After being acquired for a song by Arris in Sept., Digeo released the latest in a string of improvements to its product portfolio today, starting with an HD DVR that can stream live or recorded video to up to three rooms in a user’s home.

In the latest update to the Moxi brand of products, Digeo added a new three-tuner HD DVR, which will allow consumers to record up to three programs at once, while having the ability to watch a fourth recorded program. Or, when combined with the company’s Moxi Mate products, users can now watch up to three live or recorded shows from different rooms in the house.

The ability to stream live programming to the Moxi Mate is also a new addition, correcting one of the biggest things missing from the product. Prior to the latest release, users could only watch pre-recorded programs through their Moxi Mates.

With the addition of new products and functionality, Digeo is lowering the price of its two-tuner Moxi HD DVR to $499, from its previous $799 price point. The company also reduced the cost of the Moxi Mate digital video player from $399 to $299.

However, the three-tuner HD DVR can only be purchased as part of a two-room or three-room bundle. For $799, consumers can purchase a three-tuner Moxi HD DVR and a Moxi Mate that will extend live or recorded programming to a second room in the house. Or they can spend $999 for a three-tuner HD DVR and two Moxi Mates.

This is the third update that Digeo has announced for the product line this year, after adding support for Internet video from sites like Hulu and YouTube in the spring, and announcing the availability of multiroom DVR viewing with the Moxi Mate line over the summer.

Frank Eliason, whose work connecting directly to Comcast consumers on Twitter helped “change the culture of our company,” in the words of CEO Brian Roberts, will be appearing at NewTeeVee Live in San Francisco this Thursday. Eliason’s session is actually a Comcast-sponsored workshop that is separate from Chris’ and my editorial programming of the conference, though we’re totally psyched about it. Comcast says of the session, to be held at 10:30 a.m., “Frank will handle requests live from NewTeeVee and talk about the evolution of social media and customer service.” This one won’t be live-streamed, so if you want to talk to Frank, you’ve got to come to the show.

By the way, if you notice that we’re all-Comcast-all-the-time lately, it’s for a couple of reasons. On the news side, the cable giant is unavoidable, with its proposed NBC Universal joint venture and TV Everywhere trials. But just so it’s clear, we wanted to disclose that the reason the Comcast logo is sprinkled all across the top of our page is because of a sponsorship takeover package they generously signed up for this week.

Jeremy Allaire, Brightcove’s CEO, and I wrote an open letter in January 2008 to the consumer electronics industry that argued for a strategy to get Internet video to TV sets. We made the case that the best approach would be a set of open industry standards similar to the Web, but geared to the unique experience of traditional TV.

Apparently the letter was lost in the mail.

Two years later, the consumer electronics industry continues to stumble forward without a real plan. We all want Internet video on our TV, so the question stands: How is it going to happen?

We are moving into a world of Internet-connected TVs (ICTV), in the form of both traditional TVs connected through a networked device (DVD player, computer, set-top box, game console, etc.) and TVs that come with their own built-in micro-computer and Internet connectivity. While most manufacturers are still fantasizing about replicating the success of Apple’s walled music Eden, the iPod/iTunes approach will fail; no single device and software system is going to win the battle for the living room. As a result, content distributors and publishers will have to find ways to get their content onto a wide range of ICTV systems.

Since the consumer electronics industry has not embraced traditional open standards, we are going to end up with the next best approach: a few default standards driven by open source efforts. These “media center platforms” (MCP) will give publishers and developers a way to build experiences and deliver content across multiple Internet-connected TVs. With any luck, the major consumer electronics manufactures will pick one or two of these software platforms and not make every experience proprietary. (Fingers crossed on this.)

The MCP market is already gaining momentum, and it creates a fresh patch of fertile ground for startups. XBMC, which was originally introduced as the Xbox Media Center, has emerged as an open source effort with decent traction. Boxee is the most high profile example of a commercialized version of XBMC. Adobe could easily resurrect Adobe Media Player as an MCP, as well. Undoubtedly there will be others as the race gains momentum.

But along with the MCP vendors, everyone else wants a slice of the new value chain, including broadband providers (e.g., Verizon), TV manufacturers (e.g., Sony), the content producers/owners (e.g., Viacom), the content aggregators (e.g., Hulu), the advertising networks and the existing social networks (e.g., Facebook). The fight is on.

