neave.tv, a streaming web video experiment

There are lots of video sites popping up all over the place recently, like YouTube, Google Video and Blip.tv. All very nice of course, but you can waste a serious amount of time clicking through tons of crappy vids to find some decent stuff.

The Neave.tv site I came across through a dead tree blog (C’T magazine) has an interesting approach however. It uses videos from the above services, and gives you a TV-like interface using a nifty flash applet with a number of channels for your zapping pleasure. I like the feel of the app a lot. It’s slick, fast and when you zap you get this funky distorted image effects as if you’re actually changing channels on an oldskool analog television set. Yes. Eye candy pwnz.

The channels currently contain a limited number of topical videos, but all the videos are of good quality which is what matters innit. There’s the typical music channel of course, but to pick one I’d say the subversive channel is one of my personal favorites, featuring some really cool videos.

It would be cool if the channels would get updated content in the future, and if more channels were available. This could really be a kick ass thing if people would be able to create channels of their own, and simply fill those channels with the best videos available on the video hosting services all over the interweb.

Anyone could become his own channel VJ and with topics ranging from how to breed your very own bonzai kittens, the newest trends in tiny bikini fashion, or how to make breakcore by playing a drum computer with your bum.
I know, it would rock like so much and stuff.

One more cool thing about this one. For some reason it gets through the corporate firewall. Really. No other video flash players manage to get their bits through it, but this one does without a glitch. Awesome.