last100 » Net TV

Boxee set-top box on its way – let the connected living room battle begin

Steve O'Hear — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 19:31:23 +0000

Boxee, the socially driven and feisty Internet TV browser, will soon land on a set-top box of its own. Currently the media center software is only available on Mac, Windows, Linux, along with a hacked together version for the AppleTV (the closest that Boxee has come so far to appearing on a set-top box). That’s about to change, says the company.

Founder and CEO Avner Ronen writes on the official Boxee blog: “I am very happy to announce we have signed our first partnership with a CE company. At this point we can not say more about the partner or the specs of the device, but we can tell you we are working closely with them to make sure we deliver a great Boxee experience on it.”

More details on the box itself will be revealed at an upcoming Boxee Beta Unveiling event in Brooklyn, NY on Dec 7th.

Of course we already knew that the company was working hard to get its software onto an array of hardware, from set-top boxes, Internet TVs, Blu-ray players, and game consoles etc. In other words, Boxee wants to remain device agnostic and, eventually, be everywhere. Or as Ronen writes: “Our goal is to be on every Connected device in the living room.”

Aah.

The battle for the connected living room you say.

That’s the same fight that Netflix, Microsoft, Apple, Cisco, Sony and a long list of others are participating in. Boxee may have a great user experience and a smart third-party app strategy, but to win that battle they’ll need their fair share of luck.

Or to be acquired but one of the bigger players.

Just sayin’

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TechCrunch Europe: Voddler, the Spotify-for-movies; BlinkBox partners with the BFI

Steve O'Hear — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 12:39:54 +0000

Over at TechCrunch Europe where I’ve been helping out over the last two weeks (that’s why it’s been a quiet around here) I’ve covered two Internet TV-related stories that maybe of interest to last100 readers.

Voddler, the Spotify-for-movies, partners with Paramount and Disney

Voddler is beginning to garner quite a lot of buzz in Europe, having been widely described as the “Spotify for movies”. It’s also been called the Hulu of Europe. The Internet TV service offers add-supported streaming of movies and TV shows as well as premium paid-for content through its own desktop client and is currently only available in a closed beta in the company’s home country of Sweden. However, following content deals with Paramount and Disney, Voddler is beginning to open up and has plans to expand into other European countries. On being compared to Spotify and Hulu, I comment:

… a more apt and less flattering comparison might be the largely defunct Joost or another European video startup, Babelgum. Both services have struggled to secure enough compelling mainstream content and, in hindsight, forcing users to download a desktop app would seem to have been a mistake. A big one.

BlinkBox goes all arty, signs deal with British Film Institute

I’ll admit, BlinkBox wasn’t an online video site I was overly familiar with even though it’s a UK offering.

The film and TV aggregator has signed a content partnership with the British Film Institute (BFI) — bringing the total number of British TV and film titles on offer to over five hundred and the total number of “premium” titles available on the service to just under six thousand.

The service already has licensing deals with a number of studios including Warner Brothers, Universal Pictures, Paramount Pictures, Aardman Animations. Discovery Networks and FremantleMedia.

If you’re in the UK, I suggest you check out BlinkBox as there’s actually quite a lot of good quality free content available, along with plenty of paid-for offerings.

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Streaming Media West conf. and expo: Get a $200 discount

Steve O'Hear — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 20:15:15 +0000

Last100 readers – Streaming Media West - the leading online video industry conference & expo – is offering a $200 discount to attend Streaming Media sessions. Click here to take advantage of these savings. If you can’t buy a conference pass, you can still sign up for a free expo pass which this year includes access to two separate, open-bar networking receptions!

Streaming Media West is November 17-19 at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center. The Exhibit Hall opens on November 17 at 5pm.

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NewTeeVee Live: Join CBS, Cisco, Viacom, Netflix, Comcast, Adobe and more

Steve O'Hear — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 21:32:07 +0000

I’m interrupting normal transmission to remind readers one last time of the upcoming NewTeeVee Live 09 conference being run by our friends over at NewTeeVee, part of the excellent GigaOM staple of blogs.

Last100 is a media sponsor of the event and once again, readers who wish to attend qualify for a discount.

More info after the jump…

NewTeeVee Live: When an $86bn market transitions online, opportunities are created. Join CBS, Cisco, Viacom, Netflix, Comcast, Adobe and more

NewTeeVee Live Conference

Nov. 12, 2009

Mission Bay Conference Center
San Francisco, California

Your exclusive $50 discount is available now!

