If your new year’s resolution revolved around watching less television, this list of online video portals should save you switching on the box until we’re 2007 times around the sun.

If Mp3 = the new radio, what else can Mp4 be, but the new TeeVee? In actual fact, no one video codec or format dominates the online landscape the way the audio Mp3 codec dominates, but the rapid upsurge of video being distributed online is what’s worth watching. Where we once chuckled over backyard fences, or in the schoolyard or workplace about a moment from last night’s TeeVee, more and more we’re now referring to some kind of video that ended up in our inbox, that we stumbled across on some blog, or that popped out of our peer to peer software. Like so, the decentralised universe grows. Mmmmmm, mmmmm. Where the Wild Video Things Are.

“You seen the one about those two Chinese kids miming along to Backstreet Boys ?”
“Yeah, yeah seen that one ages ago. Apparently some shampoo company is getting them to ads for them now.”

“What about that Chronicles of Narnia rap? That’s pretty funny shee-yat…”
“Word. Those guys‘r da bomb. Seen their piss-take of that whispering porno song? By the Ying-Yang Twins? That was the shizzle.”
“Pho real~! Is there anything funnier than white guys butchering their way through ghetto rap slang?”
“I don’t think so.”

“Except maybe the long-lost-but-re-found video of today’s Governor of 33 million Californians. That clip showing him running around at Rio Carnivale, all knuckles dragging on the ground and 15 year old libido.”
“Heh. Like the bit where he tries to persuade the Brazilian dancer to have oral sex with his carrot.”
“America’s gonna implode, I tells ya.”

“Oh and you check that recent Gorillaz concert video? Looks mad – like a hologram of the band playing on stage. Apparently they made it with some smoke, projectors and mirrors from the side of the stage…”
“Yeah, seen that.”

Sourcing Some of Those Pixel Feeds?
Video Blogs make available an overwhelming daily precious. Of moving imagery. Whether they’re called video blogs, video podcasts, vlogs, or vodcasts, the end result is still the same – essentially a wide range of subscribable ‘channels’. Try some of these ( RSS) feeds on for size, see which pixels tickle your fancy.

Music Videos @ Antville :
Avalanche of music video links and stills, uploaded by the hour. Throw ‘Hasselhoff’ into their search for his almost criminally bad video : ‘hooked on a feeling’, or ‘gorillaz’ or ‘Robertson’ for some cool retro-game style animated videos by Melbournite Paul Robertson.

Short Clips & Ads @ Shortsville :
More meta-pixels from the Antville team / collective conscious posse…

Cliptip :
Mo Music videos. Like lots.

DVBlog :
Short films, music video clips, animations, weird arty video experiments, wanderings. Constant, updating temptations.

Bedazzled :
Old-time music videos, including clips from the rare scopiotone ( film jukebox) machines – made by a company Francis Ford Coppola bought a long time ago, the company inevitably dying because there were too many moving parts needing endless repair – like the amount of times you see photocopy technicians returning to fix machines in busy offices. Anyways, endless clips – think kooky, think lounge, think 60s sci-fi & think Barbarella & Frank Sinatra.

Octopus Drop Kick :
How can diverse and quirky Japanese TV grabs, ads and weird moments ever fail? Fun-ny.

ScreenHead :
Odds n ends often updated, which is just as well, because it’s a commercial venture. If there exists a funny visual gag or twisted animation that hasn’t been mentioned here or at ifilm.com, then give it 2 weeks.

Human Dog Productions:
Buncha folk making their own feeds, their own following, their own back catalogue of great pixel hits.

Vlogmap:
World map with a few hundred video bloggers pumping out video in all manner of styles.

Del.icio.us : ( http://del.icio.us/tag/system:media:video )
Aye, the quite wonderful ‘social bookmarking’ del.icio.us site constantly feeds video from the hive mind – endlessly listing the videos that anyone finds interesting enough to bookmark. Well worth diving into delicious if you haven’t already, if only to store your bookmarks in a way you can easily find them with any online computer. Being able to browse ( and subscribe to ) everyone else’s bookmarks is an ever insightful bonus.

Google Video, YouTube & iFilm : ( http://javimoya.com/blog/download-videos )
Cool site which allows direct downloading of videos from Youtube ( hyper-popular free video storage site ), Google Video and iFilm. Site facilitates downloading to your computer, and shows how to convert those .flv files to other more editing/remix friendly formats. Simply enter the youtube or google video URL for the video you wanted, and down it comes~!

Tape it Off The Internet :
How you might be downloading and uploading video feeds in the future.

Broadcast Machine:
How you will probably be downloading and uploading video feeds in the future.

TV, if you insist : ( TV calendar & TV torrent subscriptions ( via torrentfreak )

And while Watching People Become Famous is arguably much more fun than Watching Famous People, it *will* be fun to see what ex-skate-brat videoclip maker turned feature director, Spike Jonze, will do with his upcoming screen adaptation of the classic kids book : ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ ( screenplay co-scripted with Dave Egger ).

( And if you’re feeling a bit gluttonous after all that, will be posting a round-up of video UPLOAD places soon )

( On the other hand, if you know of other quality video blog links, send ’em along, and I’ll add to the list… )

tags: viral video, backstreet boys, arnold in brazil, gorillaz video, ying yang twins, whisper song, bing bong bros, video podcast, vlog, video blog, vodcast ( eeuw )