Not only is much more video available online these days, but some of it is available in high-def, too. Dealnews has an excellent overview today of what there is. No choice is ideal, unfortunately. ABC gets the nod for best high-def content among the major networks, but there are loads of ads and inconsistent offerings. NBC’s high-def site makes you jump through hoops to download (no streaming) shows and requires registering and installing PC-only plug-ins. Vimeo gets Dealnews’ pick as the best HD site, but even it’s not perfect – its many selections are mostly unknown documentaries and shorts, and they’re poorly indexed. Still, the key word here is “free,” and this is a good guide that includes more than I’ve mentioned here.

Twin Citians have fond memories of the Cooper Theatre, based on reader reaction to my write-up today about a new DVD of How the West Was Won. The “Northwest Home of Cinerama,” located in St. Louis Park before being torn down in 1991, played that epic western on its 105-foot-wide curved screen for a stunning 88 weeks after the film opened there on March 14, 1963. The Blu-ray version of HTWWW mimics the Cinerma presentation that everyone of a certain age remembers from seeing the movie back in the day.

The good news is that those people have a place to share their Cooper memories — besides via unending phone calls to your friendly neighborhood Technobabble writer. I’m talking about Cinema Treasures, a website devoted to movie-theater preservation that has a page set aside just for the Cooper.

For example, Ken Amundsen recalls traveling to the Big City from Wisconsin as a boy and then taking a bus to the Cooper just to see HTWWW. He killed time before the movie started by spending all of his money, 75 cents, on a bowl of ice cream at a restaurant across the street. “For a 14-15 yr old hayseed from Wausau WI, this was all a great adventure,” he writes. “The Cinerama experience was all I had imagined it would be, and if anyone cares anymore, I was there.”

Of course, the Cooper showed hundreds more movies in the decades after HTWWW opened there, and the people who were there for them share those memories, too. Check it out, along with the new DVD.

When I wrote about websites to help kids with their homework, I overlooked perhaps one of the best options. And, as reader Leslie Yoder points out, it’s a free resource created especially for Minnesotans.

The simply named Electronic Library for Minnesota (ELM) offers a huge electronic cache of databases, magazine and newspaper articles, eBooks and other information to help anyone with research. It could actually be a one-stop resource for students, especially since it has sections devoted specifically to Kids: K- Grade5 and Teens: Grades 6-12. Images, book analyses, charts — whatever kids might need for schoolwork — are just a few clicks away. (Some might require a public library barcode for access.) The best part is that the many links are vetted by librarians, so students aren’t wading through catch-all search results. There’s even a Research Project Calculator to help students and teachers complete major assignments on time and conduct proper research at various steps along the way. Easy-to-follow tutorials help those who aren’t sure where to start.

“These are truly our tax dollars at work and far too few people know about these great resources,” said Yoder, an information literacy specialist in the Educational Technology Department of St. Paul Public Schools.

Here’s hoping more Minnesotans discover the vast resources of ELM.

Today’s the first day of school, which means that the first night of homework isn’t far away. In today’s Technobabble column, I recommended several websites and other online tools to help students keep up with schoolwork. They include the newly revamped AskKids, the free motherlode of study guides at CliffsNotes and SparkNotes, tips on how to use Wikipedia even when teachers won’t allow it, free electronic student planners and free online research tools. Read the column to find out more.

Originally, I was going to collaborate with Yahoo! Web Life editor Heather Cabot (pictured) on my list, but travel plans kept her from being able to meet my publication deadline. So I asked her to send me her list to share with you here today.

“There are a lot of innovative and easy to use resources online,” she says. “With a few clicks, students can tap into all kinds of reference tools and even virtual tutors for everything from geography to grammar to geometry.”

Here are Heather’s Top Homework Helper Sites:

• BJ Pinchbeck’s Homework Helper 
• Cool Math 
• Fact Monster 
• History For Kids
• Hot Math (not free)
• Info Please 
• Library Spot 
• Scholastic 
• Brain Pop Jr.  (not free)
• Yahoo! Kids - Homework Help

That last one is no surprise, of course. Interestingly, in its press material, AskKids shows in a comparison how its search engine produces better results than Yahoo! Kids and Google, but I’ll let you and your kids decide which works best.

Thanks, Heather!

Are you surprised that Muxtape is still “unavailable for a brief period” after its run-in earlier this week with the Recording Industry Association of America? I’m not. See OLGA, whose temporary shutdown has run for more than two years.

The RIAA says Muxtape ignored music-copyright laws by allowing members to upload MP3 files of their favorite artists. There’s no word yet on when or if the popular website will return, but an intellectual property lawyer told Rolling Stone that he believes Muxtape can win a legal battle if it has up to $3 million to fight the RIAA. How likely does that seem?

Meanwhile, in the Internet’s latest test of copyright laws, a new website, Mygazines, encourages users to scan and upload printed articles from current magazines for others to read for free using the site’s built-in viewer. These aren’t just the online versions of articles but the complete layouts from the actual publication. I have to admit that it’s pretty cool — until it starts reproducing the Star Tribune and my now-defunct music publication, of course. It surely won’t last for long, right?

Well, that was bad timing. Today I wrote about the cool website Muxtape, which allows users to upload their MP3s to the website to share as a virtual mixtape. But word now comes that the site is in limbo as of Monday night. A message on the site’s home page says simply: “Muxtape will be unavailable for a brief period while we sort out a problem with the RIAA.” It will be interesting to see how brief that period turns out to be, considering that this is the same way things unfolded for the guitar-tab archive OLGA, which is still down almost two years later. We’ll keep an eye on this one. Meanwhile, try Mixwit while Muxtape is down.