Playing catch up, Blockbuster partners with CinemaNow

Steve O'Hear — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 19:15:53 +0000

If you can’t compete then partner

In a bid to play catch up with the likes of Apple, Netflix, Sony and Microsoft, video rental chain Blockbuster has signed a strategic partnership with Sonic Solutions, owners of the video download store CinemaNow. The move is designed to accelerate the company’s move into online video by pooling the two companies’ digital movie libraries, as well as tapping into CinemaNow’s existing ecosystem of supported devices, which includes portable media players, Blu-ray Disc players, personal video recorders (PVRs), set-top boxes, mobile phones and Web-connected television sets.

Blockbuster’s branding will replace CinemaNow’s, while Sonic Solutions’ technology will power the combined offering.

Jim Keyes, Blockbuster Chairman and CEO: “Blockbuster is a ubiquitous entertainment presence in the physical world. Through this alliance with Sonic, we plan to become a ubiquitous presence in the digital world as well. Our goal is to offer consumers the most digital content, the most accessibility, via the most devices, both in- and out of home.”

Of course, Blockbuster’s video download plans were already underway after the company acquired Movielink, a previous joint venture between Hollywood studios Paramount, Sony, Universal, Warner Bros. and MGM. That was back in August 07, and it took a further fifteen months before the re-branded Blockbuster OnDemand service finally got its own set-top box. With progress that slow, it’s no wonder the company feels the need for a new technology partner, and one with established relationships with consumer electronics companies. It’s in this area where competitor Netflix has made rapid progress over the past year by getting its Watch Instantly video streaming service onto Microsoft’s XBox 360 games console, Internet set-top boxes, Blu-ray players and Internet-connected TVs.

Dave Habiger, president and CEO, Sonic Solutions: “With more and more broadband-enabled consumer electronics hitting the market, there is a growing need for a service that gives consumers access to premium entertainment on any device, anytime and anywhere… By pairing Sonic’s digital delivery technology with Blockbuster’s trusted brand and library of content, we enable any CE manufacturer to add an impressive digital movie service to its product offerings and in doing so, create the most flexible digital entertainment service for consumers.”

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Don’t call it a hobby: Netflix and TiVo continue to push Internet TV into the living room

Steve O'Hear — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 15:33:24 +0000

No longer content with dissing his company’s own offering, Apple CEO Steve Jobs is now calling the whole product category a “hobby”. But that isn’t stopping others from forging ahead to bring Internet TV into the living room, with both TiVo and Netflix rolling out partnerships this week to give their customers more content and hardware choices respectively. But first back to what Jobs said during the company’s Q4 earnings call on Tuesday.

“I think the whole category is still a hobby right now. I don’t think anybody has succeeded at it and actually the experimentation has slowed down”, said Jobs in answer to one analyst’s question about how Apple sees the digital living room opportunity in the next year. “A lot of the early companies that were trying things have faded away, so I’d have to say that given the economic conditions, given the venture capital outlooks and stuff, I continue to believe it will be a hobby in 2009.” (via Seeking Alpha)

That’s a fairly dire prognosis from Jobs, and suggests that the company might purposely be taking its eye off the ball when it comes to the living room, especially as Apple pursues more developed and profitable markets such as that of the iPhone (although you should always be careful when taking what Jobs says at face value). Either way, for those companies that are still in the market, now seems like an ideal opportunity for greater experimentation and to give consumers more non-Apple choices. On that note, let’s return to those announcements.

Netflix finally revealed that its much touted fourth set-top box partner is Samsung. Two of the company’s new Blu-ray players, the Samsung BD-P2550 and BD-P2500, can now access Netflix’s ‘Watch Now’ streaming service, either out of the box or via a firmware update (’unlimited’ Netflix subscribers only). Samsung also announced that the BD-P2550 was adding support for the streaming music service Pandora (a last100 favorite). Samsung joins LG, Roku and Microsoft (Xbox 360) as Netflix’s current hardware partners.

Meanwhile, TiVo is moving forward with its previously announced plans to add further paid-content to its Internet-connected DVRs beyond films and TV shows from Amazon’s UnBox service. Jaman’s indie and foreign film content launches today, reports Dave Zatz, while Disney film rentals via CinemaNow will arrive next week.

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last100 » CinemaNow

Playing catch up, Blockbuster partners with CinemaNow

Don’t call it a hobby: Netflix and TiVo continue to push Internet TV into the living room