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26 percent of US consumers watch TV programming online more than once a week, according to a new report from In-Stat titled “OTT Video Platforms, Devices, and Consumer Expectations.” And more and more of these consumers watch online video in the living room, thanks to game consoles, Roku boxes and Internet-enabled TV sets. In-Stat estimates that there were 24 million web-enabled devices in operation in the U.S. by the end of 2009, and its analysts believe that this number will grow to 102 million by 2013.

In-Stat analyst Keith Nissen went on the record to say that cable companies don’t have to fear cord cutters just yet. “Nearly 40% of consumer broadband household respondents want a combination of linear TV and on-demand TV,” he said, adding that to date nearly three quarters get all their video from their pay TV provider.

The impact Hulu & Co. are having on paid services has been a constant point of debate in recent months. The New York Times noted today in a somewhat dismissive portrait of cord cutters that cable, satellite and IPTV subscribers gained 1.7 million new subscribers in the last three quarters of 2009, prompting Leichtman Research Group president Bruce Leichtman to call cord cutters “a bizarre breed of people… who don’t watch a lot of television in the first place.”

However, it seems like free and subscription-based streaming is already having an impact on another part of the industry. A new report from ScreenDigest suggests that revenue for paid online VOD is growing much slower than expected. StreamDigest estimates that the industry only made $291 million from download-to-own sales and Internet VOD in 2009, and it also downgraded its online VOD and download-to-own estimates to $943 million in 2014.

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Ettinger poses for a headshot on SHEAR GENIUS.

Last night, my flight from SFO to LAX was stuck on the runway, and so I was channel-surfing the DirecTV provided by Virgin Airlines. It was an exercise in minimizing boredom, not to mention enjoying a few minutes off the clock — which is why I found it super weird to see Amber Lee Ettinger, better known to the Internet as Obama Girl, getting a haircut on the Bravo reality series Shear Genius (it’s like Project Runway, but for hair stylists).

Ettinger was just one of seven aspiring model/actresses getting new looks for headshots, and while the stylist-contestant assigned to her identified her as Obama Girl, otherwise there wasn’t much made of Ettinger’s online fame. The reason for that might have been this: Ettinger wasn’t appearing on Shear Genius to bolster the Obama Girl brand. In fact, her target for one of her new looks was to hopefully get a role as the lead in an action film — according to Shear Genius contestant/stylist Brig, “the role she’s after is ’strong female lead in an action flick.’”

So Ettinger is pursuing an acting career — does that mean Obama Girl is dead? According to Obama Girl creator and creative director of Next New Networks’ Barely Political channel, Ben Relles, the answer is definitely not. Ettinger still lives in New York, and continues to appear in Barely Political and Barely Digital videos (both in and out of Obama Girl character), most recently in the John Mayer parody John Mayer for Dummies.

How did Ettinger’s new do do on the show? Fine: Without any spoilers, her hair didn’t cause any major drama, and the judges especially liked her action look. No telling if her new headshots will help her future career — but I love abusing the “local girl makes good” headline cliche, so personally, I’ve got my fingers crossed for her teaming up with Jason Statham sometime soon.

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JooJoo Revamps Interface Ahead of Launch, Adds Local Video Playback — and Changes Color; the device formerly known as the TechCrunch tablet plays back Flash video streams and local content stored on a thumb drive, supports H.264 HD and many other codecs. (Engadget)

New YouTube App for Windows Mobile and Nokia S60 Phones; the site’s new Mobile App version 2.4 adds a new interface that works well with larger screens, among other things. (YouTube Blog) How to: Build Your Personal Brand on YouTube; changing a few settings can help you improve your branding. (Mashable)

ISPs, Publishers and Academics Voice Outrage at Digital Economy Bil; plan to disconnect file sharers from Internet causes backlash. (Out-Law.com)

Donkey-Politician Vid Keeps two Azerbaijani Bloggers in Jail; Adnan Hajizade and Emin Milli lost appeal against 2 and 2.5 year sentences that were motivated by them posting a satirical video online. (Ars Technica)

Your Interview with Prime Minister Stephen Harper; Canada’s prime minister follows Obama’s example by responding to YouTube questions. (YouTube Blog)