The road to Internet TV nirvana is starting to come into focus, even if it still looks a little like a scene from Mad Max. As the new stack of hardware and software technologies settles into the place, the next question will be: Is there a killer app for Internet-connected TVs beyond simply delivering more TV?

Adam Berrey is the former SVP of Marketing and Strategy for Brightcove. He is currently an Entrepreneur in Residence at General Catalyst (a Boxee investor) looking for the next big thing in renewable energy, and a blogger at www.startupblender.com.

Joe and Kris Swanberg’s Young American Bodies, a cult hit and one of the great early pioneers in web-distributed drama, has been peeking in on the lives of the young and sexually active since 2005, providing a semi-scripted take on the tangled romances of a group of 20-something Chicagoeans. The decidedly NSFW series, distributed originally through Nerve, launched its fourth season today exclusively on IFC.com; I spoke with Joe Swanberg via phone about his approach to sexuality, his “fantastic” deals with Nerve and IFC, the show’s future, and the increasingly inaccurate title. An edited transcript follows.

NewTeeVee: Young American Bodies has always been known for its frank inclusion of nudity and sexuality. How has the adult content been a part of the show’s evolution?

Joe Swanberg: When we pitched Nerve in 2005, the model we were working on was a show that had a lot of realistic sexual content and a lot of realistic exploration of issues with parents and friends and whatever else. And as it’s evolved [the sexual content]’s remained important to us just because everybody’s sex lives are changing too, with commitment coming into it, and people getting older and thinking about having kids and stuff like that. Your reasons for having sex are starting to change.

There was an HBO show called Tell Me You Love Me that was kind of like this, but it was so bleak. I think that’s generally the way sex has been treated on TV. Like, if you’re going to portray sex realistically, you have to take it super-seriously. So the thing that separates Young American Bodies from like pornography on one side and Tell Me You Love Me on the other side is that it’s not always really serious. It’s able to be really serious or funny or awkward or stupid, all those shades in between that I don’t think TV wants to deal with.

We’ve been lucky in a sense, because we fit perfectly with Nerve and what they were doing then, and then it was great that IFC was bold enough to take us on and get the show out to a much bigger audience than Nerve did.

NewTeeVee: How did the switch from Nerve to IFC happen?

Swanberg: I think Nerve and IFC have always had some sort of relationship or advertising partnership; they seemed really familiar with each other. So the first two seasons were exclusively on Nerve, and then for the third season IFC came in and co-produced it. They basically paid for the third season, but kind of in a roundabout way through Nerve, so [new episodes would] premiere on IFC first and then on Nerve the next day.

Nerve is great, but there’s a much different staff there now than there was when we first started. So with this fourth season I just went straight to the people at IFC and was like, look, I don’t even know who the people at Nerve are anymore, so let’s just keep this relationship going.

NewTeeVee: Have there ever been any product placement or sponsorship issues you’ve had to contend with?

Swanberg: No, never. We got money from Nerve and we made the show with that; now we get money from IFC and we make the show with that. There’s never been any internal sponsorship. IFC does put commercials before the shows, but we’ve always thankfully been left out of that side of it. The show has a lot of sexual content but it’s not extreme about it; I think that would be where we would run into issues, if we tried to put some crazy sex stuff into the show.

So the sponsorship thing is their deal and the making the show thing is our deal. And that’s fantastic. That’s how it should be. We just get money from them and are left to our own devices. We give them rough cuts and there are notes, but we’ve never been strong-armed to do anything. Nerve was even more hands-off; they would just let us do whatever we want. But they were giving us less money, so I think they could afford to be more hands-off.

IFC has been really great about getting YAB out to a wide audience. I mean, the thing about Nerve is that it’s a sex site — a smart, interesting sex site, but still a sex site. But IFC is the Independent Film Channel; it’s a destination for anyone who’s interested in independent or alternative things. I think that’s brought in a lot of casual viewers who might not have been interested in Nerve content.

NewTeeVee: Can you comment publicly on what your budget is like?

Swanberg: At this point with IFC, it’s like a couple thousand bucks an episode.

