As you may have heard, we recently introduced YouTube Rentals. We’re very excited about this new offering as it will add to the great selection of movies already available on YouTube, including a group of independent films we’d like to tell you about now.

Until January 31st, you can rent five feature films from the 2009 and 2010 Sundance Film Festivals on YouTube. From last year’s documentary hit “The Cove” to selections from the brand new NEXT Category, there should be enough to keep you busy through the end of the Festival. The films available are:

“Children of Invention” explores the American Dream as seen through the eyes of a Chinese American family living in suburban Boston.

In “Homewrecker,” a prisoner on work release and a live-wire kook take a day-long ride in a seemingly stolen vehicle that neither of them will soon forget.

In “The Cove” an elite team of activists, filmmakers and freedivers embark on a covert mission to penetrate a remote and hidden cove in Japan, and shine a light on a dark and deadly secret.

When humble Linas, kicked off of his friends couch and spurned by his lover, finds a forgotten van on a llama farm outside Seattle, he begins lurching east with nothing to lose in “Bass Ackwards”

In “One Too Many Mornings,” Fisher and Pete are two dudes with dude problems — one drinks too much and one just got cheated on by his girlfriend — and few prospects of helping each other out.

Fans in 16 countries, including the UK, the US, Australia and India, will be able to watch the show at 0330 GMT.

It will be the band’s penultimate concert of the year.

YouTube said it would place adverts around the video “in the normal manner”, and that clips from the concert would be available on the site after the gig ends.

The site will also offer viewers the ability to chat to one another using Twitter, or to give money to Bono’s RED charity via a “donate now” button, while they watch the show.

Spider

In this shocking black comedy, it’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye. “Spider” was an official selection of the 2008 Sundance Film Festival.

Skeletons In the Closet

A woman and a man wake up on the floor in a musty flat, remembering nothing of who they are or why they are there. “Skeletons in the Closet” was an official selection of the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival.

Beyond Words

In this thriller, a young, deaf woman finds herself being stalked by a mysterious man. “Beyond Words” was a 2009 Tropfest Finalist.

Morsure (Bitten)

Frightened and alone, Clara flees through a dark and sinister forest, pursued by a gun-toting man, bent on her destruction. Clara is taken in by a friendly farmer, but appearances can be deceiving. An official selection of the 2008 London Film Festival.

Sony Music is joining the online video destination [...] though details on the terms of the deal were not disclosed.  Following today’s announcement there remains two majors who have not signed on to the service – Warner Music and EMI.

The news indicates that Vevo is not meant just to be a hub for Universal music videos, but an extensive online destination for music content from many different sources, much like hulu is for TV programming.  While it is not clear if EMI or Warner will join, the addition of a second major puts pressure on them to participate or be left behind.  If all the majors signed onto the service it would make growing a large audience along the lines of hulu more achievable since users could access a much wider catalog of content.

Our federal leaders and civil servants aren’t just on YouTube to distribute video; they’re here to engage with you in a way that only YouTube makes possible. So leave your comments, rankings, and ideas for these agencies on any of their videos to ensure that your voice is heard on the issues you care about. Reach out to your local government as well and encourage local officials to start posting footage to YouTube. By exposing everything from committee hearings to planning meetings, we can make our civic lives more open than ever before. Ultimately, it will help us hold public servants accountable for the jobs we’ve hired them to do. 

* New Options for Uploaders: In our continued effort to give you ultimate control over how your videos are presented, uploaders can now tweak the appearance of their video when played on YouTube or in an embedded player. Just insert any of the hint tags below into the tags field of your video and voila! 

yt:crop=16:9 (zooms in on the 16:9 area, removes windowboxing) 
yt:stretch=16:9 (fixes anamorphic content by scaling to 16:9)
yt:stretch=4:3 (fixes 720×480 content that is the wrong aspect ratio by scaling to 4:3)
yt:quality=high (default to a high quality stream, depending on availability) 

Through stunning displays of aerial camerawork, the film will give people from all corners of the world a glimpse of our planet like never before and visually demonstrate the urgency for preservation efforts. In addition to its Internet premiere, “Home” will also be shown in movie theaters, outdoors on the big screens at key locations around the globe, and it will air on TV stations around the world. Using this unique distribution model, one with a massive online and offline effort, the film creators are able to reach the widest audience possible. So whether you’d prefer to head to the theaters, watch it under the stars, or just stay put on the couch — the way you view “Home” is up to you. 

And starting today, YouTube channels in English, French, Spanish and German will feature behind-the-scenes looks from the making of the film, as well as interviews, and extras. To add even more dimension, Google Maps is featuring specially created layers that shed more light on some of the material covered in the movie. You can also use Maps to find a theater location near you. 

Stuck at work? Don’t live in New York? That’s no excuse! Thanks to the YouTube Screening Room, you can watch films from TFF 2009 right now at your desk!

Good news for out-of-towners and film fans stuck at work (boo!): four of this year’s short films are available for FREE on YouTube! Featured in the YouTube Screening Room through May 8, the four shorts featured were selected from the 46 shorts currently screening at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival.

Today is the beta launch of YouTube RealTime, a new way of discovering what your friends are doing on YouTube. Through this persistent toolbar, which appears in the lower right corner of the page, you’ll be able to see which of your YouTube friends are currently online and what they’re watching; a history of their recent activities on the site; and real-time notifications when they perform activities like commenting, favoriting, and uploading. 

To help you navigate through all this great content, we’re introducing two new tabs to the YouTube masthead: the “Shows” tab allows you to browse shows by genre, network, title and popularity, while the “Subscriptions” tab will grant logged-in users one-click access to fresh content from their favorite creators. 

Another change you’ll notice today is the wider roll-out of in-stream ads, which we’ve been testing since October, to support our shows and movies content — not unlike what you might see when viewing this type of content on TV. 

While shows and movies are currently limited to users in the U.S., we look forward to expanding to other regions as soon as possible, and we’re pleased to inform you that the “Subscriptions” tab will be available worldwide in the next few weeks.