a tubecast tale

Your channels

Philip Bulley — Sat, 30 May 2009 16:13:53 +0000

There are quite a few channels available via the tubecast network. But of course, depending on what you’re into, you’re not going to like every single one of them. Fortunately, adding the ones you like to your current channel package is a piece of cake. Whilst watching tubecast.tv, moving your mouse to the bottom of the screen reveals the program guide, select “Main Menu”, and then “Add or remove channels”.

Dragging a channel logo from above to your “Current channels” bar below adds it to your package. Likewise, if you don’t want a channel that’s already in your package, drag it away from your “Current channels” bar to remove it.

Currently, channels available via the tubecast network include (subject to change):

shake!
altitude
flow
miaow
vibe
Parlophone
YouTube
CNN International
ITN Entertainment
ITN News
NME TV
BBC
Polydor
AnimaNations
Sky News
Game On
Journeyman Pictures
Channel 4
CBS
CBS News
SHOWTIME
FOX
National Geographic
Discovery Channel
The Onion
NBA.com
Machinima
FAILBlog
HotForWords
Al Jazeera English
Expert Village
Venetian Princess
TED
Google
Oprah
UFC
G4
Top Gear
Dave
Current
RedBull
NHL
History
HBO
The Whitehouse
FHM TV
FHM TV South Africa
Fashion TV
Playboy
TV Guide Broadband
NASA television
Bloomberg
Travel Channel
Animal Planet
Chelsea TV
Discovery Health
EMI & Virgin Classics
Hallmark Channel
Starz
BET
Poker Channel
TechCrunch
Techfluff TV
Living
Serie A TV
ChannelIntel
IGN entertainment
Babestation
Ford Models
Hollywood TV
Wedding TV
CelebTV
AllThatGlitters21
Makeup By Tiffany D
Nylon TV
Rajshri
Diddy TV
Jump Off TV
Video Jug
Beatbox Battle TV
Howcast
Make
BMW-web TV
Automotive TV
BlankTV
Indy Mogul
Loko TV
joecartoon
aniBOOM
Kerrang! Podcast
Q
TPM tv
Investigation Discovery

If you are a video blogger, semi-professional or professional video content creator and your channel has not yet been added, you may add it yourself by choosing the “Create a channel” option via the main menu.

Private beta launched!

Philip Bulley — Tue, 12 May 2009 15:45:46 +0000

So, it’s been a very long time coming, but tubecast.tv is back!

I finally found some time to revamp the way tubecast.tv works, with the goal this time of allowing you to create and manage your own TV channels. Much of the interface has remained the same, but with the major additions of a menu system to allow for the management of channels, and a search feature allowing viewers to create a “quick channel” playing whatever takes their fancy.

The system is powered by the YouTube API, so the content library behind tubecast.tv is huuuge! As usual, you needn’t register to watch*, and to create your own channels you simply use your existing YouTube account (please read our privacy policy for details on how tubecast.tv deals with your YouTube account).

Of course there are a zillion and one additions/refinements that could be made to make this a killer application, but of course, this takes time, especially considering that this is not a full-time job for me. But your feedback, of course, is greatly appreciated and as such tubecast.tv is now available via a limited private beta (sorry, but it’s private to ensure that my teeny-weeny shared server doesn’t spontaneously combust). Just go to http://tubecast.tv to sign up.

* as for the application itself, you don’t need to register to watch. However the private beta programme requires sign up.

General Feedback

Philip Bulley — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 12:51:12 +0000

Naturally, I�d love to know what you think about tubecast. Please do leave any feature requests, anything you hate, any bug reports, or even show some love! All comments are appreciated.

My, how things have changed

Philip Bulley — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 10:51:27 +0000

It’s been a while since last blogging the developments on tubecast. The good news is that it’s because I’ve been a busy bee! So what’s new?

A new thumbnail screenshot-based EPG

Allows rewind, fast forward, pause, skip
Volume control

Fullscreen mode
New channels and preset numbering system

101 - miaow (mainstream pop)
102 - altitude (alternative / indie rock)
103 - shake (dance, house, drum & bass)
104 - vibe (r&b and hip-hop)
110 - Insight (documentaries)
111 - soda (creative motion art)
120 - Naughty ToonTube (cartoons for a mature audience)

Permalinks

Dialogue boxes

Alerting the user to a slow connection, or if there are any issues with the permalink requested

Adobe Flash player express install
Backend admin system
Plus adding the 383 shows/clips currently on tubecast

Here’s some eye candy:

A few system messages:

The guide takes shape

Philip Bulley — Sun, 26 Nov 2006 18:44:54 +0000

There’s no use in having a snazzy new logo if the in-vision graphics aren’t consistent, so here’s the first incarnation of a ‘designed’ in-vision EPG banner.