NewTeeVee: What’s it been like juggling the web series with your work in features?

Swanberg: It’s been good — basically the web series serves as a project I can fit in between the features. It keeps a camera in my hands and keeps me active. For me and Kris it’s also one of our main sources of income. Often the money from YAB goes directly into the features. But I consider YAB just as important a part of my body of work as the features.

NewTeeVee: Previous seasons of YAB have run eight to 12 episodes — what’s behind the decision to do a slightly shorter season this time?

Swanberg: Our feeling is we’d rather do six episodes and then do another six in a few months, rather than do 12 and have a year-long gap between them. When we’ve done 12 we’ve been so exhausted by the end of it that we’re always like, “Never again.” This is the first time when I’ve finished a season and feel like we have more stories to tell and more interesting things to shoot.

NewTeeVee: Do you have a target release date for the next six?

Swanberg: We’ll probably start working on them next spring, so probably sometime next summer. My perfect schedule would be six episodes every six months.

NewTeeVee: Given how long the series has lasted already, it definitely seems like it has that kind of longevity.

Swanberg: Yeah, we’re up for doing it as long as people are interested in watching it. I think the title Young American Bodies is gonna be a little silly if we’re well into our 30s, but that’s one of the nice things about the episodic format vs. feature films, is the ability to follow characters for a really long time. It’s one of my favorite things about television, feeling like you’re growing up alongside characters — your life is changing as their lives are changing.

I would love to do it for another 10 years. As long as all of our schedules permit and as long as everyone remains interested, we’ll keep going with it. The only threat is that as our actors start getting married and having kids, no one’s going to want to keep on doing a web series where they have fake sex with other people. That will be ultimately what spells the demise of the show — everyone feeling like “enough of this.”

NewTeeVee: What do you think has been the key to making YAB successful and sustainable?

Swanberg: I think people are interested in seeing other people going through the same problems that they have. Hopefully there are moments where people keep tuning in because they recognize themselves in them. The show is not for everybody. But the people who have liked it and are still tuning in have identified themselves with one of these characters, and have found someone else who sees the world the way they do.

“TV Everywhere,” the set of new initiatives to make subscription programming available online exclusively to current pay-TV subscribers, could effect the most far-reaching change in the television industry since the introduction of cable. Like community-antenna TV (CATV), as cable was originally known, TV Everywhere has the potential not only to change the way people access television content but to radically reorder the relationship between programmers and distributors.

Its success is far from assured, however. TV Everywhere faces a number of technical and economic hurdles that will need to be overcome before its full impact can be felt, as I detail in a study released today by GigaOM Pro (subscription required) in connection with this Thursday’s NewTeeVee Live conference.

The technical challenges concern authentication, as NewTeeVee readers are likely aware, but also authorization. Given the large number of cable systems in the U.S., and the multitude of specific programming packages to which a person can subscribe, some method for mapping a user’s cable or satellite subscription package to particular pieces of content hosted on various web sites will be essential.

From a technical perspective, in fact, it’s likely to prove an even knottier problem than the issue of authentication, where at least some specific proposals are already being batted around, because authorization is likely to require a degree of data-sharing on subscribers that will no doubt make some service providers uneasy.

From a business perspective, though, authorization may be more important than the authentication piece, because it will directly affect the bottom lines of both service providers and programmers. As I explain in the report:

[U]nless individual subscription plans can be mapped to specific video assets hosted on multiple sites, TV Everywhere could be ripe for abuse. Why pay your cable provider for a premium programming tier, for instance, if a basic subscription can grant access to online resources containing both basic and premium content?

Economic Hurdles Ahead

Beyond the technical challenges, however, the most vexing questions facing TV Everywhere are economic. Is there a business model to sustain the incremental costs of making the vast library of pay-TV content available for streaming and maintaining the authentication system?

For now, cable MSOs are planning to offer TV Everywhere as a value-added service to their subscribers at no additional cost. That may be fine as long as subscribers are using the same MSO’s broadband service to access content online. But it may be less than fine when subscribers want to access their cable channels outside the home, like on their laptops while traveling or using a wireless handheld device.

