I spent this past week catching up with the intersection of Silican Valley and Hollywood at the Digital Hollywood conference.‚ Wow, is there every a lot going on this year.‚ The buzz and the presentations reflected how rapidly digital video has moved in the last year.

There was an extra level of energy over last year’s conference. I think it had to do with the fact that the digital video revolution has finally started.‚ Broadband penetration has unlocked the likes of YouTube and everyone can see the opportunity.

This is a big bubble in the formation years.‚ Growth right now is being driven by the increasing levels of broadband penetration and it seems like a next generation of growth could be right behind it when the internet connects to the TV.‚ This is a great time to be a video entreprenuer -YouTube just got bought for $1.65 billion and it seems like other video players have plenty of opportunity to cash in. I spoke to one company called Jumpcut that just got started this year and was quickly snatched up by Yahoo.

So here are my top 10 takeaways from the conference:

1. Broadband penetration has enabled the video web to take off and its just getting started – think 1997 all over again
2. Non-traditional media such as ROO, Revision3, notMTV are exploding all over the net and are moving up fast – remember the new economy – it’s back
3. Traditional media publishers see the opportunity, but are struggling to work out deals to keep their old distribution partners like cable and Walmart happy
4. Free is the future – as long as we are willing to watch ads and the ad industry can figure out ways to measure our ad views
5. Download time is still a major user experience problem that needs a fix before the revolution hits long format video content
6. Video bandwidth requirements are likely drive huge changes in the net infrastructure and approaches to content delivery – think P2P
7. The Consumer video revolution is just getting started and YouTube won’t be the only consumer content delivery network
8. Licensing and DRM challenges are still there, but consumer consumption just won’t be stopped – so figure out a way to compete with the pirate channels
9. Personalized audio and video channels are here thanks to podcasting and videocasting – get ready for more media unbundling
10. Connecting home entertainment to the internet is not far away and it will drive another huge wave of change – maybe that will be web 3.0?

2007 is going to be great:)