We wrote about Vlix a few months ago when it first launched. Since then, Spotmixer has been working on adding new features to enable easier navigation and sharing of posted videos, as well as tighter controls to ensure users only share videos with people they want to share them with.

The biggest change to the app comes with the ability to follow other users and browse videos posted by those users. By clicking on a user’s name, you can now browse all the videos that user has posted, as well as view all of that user’s followers and people the user is following. While the vast majority of Vlix users are creators who use the app for editing, adding effects and sharing, the app maker hopes that adding the ability to explore the social graphs of users will increase the amount of video consumption that happens within the app.

To that end, Vlix has also added the ability to “re-post” a video to one’s own feed. Following the Twitter and Tumblr model for sharing the work of others within one’s social feed, the re-post feature is designed to allow users to make videos “go viral” within the Vlix community.

While improving the ability to drill down into social connections and share videos within the community, Vlix also clarified its privacy controls to ensure users share videos with the right contacts. The update gives users the ability to share not only with all of one’s followers, but with a private feed of followers specifically marked as friends.

Finally, the app has added new effects to its roster. For users who enjoy the Instagram-like ability to edit down and spruce up their videos, the addition of twinkling stars and the ability to zoom in on videos from within the app have been added to an already impressive list of effects that include black and white, fast forward and old film filters.

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Luckily, there’s also quite a few gems that will make you burn through the iPad’s 10 hour battery life in no time. We decided to review the most important video apps and compile them to a handy little guide, complete with our take on whether an app is worth downloading or not.

Note: This list is all about video apps for the iPad only. Many video sites haven’t published an app yet, but some have instead opted to optimize their sites to play video straight in the iPad’s Safari browser. For a list of those sites, please check The NewTeeVee Guide to Watching Web Video on the iPad.  We will keep both lists updated as as more publishers enable iPad support.

Movie and TV show apps on the iPad

ABC Player.  ABCs app offers access to full episodes of its shows, including Lost, V, Grey’s Anatomy and others. The app forces you into landscape mode to browse its catalog, which gives it a kind of TV Guide feel. It’s fairly snappy, and the video quality is really good, even when watched full screen in landscape mode. Episodes do feature commercials, just like they do on the ABC web site. The verdict: A great free download, if you’re into ABCs shows.

Netflix. This free app offers Netflix subscribers access to the complete catalog of Watch Instantly content. Users can watch movies or TV shows from their queue, or select any other title from the catalog. Check out our detailed review over at GigaOm if you want to know more. The verdict: A must have for Netflix subscribers.

News video apps on the iPad

AP News. The AP serves up some videos on its iPad news app, but someone apparently had the idea to make this app look not-so-newsy. The result is an app that looks and feels like a scrapbook, including a video gallery without any context, so you don’t really know what each clip is about. The videos are really small, and the quality is crappy if you watch them in full screen mode. The verdict: Avoid if possible.

BBC News. Due to regulatory issues, this app is currently available everywhere but in the U.K. It features some video, but it’s hard to find those clips, as they’re integrated with the articles. There is a dedicated audio/video section but it only featured segments from BBC’s radio stations at the time of testing. Videos automatically play full screen, and the quality is acceptable. The verdict: A good start, but needs more video.

France 24.  The iPad app of this English-language news station puts video front and center with a player that may not be pretty, but it makes up for it with ease of use. News, business, sports and weather are prominently featured, and accessing various France 24 shows is easy as well. The video quality is great when viewed in context, and really good in full-screen mode. The verdict: Best news app for the iPad so far.

Reuters News Pro for iPad. This app is easy to navigate, but the video component is severely lacking. Some videos simply wouldn’t play during our test. The videos look crappy in the apps player and even worse in full-screen mode. Reuters is obviously recycling some mobile footage, which doesn’t do the iPad justice. The verdict: Only for the articles.

Fun and entertainment video apps

Dailymotion for iPad. Dailymotion’s iPad app is a little overwhelming, as it welcomes you with a seemingly endless grid of clips. The app’s video player works best in landscape mode, and the video quality is good, even when watched in full-screen mode. The app also offers an option to log in to watch your personalized playlists. The verdict: Pretty solid experience.