Beyond that is TV Everywhere’s potential to shake up the relationship between cable programmers and distributors. With retransmission fees increasingly vital to programmers, it’s hard to imagine they won’t look to hike those costs as cable and satellite providers seek to distribute the content online, adding further heat to what often have been tense negotiations.

Programmers may be compelled to seek higher fees for the additional exploitation rights to comply with talent deals, collective bargaining agreements with the creative guilds, music clearances and other contractual obligations involved in producing TV programming.

The report offers a comprehensive overview of all TV Everywhere trials being conducted by major MVPDs and analyzes the strategic and business-model issues confronting programmers and service providers as they try to respond to the challenges and opportunities presented by digital distribution platforms. It also addresses questions related to audience measurement on digital platforms and potential regulatory developments that will affect how TV Everywhere ultimately evolves.

Paul Sweeting is an analyst for GigaOM Pro and author of the latest report, “TV Everywhere.” Attendees of NewTeeVee Live will receive a free copy of the report via email; others can access it by subscribing to GigaOM Pro directly.

1 vs. 100, the interactive trivia hybrid video game/show from Microsoft Xbox LIVE and Endemol, is one of the best examples we’ve seen so far of real-time entertainment. We’ve devoted more than a few words to the show’s first season, with an extended profile for our GigaOM Pro subscription service. If you missed out, or are raring to play again, we now have an appointment for the launch of season two: Nov. 19 at 5 p.m. PT. As we wrote in September:

What’s significant about “1 vs. 100″ is that it combines one of the best aspects of a TV show — the moment of people joining together simultaneously to watch a live event unfold — with the best of a video game — interactivity and competition. And because “1 vs. 100″ piggybacks on Xbox Live, it’s incredibly popular, making it a shining early example of a massive communal participatory experience.

Microsoft also said today that the 14-week second season will be accompanied by “1 vs. 100 Extended Play” weeknight trivia on topics like song lyrics and vampires. The first season of 1 vs. 100 had a high of 114,000 simultaneous players in North America, with close to 3 million downloads and an average of seven live games played per user.

Forrester Research is bringing some visibility to the fast-growing market online video platform (OVP) market with a new report issued Friday. But while some OVP competitors got positive marks for their offerings, the vast majority of players were noticeably absent from the research.

“The Forrester Wave: US Online Video Platforms” ranked a handful of OVP vendors according to 37 criteria that could be broken down into three “high-level buckets”: current offering, strategy, and market presence.

Brightcove and Ooyala both ranked favorably in the report, and both issued press releases touting their rankings as “leaders” of the OVP segment. But there’s only one problem — Forrester evaluated only six vendors (Brightcove, Fliqz, Kaltura, Ooyala, Twistage, and VMIX), overlooking a large percentage of the overall market.

That’s not to say that Brightcove and Ooyala don’t measure up well against competing offerings. Brightcove is clearly the early leader in the space, and Ooyala has gotten a good amount of buzz and attention since it launched two years ago. (NewTeeVee also sees good things for Ooyala, naming the company to our Next Big Thing List for our NewTeeVee Live conference this week.)

But clearly there’s more competition than the Forrester report lets on. Research firm CDN Quote tracks 62 white-label video management providers; VidCompare, which calls itself a “free comparison service for business decision makers looking for an online video platform provider,” tracks 60 OVP companies. With just six platforms evaluated in its report, Forrester is missing out on the vast majority of companies operating in the space.

In a blog post, Forrester analyst Bobby Tulsiani defends the narrow scope of the report, stating:

“While the number of companies in the space is certainly larger than six, we decided to focus on a set of vendors that serve a variety of clients, regardless of size or industry.  For that reason, some vendors that primarily focus on high end media companies, such as Digitalsmiths, The Platform, or Move Networks were not included.”

Fair enough. Not everyone has the need for the type of all-encompassing, TV Everywhere-type video offering that is being pitched by companies like thePlatform or ExtendMedia.

But there’s no explanation for why Forrester left out companies like Delve Networks, Episodic, KIT Digital, Kyte, Unicorn Media, or any number of other OVP players that serve media and enterprise customers, and offer similar services to those that were included in the report. (Note: I fully expect a rash of emails asking why I didn’t include the other 50 or so vendors in this story.)

