We want toys!

Tech toys, that is. We, at SnapStream, have an obsession with shiny new gadgetry. And during the holiday season, our tech-lust gets extreme. Here's what's topping our collective wish list for this year.

Because TV is our world, we are very excited to exhibit at Content and Communications World, November 14 - 15, at booth #856.

SnapStream enables TV show creatives to easily search TV and incorporate TV clips into their programs. Shows like The Soup, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report all tap into SnapStream's endless supply of up-to-the-minute pop culture and news clips.

This is the time we live in: the "clip culture."

Video clips are suddenly everywhere. They have jumped from the Internet and splattered all over TV. Talk shows, entertainment/comedy shows and even hard-hitting news programs have all added TV clips into the mix of writing and production.

Remember the days when your teacher would roll in a TV cart from the school library?

You knew what that meant. TV in the classroom = awesome. The day's lesson was about to come alive through video.

When we spotted this picture on George Takei's Facebook page the other day, it made us smile, because it represents a significant trend in education. And we put our own little spin on it.

Before I began researching the news comedy programs outside the U.S., I had no idea what the world had in store. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart has inspired so many TV shows and spin-offs worldwide, that the initial query of "who are they?" evolved into a four-part series. (See posts 1, 2 and 3.) Right on key, the Foreign Policy in Focus recently wrote about the Global Stewarts, too.

We have learned that comedy and politics are tightly integrated, not just at home, but abroad. It's been good to pop out of our own "cable TV bubble" and to see how the international crowd entertains, from living rooms in South America to Israel. In today's final batch of shows, you'll see that every nation's comedic style reflects the social and political culture of the population. Comedy is how people make sense of, poke holes in, and cope with the critical, and oftentimes trivial, events gripping their daily lives.

Because laughter is the best medicine, here's your next dosage of satirical TV programs. Today's Rx of "newstainment" shows includes the most hilarious pundits of Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia. British comedy standards run especially high, because they're the ones responsible for television's satire boom in the '60s (as explained in my first post earlier this week.) Writer's warning: Side effects may include side-splitting abdominal pains, acute cackling, involuntary snorting and severe shortness of breath.

Following up on yesterday's post: We're exploring international TV shows equivalent to The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, in terms of their cultural significance and satirical style. To kick off our trip around the world, let's take a look at the funniest fake news TV shows of South America and Italy, where everyone loves Tarantino movies and double entendres. As awesome as descriptions are, it's even more telling to watch the clips!

If you've heard of SnapStream's TV monitoring technology, you've likely heard The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report mentioned in the same breath. While we can't take credit for Jon Stewart's acerbic on-air personality or Stephen Colbert's deadpan delivery, we can say one thing: we are the television search technology behind the news-driven humor.

Yup, our very own closed-captioning search technology is at work on the TV production sets of both of these Emmy-award-winning shows. For this reason, we at SnapStream have a special place in our hearts for the TV genre of news satire, or "fake news." So, this got us thinking, when did this trend come into vogue? Are there mock newscast shows in other countries? Who are The Daily Show equivalents worldwide? It turns out, The Daily Show's international impact is pretty astounding.

SnapStream 5.5 introduces lots of exciting, new features to the TV Search platform:

• Workflows help automate the transcodes and bulk moves you do routinely
• ShowSqueeze Live lets you transcode in-progress TV recordings
• SmartChapters automatically detect and segment commercials

But we didn't stop there. We made some notable improvements, too:

• In addition to Firefox, Mac Web Player now supports Chrome and Safari
• Clip start and end points are now draggable
• Encrypted communication between SnapStream and all clients for improved security

Will you be at NAB April 16-19? 'Cause we will! We're very excited to show you all that's new with SnapStream's TV search technology. In the last year, we rolled out six new releases, featuring these heavyweights:

- New! Web Player for Mac and PC

- New! Task Rules

In South Upper Hall SU9115, SnapStream's new Mac and PC Web Players will go head-to-head in a series of hands-on demonstrations. Don't miss this epic NAB showdown. You'll definitely want a front-row seat, so...