Subscribe to Blip Videos with Democracy Player -- Dancing into the Future

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April 11, 2007

Subscribe to Blip Videos with Democracy Player

In my continuing quest to figure out how dancers can spread their videos online and get lots of people to watch them...

I experimented yesterday with two applications: Blip.tv and Democracy video player.

Blip.tv is another video sharing site to which you can upload your videos - and monetize them through ads if you wish.

Kristin Sloan, creator of the behind-the-scenes video series to NYC Ballet's upcoming production of Romeo + Juliet, has just posted the first four video episodes to Blip.tv. I like the way that Blip.tv lets you create a comprehensive profile for each of your video channels. Plus, in the case of the Romeo + Juliet videos, you can watch them in either Flash or QuickTime format in a small or full screen.

On the Blip.tv page for Romeo + Juliet, you'll see that there are tabs under the large graphic for this series. If you select the "Subscribe" tab, you will see different ways that you can sign-up for current and upcoming videos in this ballet series. Here's a screen shot of these different subscription options - click for larger view:

Romeo + Juliet from NYC Ballet on Blip.tv

The third subscription option - I slightly cut it off on the graphic above - is for the Democracy video player, a free, open-source video player that supports many different file formats.

If you click on the "Subscribe" link for the Democracy player, this channel will be added to Democracy and you will be able to automatically download the Romeo + Juliet videos as they are published to Blip.tv. Here's a screen shot of the Democracy player that shows my NYC Ballet channel. So far I've downloaded the 4th episode, which was just posted, and I still have to download the other videos. The files are large - the second episode is half a gigabyte.

Romeo + Juliet from NYC Ballet on Democracy Player

I've justed started to use the Democracy player - so far I like its ease of use, its support for multiple file formats and its ability to subscribe to updated video content.

Posted by Doug Fox on April 11, 2007 8:26 AM

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2 Comments

Tony said:

Blip.tv is also great because they host your video in an uncompressed format. Lossy FLV compression was one of the main gripes by the folks at Article 19 regarding online dance content. All the cool kids use blip.

Added: April 12, 2007 9:34 AM | Permalink

Doug Fox said:

In addition to uncompressed videos and support for different formats, Blip.tv has a very clear statement regarding ownership interests that I quote below.

Many of the video sharing sites (and social networking sites) overreach in terms of the rights they claim regarding ownership and how they can use your videos, which I think can pose problem to dancers/dance companies that want to upload their videos to these sites.

Here's Blip.tv on ownership rights:

Fair Terms

We believe that you should own the product of your hard work. When you upload to blip.tv you give us the right to distribute your video until and unless you delete it from our systems. You don't have to give us any kind of exclusive rights, and we won't sell your work or advertising on your work without your express, specific permission.

Added: April 12, 2007 9:44 AM | Permalink

About

Since 2005, Doug Fox's blog has covered the intersection of dance and the Internet. A primary focus is to help dancers and dance companies use the Internet and their dance videos for marketing, educational, creative and revenue-generation purposes.

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Dancing into the Future

April 11, 2007