YouTube Audio Transcription broken, hates Australians
Announced on the 5th of March, YouTube had added audio transcription to videos in an effort to increase accessibility. Just hover over the CC button in the player, then select the ‘Transcribe Audio’ option. Available in 50 different languages, it’s an ambitious venture from Google. One that could potentially open up videos to truly world-wide viewing.
The Transcribe audio feature is currently in beta and they’ve certainly got some work to do. I tested it on one of my videos (obviously have an Australian accent), it got this sentence completely wrong.
In the example below, I actually say the words:
“Hi this is Jason from Wodonga Australia and I think the story of the decade has..”
YouTube Translate interprets what I said as:
”but is this just in from would over a stray a and I think the story of the day Kennedy has”.
Clearly it’s not even close, naturally I wasn’t expecting 100% accuracy here, but this translation is so far off, it’s completely unusable. Have you experienced the same results ?
More @ YouTube and the YouTube Blog
TiVo: Blockbuster I don’t love you anymore
Well only a few days after Valentines Day, we’ve got a breakup on our hands. This morning TiVo announced it will be discontinuing it’s Blockbuster movie rental service.
“Blockbuster Movie Service on TiVo will be permanently closing on Friday 5th March 2010”
There is some important information about the closure of the service.
- Existing customers will have the balance of their accounts refunded automatically.
- Blockbuster movie rentals will disappear from the TiVo interface.
- Movies will continue to be released up until the shutdown date.
The IPTV battle is a tough one that TiVo and CASPA On-Demand will really need to step it up, to have any chance at all. First of all there’s iTunes, with a massive library of content. But more importantly is the newest entrant..
Through the Zune Video Marketplace on Xbox 360 consoles, users can rent and buy movies in both SD and HD quality either by downloading first, but also streaming. The difference here is that Microsoft offers 1080p quality, 5.1 surround sound movies that start streaming instantly using their Smooth Streaming technology.
With the rapid adoption of large HDTVs, high definitely content is becoming a must for consumers. Neither CASPA or Blockbuster offers / offered a HD version. Also in Australia, the number of Xbox 360 owners, is many magnitudes the size of TiVo owners.
If you had to choose, what IPTV service would you use ?
It’s Judgement Day – iiNet vs Movie Studios decision (iiNet Wins!!)
Update
Well the big decision is in, iiNet have won the case. Here are some quotes from the court room.
"iinet has no control over bittorrent system and not responsible for bittorrent system."
The fact there is worldwide piracy "does not necessitate or compel a finding of authorisation, just because it is felt there is something that must be done."
iiNet "was entitled to safe harbour" as it had a policy on infringement, even if its policy didn’t stand up to AFACT’s standards
"copyright occured as result of use of BitTorrent, not the Internet" said Justice Cowdroy
The end result is, the case is closed, AFACT has to pay for iiNet’s costs.
Today is one of the most critical days in Australian Internet history. From the Federal Court in Sydney, Justice Cowdroy is set to hand down his decision on the iiNet copyright violation case. If you not familiar with the case, a collective of movie studios have banded together to create a law suit against iiNet, protesting that iiNet didn’t do enough to deal with ‘known offenders’. These are people who download and distribute movies and tv shows, of which copyright belongs to the movie studios.
Today’s decision, due at 9.30am AEDT, will set a precedent for how all Australian ISPs will prosecute offenders in the future. It’s also likely that today’s decision will be appealed from whichever side looses. Remember there’s billions of dollars at stake here, so it won’t be settled easily.
Personally I hope some kind of middle ground can be reached.
itnews is doing live coverage of the days events using cover it live. Follow along at http://www.itnews.com.au/News/166296,iitrial-judgement-day-live-coverage.aspx
You can also follow along by watching the #iiTrial hashtag on twitter.
iTunes Australia Day Sale
January 26th is approaching fast. Australia Day is the day where we celebrate everything that makes this great country awesome. Apple and more specifically iTunes is having a sale to commemorate the occasion.
“We all know “our land abounds in nature’s gifts but this year it also abounds in music, movies, TV, audiobooks, apps and podcasts. At fair dinkum prices, iTunes has pulled together the best Australia homegrown entertainment to help you celebrate the national holiday and commemorate our local legends. Browse through and make your Australia Day one to remember.”
The reality is your not gunna save much, but hey, if its a couple of dollars that can go towards some drinks or meat for the BBQ, then that’s gotta be a winner.
Panasonic Skype TV demo’d on video
One of the more interesting TV developments coming out of CES is 720p Skype video calls. The video below shows it working on upcoming Panasonic TV’s, what’d be really nice is a solution for those of us who already have HDTVs.
More @ Engadget
TiVo ditches Yahoo7 TV Guide for AJAXy goodness: Genie
One of the nicer features of TiVo is the ability to schedule recordings remotely from any web browser. The TV Guide used for remote scheduling belonged to Yahoo, in association with channel 7. While technically it worked as advertised, the user experience was pretty poor. Slow page load times and far too many screens required to actually make the recording happen. Furthermore there was never any control for season passes, so TV shows had to be set for recording one at a time.
Launched yesterday is a brand new beta for remote scheduling – TiVo Genie. This provides all the functionality a TiVo owner could want. A very slick ajaxy TV guide, quick access to record shows, the ability to add season passes, even A’La Carte choice from upcoming episodes of your favourite shows.
Mobile users also have remote scheduling in their pocket with a mobile-formatted site. Sure, not as nice as a dedicated app, it’s a nice start. It also provides access to search, guide, 1 click record and more.
My only complaint is that TiVo only grabs updates about every hour, so you have to think ahead of time. It’d be nice if the TiVo received a ping from TiVo Genie to grab updated recording information.
Check it out @ http://genie.mytivo.com.au
The old Yahoo7 TV Guide. 
All the stats behind Australian YouTube users
Check out the video below, from YouTube that explains a LOT about the habits of Australian YouTube users. It’s actually a pretty entertaining and informative 4 and a half minutes, I find it ironic that the same can’t be said about most videos on YouTube.
More @ YouTube blog