Here is a neat little video player that makes use of the YouTube Chromeless Player and YouTube AS3 Player API to present a YouTube video within a customised (and nicer looking, in one’s opinion!) viewing experience.

The player is currently hard wired to a single video for speed of presentation, a study of graffiti in dear old Brick Lane, London, by Piotr Obal, set to the music of Danny Griffin.

Although the YouTube Player API is somewhat primitive, all the essential bases are covered and there’s no reason why elegant, interactive media experience can’t be built using the YouTube player as a foundation. I’m sure you’ll agree that this player looks nothing like the standard YouTube viewing experience….

Digital Surface has recently worked with Five, one of the major channels in the UK, to produce a new generation of video player for its top-rated pre-school programming block, Milkshake!

The colourful video player, which UK-based users can see here, features a simple customised user interface that makes it easy for parents and young children to play episodes of some of the UK’s best loved children’s programmes including Roary the Racing Car, Make Way for Noddy and Peppa Pig.

The interface is based on the Brightcove online video platform and makes full use of the latest features of Brightcove 4 to deliver a unique and customised viewing experience.

Due to the heavy lifting performed by Brightcove’s XML-based user interface layout capability, BEML (Brightcove Experience Markup Language), Digital Surface can turn around production of highly customised media delivery interfaces, like the Milkshake! players, in a very short timeframe.

Taking the ‘BEML approach’, there is no need for intensive custom development and thus there are significant cost savings in terms of planning, development and maintenance.

Thanks to a deep understanding of the technical implications of building user interfaces using technologies such as BEML, Digital Surface was able to help Five enhance one of its key non-linear video properties and ensure the broadcaster was able roll it out on time and to budget.

Digital Surface provides online media delivery production and consultancy services to clients across the EU.

At the London Brightcove Developer Group last night, we were fortunate enough to see a presentation by Martin Webb, Technology Manager for Multimedia at Symbian. While showing a largely non-technical deck (which was refreshing from such an obvious technical supremo), Martin explored the classic lean forward/sit back paradigm of user interaction and how this relates to the mobile platform. His essential conclusion was that the mobile experience can be both lean forward and sit back depending on mode of use – in other words that the mobile platform is a more ubiquitous space than either the personal computer or television which both tend to live on opposite ends of the lean forward-sit back axis.

Interestingly enough, in figures published by the BBC relating to usage of the BBC iPlayer (in which the iPhone accounted for 7% of all iPlayer video views in October 2009), it appears that mobile usage of the service peaks around 9pm in the week and again on weekend mornings. As these are likely to be classic ‘chill’ times for a market segment largely made up of urbane young professionals, the sit back mode is very much in evidence. This is much in contrast to the mode of interaction so oft observed of iPhone-wielding members of the same market segment commuting to and from the place of work. As Martin pointed out in his talk, in this situation the iPhone appears to fulfill the role that handheld game consoles do for many teens – heads down, digits furiously jabbing (or stroking in the iPhone’s case) – most definitely lean forward!

Although it’s still relatively early days for mobile platform adoption, the high-spec mobile device purchasing model of fixed term contract with the latest applications coming pre-installed is markedly different from either tv or pc purchasing models. Thus we are likely to witness faster rates of adoption and usage of mobile devices equipped to fulfill our every requirement, whereever that may fall between sit back and lean forward.

As a footnote, Jamie Gledhill of Digital Surface has agreed to speak on the subject of ‘Interactive Video’ at the next London Brightcove Developer Group meet-up, date to be announced. Watch this space for more details.

Last week’s much hyped and over-anticipated announcement of the Apple iPad (complete with last minute leaks and physical protests) has revealed more about the current state of the online media industries through the sheer weight of comment and discourse that has cracked and fizzled in the wake of the launch than the bright light shone by Apple’s latest vision of the future has done so itself.

Firstly, there has been the realisation amongst many that the iPad will not be an all-singing all-dancing imaginatron ™ designed to transcend previously uncrossed creative boundaries, but a rather more basic if well-designed offering aimed specifically at encouraging and supporting the consumption of digital media via wi-fi and 3G. It’s a niche product that fits neatly alongside the smart phone and personal computer categories but does not replace them. That’s the factual part finished(!) – there are plenty of discussions that focus on the iPad’s feature set so if you haven’t caught up with that yet, try Wikipedia’s iPad entry (that’s if it hasn’t been vandalised again!). At the time of writing, the Wikipedia article still contains comment about the product’s name resembling the common US English term for sanitary towel – believe me this is just the beginning…

