Zudeo

The company behind Azureus have launched a new video sharing site called Zudeo. There have been many comparisons bounced around but I like to call it HD Youtube through torrents. The site looks similar to youtube but when you find a video you want to watch, you can download a torrent of a high quality version of it, which will open in your usual bittorrent client or the Zudeo client, which is actually just Azureus. Obviously the benefit of this is that the videos are much higher quality, and they still download very fast as everything I've tried has had at least a hundred seeds.

It has all the sharing features you're used to from Youtube, and has even done a deal with the BBC to sell full programs on it such as Red Dwarf, Fawlty Towers, all the classics. Alas, as so often with the best Internet deals, this is US only. I don't see how this makes sense that the BBC are selling British programs to American customers but we in the UK don't actually get the same opportunity.

Anyways, it's a very promising site, and I especially like the opportunity to watch videos that aren't in the TERRIBLE quality provided by Youtube. Unfortunately at the moment the content seems to be mostly trailers for video games and movies, but it also has some interesting short films. Hopefully soon it will start to generate the typical user content of youtube, such as the classic "Fat Woman Falls Down Hole":



On second thoughts maybe that's not quite what they're going for :).

But I digress. The other reason for me posting about Zudeo is that I found this video which is absolutely stunning, and is also an example of something that wouldn't be nearly as satisfying on youtube. Check it out: