As mentioned in Monday’s Jack in the Box Tux Hmmcast, my newest videoblogging focus is video quality and I’ve chosen Blip.tv as a third party video site testing ground. I’m going to miss the Google video permalinks as it seems like Blip.tv doesn’t have a similar feature (y/n?). Good to see validation for this choice from PC World who tested the following 10 video services (in order from best to worst): blip.tv, Stage 6, Brightcove, Revver, Veoh, MSN Soapbox (beta), YouTube, Vimeo, Jumpcut and MySpaceTV.

Yesterday Kent posted a piece rightfully questioning the value of video being used in place of journalism on blogs and elsewhere. He concludes that YouTube is the place for video but doesn’t begrudge some of his reads from toying with video here and there. YouTube definitely has the strength in numbers, but is underwhelming in others, most notably the ability to distribute multiple formats (including different resolutions of the same video). Kent concludes with:

My hunch is that video blogging will experience the same life cycle as many prior hype du jours. Few to many to few. Novelty to hype to irrelevance. I hope so.

Irrelevance is doubtful considering the barrier to entry for producing high quality video is also coming down. You can go out and buy a pretty decent HD camcorder for under $1,000. In a year I wouldn’t be surprised if we’re seeing 1080p camcorders for under $2,000, maybe even sub $1,500 as well as 1080i camcorders under $500. The cheapest 1080p camcorder I could find online was a little over $3,000.

Higher quality video will spur more interest and blur the lines between what is traditional TV content (through cable, satellite or antenna) versus videos to download and watch and/or stream on the computer.

Kent is dead on that the time required to create a few minutes of high quality, entertaining, edited video footage will decimate the amateur videoblogging ranks. A lot like podcasting actually in that the return versus the time spent (with higher quality production values) is often not there. We all know by now that writing a blog post is much faster than using videoblog or podcast to convey the same message. Even an extremely well researched text blog post barely scratches the surface of editing 10 minutes of raw HD video footage. If you follow the link above in this paragraph, you’ll see in June 2005 I too came to the unfortunate realization that time was not the videoblogger’s friend. While text bloggers can crank out 3-5 high quality posts in the same amount of time the videoblogger is still on the cutting room floor.

Criticizing without doing isn’t very enlightening
So why did I bother starting a weekday videoblogging experiment? To learn more about the process of creating video. I did a little video work in high school, around the time that the MTV video generation was growing in popularity and I enjoyed making short videos.

Perhaps more importantly, you don’t learn about something very well by criticizing it from afar, you strap on the boots and dig in. I recall a past comment from Kent where he indicated not being interested in taking the time. That’s cool, perhaps he can live through the eyes of other video explorers? My journey won’t be complete until I’ve fully explored what video can and does offer over text and even though eight months are gone, it still feels like I’m just getting started. The video medium isn’t be used to its full capacity in every — or dare I even suggest most — videoblogger’s case which is something that rightfully makes people question the time involved.

Then there are times that I don’t want to be multi-tasking. Just want to sit back and consume passively. Don’t you have times like this too? Videoblogs and podcasts are more relevant for these times. Podcasts work good listening in the cars. I can’t read a blog while driving and even if I could it would be unsafe.

Reading blogs on your TV? Doubtful
I’ve tried reading blogs on my TV a couple times and been unimpressed with the experience. Have you tried this? The internet in general is a subpar experience on a TV which explains why services like MSN TV have had a difficult time gaining any traction. Using your computer as a TV is a more likely future scenario. In some ways we’re already here — except for the video quality.

About the only place blogs are readable is at 1080p on our HDTV (and the internet looks great at that resolution, see the screenshot start of post), but with my eyes at a respectable viewing distance unless the font size is huge, it isn’t very practical. YouTube videos don’t look that good on an HDTV either; about as good as you see them on the monitor: pixelated soup. The audio is even worse sometimes. How many HD videos with 5.1 surround sound coming from the web have you seen/heard? Not many.

This creates an opportunity for higher quality videos and channels that could be more easily transferred to HDTVs. It’s a niche market, yes, (perhaps the really, really nerdy camp, Kent?) but one where I see people who don’t have TV service and would like to subscribe to different video channels that produce higher quality video downloads that look good and provide passive entertainment on a TV. Is there a list out there of videos/movies shot and published in 720p or higher?

While the video quality of my Hmmcasts to date has been admittedly subpar, you can download Monday’s Hmmcast (720×480 wmv) at blip.tv and play it on a computer monitor or HDTV and see a big difference.

There wasn’t a Hmmcast yesterday and might not be one today either as that time is being spent learning how to use the new video editing software and new HD camcorder (review is likely forthcoming). I was in a dependable, comfortable publishing rhythm with shooting lower quality video that used the medium, now I need to get better experienced shooting and editing higher quality video. Since the file sizes have ballooned, this has added more of something I have in short supply: time. This makes me think that even fewer videobloggers will be or are forcusing on producing and distributing HD quality video content to the masses.

Then again, maybe I’m living under the videoblogger shell and there is a ton of this content out there, waiting to be explored.

Make videoblogging worth our time
I think what Kent and others are saying — and they are 110% correct — is: make it worth my time. This means I’m switching to quality over quantity mode to hopefully meet that objective in the coming days. Let’s consider the next few weeks education while I hone the necessary skills. I’m also going to be on the search for other videoblogs that use the medium properly and offer HD quality videos for download to TV and writing about them.

The biggest obstacle I see in this niche is the convenience of getting these videos delivered to people’s TV sets. If you have a PS3, it’s easy, just use the built-in internet browser. With a PSP, you can use the Wi-Fi and visit a website and download. With Xbox 360 and a Media Center setup you can make it happen, but if you don’t have any computer hooked up to your TV, it’s a bit more tricky (the Xbox 360 reads USB storage devices). Do the current cable or satellite channels offer any way to get/play video created on the web? I remember USB ports on the Comcast HDTV box we had when we were subscribed.

If anybody reading has some good resources or information about where other HD videobloggers are practing their art, I’m interested. I’m in the videobloggers group at Yahoo and will probably post something there too.

Did this post make you go hmm?

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