Beta version of Sky Cast released
Wednesday, April 4th, 2007Sky and Google team up for public access TV/internet
The beta of Sky Cast, a joint venture between Sky and Google – who own popular video sharing website YouTube – has just been released, and both of the companies are looking for people to record and upload content for testing.
Sky Cast, which uses Google Video, is intended to be a public-access type service which will cross a variety of platforms, and allow people to become more involved with TV. People who subscribe to Sky Cast are encouraged to record their own footage on their mobiles or conventional digital video cameras and upload them to the net for sharing with other viewers, with the most popular videos being made eligible for broadcasting on Sky TV. Video clips will also be made available for downloading to web-enabled mobiles.
The service is currently running with the catchphrase ‘Film it, Load it, Sky Cast it!’ Users can rate videos with a system similar to the ‘five star’ system on YouTube. You do not have to be a subscriber to Sky to sign up for Sky Cast, however (and this should go without saying) you wont be able to watch the fruits of your labour if you video gets selected for broadcasting on TV if you’re not one.
There are a number of guidelines in place to ensure that the videos can be watched by as wide an audience as possible. These include a limit on the overall running time of any videos (no longer than 10 minutes) and suggested bit rates of 2Mbps and 5Mbps, so that users with slower broadband connections can watch videos at a reasonable quality.
If the beta tests are successful, Sky Cast could grow to become every bit as popular as You Tube, and prove to be another attractive aspect of Sky’s See Speak Surf package.
