IP Videos

Orange Tastes HBO, Warner

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 06:59:40 -0400

Warner Bros. Intl. TV and HBO have cut an exclusive multi-year deal to supply content to France Telecom Orange's new premium pay TV service, Orange Cinema Service. The deal is expected to be one of many for Orange, a cable, IPTV and mobile TV operator in France as it builds exclusive content to lure subscribers in and fill its six movie/TV series channels.

Orange has acquired rights to all of WB's current and upcoming films, including hits such as "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" and "I Am Legend." The HBO deal is the company's first in France and is different from HBO's original model of trying to sell programming on an a la carte basis. Orange boasts one of Europe's biggest roll-outs in mobile TV and IPTV. It has 1.2 million IPTV clients, and some 500,000 mobile TV consumers. Orange Cinema Services will be offered on these platforms, on a subscription and video-on-demand basis.

For more:
- Read the Variety story

Related articles:
French challenge Microsoft
Top European IPTV drivers

Mossberg Blesses Web Video, Bashes Broadband Before iPhone Tease

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 06:59:10 -0400

Wall Street Journal technology columnist Walt Mossberg, or "Uncle Walt" to his fans, last week declared that the web is becoming a video medium. However, he went on to bash existing U.S. broadband networks as compared to the rest of the world, deeming it a problem for delivering video over the Internet. The comments, made during an executive summit held by Beet.tv last week, were overshadowed by the noted curmudgeon stating that the Apple iPhone will be "3G in 60 days."

For more:
- Read the News.com blog post here.
- "The Web is Becoming a Video Medium," Declares Walt Mossberg here.
- Watch Uncle Walt's DSL comments on beet.tv

Related articles:
A disruptive change of face for IPTV
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YouTube API enables free web hosting for all

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 07:59:40 -0400

YouTube has launched a powerful API that enables publishers to broadcast video content using their own skin and specifications direct from their own web sites--free. The co-branded API is being pitched at businesses, but also threatens the many video providers that service the custom-player market.

The no-cost service enables publishers and enterprises to effectively outsource the pain of video delivery to Google's robust video delivery infrastructure and will be a boon to firms seeking to deploy video for training and in-house comms. Externally it offers enterprises a branded player with a powerful set of recommendation and other features and potentially enormous distribution to promote and inform.

The offer of what is, in practice, free video hosting is possibly very disruptive to other professional video-hosting platforms such as Move, Brightcove and Yahoo's Maven Networks. While Google says it is not a white label exercise, in reality the co-branded API takes away both the complexity and cost of video delivery.

The API represents a major evolution for the user-generated site. It moves YouTube from a (hugely popular) destination platform to being a highly advanced video publishing infrastructure available to business and publishers alike.

New features in the API include the ability to add and edit user and video metadata as well as localized feeds for the 18 international markets YouTube supports.The new API comes as YouTube is testing HD delivery and as it promises to provide a real-time player later this year. To see the H.264 encoded clip in action compare these low- and high-quality versions of Tillman the skateboarding dog!

For more:
- YouTube Everywhere Blog
- YouTube pitches for business Article

Related articles:
YouTube tests HD Article
YouTube extends to mobile Article
Stage6 video portal closes Article

Two (YouTube) videos a day now the norm

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 06:59:30 -0500

The average online video viewer in September consumed 68 videos--more than two per day--according to the latest report from comScore Video Metrix. ComScore also found nearly 136 million Americans, or approximately three in four U.S Internet users, viewed online video in September.

The report found that yet again Google, through YouTube, dominate the video media landscape with the largest online video audience of 71.6 million unique viewers. This was followed a long way behind by Fox Interactive Media with 41.2 million viewers and Yahoo with 39.6 million. Nearly 70 million people viewed more than 2.5 billion videos on YouTube.com, while 38 million people viewed approximately 360 million videos on News Corporation's MySpace.com.

Internet users watched an average of three hours of online video during September and the average online duration was 2.7 minutes.

At the same time a separate report from Bain & Company suggests US viewers will watch an additional 2 hours of TV per week by 2012 spurred on by video-on-demand & the use of digital video recorders. This would suggest TV watching is in fact growing faster than web TV.

