From the YouTube API Blog:

Attention film buffs!

The American Film Institute (AFI) just launched a new video portal on AFI.com featuring hundreds of videos from its vast archives. AFI is utilizing YouTube’s APIs in order to stream videos directly from AFI’s YouTube channel, as well as other great clips curated from YouTube. In addition to accessing the video content, users can post comments on the AFI.com video site as well as embed the videos on other sites, blogs and social networking pages.

The collection will be regularly augmented with videos selected from the AFI Archive, which contains 10,000 hours of material produced during AFI’s 42-year history, much of which has never been seen by the general public. Be sure not to miss great clips such as “Alfred Hitchcock On Mastering Cinematic Tension” or “Steven Spielberg: The Toughest Thing For A Director”.

We’re thrilled that the YouTube APIs can help unlock such amazing material. Nice work, AFI!

See the post here.

AFI.com/video launches with hundreds of archived video segments

The American Film Institute has launched a new video portal on AFI.com featuring hundreds of videos from its AFI Archive.

The Web site launch coincides with TV Land Prime’s broadcast of the AFI Life Achievement Award tribute to Michael Douglas on July 19. Michael Douglas, Kirk Douglas, Catherine Zeta-Jones and other Hollywood legends attending the gala tribute are featured, along with memorable selections from the previous 36 AFI Life Achievement Award tributes.

The collection will be regularly augmented with videos selected from the AFI Archive, which contains 10,000 hours of material produced during AFI’s 42-year history, much of which has never been seen by the general public.

Videos available on the site stream directly from AFI’s YouTube channel. In addition to accessing the video content, users can post comments on the AFI.com/video site as well as embed the videos on other Web sites, blogs and social networking pages.

For more information on TV Land Prime’s broadcast of the AFI Life Achievement Award tribute to Michael Douglas, click here.

What is the AFI Digital Preservation Project?

AFI has been recording the words and wisdom of our nation’s moving image artists for over 40 years. The AFI archive contains thousands of hour of rare video and audio recordings, photography and transcripts. The goal of the AFI Digital Preservation Project is to archive, preserve and digitize the contents. We estimate the cost of the first phase of this ambitious project to be $1.2 million.

The AFI Digital Presevation Project needs your help. Find out More