The good news is that a report like this, from a leading analyst firm, brings attention to an increasingly competitive space like the white-label video management market. The bad news is that by including only a small number of players competing in that space, the report overlooks just how competitive the segment has become.

ZillionTV Signs Paramount; new films will be available via electronic sell-through, while catalog titles will be available for free with ads. (emailed release)

Fox Adds Second Screen for DVD Interactivity; “FoxPop” will debut on Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian and via a downloadable app; facts about the movie will appear on a laptop or iPhone in sync with and about the movie. (The Hollywood Reporter)

Netflix on the PS3 = Sucky; experience of loading and moving through streamed films are slow, reports one user. (Business Insider)

Microsoft Taking a Multi-Screen Approach to Ads and Games; company putting ads on its Xbox LIVE platform as well as dynamically delivering ads (including video) to breaks built into games. (MediaWeek)

Chase Sponsoring Oprah/CNN Webcast; 90-minute webcast with author Uwem Akpan happening tonight at 9 p.m. (Broadcasting & Cable)

NCR and MOD Systems Begin Technical Trial; kiosks let you download movies to an SD card (see our previous coverage). (emailed release)

Tudou Looks to Mobile, Despite Lagging Chinese 3G; TechCrunch has long wrte-up about the company’s strategy. (TechCrunch)

To all readers, commenters, and other esteemed members of the online video ecosystem:

Please allow me to introduce myself as the newest member of the GigaOM and NewTeeVee team.

For those that don’t know me, I spent the last two years at Contentinople, where I wrote about technology innovation in the digital media realm. When I first started there, I joked in my bio that I covered “all things related to the rapid movement of rich media onto the Web, and the not-so-rapid monetization of it.”

The funny thing is that’s what I’m still writing about nearly two years later.

For the most part, my interest lies in the technology that enables content to move online, and the ways that the market is rapidly changing. That includes the commoditization of the CDN industry, the maturation of video management platforms and monetization tools, and the growing presence of connected consumer electronics devices that bring online video into the living room.

When I first started covering online video, there weren’t very many publications paying much attention to the market, and there were even fewer that covered it particularly well. But NewTeeVee consistently provided great insight into what was happening in online video, and it became one of the few sites that I found myself reading every day.

So when the opportunity presented itself to be a part of that, I couldn’t resist. I’m happy to be joining Liz, Chris, and the rest of the GigaOM team, and hope that I can complement their existing coverage with some of my own. I’m looking forward to working with them and contributing to the site — and of course, interacting with the great community that they’ve built. So feel free to drop me a line, send me hate mail, or tip me off to any wild rumors or speculation that you might hear.

Comcast’s bid to buy NBC Universal from GE has cleared another hurdle — the price point. The two parties have agreed to a $30 billion price tag for the TV and movie company, sources familiar with the matter tell The Wall Street Journal and Reuters.

The deal would give the cable network a 51 percent stake in the newly combined venture. And the deal could include a stipulation that over the following seven years, GE would sell all or part of its remaining stake in the company to Comcast.

One variable to closing this deal is French media company Vivendi, which has a 20 percent stake in NBCU. Vivendi has been talking about selling its stake for a while, but it’s not clear whether the company has agreed to the deal being negotiated between Comcast and GE.

Comcast is expected to contribute between $4 billion and $6 billion to the venture, but the cash payment would depend on how well NBC performs financially. If NBCU’s financials get worse between the signing of the deal and final closing, Comcast could wind up paying less.

The Journal reports that the final details are being worked out, and we could get an announcement by the end of this week. (We’ve heard that one before.) Getting the regulatory approvals is expected to take eight to 12 months.

My evening reading includes two pieces by Mike Shields of Mediaweek about cable networks’ changing approaches to the web: a looong feature about Fox News’ live Strategy Room program, and a tiny piece about MTV’s success with breaking its content into web-sized snacks.

Fox News’ year-old Strategy Room runs for eight hours on weekdays with a range of colorful hosts and guests, attracting a midday audience interested in more than just political news. Meanwhile, MTV earlier this year started experimenting with catering its content to the headline-driven web, playing up clips and quotes rather than leaving everything full-length.