OnLive Streaming Video Game Service Launches in June With One Huge Catch; a $15 subscription per month on top of video game rental fees could turn many gamers off. (DVICE)

Can a Mouse Cut the Cable?; a New York Times piece on people ditching cable has analyst Bruce Leichtman musing that cord cutters are “really just a bizarre breed of people, usually in New York or San Francisco, who don’t watch a lot of television in the first place.” (New York Times)

Paul Yanez is back: The developer of many rogue and fabulous media players, including the MyMediaPlayer application that brought Hulu to the desktop until being shut down by the video site, has been tapped by Movieclips.com to develop its new Flash video player, the company just announced. The new player, which is already live at Movieclips.com, makes it possible to select choice moments of clips hosted by Movieclips.com and embed them on third-party web sites. The player also preserves the original aspect ratio of every film.

Flash developer Yanez got famous in the online video world when he turned Joost into a proof-of-concept web app in the summer of 2007. He made headlines again a year later with an Air-based desktop player for Hulu, which was quickly rendered useless by a Hulu upgrade. Yanez responded with an upgrade of his own, but MyMediaPlayer2 went dark just four hours after TechCrunch wrote up it up as Hulu’s “unofficial desktop app.”

Movieclips.com features over 12,000 clips from various Hollywood movies. The company aims to be something like a Hulu for choice snippets from blockbusters and cinematic classics alike, and it was able to secure rights from a number of big Hollywood studios to do so. Each clip on Movieclips is published with closed caption and other metadata, making it possible to find famous quotes from specific films, and the site recently published an API that opened up some of this functionality to third-party developers.

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March Madness, baby! If you didn’t already have a good reason to drive down to Costco and pick up a huge new TV, this is it. Of course, that shiny new flatscreen won’t help you much for those games airing during office hours, but there is hope. The good thing about the NCAA Men’s College Basketball Tournament is that all games will be available online and on your phone in real time.

And no, you won’t have to jump through any annoying registration hoops like with the Olympics. In fact, there are so many options to to join in on the fun that we decided to compile a handy little guide for all your March Madness needs.

Here’s how you can follow the games live:

The NCAA’s March Madness on Demand site is the place to go for live streams of all the games, starting with Selection Sunday on March 14th all the way to the National Championship game on April 4th. Missed a game? No worries, the site will also provide game highlights and full game archives. Make sure you have Microsoft’s Silverlight installed if you want to use the site’s high-quality video player, with up to 1.8 Mbps.

The player offers features like picture-in-picture highlights of the current game’s best moments, as well as a boss button. (Now you just gotta find a way to quickly hide those pizza boxes in your desk drawer when your CEO walks by your cubicle.) The high quality player also utilizes IIS Smooth Streaming, meaning it will automatically adjust the bandwidth usage to accommodate your Internet connection and computer speed. No Silverlight on your PC? Don’t worry, the NCAA still has a standard-def video player that will play in pretty much any web browser, thanks to Flash.

March Madness on Demand streams will also be available on CNN.com, ESPN.com, Facebook, TV.com, CBS.com, CNET.com, GameSpot.com and other sites around the web.

The March Madness on Demand iPhone application gives iPhone and iPod Touch users a chance to tune into the games on the go. The application offers access to live video via 3G, EDGE and Wi-Fi for $9.99. There’s also a scoreboard, and users can schedule score alerts to keep up to date with the games. Don’t want to shell out 10 bucks? There’s also a free application available. It doesn’t have any live video, but video highlights and news updates.

FLO TV will provide live video of all 63 games to AT&T customers with compatible handsets as well as owners of the FLO TV Personal Television, through the CBS Mobile channel.

Here are some other good online video resources to check out:

The NCAA Vault features full-length videos of the best games the Men’s College Basketball Tournament has seen in the last ten years. The site offers access to 150 games as well as some nifty social features.

Hulu won’t carry March Madness live games, but the site has come up with its own unique flavor of vaguely related madness, offering a Best In Show bracket that lets Glee compete against Community and Mercy against House. Who said March Madness wasn’t something for everyone?

We’ll add more links with related video content while the competition is underway, so make sure to check back occasionally.

Panasonic started to sell its new line of 3D TVs through a partnership with Best Buy today, offering a bundle of a of 50-inch plasma TV, a 3D-capable Blu-ray player and a pair of glasses for around $2900. Consumers will also soon be able to buy similar set-ups from Samsung and Sony (sw SNE).

