The search for on-demand mobile video entertainment seems to be best catered by a new wap site I recently stumbled upon. It is TinyTube.net. The name itself tells you what the site is about. In their own words “TinyTube provides search and video proxy services for mobile devices. It enables search and video playback from several major video sharing services .. .. ..etc. etc.“
Simply put: You can easily watch videos hosted on several major video sharing sites on your decent video equipped phone.
The site is very simple to use, fast, and well designed. On the home page, you enter the video to search for. Then you can select either one or all of the video sharing websites. Mind you, you tube is not on the list, but the long list which contains ‘Break, Dailymotion, Filecabinate, Google, Grouper, Metacafe, Myspace, Veoh’ should make up for it.
Here is a screen shot when I searched for “Shrek third”
I have so far searched for a lot of videos and the results have never disappointed me.
Every video can be downloaded in low or high resolution. If your phone supports RealPlayer and Real Streaming, then you can even watch that video in streaming – just the youtube way.
Formal Analysis:
The problem:
Youtube and other video streaming websites are a big hit, but even the best phones do not yet have sufficient Flash Player support to watch them streaming. Even when the support will be available, mass market will still remain bandwidth limited making it hard to stream.
Youtube has a mobile version but offers very limited set of pre-converted videos on it.
The solution:
TinyTube converts the videos on these sites to low bandwidth hungry 3GP and Real format. These two formats are widely supported by handsets.
As it supports Real streaming, user need not wait for the video to get downloaded.
The extra advantage:
While achieving all this, TinyTube has also become the one stop destination for search and watch for several major video sharing sites.
Possible hiccups:
The obvious legal problems!
I hope TinyTube is able to explain the video sharing sites that ‘mobile video delivery market is largely underserved. TinyTube gives them an important channel to deliver their content to the HUGE mobile market. TinyTube and the original video host can share advertisement revenue .. .. etc. etc.’
Secondly, I could never get the Real streaming working!
I will be following this up with TinyTube and see if the problem is on my side or theirs.
On the whole, they have got them selves a new fan – me!
The possible future:
Buyout by big player due to their technology advantage. Buyout, if they get a large userbase and popularity.
Or, legal battles!
Let me know what you think about this article – comments are most welcome!
Thank you!