In the wake of the huge TV industry transition there are increasing opportunities for entrepreneurs, producers and technologists. Find your opportunity first.

NewTeeVee Live, now in its third successful year, is designed to answer the biggest questions about the future of television. The conference has assembled the most important industry leaders to share their views and visions. Join leaders from CBS, Comcast, Adobe, Microsoft, Cisco and Netflix to name a few. Additionally, we will feature 10 of the most exciting companies with most potential to change the industry, selected by Liz Gannes and Chris Albrecht, editors of NewTeeVee.

Catch the analysts from GigaOM Pro in the breakout panel, “Extreme Infrastructure: Taking Video Delivery to the Next Stage,” to discuss how the video delivery network will evolve to take greater advantage of new technologies across cloud computing, VOD, CDN and P2P. Large-scale news events this year, such as President Obama’s inauguration and Michael Jackson’s funeral, pushed current generation Internet video delivery networks to their limits. No doubt, as more consumers go online to satiate their video viewing appetites, online delivery networks will need to evolve to handle these million-viewer events.

All NewTeeVee Live attendees will receive a free copy of the GigaOM Pro Market Research Report, “TV Everywhere.” GigaOM Pro is a revolutionary approach to market research, created to give you essential information about emerging tech trends. GigaOM Pro breaks down the wall between business and analysts and lets you create conversations around our top-notch research. Get your GigaOM Pro subscription for only $50 when you sign up for the NewTeeVee Live and GigaOM Pro bundle.

Television industry leaders speaking at NewTeeVee Live include:

* Amy Banse, president, Comcast Interactive Media
* Reed Hastings, co-founder and CEO, Netflix
* Quincy Smith, CEO, CBS Interactive
* Kevin Lynch, CTO, Adobe Systems
* Marc Whitten, general manager of Xbox LIVE, Microsoft
* Andy Mitchell, VP of Digital and Development Marketing, CNN
* Erik Flannigan, executive vice president of Digital Media, MTVN Entertainment Group
* Randi Zuckerberg, director, Market Development, Facebook
* Avner Ronen, CEO and co-founder, boxee
* Anthony Wood, CEO, Roku
* Matthew McRae, VP and GM, Advanced Technology Products, VIZIO
* Sam Blackman, CEO, Elemental Technologies
* Bill Gurley, general partner, Benchmark Capital

Some of the questions being investigated:

1. What is TV Everywhere, and does it impact everyone?
2. Is advertising a model that will continue to provide revenue?
3. Is existing copyright law at odds with the needs of modern commercial online video?
4. Will the body that controls online identity be the ultimate winner?
5. Are independent artists better able to exploit the new distribution mechanisms?
6. Will users find value in amateur-generated content, or will they pay for professional content?
7. What are the new opportunities in home platforms?
8. Which new formats are popular?
9. Who are the faces behind the evolution of the industry? What are they planning next?
10. Will there be only one video player for the world?

Five hundred industry executives will explore the future of the planet’s favorite media: television. If you wish to join them Nov. 12 in San Francisco, register for your ticket now.

Full details can be found at our event web site: http://live.newteevee.com/

To hear more about our speaker additions as they happen, follow us on Twitter @newteeveelive
Standard tickets cost $595, but we’re offering a saver rate of $445. Hurry to lock in your savings.

http://newteeveelive.eventbrite.com/?discount=MPLAST50

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Video: YouTube on the WD TV Live HD Media Player

Steve O'Hear — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 20:59:27 +0000

I gave Western Digital’s original WD HD Media Player a glowing review, describing it as a ‘kitchen sink an all’ media player that just works. As readers may remember, the set-top box does away with local networking or an Internet connection, instead featuring two USB ports only, to offer a near fool-proof way of watching almost any video downloaded from the Internet on the TV.

However, the lack of network connectivity, a potential shortcoming for some, has been addressed with the newly released WD TV Live HD, which adds an Ethernet port and support for YouTube and Flickr, Internet radio from Live365 and Pandora (US version only), along with content stored on a Windows PC or Mac on the same local network.

Like it’s predecessor, the device is being marketed based on HD video support (up to 1080p), and this, explained a company rep at a recent press event, is the reason why a wired connection was chosen over WiFi. Since many home wireless networks don’t stream High Def video reliably, Western Digital didn’t want to mislead customers. The company does, however, provide a list of compatible WiFi adapters – unofficially supported – for those who still wish to go down the wireless route.