However, at least some of these devices won’t be available at Amazon and other online retailers. Panasonic announced that it’s going all bricks-and-mortar with 3D TV to educate consumers about the technology, according to an article from Marketwatch.com.

Question is, will consumers bite? Not only are 3D set-ups significantly more expensive that your regular LCD or LED screen, with pairs of extra glasses alone costing $150 a pop, but there’s also limited content available to show off the technology. Panasonic will give buyers of its 3D TVs a free Blu-ray disc of Monsters vs. Aliens, which is Dreamworks’s first 3D release. However, 3D box office blockbuster Avatar won’t even be available in 3D when it’s released on Blu-ray and DVD some time before June.

The reason for that decision, according to News Corp. COO Chase Carey, is that “the market is not there” for a 3D release of Avatar, Dow Jones reports. This revelation puts a damper on hopes that Avatar will help to kick-start the home 3D market after becoming the commercially most successful movie ever at the box office. Carey said that a 3D version of the movie could be released later down the road, hinting at the possibility that studios could use 3D as another way to enforce release windows in a world where viewers have gotten used to instant satisfaction.

Hollywood is on schedule to release more than three dozen 3D movies this year, but a slow adoption curve of home 3D set-ups, as well as the need to squeeze as much money as possible out of slumping DVD and Blu-ray sales, could entice other studios to adopt the idea of a 3D window as well – which in turn could hurt sales of 3D equipment. It’s like a snake swallowing its own tail, in all of its stereoscopic beauty.

Relief for consumer electronics makers like Panasonic and Samsung could come from sports programming. ESPN has announced that it will start a 3D sports network by June — just in time for the World Cup — and in the coming months DirecTV also plans to launch three 3D channels with movies and sports programming. Question is: Is that enough to entice consumers to plunk down 3000 dollars or more for a 3D setup?

GigaOm Pro analyst Alfred Poor predicted last October that the 3D market was just about ready for takeoff, but that it will take until 2012 for a critical mass of content to be available. I asked him how he feels about this now, given the fact that consumers may have to be extra patient to get their hands on 3D releases. Here’s his take:

“15 or 20 feature films a year do not make enough content to fill one week of major network prime time programming. There are going to be some early experiments with 3D, such as ESPN’s plans for 3D coverage of sporting events, but that won’t be enough to justify buying a new TV for anyone but the early adopters.”

Poor added that it will take until 2013 before 3D uptake will be significant. Maybe Hollywood will have come around and actually put out some 3D titles on Blu-ray by that time.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user bark.

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It’s hard to top having Barack Obama as a live-chat guest, but that isn’t stopping YouTube, who is following up their user-generated interview with the President with FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski.

Next Tuesday, Mar. 16, Genachowski will be answering user-submitted questions to topics like Access and Affordability, Mobile and Wireless and Security and Privacy. So if you’ve always wanted to grill a member of government about why web access isn’t as free and plentiful as it is in other countries, then go to YouTube’s CitizenTube channel and submit your question.

There are four days left to submit, and so far only 15 questions (one of which is this video, embedded above) have been contributed. So your odds of getting Genachowski’s attention? Pretty good. Oh, and while we’re at it: Feel free to link to your question in the comments if you end up participating.

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Cable Firms Seek FCC Help in Fee Disputes; several major cable companies and a public interest group asked the Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday to intervene in disputes over transmission fees. (Washington Post)

Kyte now Offering Broadcast-Quality Live Video Streaming Backpack; the LivePro backpack, made by LiveU, will be released at SXSW. (TechCrunch)

Microsoft Launches Free Rival to BBC iPlayer; new UK-only video service will launch with a thousand hours of free British programming. (TimesOnline)

Distance Ed Students Forming College Clubs Online; students working toward degrees online are forming groups to recreate the social and professional opportunities of campus life, including video lectures and Q&As. (USA Today)

Online Challenge: Getting TV Viewers to Pay Up; in Canada, Bell Canada and Rogers’ cable division launched subscriber-only online TV services last fall, but they’re not making any money yet. (The Globe and Mail)

Covering the Street Protests in Tehran: How Reuters Curates UGC via Twitter; Beet.TV speaks with Greg Beitchman, Global Editor of the Reuters News Agency about Reuters’ use of citizen journalism. (Beet.TV)

The folks behind the music video jukebox Sonicswap are at it again, this time launching what could soon be every Nexus One user’s best friend. Tunevision compiles music video playlists based on your Last.fm, iTunes or Sonicswap usage data — users can also start from scratch by simply entering a few band names. Think Pandora, but for music videos. The functionality is very similar to the original Sonicswap site, with one big difference: There’s also a mobile version of Tunevision that runs on a Nexus One via Adobe Flash 10.1.

