Archive for the ‘Net TV’ Category

YouTube gets dedicated Olympic channel, but it won't be available in the U.S.

by Daniel Langendorf

August 4th, 2008 | Posted in Net TV | Comments1 Comment

The 2008 Olympic Games will be broadcast online to more than 70 countries on a dedicated YouTube channel, but the United States is not included.

NBC holds the video-on-demand rights in the U.S., but these have not been sold on an exclusive basis in other countries, including Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Vietnam, Iraq, and India (see the complete International Olympic Committee list here).

The IOC will stream about three hours a day of exclusive content — mostly summaries and highlights — from Olympic Broadcasting Services. YouTube will sell ads, but only to Olympic sponsors. The channel will be available on Wednesday.

YouTube will use geo-blocking to prevent access to the channel in countries where the video-on-demand rights have been sold, like in the U.S. Geo-blocking is based on a user’s IP address.

The geo-blocking in the U.S. shouldn’t be that big of a deal, unless you’re one who wants to see everything broadcast night and day or you’re surfing videos at YouTube and want to catch up on the Olympic action without leaving the site.

NBC will show more than 2,000 hours of live content at NBCOlympics.com. That’s more than enough content to keep any Olympic fan happy — and in need of sleep.

See also: Roundup: The most digital of all Olympic games is well underway and, from ReadWriteWeb, Mainstream Web Watch: The Olympics & Online Video

Roundup: The most digital of all Olympic games is well underway

by Daniel Langendorf

July 31st, 2008 | Posted in Net TV | Comments2 Comments

The 2008 Olympics are due to start in Beijing in seven days, five hours, and change, but the reporting and blogging surrounding the most digital of all Olympics is well underway.

Read on to learn more about youth and the digital Olympics and the possibility the Internet will break when billions of people worldwide access the Web to stream video and static content.

In just the past few days there have been announcements regarding schedules, video players, compatibility issues, even behind-the-scene looks at what it will take to produce 2,000 hours of live content for television consumption and 5,000 hours of streaming content for the Web.

If you start now, you just might finish in time for the start of the games on 08-08-08.

Using digital to appeal to youth

Reuters detailed the impact of the digital revolution on the 2008 Olympics, drawing the conclusion that streaming events and highlights over the Internet will attract younger viewers, who are not expected to watch the events live. The average age of people watching the 2004 Games in Athens was more than 40 years old, a statistic that’s not expected to change for the Beijing Games.

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LG's Netflix streaming Blu-ray player announced. What, no Wi-Fi?

by Steve O'Hear

July 31st, 2008 | Posted in Net TV | Comments6 Comments

We already knew that Netflix was working with LG Electronics to integrate its Watch Now video streaming service into some juicy new hardware. And today the two companies announced what that hardware will be.

Available this fall, the LG BD300 Network Blu-ray Disc Player, in addition to being able to play high definition Blu-ray discs and upscale standard DVDs, will give Netflix subscribers the option of streaming any of the 12,000 movies and TV episodes available on Watch Now to their TVs at no additional cost.

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Blinkx launches universal Remote for Internet TV catch-up services in the UK

by Steve O'Hear

July 30th, 2008 | Posted in Net TV | Comments1 Comment

As broadcasters continue to roll out their own Internet TV catch-up services, what’s required is an easy way for viewers to find and be alerted to the availability of their favourite TV shows wherever they may be offered online. Enter blinkx “Remote”, a new service from the company behind the video search engine of the same name, which offers UK viewers a single destination to browse, search and access online video content offered by all of the major TV channels including those from the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, and Five.

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ESPN to launch Action Sports Network online in fall

by Daniel Langendorf

July 30th, 2008 | Posted in Net TV | CommentsNo Comments

Fans of action sports such as surfing, skateboarding, motocross, and snowboarding, your time has come. ESPN will unveil a new digital strategy today that’s aimed at you, not the middle-age male sports fan.

ESPN will launch in the fall the ESPN Action Sports Network, which will encompass a bunch of Internet sites dedicated to a specific “action sport.” The action sports network will offer coverage of events that are not carried on mainstream television, the Los Angeles Times reports.

“We felt like we were under-delivering on a year-round basis,” Dave Finger, director of action sports for ESPN Digital Media, told the LAT. “We felt like we were missing out on covering action sports with the same voice and authority that we bring to stick and ball.”

ESPN was the first mainstream media outlet to embrace “anti-establishment” athletes and their fans with the creation of the Extreme Games in 1995, which later became the X Games. The X Games, however, are held only twice-yearly, while the non-team, non-traditional sports included in the X Games are often “played” year-round.

ESPN’s extreme sports Web site, EXPN.com, will now become a part of the ESPN Action Sports Network.

It’s a great move by ESPN. Television will continue to be dominated by the big four sports — football, baseball, basketball, and hockey — and time slots are limited for other sports like skateboarding, snowboarding, and motocross.

Online, however, ESPN can cater to every sport with exclusive video and in-depth content with no time or space limitations. ESPN will expand original digital programming like “Guerilla Cam”, which takes fans behind the scenes at events, and the also will invite fans to upload and share their own videos in an attempt to build community around each sport.

Study: For first time, a significant number of people watch prime-time shows online, not on TV

by Daniel Langendorf

July 29th, 2008 | Posted in Net TV | CommentsNo Comments

Now these are some sexy — and significant — numbers:

According to a survey released today by Integrated Media Measurement Inc., more than 20 percent of people studied watch some amount of prime-time, episodic programming online.