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Adobe Flash seen running on Palm Pre – Netbooks, MIDs, and other smartphones also set to win (iPhone aside)

Steve O'Hear — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 13:30:12 +0000

Adobe has long talked up its ambition to have Flash running on all manner of screens, not just the humble PC, and today the company got a lot closer to walking the walk not just talking.

Through the Open Screen Project, Adobe was already known to be working with smartphone platforms from Palm (WebOS), Nokia (Symbian) and Microsoft (Windows Mobile), along with a raft of content providers, chip makers and consumer electronics companies. Today, the company added Google and Research In Motion to the list, with relation to Android and Blackberry-powered smartphones respectively, leaving Apple’s iPhone as the odd one out regarding planned support for full Flash (or any Flash support at all).

Historically, Apple has always defended iPhone’s lack of Flash support by arguing that it’s too processor and power intensive, and that the cut down mobile version of Flash (Flash Lite) just isn’t up to the job. With Moore’s Law kicking in (faster smartphone processors) and Adobe working hard to optimize Flash for the latest mobile chips, this argument is holding less and less water. In the video demo below, we can see Flash performing pretty well on Palm’s Pre smartphone, a device that shares much under the hood with the latest iPhone 3GS.

Instead, as I’ve argued previously, Apple has a very different motive for keeping Adobe Flash away from the iPhone.

… as we all should know by now, the real reason why Apple doesn’t want to embrace Adobe’s Flash is that it would offer third-party developers an alternative “runtime” on which to develop and, perhaps more importantly, distribute apps for the iPhone, bypassing Apple’s control (and that of its partner carriers) and the iTunes App Store itself. And we can’t have that, can we?

The other big win for the Open Screen Project are the latest Netbooks and future MIDS (Mobile Internet Devices) or so-called smartbooks, reports Engadget. “Flash 10.1 will take advantage of GPU acceleration on a number of key mobile platforms, including both nVidia’s Tegra and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon alongside ION for smooth (well, theoretically smooth) 720p and 1080p video on the latest generation of netbooks and smartbooks.”

Where all of this leaves Microsoft’s own Flash competitor Silverlight on mobile is anybody’s guess, although probably not in the best of shape. While Nokia is partnering with Redmond to bring Silverlight support to Symbian, Microsoft itself is simultaneously supporting Flash for Windows Mobile, such is the anbundance of exciting Flash-powered content on the Web.

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NewTeeVee Live: Understand TV Everywhere with speakers from Comcast, Adobe, Nielsen, MTV and more (last100 readers get a 10% discount!)

Steve O'Hear — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 20:10:11 +0000

last100 is proud to be a media sponsor of this year’s NewTeeVee Live conference. Better still, readers qualify for a 10% discount on tickets to the event. Full details of how to get your discount and news of this year’s lineup below…

TV Everywhere is the one of the most important initiatives to date in the TV Industry. Understand what it is and what it’s impacts are at NewTeeVee Live.

Don’t miss this opportunity to meet and learn from the leaders in television. Your exclusive last100 10% discount on this year’s conference is available now!

http://newteeveelive.eventbrite.com/?discount=MPLAST

Save the Date

NewTeeVee Live 09

Nov. 12, 2009

San Francisco, CA

Mission Bay Conference Center

The mammoth television industry is moving online at a breakneck pace and disrupting linked industries such as consoles and TV platforms. This is the year of “TV Everywhere” and you need to know what it is, what it can do for you and who is behind it. The NewTeeVee Live 09 conference will talk to the leaders behind the changes and bring insights to the audience. NewTeeVee will take place at the Mission Bay Conference Center, San Francisco on November the 12th 2009. Join us.

Attend this year and learn about:

What is TV Everywhere, and what is it’s major impacts?
Is advertising the model that will continue to provide revenue?
Is existing copyright law at odds with the needs of online video?
Will single sign-on identities create or hinder the boom? Will the winning system have an unfair advantage over others?
Are independent artists better able to exploit the new distribution mechanisms over their traditional counterparts?
Will users find value in generated content, or will they pay for “high production value” content?
Does the new platform being created at the intersection of TV hardware and online connectivity represent an opportunity or a hurdle?
What are the missing gaps in the market that need to be filled before we proceed?
Who are the faces behind the reinvention? What are they planning next?
What does the person behind the most popular video viewer on the planet have to say?