Of course, Adobe hasn’t officially released Flash 10.1 for Android yet, but Sonicswap worked closely with Adobe on the development of the app. Sonicswap CEO Dan Skilken recorded a quick video demo of the app running on a Nexus One for us (embedded below), and I gotta say: It looks pretty darn cool.

Tunevision serves music videos from YouTube and Sony’s online properties, and it offers its users the ability to fine-tune their playlist through sliders that impact factors like the popularity of the artists selected. Users can also start off their playlist with a number of Last.fm user names — a neat feature if you want to compile a list based on the taste of a group of friends.

The application is currently only available on the web, but a Adobe Air client is in the works. Tunevision will release an Android app based on Air in the next couple of months, and Android users will also be able to access a mobile version of the site as soon as Adobe releases Flash 10.1 for the mobile OS.

Skilken made a point of telling us that something like this wouldn’t have been possible on the iPhone. “There is no question in my mind that the performance of Flash on Nexus is so good, that Steve Job’s ranting is motivated by the fear of this unlocking the walled garden,” he wrote us in an email, adding that the development of the Android app only took a couple of days.

Sonicswap also won’t have to wait until Apple approves the app, though it will have to hold out until Adobe finally ships its Android Flash 10.1 player. Adobe demoed Flash 10.1 on a Nexus One in January, and the company told us at the time that it was on track to release the Flash 10.1 player for Android phones in the first half of 2010.

SonicSwap, which is based in Palo Alto, Calif., has four employees and has raised $2.5 million in angel funding.

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For want of an embed code, the band was lost…to their own independent label. Viral music video experts and indie rock band OK Go, after publicly squabbling with EMI over the lack of embedding on their YouTube music videos, have left the label to create their own.

This new label, Paracadute Recordings, will take over the distribution and promotion for their newest album Of The Color of Blue Sky, sales for which may be experiencing an uptick following the release of the State Farm-sponsored Rube Goldberg video for This Too Shall Pass, which is currently at 6.8 million views on YouTube (no small thanks to the fact that it’s embeddable).

OK Go’s decision isn’t terribly surprising when you consider their very public stance on big labels — that they function best as an aggregator of risk, giving support to new bands. As lead singer Damien Kulash said in our interview in January:

I’m not, you know, in any way celebrating the f—ing evil sons of b—-es who run things and the awful contracts they gave people. But the truth is that to tour internationally or to afford to work in the kind of studios we want to work in is not even close to within the range of of our own pocketbooks. Basically major labels are and have been, for a long time, essentially big gambling banks.

The move to their own label may mean that fancy recording studios and those international tours are no longer be a reality for them, at least for the time being. (They are kicking off a new tour in April, but will be staying domestic.)

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The Tribeca Film Fest, the festival co-founded by Robert De Niro, is going virtual, according to a post on its blog, offering film fans around the country a chance to engage online with the films and filmmakers being feted.

Beginning April 23, those who purchase a Virtual Premium pass will get “full backstage access” to the festival goings-on, which means being able to watch eight or more of the feature films premiering at the festival and red carpet coverage, and to participate in live Q&As with the filmmakers (according to a representative for the fest, these chats will be text-based).

The Virtual Premium pass costs $45 — which isn’t too bad, given that you get to watch yet-to-premiere films like Edward Burns’s Nice Guy Johnny or opening night selection Shrek Forever After. The pass is not available to international audiences, though, and the red carpet live-streaming will be available to the general public, not just pass holders.

However, full passes to the physical fest cost $250-$450 (though you can buy tickets for individual films separately). That extra $200 might be worth the chance to touch Shrek star Cameron Diaz in person — something the Internet can’t currently replicate. But you’ll also probably have to get out of your pajamas.

