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Metro-Goldwyn Mayer Studios, better known as MGM, will be the first major movie studio to post full-length feature films on YouTube, the company announced Sunday.

CNET News reported on Thursday that YouTube was preparing to launch a feature-film service after spending months smoothing over fractured relationships in Hollywood.

MGM will likely not be the last studio to post full-length feature films on YouTube, according to an industry source. Last summer, Lionsgate announced a partnership with YouTube, but that deal calls for the studio to offer only short clips from films and TV shows. MGM will also post TV shows on … Read more

Updated at 8:16 a.m. to include mention of ZDNet's review of YouTube's filtering system.

YouTube will begin offering feature films produced by at least one of the biggest Hollywood movie studios possibly as early as next month, according to an executive with a major entertainment company.

For months, Google, YouTube's parent company, has been talking to the major film companies about launching an ad-supported, streaming movie service, two execs with knowledge of the negotiations told CNET News. "It's not imminent," said one of the executives. "But it's going to happen. … Read more

While Crave UK was visiting Sony at IFA, they were shown a trailer for a new Blu-ray movie--it was none other than the third installment of Starship Troopers and a landmark for both silliness  and interactive features. So impressed were they, that they asked for a copy of the film to peruse, and Sony Pictures obliged. Here's what ensued.

If you haven't seen the original Starship Troopers, you're missing out on one of the best B-movie action-sci-fi-comedy romps of all time. A movie that never takes itself too seriously and a genuinely enjoyable hour and a … Read more

I recently wrote a column titled, "Is BD-Live Blu-ray's secret weapon--or a bust?" Most readers seemed to think all whiz-bang interactivity features were more busts than secret weapons. And now it appears that a selection of Blu-ray producers speaking at a panel at Comic-Con 2008 feel the same way.

Video Business reports that the panel drew dozens of consumers and that the Q&A discussion, moderated by The Digital Bits' Bill Hunt, was frank and lively.

A few choice quotes:

Producer Robert Meyer Burnett (Shoot 'Em Up) said: "It would be interesting if they wanted … Read more

Adobe Reader is monstrously large, slow to load, and includes many features most users will hardly ever need. Foxit PDF Reader pares down its PDF-reading code and comes up with some neat features, like annotation tools, to give you a PDF reader that's far more appropriate for the average PDF user.

PDFs open from the Internet in their own Foxit window, instead of sucking browser resources, and the interface mimics Adobe's so you won't have to change your reading habits. In our test, the text readability wasn't much inferior to Acrobat's. The 1.6MB program … Read more

For quick retouches, Photoshop is more than overkill--it's like going rabbit hunting with a nuke. All that bloat can take much longer than is necessary. Paint.NET, on the other hand, is an open-source editor with all the essentials, including tools to crop, rotate, resize images, adjust colors, and create collages. Unlike many free image editors, Paint.NET supports layers and has an actions manager. The pleasing interface boasts semitransparent windows for ease of use.

Paint.NET supports common image formats--JPEG, PNG, GIF, TIFF, and others--but not high-resolution RAW files. There are enough basic and intermediate effects and features … Read more

Belarc Advisor is one of those tools for Windows users that you didn't know you were missing until you started using it. It's hard to understate how important this program can be, as it provides a free analysis of your machine's security weak points.

By looking at elements such as whether antivirus software and definitions are up to date, or whether all the security flaws in Windows have been patched, Belarc works quickly to inform you of what you're missing and provide links to how you can fix it. It uses the Center for Internet Security (… Read more

As great as it is to have tools such as Firefox and Thunderbird, backing user profiles and all their moving parts can be a tedious process. MozBackup is a tiny program that makes saving and restoring all your bookmarks, extensions, and other personal settings a streamlined and stress-free experience. It's dead simple to use because it walks you through both the backup and restore features. So, for example, even if you've backed up everything but you only want to restore your bookmarks, you can do that easily.

The program works with Firefox, Thunderbird, SeaMonkey, and Netscape on Windows … Read more

KMPlayer lacks a help file but makes up for it by being one of the most powerful freeware video players we've seen. It includes a vast array of video- and audio-capturing options, as well as skins, a plethora of playback controls and tweaks, and broad DVD support. You'll have to learn the ropes yourself, but if you're familiar with where things ought to be, and willing to patiently wait for the mouse-over label to confirm your suppositions, KMPlayer has the potential to be immensely rewarding.

It supports nearly every file format we could think of testing. It … Read more