NewTeeVee Live, in its third successful year, is designed to answer the biggest questions you have about the future of television. NewTeeVee has assembled some of the biggest industry movers and shakers to come and speak.

There has never been a better time to engage with the figures behind the industry change:

Amy L. Banse – President, Interactive Media & SVP, Comcast
Kevin Lynch – CTO, Adobe Systems
Marc Whitten – GM of Xbox LIVE, Microsoft
Brian Fuhrer – SVP, Program Leader, TV/Internet Integration, Nielsen
Erik Flannigan – EVP of Digital Media, MTVN Entertainment Group
Antonio Rallo – Vice President Technology Strategy, Grupo Televisa S.A.
Randi Zuckerberg – Marketing, Facebook
Hunter Walk – Director of product for YouTube, Google
Anthony Wood – Founder and CEO, Roku, Inc.
Matthew McRae – VP and GM Advanced Technology Products, VIZIO, Inc.
Bill Gurley – General Partner, Benchmark
Avner Ronen – CEO and Co-Founder, boxee
Michael Gregory – Creator, “Auto-Tune the News”, Gregory Residence Records
Brent Friedman – President, Electric Farm Entertainment
Bismarck Lepe – Co-founder and President of Product Strategy, Ooyala
Chris Hollenbeck – Managing Director, Granite Ventures
Doug Knopper – Co-Founder/Co-CEO, FreeWheel
Sam Blackman – CEO, Elemental Technologies
Matt Smith – Senior Director, Systems Architecture, Inlet Technologies

Hear them speak and then engage with them in the hallways of NewTeeVee Live 09.

500+ industry executives will explore the future of the planet’s favorite media: television. Join them on November 12th in San Francisco.

Full details can be found on the website at http://live.newteevee.com/

To hear more about our speaker additions as they happen, follow us on Twitter @newteeveelive

Standard tickets cost $595, but we’re offering a Super Saver rate of $355.

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Introducing GigaOM’s NewTeeVee Live 09

Steve O'Hear — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 19:13:53 +0000

A core remit of last100 is to cover the living room’s broadband revolution and Internet TV is playing a major part in this.

One blog that I read religiously to keep track of the Online Video industry is NewTeeVee from the GigaOM staple of tech blogs. NewTeeVee also puts on the respected NewTeeVee Live conference every year and it’s nearly that time again. And as with last year, we’re proud to be a media sponsor for the event. Full details after the jump…

NewTeeVee Live, Nov 12th, San Francisco, 9am – 8pm

If you are in the television industry, then there’s a hidden upside to the economic downturn: It looks like people are paying more attention to their TVs and online shows. To make sense of it all, GigaOM Networks presents its NewTeeVee Live 09 conference, where there’s something for everyone who has a professional interest in online television.

NewTeeVee Live will take place on Nov 12th in San Francisco. The core topic this year is “TV Everywhere,” and we’ve assembled key executives from Comcast, Facebook, Microsoft, MTV, Vizio, Epix, and many more to lead the audience through their visions for the industry. Your job will be to listen, ask questions, and let us help you find the opportunities that exist in this space. Join us for our third year, and help us make it a sell-out event like the last two. Participate in the revolution.

Tickets cost $595, but early birds can get them for our special price of $295 before September 25th.

Further details on : http://live.newteevee.com/

Register now at http://newteeveelive-site.eventbrite.com/

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Opera wants to put Internet widgets on the TV too

Steve O'Hear — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 15:17:55 +0000

Opera, the Norwegian company behind the desktop and mobile web browser of the same name, wants to be a major player in the nascent Internet-connected TV space.

Like Yahoo’s ‘Widget Channel’ or the boutique gadget maker Chumby’s own platform, Opera’s newly released Opera Devices SDK 10 is touting the ability for TV and set-top box manufacturers to add Internet widgets to their feature set, along with full web-browsing if required.

The widgets on display in a video demo published by Opera (embedded below) take on a familiar look and feel and pull in content from all of the usual suspects, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, eBay, Amazon etc. While the Twitter example shown perhaps typifies the hopes pinned on widgets on the TV: the ability for viewers to pull in and publish web content contextual to their viewing experience, in this case status updates to and from their social network. Swap social network for shopping cart, Amazon for example, and it’s not hard to imagine the potential business opportunities.