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YouTube has started to serve ads on mobile phones, but you may not even notice them. The online video platform is now serving display ads on m.youtube.com in the U.S. and Japan, according to a blog post, and will sell banner ads on a full-day basis. Today’s advertiser is Mazda, which bought the mobile ad in conjunction with its banner on the regular YouTube home page. The blog post reveals that YouTube has already run campaigns for Kia and Sony as well.

These ads do not, however, extend to custom YouTube interfaces like the one used by Google’s Android phones or Apple’s iPhone, which is how I suspect most of us are accessing YouTube on the go. YouTube also told us that it hasn’t started to directly monetize the videos on mobile platforms. The lack of Flash on handsets may be one reason you won’t see any overlays on your handset yet, or the fact that YouTube isn’t showing any kind of pre-roll advertising to mobile users.

Still, YouTube’s new ad spot on its mobile site shows its commitment to monetization. Citigroup analyst Mark Mahaney recently estimated that YouTube is going to make about $945 million this year through advertising. The site will top $1.1 billion in gross revenue in 2011, according to Mahaney’s predictions.

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The consequence of Apple trying to create an entire new genre of gadget? We all have to figure out how we’re gonna use it. The iPad commercial, first spotted during the Academy Awards last Sunday, featured no shortage of happy users resting the device on their laps…

But how do you physically get into that position? I mean, do you have a scuff-resistant coffee table or an armchair and ottoman? Have you done so much yoga that you can hold your legs up for literally hours at a time? Do you have some new fancy La-Z-Boy or a hospital bed?

Well, if you don’t, and you don’t want to spend a few hundred dollars on some new furniture, then Quirky has a handy device for you. The Cloak case not only protects your $499 device from the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, but it doubles as a stand for the device in both portrait and landscape positions.

There are other cases available out there, sure, but this one does address the major issue many of you have with using the iPad as a video device — watching a movie or TV show play in your lap isn’t a replacement for a television, because of where the screen rests.

This is only the first of many options sure to address this issue. But in the meantime, as of writing, Quirky has sold 22 out of their initial stock of 620. It’s available in green, purple, blue and black. Maybe give it a look-see.

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Vice-President Joe Biden packed light for his trip to Israel this week: He didn’t bring the White House camera crew. And so on Thursday, when the former senator visits Tel Aviv University to address the Israeli public about American commitment to the security of Israel, he won’t be doing so on the official White House site — he’ll be talking live on Justin.tv.

According to TheHill.com, it’s tough to stream video to Whitehouse.gov without using a White House camera feed. So for the Tel Aviv University broadcast, they sought out another option.

According to Evan Solomon at Justin.tv, the broadcast will be hosted on multiple Justin.tv accounts, the primary one broadcasting in English. Two other accounts, meanwhile, will also be streaming the speech: One with Hebrew audio translation, one with Arabic audio translation. The broadcast begins at 9 AM GMT/1 AM PST, but will be archived on Justin.tv if you’re not up that late/early.

The video will be available internationally, and hosted on sites including the site of the U.S. Embassy in Israel. “This is basically just a Justin.tv user starting a broadcast like anyone else could. It just happens to be a Vice Presidential speech in Tel Aviv,” Solomon said.

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Sony’s Playstation Network is now carrying HD movies from 20th Century Fox, Sony Pictures, Universal Pictures, and Warner Bros., the company announced today. Sony previously negotiated similar agreements with Walt Disney Pictures, Paramount Pictures, and the company was quick to point out in today’s announcement that this marks the first time a game console-based service has signed up an online video platform is offering HD downloads for sale from all six majors.

Sony has been offering HD downloads through the PS3 ever since it launched the Playstation Network’s movie download section almost two years ago. Playstation users also have access to Netflix VOD through a pop-in disc. Sony recently announced plans to extend the download platform to Bravia TVs, Sony PCs and other connected devices. It also plans to extend its new HD line-up to the UK, France, Germany, and Spain soon.

The Playstation Network currently offers access to more than 2,900 movies and 17,800 TV episodes, and over 1000 of the movie titles are available for sale or rent in HD. Sony told us today that it has delivered more than 829 million downloads worldwide since the launch of the Playstation Network, but those numbers also include free and paid-for games and game demos as well as digital comics.

