MilTube Lets Army Troops Share Videos

MilTube Video Sharing WebsiteV

The U.S. Army has launched a YouTube-like service for military personnel that allows them to view, share and upload videos behind the Department of Defense firewall.

MilTube is part of a suite of Web 2.0 services the Army has rolled out so it can offer personnel media-sharing and social networking sites similar to ones popular with civilian Web users, but in a secure environment.

The services together are known as milSuite. In addition to milTube, they include milBook, which is akin to Facebook; milWiki, similar to Wikipedia; and milBlog, a site with blogs and other information.

The DoD also intends to use milTube to share military-made videos with personnel, including training videos, footage from ceremonies and news clips, it said.

The Army has posted a short informational video about milTube on YouTube.

More than 88,500 DOD personnel currently use the Army's milSuite services, through which they share unclassified internal information and can connect with each other across military branches and locations worldwide.

The Army has designed the site to meet different bandwidth needs, since some military bases have limited Web access, it said.

The milTube platform can do real-time diagnosis on a person's Internet connection to deliver the appropriate video or an audio stream only, if necessary. It also will be available on both desktop and mobile devices, according to the Army.

To meet bandwidth challenges at different military bases, milTube diagnoses platform needs so users can upload and watch videos at any location, according to the Army. It also will support multiple video formats as well as audio-only streaming. It's available on both desktop and mobile devices.

The MilTech Solutions Office, an organization that's part of the Army’s Program Executive Office for Command, Control and Communications-Tactical, oversees milSuite.