Power Video

Movable Type 4 video plugin

Over the past month we've been working with the folks over at Six Apart to create a plugin for the new Movable Type 4 system. The Fliqz video plugin allows users of the popular MT4 blogging software to upload, encode, store and post their videos in an instant. Upon installing the plugin a Fliqz arrow button appears directly in the Compose toolbar whereby a simple click of the button spawns an upload window where you can give a title and description of your video and hit Upload. Fliqz dynamically encodes and stores the raw file returning an embedded .flv file directly into your post...all in a matter of seconds. It's a beautiful thing.

If you're an MT4 user, get started with the video plugin in the MT4 widget directory or get it directly from Fliqz.

Props to Chad at Everitz Consulting.

Video Letter

This must be a first. Charles Ferguson submitted a video letter to the editor to the New York Times as a rebuttal to L. Paul Bremer’s op-ed piece about the decision to disband the Iraqi army. Ferguson is a documentary filmmaker, so the video is, as you’d expect, polished and professional. But clearly the door is open for anyone to use video to enhance (hopefully) the level of dialogue with the media. Let’s hope other news outlets follow this example.

VMAs Online: Better Than Broadcast

MTV apparently thinks the future of video is online. At the very least, it knows its audience. How else to explain why last night’s Video Music Awards were much more compelling online than the live broadcast? Sure, the network showed Britney Spears’ “comeback” “performance” in its full “glory,” but the real action was in the party suites, where performers like The Foo Fighters, Kanye West, and Fall Out Boy didn’t lip sync their way through their songs. The broadcast aired snippets of all these sets, but just when things got going, the network cut away to some semifamous presenter giving away some sort of award for a video that was hardly ever shown on MTV.

Throughout the broadcast, MTV actively promoted the site, as if the network honchos knew which venue would ultimately provide the richer experience. Even the look of the broadcast itself had a Web video feel to it, with graphics displaying a screen of what blocks of selected text leading to multiple small windows of the nominated videos.

That the entire show—including extras such as the Kid Rock-Tommy Lee smackdown that didn’t make to the broadcast—is available online shows that MTV gets it, at least when it comes to a new generation that demands content whenever, wherever they can get it.

Big Screen, Small Screen

Techdirt notes that film director Ridley Scott has been complaining that gadgets like mobile phones and computers are killing cinema. It seems his point is that focusing on the commercial bottom line is dumbing down the movie industry. That is, if movies must be made to play well on the large and small (and really small) screens, then it’s not an authentic experience.

We’ve often wondered about the irony in the fact that as people shell out thousands of dollars for elaborate home theater systems with 50-inch widescreen TVs, demand for video on PCs and mobile devices is also on the rise. Maybe part of the answer can be found in this Advertising.com/InsightExpress survey of online video viewing habits. According to the report, while 51 percent of respondents said they would watch a TV show online if they missed the initial broadcast, 80 percent said that online video usage doesn’t cut into their TV time (emphasis ours).

Sounds like Ridley Scott is tilting at digital windmills. People still want a rich, cinematic viewing experience. If movies are dumber than ever, don’t blame trends in mobile and online video.

Blame Michael Bay.