Within that group of online viewers, 50 percent are watching programs as they become available and are starting to use the computer as a substitute for a television.

The other 50 percent use the Web to watch programming they’ve missed or to re-watch episodes they have already seen.

All of which means . . .

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In a smart move Netflix rules out pay-per-view video service

by Steve O'Hear

July 29th, 2008 | Posted in Net TV | CommentsNo Comments

While Netflix’s video streaming service only offers 10,000 movies and TV episodes compared to the 100,000 titles available via DVD, the company’s all-you-can-eat subscription strategy is the right one, and differentiates it from an increasingly crowded market of pay-per-view offerings. A market which, CEO Reed Hastings says, the company has no plans to get into.

“We don’t plan to enter the pay-per-view segment, where Apple, Amazon, Sony and others focus”, Reed told shareholders and analysts during Friday’s second-quarter earnings call. He also ruled out an ad-supported offering too, where, for example, Hulu and YouTube compete.

“Both of those segments will likely be substantial, but our subscription segment will also be large and will provide Netflix plenty of room for growth”, says Reed.

See also: Netflix is finally coming to Xbox 360, which is getting a dashboard makeover and Mii-like avatars

The problem with the majority of pay-per-view online video services, both rental and to-own, is that they remain prohibitively expensive, often costing equal to a physical DVD, and in some cases more. In comparison, Netflix is offering streaming at no extra charge to members who are already on a high enough DVD tariff, and in the longer term is protecting the subscription model which it helped pioneer.

NFL will stream select live games over Web for first time

by Daniel Langendorf

July 28th, 2008 | Posted in Net TV | Comments2 Comments

Good news for football fans. The NFL is loosing up, but just a bit.

The National Football Leauge — notoriously protective of its game action — will stream 17 prime-time, regular-season games this year on NFL.com and NBCSports.com, SportsBusiness Journal reported today. It will be the first time that live action NFL games will be broadly streamed in the U.S.

The streaming begins Sept. 4 in a Thursday game between the Washington Redskins and the New York Giants, with the online video consisting of NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” broadcast feed. Announcers Al Michaels and John Madden will make the call. Viewers will be able to choose from four live camera angles and review updated stats in real time.

It is expected that NBC’s ads will be stripped out of the stream and replaced with new online ads sold by the NFL and NBC,who will share in the new revenue.

The announcement was not openly cheered by the NFL’s other television partners, who, combined, provide $3.7 billion a year in broadcast rights revenue — making the NFL America’s most valuable television property.

Over-the-air networks Fox and CBS and the cable network ESPN also broadcast several games a week, but NBC airs only one on Sunday nights (totaling 17). Because NBC broadcasts only one game, NFL executives told SportsBusiness Journal that it was the best fit for a single-year experiment.

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Report: 100,000 Roku Netflix set-top boxes sold

by Steve O'Hear

July 24th, 2008 | Posted in Net TV | Comments2 Comments

It was only yesterday that our friend Dan Rayburn over at Streaming Media was talking down the impact that Internet-delivered video was making in the living room. Or to quote Rayburn himself, his guest post for GigaOm was intended to “set expectations properly”, based on official figures and various estimates, which suggest that consumer facing set-top boxes from the likes of TiVo, Sony, Microsoft, Apple, Roku and Vudu that are capable of delivering online video, have sold a lot less than what most people think.

Today, however, Rayburn admits he got one figure wrong. Based on a new source, Rayburn says that rather than selling 10,000 units, the Netflix player by Roku has sold closer to 100,000.

While it surprised me the number was that high, it does seem possible, as that would equal about 1% of Netflix’s 8.2 million customers. Considering the price point ($99) and the fact that the product’s marketing is very focused, to a targeted audience, Roku’s penetration rate would be higher than the average product that has only been on the market for eight weeks. Plus, once you have the Roku box, the content is free.

Rayburn goes on to suggest that it won’t be long before the Roku box outsells the AppleTV (we don’t disagree), especially with the promise that the Roku player will soon support more than just Netflix. “This little device has some real potential to make a real impact in the market”, he says.

Verizon bringing Internet TV to its set-top boxes

by Steve O'Hear

July 24th, 2008 | Posted in Net TV | Comments1 Comment

Verizon bringing Internet TV to its set-top boxesAnother major player enters the PC to TV space. Verizon is currently beta testing web video on their set-top boxes, reports Zatz Not Funny.

Unsurprisingly, the content looks like it will be mostly user-generated or that which has been created specifically for the web, and therefore won’t compete directly with the telco’s own video-on-demand offering. Initial “marketing partners” to include Veoh, Blip.tv, Break.com, and YouTube.

On the downside, a PC is still required to act as a bridge between Internet content and the TV via Verizon’s DVR set-top box, notes Dave Zatz.

Unlike TiVo which taps directly into YouTube’s H.264 content, Verizon utilizes their Media Manager PC software as an intermediary. Sites are indexed on a regular basis and when a video is selected from the DVR, the PC software automatically transcodes and streams content on the fly.

In addition to pulling in content from supported video aggregation sites, Verizon’s Media Manager software “also facilitates shipping virtually any video podcast to your DVR”. Podcast subscriptions can be added directly to Media Manager in the standard way via the PC’s web browser.

The new features will be offered as part of Verizon’s top tier DVR package, which currently includes PC photo sharing and multi-room DVR playback, and is expected to be offered to customers later this year or early next year.

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