For More:
- TV watching grows faster then internet video Report
- YouTube Dominates Internet Video, with 27.3% Share Report

Related Articles:
- YouTube goes mobile Report
- Watching YouTube at your peril Report

Joost opens access

Tue, 02 Oct 2007 06:59:50 -0400

Joost emerged from beta last week, according to Jacqui Cheng in ars technica. Version 1.0 was opened up for all comers, instead of just invited beta testers. Joost went and quietly announced its commercial debut yesterday on its blog in a "Hello Public" note. "Big day for us at Joost," it said. "Today Joost is drawing back the curtain and steppin' out." The note goes on to say the software is still in beta and needs a lot more work, "and, yes, you may find a bug or two."

Joost has been in public beta since December as a peer-to-peer platform for long-form, ad-supported video. Joost has deals with Viacom, CBS and CNN among others, but it still lacks a truly compelling draw. FierceIPTV was an early beta tester and lost interest pretty quickly, especially with networks making prime time dramas available on their own players.

For More:
- Joost says "Hello Public" here
- Cheng's ars technical post is here

Related Article
Microsoft gets it Joost on Report
Flash interface unveiled for Joost Report

NBC does downloads

Tue, 25 Sep 2007 06:59:40 -0400

NBC will launch a web site next month for downloads of its lineup. NBC Direct, which currently offers full-episode streams of "30 Rock" and "Heroes" among others, will feature downloads of those shows plus a heretofore glaring omission, "The Office."

The downloads will have a DRM (digital rights management) license that expires in a week. A subscription service will eventually allow for automated downloads of favorite shows.

The beta launch will be for Windows PCs only, in what appears to be a continued snit with Apple over the network's exit from iTunes. NBC's dissatisfaction with the iTune pricing model coincided with the launch of its own online distribution initiatives. Given the buffering freeze-ups inherent in streaming high-bandwidth video, downloads are the obvious alternative.

For More:
- TelecomTV offers a summary of NBCdirect here

Related Articles:
NBC exits iTunes, enters Hulu Report
NBC debuts free digital download service Report

IPTV middleware breakdown

Tue, 25 Sep 2007 06:59:30 -0400

According to a London research firm, nearly one-third of IPTV subscribers are getting their video on proprietary middleware. The conclusion is that IPTV providers are skeptical of off-the-shelf versions.

Worldwide, the number of IPTV subscribers was estimated to be 7.5 million as of June. By comparison, iLocus said that out of 55.4 million consumer VoIP lines worldwide, about 18 percent were on proprietary hosting platforms.

iLocus indicated Thomson was the lead supplier of off-the-shelf middleware, primarily due to France Telecom deployment. Next was Cascade, followed by USTarcom, Alcatel-Lucent, Siemens, Microsoft, Orca, Vcom, Hawei, Minerva and ZTE.

"IPTV equipment has all the ingredients of a market in its infancy," iLocus states. Touche.

For More:
- The iLocus summary is here

Prince pulls plug on YouTube

Tue, 18 Sep 2007 06:59:10 -0400

The miniature Minneapolis mogul of pop music himself has unleashed his lawyers on YouTube. Prince, the artist formerly known as The Artist Formerly Known as Prince, is threatening to sue the user-generated video site for trafficking his clips. If YouTube can filter out porn, it can filter out His Purpleness, he is reported to reason. The San Francisco Chronicle says that 1,000 Prince clips have been pulled since said Artist weighed in.

Prince would join Viacom in the ranks of plaintiffs lining up to siphon off some of the $200 million escrow fund Google has laid aside for YouTube lawsuits. Reports indicate that the rights owner of music by the Village People are also mobilizing lawyers over a mashup of "YMCA" with video of Adolph Hitler goose-stepping. Meanwhile, Japan and the Beeb have merely scolded the garage-to-riches video purveyor.

YouTube continues to maintain it's self-policing policy is enough to combat piracy while it continues to get hammered for copyright violations. In the July hearing that opened the Viacom challenge in federal court, YouTube attorneys said the site would implement digital fingerprinting by September, which is noticeably now. Given that the pirated stuff is also the most popular, it behooves YouTube to bat its collective eyelashes as long as possible before actually combating piracy. The courtroom shoot-out with Viacom isn't expected until 2009.

For More:
- Cringley's InfoWorld gets props for best headline--Prince v. YouTube: A Violet Video Vendetta, here
- Second runner-up is at TechNewsWorld--This Is What It Sounds Like When Prince Sues? here
- Cnet's News Blog has details on the Village People, who are now all collecting Social Security, here