It strikes me that the numbers don’t even compare. Strategy Room got 28,000 viewers per day in Sept., with a high of 38,000. Meanwhile, MTV News saw nearly 10 million streams in the third quarter, up 88 percent from last year.

However, Strategy Room is doing good for Fox’s image, says Shields; with a more casual and wide-ranging vibe that could help the network with its massive online traffic gap versus its cable news rivals. And anyhow, most of MTV’s views were probably for New Moon clips.

I’ve mentioned previously that I’m a movie trailer junkie, and because I don’t get out to the movies that often, most of the time I’m watching trailers online on sites like joblo.com). Will I see either of these? Honestly, probably not — the trailers were enough to get the taste, for good or for bad. But the trailers, they are so good!

When you think “dark, dystopian sci-fi romance,” would you necessarily think of the title Boogie Town? Well, I guess I didn’t mention the part where it’s also a dance movie. Watching all of those elements get smashed together into one trailer…well, it’s special, I’ll give you that. Summer 2009 can’t get here fast enough! (The film is now set for a 2010 release.)

Meanwhile, I’ll be upfront about this and say that the reason the trailer for The Fourth Kind is awesome isn’t because Milla Jovovich tells us how to properly pronounce her name; it’s because by doing so, she breaks the fourth wall and sets up this alien abduction thriller as the most terrifying kind of truth.

Are there other awesome or awful trailers you’ve seen recently? Tell us in the comments!

Have you ever wondered what goes on at your house when you’re not home? Thanks to Avaak’s Vue personal video network, it’s now easy to find out. This $299 kit features wireless video cameras that you can set up almost anywhere and view over the Internet. It’s incredibly easy to use, and the hardware is well-designed.

Avaak says the system is designed for a variety of uses, including keeping an eye on pets or elderly parents; monitoring vacation homes; checking in on latchkey kids; securing a small business; and more. And it’s so easy to set up that anyone can use it. Unfortunately, the web-based surveillance tools are too limited to be a truly useful remote security system; at this point you can only watch live video, though the company says it plans to add recording scheduling soon.

The kit includes two tiny wireless cameras and a wireless gateway that connects to your router. You just turn the battery-powered cameras on, press a button to pair them with the gateway, and you’re good to go. The four included magnetic mounts are so well-designed — they’re the shape of a ball, cut in half — they impressed me with their simplicity. They grab the camera and hold it securely; it really couldn’t be easier.

Once the cameras are in place, you can log onto my.vuezone.com and create an account, with an identification number from your wireless gateway. Once you’ve created a user name and password, you can access your cameras from any browser that supports Flash. (That means you can’t use the iPhone’s Safari browser, but the company says an iPhone app is coming soon.)

The Vuezone’s Web interface is neatly laid out: Your cameras appear in a window on the left side of the screen, and you can drag them to the main window to play their video feed. The video quality is decent, but varies greatly depending on the lighting in the room. (And these cameras have no microphones, so the feed is video only.) You can change the settings to accommodate for low, normal or bright light, and to a certain extent, this helps. I used the “low light” setting in a room with a dim lamp, and the video appeared nice and bright. But when I tried to use the camera in a darker room, lit only by a nightlight, the video was so dark it was difficult to see — even on the low light setting. This is too bad, because this camera could really appeal to parents who want to see what their little ones are doing in their bedrooms when they’re supposed to be sleeping.

That’s not the only limitation of the Vue network. While the system comes with two cameras — and supports up to 50 (additional cameras are available for $99 each) — you can only see one feed at a time. You can drag all of your cameras into the main window, but only one will play at a time — if you have one camera playing, it will stop automatically if you start another one.

Another limitation: You can only watch live video. You can’t see what happened while you were away — so if someone broke into your house, robbed you, but put everything back in place, you might never even know that they’d been there. You can’t schedule video to record while you’re away from your computer, though Avaak says the feature is coming soon — and it will be a most welcome addition. (You can record video as you’re watching it, but I’m not sure why you’d want to.) And the Vue cameras don’t have any kind of motion detector that would cause them to turn on when something happens in the room, but the company says it is considering adding this to future versions. Scheduled recordings and motion detection would greatly increase the appeal of this product to people looking for a home or small business security system.