It’s layout may not look unfamiliar to those in the UK, it’s largely based on Sky’s easy to use EPG design. Although, I do see this as a mere starting point - expect this to be redesigned in the near future.

Feeling at home with a new identity

Philip Bulley — Fri, 24 Nov 2006 20:37:44 +0000

So I think I’ve come to a point where I’m reasonably happy with tubecast’s brand identity. After lots of scribbling, I worked-up a couple of the not-so-cheesie concepts in illustrator:

To veer off on a slight tangent, my flatmate had labelled me a big kid when I broke his plush coffee maker. ‘Just having to’ repetitively push this big shiny silver button on the front of it. No, I don’t even drink coffee, but you know how it is, I ‘just have to’ push the shiny button! Well I couldn’t resist introducing my ‘button fetish’ to tubecast. Here is the final (for now, at least) logo and button device:

Coining a strapline

Well this was one of the brand elements of which came to me fairly quickly during the midst of my own hype, or thereabouts when I first thought about creating tubecast. “Turn on, tune in, chill out” pays tribute to Timothy Leary and his famous phrase “Turn on, tune in, drop out” . For obvious reasons, I’d like tubecast to become synnonomous with Leary’s ideology (though that doesn’t mean I particularly advocate dropping acid whilst watching tubecast, you cheeky person!). It also works on the level where tubecast places an emphasis on passive viewing, allowing yourself to travel on a journey without having to mouse click here, there and everywhere - something which current “internet video players” seem to be plagued by. Anyway, enough of the philosophy, here’s the brand spanking new splash page:

In-vision channel graphics

Philip Bulley — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 20:07:19 +0000

So in an attempt to start the channel branding process, I’ve created a very basic DOG, strap and clip caption for shake!. I’ll probably use this as a template as more music channels are rolled out (in addition to altitude, mainstream pop plus r&b and hip-hop channels coming soon), then focus on each channel brand once the bulk of the development’s first phase is done.

A guiding light

Philip Bulley — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 20:27:47 +0000

I’ve been away to Ghana to celebrate my grandmother’s 80th birthday (she’s a trooper!). But now I’m back, it’s tubecast time! (I confess, whilst away�I’ve missed my Flash fix!).

So what’s new? We have an Electronic Programme Guide (EPG) to tell us what’s currently showing and what’s coming up later. It looks absolutely pants right at the minute, but believe me, this is the start of something beautiful, something which should hopefully set tubecast apart from any of the other “internet video players” I’ve seen thus far.

��

Currently, there are only two channels, ’shake!’ - the dance music video channel�- and ‘Altitude’ - the alternative/indie rock�music video channel. You can change between them using your up/down arrow keys. As usual, feel free to take a peek at www.tubecast.tv.

I’m absolutely itching to put the development work on pause and get some brand design done. I think, naturally, the first brand to work on will be ‘tubecast.tv’ itself. Watch this space…

A screenshot is born!

Philip Bulley — Sun, 15 Oct 2006 22:12:35 +0000

Recently, finding the time to work on tubecast has been just as difficult as my hunt for good quality programming on Channel Five (if you’re in the UK, you’ll share my pain). Though after applying a little elbow-grease, this weekend, I’ve reached a stage where I can begin demonstrating the TV app (albeit a very simple single channel demonstration).

It’s progressively downloading and showing videos direct from YouTube. At the moment it is running from a database-driven custom playlist of YouTube videos of which I’ve added manually. In essence what we have is a single channel which runs continuously without repeat for x number of clips (x is currently set to 10). You can view this now on http://www.tubecast.tv/ (although this link will be constantly updated). Here is a screenshot… it even has a (bad looking) DOG!

Making progress

Philip Bulley — Sun, 20 Aug 2006 15:42:45 +0000

Things are looking bright for this internet television experiment! For the past week I’ve been debating on what to name it. The main contenders were:

PlatformOne
TeleTube
TubeCast

And after running the name by a few friends, it seems that TubeCast is the one to go for. It pretty much sums up the aim of this project - to create a continuous multi-channel television like experience using the best of YouTube’s content (a YouTube mash-up if you like). The domain tubecast.tv has now been secured. Though I’m unable to acquire the .com, a guy in Korea wants $8,000 for it!! Buy hey, we’re not going to pop like a dotcom bubble, welcome to the fresh new pastures of the dotteevee!