Joost – Videos at your Fingertips. Joost slightly updated its app for the iPad, but its iPhone roots shine through at every corner. The app serves up some featured videos at start, but anyone who wants to explore the catalog inevitably has to deal with an iPhone-like interface. Videos play full screen, and the quality is okay, but the catalog is severely lacking. The verdict:  Sure, but why?

Yahoo Entertainment. Don’t let first impressions fool you: Yahoo’s iPad app may have a really dorky theater splash screen, but it features a great video catalog, including news, sports, tech and fashion videos. The app also serves up videos from JibJab, the Onion and select local news stations around the country. The video quality is not always great, but all that content definitely makes up for it. The verdict: This is a keeper.

Related content on NewTeeVee:

The NewTeeVee Guide to Watching Web Video on the iPad

The NewTeeVee Guide to Publishing Video on the iPad

Related content on GigaOM Pro:

Can Anyone Compete With the iPad? (subscription required)

“There’s nothing like watching video on iPad,” Apple states in the ‘Video’ section of the tour. “The high-resolution display brings your favorite HD movies and TV shows to live like no device has before. When you hold it in your hands, it feels like your own personal big screen.”

In addition to the device’s form factor and display, which Apple says “looks great from just about any angle,” the company also touts the device’s ability to deliver video for up to 10 hours without recharging. That will be a boon for travelers and other viewers who enjoy consuming media for long stretches of time, and could change the way many users consume video, leading them to eschew larger, heavier laptops as their default portable media viewing devices.

In the ‘Safari’ section of the tour, Apple says iPad users “can even watch video” directly within the web browser, but that is a bit misleading. Because the iPad doesn’t have Adobe Flash support, videos will only be available from publishers that have already enabled them to be viewed using HTML5. And while multiple technology providers, such as Brightcove, Ooyala, thePlatform and Delve Networks are working to make publishing on the device as simple as possible, it’s unclear how many web video sites will be ready for the iPad launch.

That said, for now Apple is positioning the iPad as a device built primarily for viewing videos from iTunes and YouTube. Without being able to talk about other publishers who will be producing video apps for the device or optimizing their web sites to deliver H.264-encoded HTML5 video, the company is forced to talk mostly about the native capabilities of the device. In fact, the guided tours give little time to video consumed as a web or application viewing activity. The ‘Video’ section of the tour, for instance, only highlights features available for iPad users watching movies, TV shows, music videos and podcasts purchased and downloaded from the iTunes store.

We expect that to change — and quickly — as publishers rush to embrace the new device for video distribution. In fact, we believe that the iPad could bring about quick adoption as HTML5 as a new distribution mechanism for online video.

Related content on NewTeeVee: The iPad Will Usher In a New Era of HTML5 Video

Related content on GigaOM Pro: Forecast: Tablet App Sales To Hit $8B by 2015 (subscription required)

Vudu announced a number of partnerships with CE manufacturers today that will put its new app store into their Internet-connected TVs and Blu-ray disc players over the coming year. Mitsubishi, Sanyo, Sharp, and Toshiba have settled on Vudu’s app store as their sole provider of streaming video and Internet services.

In fact, while Roku and Boxee have been pushing into the set-top market with low-priced standalone devices, Vudu has been edging out of the hardware business altogether, preferring instead to sell software licenses to consumer electronics manufacturers, and to take a cut of sales for videos shown on its software platform. (To be fair, Boxee is also licensing its software for the Boxee Box; all manufacturing, inventory management, and distribution is being handled by its hardware partner, D-Link.)

There is one big difference, however, besides the app or channel stores that Roku and Boxee offer and the one that Vudu is rolling out: While Roku and Boxee both offer open software development kits (SDKs) and APIs so that anyone can develop for their platforms, the Vudu app process is more tightly controlled, as one might expect from a piece of software being embedded into consumer TV sets sold by brand-name manufacturers. A Vudu spokesperson says that getting an app into the Vudu store requires a level of cooperation and partnership with the company. And while Vudu does have an SDK and APIs to enable integration with its service, not just anyone can build an app.