Avaak is off to a good start with the Vue personal network; it’s incredibly easy to use. Once the company adds the ability to schedule recordings, it will be far more useful, and able to compete with similar systems, like Logitech’s Indoor Video Security Master System. Until it has those features, though, its appeal is limited.

YouTube is playing around with real-time comment search in the vein of web darling Twitter. The new YouTube “test tube” feature provides a continuously updating list of current comments on the site and surfaces popular overlaps of conversation as trending topics.

Being that YouTube is such a popular site, it’s quite possible that a live-updated list of trending topics (a sampler: “flashing lights,” “danny gokey it’s only,” “kitten” and “lloyd doggett”) could give us a sense of the cultural zeitgeist. But YouTube comments can’t escape their reputation for being particularly silly and nonsensical (case in point: this excellent McSweeney’s feature: “YouTube comment or e.e. cummings?“).

So — not to be snarky, I swear! — on Friday I ran a little test, searching YouTube comments for real-time mentions of the terms “sucks” and “rocks.” I actually had to do this multiple times, as it turns out YouTube stops counting after it crosses 100 new comments. But in almost exactly an hour, I was able to get a very unscientific window into the sentiment of the general YouTube population.

1:44 p.m.: Started near-simultaneous searches for “sucks” and “rocks”

1:54 p.m.: 10 minutes in, “rocks” has 15 fresh entries and “sucks” has 21.

2:14 p.m.: The split is widening; 41 “rocks” to 59 “sucks.”

2:34 p.m.: 65 “rocks,” 87 “sucks”

2:44 p.m.: Sucks has crossed 100, and now says “More than 101 comments since you started searching.” Rocks” is dragging with just 74.

UK-based P2P video platform VODO published its second feature film on dozens of file-sharing sites Thursday, hoping that worldwide exposure will bring in donations, subscriptions and traditional distribution deals. David Miller’s documentary In Guantanamo, which is the result of a press tour of the controversial detention facility, has been downloaded around 15,000 times within the first 24 hours, according toVODO founder Jamie King.

The site’s first feature, Us Now, got downloaded around 250,000 times since its release in mid-October. Part of the volume is due to VODO’s relationships with a number of well-known BitTorrrent sites, with Isohunt and The Pirate Bay currently featuring In Guantanamo on their front pages. VODO hasn’t been quite as successful in making money from these downloads, but King hopes that a combination of one-off donations and a subscription level for documentary geeks and movie buffs will help eventually make the site sustainable and provide an additional revenue stream for filmmakers.

VODO is short for voluntary donations, and King is no newcomer to the idea of giving content away in exchange for contributions from viewers. He is the maker of the pro-piracy documentaries Steal this Film and Steal this Film 2, both of which were released for free online. Viewers donated around $30,000 since the first part of Steal This Film got released three years ago.

The new site’s first documentary Us Now hasn’t been quite as successful yet. The film has brought in less than $1,000 in donations since its release in October, according to King. “If we can get it closer to $5,000 we’ll be doing well,” he told me, adding that he views donations as only one piece of the puzzle for filmmakers. King was able to sell his documentaries to several TV networks around the globe in part because the films were so successful online, and he hopes that others can follow in his footsteps.

VODO passes 100 percent of its donations directly onto filmmakers, but it also asks viewers to become paying members of the site. VODO supporters who pay around $5 a month get access to a pool of movies that are considered for distribution. “We’ve got (around) 15 films we’re considering right now,” explained King. Paying supporters can vote on which of these movies will get picked up for P2P distribution, and VODO also wants to organize online events with the filmmakers for these members. So far, around 50 people have signed up for this online film club. VODO hopes to grow this number to at least 1,500 in the near future.

King and his collaborators have received grants from the Channel 4 British Documentary Film Foundation, the Arts Council England and the Emerald Fund to start VODO , with the total funding being just shy of $250,000. King isn’t sure whether VODO will sign up corporate sponsors in the future. Right now, the funding is enough to keep the site and its development going for a year, and filmmakers seem to be eager to sign up. King told me that he has another dozen movies in the queue, and is talking to a couple dozen more filmmakers who want to get their movies out to P2P sites. “We’re building the new world here,” he said.

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