The PS3 may be the first one to get HD content from all six major studios, but it’s not the only one trying to bring HD content to the living room. Sony is squarely competing with Microsoft, which has been busy forging content deals with big and small studios alike for its Xbox Live service. Xbox users have been able to stream videos in 1080p since late last year, and the New York Times reported in January that company is in negotiations to bring live content from Disney and ESPN to the Xbox.

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For some people, defining success online can be a subjective thing. For viral mavens the Fine Brothers, it’s all about the numbers. Literally.

The pair behind Movie Spoilers in One Take, My Profile Story, and the Lost parody series have recently begun not just making content for themselves, but partnering with some of YouTube’s biggest stars to help them create the best possible — and most popular — videos. Not only are Benny and Rafi Fine now officially the chief creative executives and heads of production for the YouTube star comedy collective The Station, but they’ve been making shorts with individual YouTubers — the most recent example of which being the Shane Dawson-starring Degrassi spoof series.

You might not be familiar with Degrassi: The Next Generation, either because you’re not a Canadian teenager or because you don’t get cable channel The N, which airs episodes in the United States. But fans of the Canadian teen soap will tell you that when it comes to “going there” on controversial or uncomfortable topics, Degrassi does — drugs, abortion, homosexuality, school shootings and date rape are all considered to be acceptable topics for the show to explore, making it one of the more daring shows out there.

It’s that at times over-the-top edginess which Dawson and the Fines parody in both Hot Teens Gone Wild on Degrassi: Part 1, released last November, and sequel Hot Teens Go Wild on Degrassi: Part 2, which debuted on Saturday. At over ten minutes each, each sketch definitely pushes the patience of the typical attention-span-deficient YouTube viewer, but that hasn’t stopped Part 1 and its accompanying trailer and bloopers video from earning over five million views, and Part 2 from being seen by 1.5 million over the last three days and featured on G4’s Attack of the Show.

The secret to getting people to stick around for a longer video, according to Benny Fine, with whom I spoke via chat, comes from building an audience with “topical sketches and viral videos,” he said. “Once we built a bit enough subscriber base, they really are your supporters, they want to like everything you do, so you can toss in something longer every once in a while in between your other content, and they will watch it and support it.”

Dawson, who the Fines have been mentoring since 2008, takes a similar approach, and all three are Degrassi fans, which lead them to create the first parody video together (Dawson stars, while all three of them wrote and directed it together). And when it came out, the cast and crew of Degrassi noticed — and loved it. “We were surprised at how fast so many associated with the show found out about it. We have dealt with other shows that need not be named [Lost] that have not had the same reaction to spoof content from us, so it’s been refreshing. But it also makes sense, as Degrassi is a forward thinking show that has made some of the best ancillary web content ever for a TV show,” Rafi Fine said.

Its cast and crew are also active Twitter users, who Dawson replied to when they Tweeted out the video — and that’s how, for the sequel video, they were able to get Degrassi star Lauren Collins to make a cameo as herself.

By parodying a relatively unknown Canadian show, the team has seen “thousands of comments” from people who had never heard of Degrassi or had stopped watching it, but were going to go back to the series or potentially buy DVDs. The positive reaction from the Degrassi folk has also got them hoping that they might be able to work with producers on a future parody installment, though no official overtures have yet been made. “We’re trying to figure out the best way to handle that situation,” the Fines said as a pair. “But it’s a good spot to be in, when you actually do love a show so much that you’d love to work with them to help the series.”

With their knack for getting content to go viral and their relatively independent place in the web video economy, the Fines have become increasingly vocal advocates for transparency in reporting view counts, considering them to be the only true barometer for success in the online video world. “The new media community itself is causing everyone not to be forward thinking as much as they should,” Rafi said. “Viewership should be the #1 priority and #1 determining factor of success online, but because so few can get it, the community devalues it or cheats to get it.”

And the key to getting views, according to Benny, is building an audience that’s personally engaged with your content. “Everyone should be on YouTube in some capacity, because that’s the only place a shell of sustained viewership exists,” he said.

“Good content is one side, views is the other. If you don’t have the views, you are not a success no matter how good your show is — unless you are the web for different reasons,” Rafi said.

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