That said, the list of apps is pretty impressive, with more than 100 available in the first quarter. The list includes typical social apps such as Pandora, Flickr, Facebook and Twitter, but it also features a number of apps from premium content providers, like HBO’s Big Love and True Blood apps. Also available will be apps from the AP, NY Times, CNN, Revision3, and Showtime.

In addition to the launch of its app store, Vudu is announcing the availability of its video service on new HDTVs and Blu-ray disc players from LG, Mitsubishi, and Vizio, as well as the addition of its service to Samsung, Sanyo, Sharp, and Toshiba products. Altogether, Vudu’s streaming video service will be embedded on devices from seven of the top nine CE makers.

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Ustream Broadcaster

iPhone users will now be able broadcast their lives to the world, with an app from Ustream. The Ustream Broadcaster app, which is available for free in Apple’s App Store, allows iPhone 3GS users to live-stream from their iPhone over both Wi-Fi and 3G networks.

Offering the ability to broadcast live from an iPhone is a big step forward for Ustream. Previously, iPhone users could only record videos and later update them to Ustream through its Recorder app, to be viewed later on demand. The release of the Broadcaster app makes Ustream the first company to enable one-to-many live broadcasting over the iPhone.

In addition to live-streaming, the app has sharing features that will allow users to upload their videos to YouTube and Facebook. Broadcaster also makes it easy to send notices on Twitter when a user has started a live stream.

A number of apps have appeared recently that take advantage of the iPhone’s ability to record video and stream it live to other users. The release of the Ustream Broadcaster app comes just about a week after the Knocking Live Video app was approved by Apple (with a personal endorsement from Steve Jobs), enabling viewers to share live video feeds on a one-to-one basis. And an application called fring has recently been updated to enable video calls on the iPhone. Now that the floodgates have been opened, expect more apps to include similar live broadcasting capabilities.

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First up, video ad network TidalTV raised $8.9 million of a $16 million round, according to an SEC filing. This brings the total amount of money the company has raised to $23.9 million. Though TidalTV has always had an advertising bent (its founder and CEO, Scott Ferber, was also co-founder and CEO of Advertising.com), when we first covered the company, it also had aspirations to be the next Hulu, offering long-form premium content online. TidalTV’s vice president of marketing, Mark McKee sent us the following statement via email:

At this time we cannot comment on any financing questions.

As far as TidalTV’s business model, our 1st Party site was developed to gain value insight into the online video space (including audience, content, advertising and technology) and aid us in the build-out of our 3rd Party Online Video Advertising Monetization Platform. Our network business is now fully deployed and we are gaining great traction with both publishers and advertisers. As a result, we have decided to focus our company’s resources on continued development and evolution of the network model.

Now stop! Hammertime.

Also out today is word that MC Hammer’s UGC dance site, DanceJam, will be acquired by Purevideo Networks. TechCrunch broke the news, but didn’t provide any details like purchase price. DanceJam’s co-founder Geoffrey Arone provided confirmation of the deal in the story’s commments, and said that his company had 18 months worth of cash in the bank.

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Startup acquisitions and IPOs are rare these days, but buying out your VCs? That doesn’t happen very often. The one example that springs to mind is podcasting startup Odeo, in which CEO Evan Williams gave his investors their money back to have the freedom to change strategy and corporate structure into what would eventually become Twitter. In Katz’s case, he said it wasn’t that Paltalk was having problems or that it didn’t like Softbank, but that his profits were starting to put a fair amount of money in the bank and the structuring of Softbank’s shares disabled him from paying out a dividend to Paltalk shareholders.

Paltalk, founded in 1998, took the Softbank money in 2004, after raising about $4 million in two previous rounds of funding from other investors (whose shares it is not buying back). It’s been profitable since 2004, said Katz, but that kind of timescale doesn’t really fit into the VC model. So Katz approached Softbank last December about buying the VC out, and the deal took until just now to finalize.

What’s next? Katz said he hopes to operate Paltalk as if it were a public company, with dividends and earnings. He hopes to eventually be bought by a larger company looking to facilitate social interaction with video.