On the other hand, if Fox TV’s recent Twitter experiment is anything to go on, perhaps this whole Internet widgets stealing screen real estate on the TV is a bit of red herring. Although at least one market survey, which we reported on earlier in the year, suggests that consumers do have an apatite for Internet widgets on the TV and are willing to pay for such functionality.

As for full web browsing on the TV? Well we all know how that worked out the first time round, albeit in a predominantly dial-up era.

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BBC iPlayer on PS3 gets a makeover, higher quality video and 1080p UI

Steve O'Hear — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 13:21:04 +0000

The version of iPlayer optimized for the PlayStation 3 has been given a major update that delivers improved video quality and a User Interface designed for High Definition televisions that operate up to 1080p.

That explains why Sony’s recent advertising blitz for the games console is pushing the Beeb’s UK-only TV catch-up service pretty hard, along with the company’s own video download service that only recently launched this side of the pond.

Writing on the broadcaster’s official ‘Internet’ blog, the BBC’s Anthony Rose explains that the latest PS3 firmware update offers improved Flash player support, which not only enables H.264 playback but also takes advantage of hardware acceleration when in full screen mode. The result, says Rose, is that the BBC is now able to provide “an iPlayer on PS3 with brilliant video quality – almost as good as broadcast television!”.

The newest PS3 firmware also sees iPlayer appear an an option directly within the game console’s cross-media bar (see screenshot above), “giving easy one-click access”.

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Samsung Blu-ray players to support YouTube and Blu-ray rips!

Steve O'Hear — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 12:25:44 +0000

This is one of those press releases that made me chuckle. Samsung today announced that it has added support for YouTube, along with video formats that utilize the Matroska (MKV) container. While just about every media player — from set-top boxes to mobile phones — can access the Google-owned video sharing site these days, MKV support is less common and, perhaps, for a good reason too.

The open source format is fast becoming the standard for Blu-ray rips and, like DivX/Xvid before it, the main choice for sharing pirated movies via the Internet. Only in this case they are in full HD. That’s something that Samsung, understandably, doesn’t quite say.

Instead, Robert Shaw, the company’s General Manager CTV & Home Platforms, offers quotes such as “we know our consumers want access to multi-platform content…” and that “adding MKV file support and YouTube to our range of Blu-ray players is the latest step… in providing an unparalleled home-cinema experience for our customers.”

Those who have already purchased a Samsung Blu-ray player can upgrade their device to the new YouTube and pirate-friendly edition via a fimware update from Samsung.com.

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How DivX delivered DRM into the living room and finally won Hollywood’s blessing

Steve O'Hear — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 15:35:49 +0000

I’ve written before about DivX being the video format of choice for ‘grey’ (read: pirated) content, but now it seems that the near ubiquitous standard is finally on the road to legitimacy with relation to content owners.

Download-to-own movie site Film Fresh (U.S.-only), in partnership with DivX, has secured content from Hollywood studios Lionsgate, Paramount Pictures, Sony and Warner Bros. The deal marks the first time that major studio content has been offered for sale in the DivX format in the U.S., according to Film Fresh.

But what made this possible?

Despite DivX winning the hearts and minds of those wanting a cross platform video format for sharing pirated content, and perhaps as a consequence winning the hearts and wallets of device makers (DVD players, PMPs, and set-top boxes etc.) who signed up to officially support DivX, the video standard has for a long time now offered support for Digital Rights Management, the required copy protection technology needed to secure Hollywood’s blessing.

In other words, and rather counter intuitively, pirated content has acted as a trojan horse to deliver DRM into the living room. And with it, copy protected Hollywood content. With the necessary anti-piracy hooks in place, I’m actually surprised it took this long.

From the press release: “Consumers have the freedom to transfer their DivX movies via DVDs, USB drives, SD memory cards, and portable hard drives, or streamed over a home network for playback on other registered DivX Certified devices they own–all on supported products from top consumer electronics brands such as LG, Philips and Toshiba.”

Those “DivX Certified” devices already sold add up to the “millions”, and include DVD players, digital TVs, gaming consoles (PS3), Blu-ray disc players, and portable DVD players.

That’s some trojan horse.

Of course, as NewTeeVee notes, that’s not to say that Film Fresh will be a success. What with existing download-to-own competition from Apple’s iTunes and Amazon, along with the fledging Vudu. And then there’s the issue of whether or not consumers really want to ‘own’ the films they source from the Internet. Piracy aside, ad-supported streaming (Hulu) and subscription-based rental models (Netflix) etc. are becoming increasingly popular.

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