So what else can be learned from the post-launch discussions? Well there certainly have been recriminations following Steve Jobs’ verbal snubbing of fellow heavy weight corporates Adobe and in particular the lack of Flash Player inclusion on the iTampax, sorry iPad, (not withstanding 3 years plus of no Flash on the iPhone)! We can safely ascertain that Adobe and Apple will not be mutually resolving the historically underperforming Flash Player for Mac in the near future whilst agreeing on a neat plan to march into new markets together over a nice cup of tea… Even more so after Adobe Evangelist Lee Brimelow’s amusing and hastily pulled down (by Adobe) hit back at Apple with his own vision of what content may look like on the iPad sans Flash including a HD porn site without any video – touché!

Have those memories of the school playground come flooding back yet?

Ok so no Flash on the iPad – what does this really mean? As far as online video delivery is concerned, Flash is by far the dominant format with HTML 5 and even Silverlight currently lagging a long way behind. Apple’s Quicktime Player and iPhone’s H.264 capability are important but pack nowhere near the same punch as the incumbent heavyweight – Flash video. What we are looking at are partially-compatible parallel systems as so often seen before thanks to the technological competivity and brinkmanship that seems to be an inherent part of the online media’s growth spurts.

For strategists, producers, developers, designers and the rest of us – we still need to cater for differing models of media consumption by using the best fit platforms and technologies that suit our target markets – nothing that new after all as that’s exactly what most of us have been doing all along. If we haven’t, then the strength of argument surrounding the iPad launch should serve to quash any reliance on a perceived dominant platform as this is ever an uncertain position and market leaders can lose out altogether before you know it. Not that it’s all doom and gloom for Adobe Flash because every cloud has a silver lining and as interoperability looks more like the saviour of otherwise closed systems, those systems will surely evolve.

Digital Surface is pleased to announce the company’s involvement with the recent successful launch of os1.tv, a major new addition to the omnipresent OMS Online Marketing Service, the dominant online video advertising network in Germany.

Digital Surface has worked closely with key stakeholders to produce a richly interactive and highly stylised online video experience based on the Brightcove platform. However, this is no ordinary video player as you will see for yourself if you take a peek. For example, the size of the video playback area scales up and other interface elements are hidden when a video is first selected, allowing the user to focus completely on content. This can be quite a surprise the first time, but soon becomes intuitive and one actually appreciates the increased focus, which of course leads to greater user engagement.

os1.tv is a new online broadcaster for the Osnabrück region of Germany with a friendly, informal feel to their interviewers and program makers, many of whom are new to the business and seem to literally bubble with enthusiasm and great ideas. None of this is at the expense of quality, which is evident throughout the program making and is also reflected in the uncompromising interface design. os1.tv must be doing something right as viewing figures have shot through the roof making their model one to watch for the future.

Digital Surface is pleased to announce that it has completed a first round of work for NHS Choices to enable subtitling on a new generation of video players to be rolled out over the coming weeks. NHS (the UK’s National Health Service) Choices has developed a radical new media initiative to better manage and present a mammoth and ever-growing catalogue of health-related video content across multiple channels.

Subtitling is of course a crucial part of the media experience for deaf and hard-of-hearing who number an estimated 9 million in the UK alone (see the RNID website for more info).

Digital Surface is currently in discussion with NHS Choices regarding further enhancements to their new generation of video players. Watch this space!

Although slightly rambling at times, this interview of Anup Murarka, Director of Technology, Strategy and Partner Development for Adobe Systems, for technology community site Building43, shows off some of the coolness that is set-top Flash. It’s well worth watching for a few minutes just to get the gist of where Adobe’s going in terms of platform convergence, particularly in light of the sheer number of public announcements from Adobe and others recently on this very subject.

Video originally published at Building43 (as you may gather!).

Digital Surface Ltd. has happily formalised a longstanding relationship with Brightcove Inc, the leading online video platform, by joining the Brightcove Alliance as an official Solution Partner as of July 2009. This is a natural move for Digital Surface as a provider of consultancy and production services based on the enhancement of digital media experience, a large part of which is video.

Brightcove is by far the most advanced video platform to date, providing the kind of rich feature set and low-level API access necessary for a creative technology agency such as Digital Surface to imagine and produce engaging user experience.

Digital Surface will be publishing some cool sample applications and prototypes based on the Brightcove platform over the next few months. Watch this space for more details or subscribe to the Digital Surface RSS feed to be notified of updates as they occur.

Find out more about the Brightcove Alliance.