Katz said he made Paltalk a subscription service in 2001 during the last downturn, when advertising dollars dried up. That strategy has paid off, in that since then the company has made 80-85 percent of its revenue from subscriptions, though down times and good times. The service has 4 million active monthly users, with an undisclosed amount of them paying.

While Paltalk could be at the center of the burgeoning social TV phenomenon with its video chat rooms, so far it’s not. The company had tried a strategy of creating its own original live programming, sets from comedy clubs and the like, but last year decided to pull back from weekly posting obligations and high production costs, said Katz. Now it only puts on live shows every other month or so.

We would think that one of the big factors that’s hindered Paltalk has been its requiring users to download software. However Katz said the company has spent the last year and a half building a Flash client that interacts with the rest of its live video infrastructure. Users are now able to host video chats with up to 10 people in the Flash version from a web browser on any platform.

The next big plan, said Katz, is to let users sign up for vanity URLs on the domain SuperIM.me, where they can host live video chats on their own without being beholden to any particular platform. That product is set to launch in the next quarter.

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Recently, Vizio announced that it was bringing Twitter and Facebook functionality to its TV sets. Yahoo’s widget engine offers access to weather, Flickr photos and eBay. In the meantime, Cablevision is hooking up its TV and phone services so that when the phone rings, the TV show being watched can be paused.

The thought of all these new features junking up a television screen was enough to make my colleague Om title one of his recent posts, “Sometimes a TV Should Just Be a TV.” But most of the readers that responded to our query about whether people really wanted widgets on their TVs said yes, and preliminary research from TDG earlier this year echoes that sentiment. According to TDG’s numbers, 76 percent of consumers think having a widget toolbar on their primary TV set would be valuable.

I’m inclined to agree, but rather than trotting out the standard widgets that give me stock information, or allow me to order a movie on Netflix, here are five apps that I would love to have on my television.

The “Who Is That?” App: This should be a no-brainer; it’s for all those times when there’s a recognizable face in a show, but I just can’t quite place it. Use facial recognition or even just bring up the IMDB page with a list of headshots.

The Buy This Song App: When a cool song comes on during a program, rather than waiting until the end to read in the credits whose it is, the widget would tell me who performed it and give me the option to purchase it right then and there. Bonus points for tying it to my music library so it’s waiting for me the next time I fill up my iPod.

The Watch With Friends App: As noted earlier, this one’s already being done. Not just by Vizio, but Verizon will also offer Twitter and Facebook through its FiOS TV, and Microsoft is incorporating social aspects into its Xbox 360 video experience. Like we saw during the inauguration earlier this year, there are times when technology can help people far apart share in a moment together.

The Play Along App: I’m not a huge game show watcher, but it would be fun if instead of just shouting the answers at Alex Trebek, I could play along and keep tabs as to how well I’m doing during Jeopardy! Something similar to this is being worked on by Microsoft with the game show 1 vs. 100.

The “What Should I Wear?” App: Jerry Seinfeld once quipped that he didn’t care what the temperature was, he just wanted to know what to wear. I’m in the same boat. This widget would tell me whether or not I need to bring a jacket (though since this is San Francisco, the answer would always be “yes”).

This article also appeared on BusinessWeek.com.

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Will TV Get an App Store Moment? The pieces are in place, but there is no clear winner yet, though Microsoft, Apple and Nintendo have the edge. (GigaOM Pro)

Adobe to Shut Down N. American Operations This Week; move made to cut operating costs; similar closures are planned for the third and fourth quarters as well. (Bloomberg)

DCN Studios Gets Funding to Create Web Series for College Kids; David Salzberg and Christian Tureaud will be the studio’s co-presidents, content will be distributed through the Digital College Network, which provides programming directly into colleges, online and via live events. (paidContent)

6Rounds Launches Video Chat Service; company looks to add layers of fun and social on top of the standard vid chat. (TechCrunch)

BBE Renews Jen and Barb, Mom Life; female-targeted web series featuring moms talking about tough issues returns July 15. (MediaWeek)

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