Online video distribution outfit SeaWell Networks has announced that they’ve raised $7 million in Venture Capital from BDC Venture Capital, Northwater Intellectual Property Fund and Ontario Centres of Excellence.

The Canadian company was founded in 2008, it’s currently developing a system for online video distribution using the standard H264 video encoding spec.

YouTube has added auto-captioning for videos and other enhancements for people with disabilities, the company revealed at a recent conference session in Berkley, CA, held with folks from YouTube, Google, and California School for the Deaf. The new feature makes it easier to caption your videos on YouTube, however, you cannot caption other’s videos (for obvious reasons).

The earthquake in Chile and the pacific brought destruction to Chile and tsunami warnings on Hawaii, and the hours that the island inhabitants had not only been spent on evacuating, but setting up cameras to document the event.

One video was streamed on Ustream, where it garnered over 4.3 million viewers. You can see the recorded video above.

China’s Internet search giant Baidu has got a new video site, Qiyi, and it’s now backed by Providence Equity Partners, one of the investors in Hulu. Providence Equity Partners is investing $50 million in what appears to be a “YouTube” of China, funded with advertising revenue.

Baidu has set it up as an independent company and has so far invested $10 million into the venture.

It seems like eternity, but YouTube is actually only 5 years old. Can you imagine a world without YouTube? We sure as hell can’t! It was launched back in 2005 when online video was almost non-existent, and has since grown to one of the most visited sites in the world — and was acquired by Google in 2006 for $1.65 billion.

Google is very present at this year’s TED conference, which is well underway these days. One of things Google showcased, was Google Liquid Galaxy, a Google Maps project which chows the world in full 3D through a series of monitors that surround the controller. Quite nifty stuff.

French video hosting site DailyMotion, and YouTube competitor, has announced that they’ve struck a deal with EMI, which will allow DailyMotion to host video content (music videos) from the music publisher. The videos will be supported by advertising, of which revenue will be split between the two partners.

DailyMotion currently attracts over 65 million monthly users, and is the second most popular video site on the web, after YouTube, of course.

At the Super Bowl yesterday, mighty Google ran its first ever ad, and at least according to us, it was by far the best. Just watch above, and see how far simplicity and a good idea can get you.