I agree. From Digital Hollywood two weeks ago-- brand control, contextual placement, syndicated delivery, cost-effective selling and management, targeting, analytics and conversion tracking, etc are all paving the way for video advertising platforms to transform the business. Only other add I have heard of: flixtrix-- Bay Area stealth mode company.

I wonder if there is some value to adding a premium service to the automated services... one that uses an offshore "sweat-shop" of real people (india etc.) or even just targets videos that are getting a lot of views.

Not strictly a contextual video ad network. However Entrieva will be the contextual engine powering some of the (video) ad networks.

What about a Chinese video ad insertion startup? CTS raised funding from Seqouia and others. http://www.thealarmclock.com/mt/archives/2007/04/post_276.html#Permalink

We also did a post on our new social network for the online advertising community - www.adbree.com - to see if anyone else is working in this area and directing them to your post.

AdBrite has a video product. See
http://www.adbrite.com/video/get_started.php

http://brightroll.com/ was doing contextual video advertising prior to any of the companies listed.