With so many online videos (from everyday users and professional news media alike) that get lost—or not picked up at all—by the almighty Google search, it’s no wonder that a new online project called 1Cast is trying to help track down the video news you want. Like Hulu for news junkies, 1Cast is a free, ad-supported service that aggregates Web videos from professional media outlets, including Associated Press, CBC, and Wall Street Journal Online, letting users search and view them.
You can find the beta version of this service at www.1Cast.com, or download the nifty application for the G1 phone at the Android Market. The Android app succeeds in speeding up the hunt for Web-based video news and creates a friendly viewing experience. But we wish 1Cast offered even more content.
User Interface
Downloading 1Cast from the Android Market took less than a minute. The first time you open the application, a list, or “cast,” of videos is presented for you with topical headings from the day’s most popular content. When we launched 1Cast on March 12, relevant news clips were gathered into casts titled GM, Chinese Vessels, The Octuplet Mom, and Brand New iPod.
Using the G1’s touchscreen, pressing the thumbnail image near each topic presents you with a list of videos that each cover the same news story but are produced by different content providers. Right now, 1Cast focuses heavily on politics and current events, so content comprises professional sources including Associated Press, Agence France-Presse, CBC, Reuters, The Wall Street Journal Online, Dow Jones’ All Things Digital, Barron’s, and MarketWatch.
Once you’ve chosen your cast and have selected a clip, the video launches in landscape mode on the G1’s screen. 1Cast manages the real estate of the G1’s 3.2-inch screen very well. During playback, the viewing area is about 90 percent of the display, with only the very far right and left edges blacked out.
Playback controls are well designed, too. If you want to pause, skip ahead or back, or move to the previous or next video, simply touch the screen lightly and controls appear at the base of the screen along with an elapsed-time bar and cursor for manual searching. You can also touch the G1’s trackball to bring up playback buttons, though it works only for searching with the buttons and not for moving ahead or back through the video.
Casts and Other Browsing Options
If you hit the G1’s menu button, a pop-up appears containing options to browse all the day’s headlines, access a list of suggested stories, search the networks, view your inbox, or hunt via your favorite topics. Registered users can also create your own automatically aggregated lists of video content by assigning topics to your feed. Any video in 1Cast’s system with the same topic is automatically added to your personal cast.
We created our own video list called White House and assigned the keywords “Barack Obama,” “Hillary Clinton,” and “Timothy Geithner.” We received a list of 12 topical and relevant news clips and interviews, saving us the hassle of browsing three topic lists (one for each politician) for the same exact information. As more clips were released, the list was automatically updated. If you feel you’re not getting enough clips, just add more keywords to broaden the focus.
For even greater control, 1Cast Android app users can sign into the full version of the service at 1Cast.com and share their video feed with friends via three options: sending the cast to social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace, or Digg; embedding the code of a cast on their own blog or Web site; or sending the cast via e-mail. It’s also important to note that in order to access your favorite casts in the Android application, you must first create an account at 1Cast.com.
Diverse Content
Though the bulk of 1Cast’s content consists of consumable news bites similar to those frequently found on cable channels like CNN, FoxNews, or MSNBC, a few surprises are thrown in. The Wall Street Journal supplied 1Cast with an enthralling 16-minute documentary examining the Madoff scandal and its victims, and the Associated Press posted extensive interviews with witnesses to the Alabama shooting massacre.
In general, entertainment news is not as comprehensive on 1Cast as hard-news stories. We stumbled on an interview with TV show creator Joss Whedon, whose latest network series, Doll House, debuted a few weeks ago. We also found a few buried pieces on the Chris Brown–Rihanna abuse incident, as well Britney Spears’ latest comeback. Though there is a dedicated section for sports news on the beta site, this portion of the service just says “coming soon.” 1Cast told us this section will debut this year, so we’re hoping to receive updates about Adam “PacMan” Jones before the year is up.
Audio/Video Quality
For the purpose of getting your day-to-day news fix, watching and listening to 1Cast meets the need, but it’s not as smooth as watching video podcasts on the iPhone. 1Cast’s videos were bright and colorful, but at times our videos were often murky and garbled, and we couldn’t make out the faces of bystanders being interviewed or buildings in the background. Other glitches occurred occasionally as well: audio dropped out, visuals sometimes disappeared, and the program even crashed altogether a few times. Restarting 1Cast typically solved these problems.
We had no problem making out words or hearing reporters, but voices often sounded digitized and noisy. The G1 does not come with a standard headphone jack, so news hunters watching 1Cast with people in proximity will need an adapter.
Connections and Battery Life
Over the G1’s Wi-Fi and 3G connections, 1Cast’s stream was fairly strong. There’s a loading pause between each video clip. Wait time was generally shorter via our office Wi-Fi connection, but 1Cast maintained steady, hiccup-free playback with a mere two-bar 3G connection.
All this streaming video taxes the G1’s endurance, however. Using 1Cast for nearly 30 minutes drained the battery life by half; you’re going to require several daytime charges if you plan on using this app frequently. Oddly, as juice dwindled below 25 percent, load times were far longer (sometimes up to 30 seconds, as opposed to 7 seconds on average), and we noticed more pauses during screenings.
Unobtrusive Advertising
A pleasant 1Cast feature is the software’s approach to ad presentation. Whereas we see more and more video sites on the Web with in-roll advertising (where a text ad will display simultaneously as a layer over the video), 1Cast streams advertisements in two places: between videos, and when navigating from cast pages to video content. There are no text ads, only commercials, and 1Cast doesn’t play its 15-second commercials at every opportunity, limiting the promotional assault. That may change once the product is out of beta, but it’s a refreshing plus for the present.
If you skip ahead to another video, a load page is displayed with an advertising image, but you won’t have to sit through a commercial. Naturally, 1Cast doesn’t give you the option to skip commercials, but if you find one that’s compelling, you can click a link in the upper left-hand corner to launch the advertiser’s site in the G1’s Web browser.
1Cast for Android Verdict
1Cast aggregates your online video news so you don’t have to hop to 4 or 5 different media sites. But while this Android application is smartly executed, there’s room for improvement. Namely, it needs more diverse content, especially if 1Cast wants to attract subscribers who are interested in news beyond politics and the economy. Granted, sports clips and sound bites are on the way, but more support for entertainment news and, yes, even celebrity gossip, would make 1Cast even more compelling. Nevertheless, given its decent streaming quality and intuitive interface, 1Cast is worth downloading now.
