Founded by director Jon M. Chu and producer Hieu Ho, DS2DIO (pronounced “D-Studio”) brings together a wide array of dance-oriented content, from the b-boy competition series The Arena to dancing showcase S2DIO CITY.

Chu, whose work includes the second and third Step Up movies as well as the upcoming G.I. Joe: Retaliation, is also an established web creator, already had a close relationship with YouTube, dating back to his 2008 dance battles with Miley Cyrus.

“When they wanted to look for high production quality content, we got the phone call,” Chu said via phone. “We were kind of hesitant, trying to figure out what YouTube wanted — because there was no dedicated dance channel, but there are a ton of dancers on YouTube. We had to be sure that if we were going to do this, we had to lead it — show that high-quality dance content can exist online.”

Also included in the channel is Chu’s scripted series The LXD: League of Extraordinary Dancers, which premiered originally on Hulu in the US, but is now un-geo-blocked for the first time.

And plans for more scripted content are in the works, including a Step Up-esque drama with the working title of The Floor. Another unscripted series, Dance Fantasy, will bring the “dance fantasies” of celebrities to life — both series are in development for Spring 2013.

And the DS2DIO team is also focusing on new types of engagement: For example, the series Master Class teaches new moves and routines — which aspiring dancers can film themselves attempting, then submit the videos to the original choreographers for direct critique. “We’re trying to utilize all these tools to create this unique experience for the audience,” Ho said

As the channel is relatively new, the most-viewed videos on the channel are currently promotional content like the original DS2DIO trailer or a short featuring Justin Bieber. However, the series Remixed, which brings an established dancer and musical artist together to collaborate on an original piece, has established solid five-to-six figure viewcounts. “Seeing two artists come together and create something has been really fun to watch — because we haven’t seen that kind of profile before,” Chu said.

Remixed, at over 10 minutes an episode, is a bit longer than other shows on DS2DIO, as the issue of video length is far from resolved — especially depending on the platform. Chu brought up The LXD as an example, which before its 2010 premiere on Hulu was originally planned as a YouTube series.

Accordingly, the aim was for episodes to be no longer than three minutes — when they made the move to Hulu, though, they had to dramatically increase the length of episodes. “There’s a whole different culture for people watching Hulu videos. People were annoyed by watching a two minute ad for a five minute video”, he recalled.

Having returned to YouTube, though, Chu and the DS2DIO team are still figuring out the sweet spot. “I still think YouTube is meant for shorter length [content], but every few months we can get a little longer,” Chu said. “Right now, I think we’re in a five or six minute world — and that’s inching up every several months.

“Coming back to YouTube is a really interesting experiment because YouTube is also trying to change what people think. That’s what the whole initiative’s about — expanding the identity of what content on YouTube is,” Chu added.

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Famecount.com first caught that Lady Gaga’s VEVO channel on YouTube surpassed one billion views this Sunday, a victory the Lady Who Occasionally Wears Meat shared with her fans on Twitter:

Technically, though, Gaga probably passed the billion view mark earlier than Sunday, because there are two dedicated Gaga YouTube accounts. Currently, if you combine the “official” Lady Gaga account with the VEVO one, the total is 1.134 billion.

Justin Bieber, Gaga’s major competitor for views on YouTube, probably isn’t too bummed about being beaten on total views. The music video for the Ludacris collaboration Baby is still the most-viewed YouTube video of all time (now beating Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance by 70 million views), and the trailer for his biopic/concert film Justin Bieber: Never Say Never (in theaters next February) is out today.

While my initial reaction to hearing about this project was to predict the 3-D apocalypse, that’s changed since the announcement that the original director, An Inconvenient Truth helmer Davis Guggenheim, dropped out and was replaced by Step Up 3-D and LXD director Jon M. Chu.

Never Say Never plays directly to Chu’s strengths: specifically, utilizing 3-D technology to create visual spectacle and filming awesome dance scenes. This does not guarantee that it’s going to be good, but the concert sections will at least LOOK good.

So I’m calling it a draw for right now, but it’s time for Lady Gaga’s team to step it up. Because THAT’s the 3-D concert film I want to see.

YouTube’s Hunter Walk and VEVO’s Rio Caraeff will both be speaking at this year’s NewTeeVee Live! You shouldn’t miss it! Register now.

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Seriously, it’s really good.

However, if you’re just tuning in for the dancing, patience is demanded. For one thing, every episode of The LXD opens with narration from an elderly gentleman intoning about the ancient and secretive order of dancers around whom our story revolves, serving as a framing device for each stand-alone episode. He does not do this while dancing.

In addition, the 13-minute first episode, “The Tale of Trevor Drift”‘s feature film-esque pacing means that it takes seven minutes and thirty seconds before we see more than two dance steps put together. The dancing that does finally occur is great — well-shot, well-edited and beautifully executed by episode star Luis “Luigi” Rosado. But that’s quite a long time to wait for the show to deliver on its promise of dance antics.

I do feel the need to emphasize here how well-visualized the dancing is in LXD. Many times, a dance sequence (in any medium) will be so heavily edited and filled with close-ups that you can’t really appreciate the dancer’s skill. But Chu and his team emphasize long master shots, a minimum of editing, and a relatively judicious use of slow-motion, all of which puts the talent and technique of its dancers on proper display. The production values here are without question top-notch.

However, when the focus isn’t on the dance, LXD can come off as unfortunately stilted. For one thing, the dialogue varies from bland to awkward, such as one of the first lines from Episode 1: “Are you hungry, Trevor? We have some very delicious food for you.” And LXD features, according to a press release, “some of the world’s best dancers” — but that definitely does not make them the world’s best actors. While we haven’t met the full series cast yet, few of those introduced so far show signs of being even double threats in that respect; Rosado and Chadd “Madd Chadd” Smith, who stars in Episode 3, are the exceptions to that rule.

It’s also disappointing that this “legion of dancers” seems to be male-only, based on both publicity images and the make-up of the first three episodes; Episode 3 is the only one to feature any girls, and they both seem likely to be one-off characters. This seems strange, given that both Step Up 2 the Streets and Step Up 3D star female dancers — clearly Chu knows a girl or two who can pop and lock. But apparently for this project, their services were not required.

Part of LXD‘s premise is experimentation not just with dance, but with genre and style — a fact that was pretty obvious when I visited the production on set at a Western ranch.

Of the three episodes of Season 1 made available for review, though, it’s only the third that really shows signs of that experimentation. With its comic book-inspired imagery and a score heavily influenced by Danny Elfman’s Batman and Spider-man, the success it has in emulating the comic book genre makes it the most promising of the series — I’m very much looking forward to seeing what other genres they try. And while I’m not a fan of the dialogue, the complex mythology surrounding the LXD is skillfully woven into each episode, also furthering my intrigue.

The other non-dance-related aspect I really enjoyed of the first three episodes was Veronica Mars alumni Ryan Hansen making another web series appearance (he was also a major character in The WB’s Rockville USA). Hansen doesn’t have much range as an actor, but he brings some hilarious comic relief to the first episode.

It’s going to be interesting to see how this project evolves. For whenever the medium people are using to communicate is dance, and not dialogue, LXD really shines. And with the exception of the first episode, there isn’t too much dialogue.

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You might be familiar with the LXD dance crew thanks to their live performances on So You Think You Can Dance, this year’s Academy Awards and this year’s summer Glee tour. But unless you watch the below video, you WILL NOT KNOW:

• What inspired director Jon M. Chu to create the LXD (hint: Miley Cyrus is directly involved).
• What the difference is between dancing on Glee and appearing in a web series, courtesy of dancer/choreographer Harry Shum, Jr. (who appears in both projects, as well as Chu’s first feature film Step Up 2 The Streets.
• Why LXD ended up on Hulu as opposed to YouTube, and what paths its international distribution might take — hinted at by producer Scott Ehrlich.
• Why a series that’s all dance, all the time is revolutionary — at least, according to “King of Krump” Lil C.
• Not to mention lots of other secrets!

So watch, be merry and forgive any moments of shaky Flip camera cinematography. The first season of The LXD launches July 7th on Hulu — we’ll have a review then.

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