CinemaNow goes multiplatform with DRM
Posted on August 19, 2008
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CinemaNow, the pioneering online movie service, is taking on Apple with a new iTunes-like application that’s said to work on Macs, iPods, iPhones and potentially a host of consumer electronics devices.
Previously, CinemaNow customers were locked into using Microsoft’s Windows operating system and its far from flexible digital-right management system. Now the content can be downloaded or streamed to devices operating off Mac, Windows or Linus software — Mac or PC.
The change comes as CinemaNow adopts a multiplatform copyright-control system made by Wildevine Technologies. Wildevine says its DRM system allows consumers “to securely enjoy Hollywood feature films,” a safeguard that’ll certainly help us all sleep better at night.
More from the DRM folks:
“CinemaNow will be one of the first to securely distribute premium content on all major consumer platforms running Windows, Mac or Linux. Customers will have unparalleled flexibility in accessing the portal using Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari or the Opera browser.”
The plan is to have consumer electronics makers preload the CinemaNow/Wildevine set-up into their products, which would include high-end TV sets and DVD players.
Wildevine gave an L.A. Times tech blogger a list of companies ready to incorporate the movie software — whose interface reportedly is similar to the iTunes Store, of course — but CinemaNow issued a retraction, saying the deals were not done.
CinemaNow’s wider reach comes within a week of the death of rival online movie service Vongo.
Disclaimer: Your friendly movie download blog runs affiliate ads for CinemaNow.
Vongo pulls the plug, nukes your movies
Posted on August 13, 2008
Filed Under Music downloads, movie downloads | 1 Comment
The movie downloading service Vongo has to go. A notice on the site says, “We are no longer accepting new subscribers for the Vongo service.”
Current members will be able to use Vongo through the month of September, then it’s curtains. The nasty part is, all downloaded movies in customers’ possession will self-destruct at that time. Cheapskates. The death of Vongo had been expected.
Interested parties are referred to Starz Play on the Verizon Store, a licensed version of the old Vongo download operation. (Starz Entertainment will continue to distribute movies download via third parties.) The new service will charge $5.99 a month for access to more than 1,000 movies.
The Vongo/Starz Play FAQ says the services remain the same except for pay-per-view movies. Fortunately, they’re waking the dead, so if you’re a Vongo subscriber you have to uninstall that application and install the Starz Play files.
Meanwhile, the Intel-backed ClickStar also faded out, Home Media magazine reports. It sought to bring the theatrical/video window down to a couple of weeks, but didn’t have the product to make it happen.
Vongo had been in operation for two years, working with major studios such as Disney and Sony. It experimented with one-price access to a batch of VOD movies (many of them junky).
Its download software had been preloaded on various Toshiba laptops and portable devices. Starz is an offshoot of cable overlord John Malone’s Liberty Media.
Look for the movie download shake-out to continue, as iTunes and Co. run off the smaller pioneer services.
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Movie Downloads. 100% Legal. No membership fees.
Olympics online video: Forget it, Mac
Posted on August 1, 2008
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NBC has gone live with its “Olympics on the Go” online video service, now active with footage from the Games’ trials.
I eagerly called up the site, now up at TV Tonic’s Olympic page, hoping to find the promised “near HD”-quality video, delivered via files that download semi-automatically onto the computer.
Here’s what I got instead:
Basically, you need Windows Vista and the latest version of Windows Media. I fit the profile on my laptop, and will report back. But for now, this post points to the absurdity of NBC and the Olympics not accommodating the many Mac owners, a demographic quite similar to that for sports programming.
Microsoft, of course, is in the mix, as a major ad sponsor and partner in the video operation. Microsoft, as in the creator of Vista and Windows Media.
For the “lucky ones” with (the widely disrespected) Vista, here are the system requirements.
Operating system:
- Windows Vista Home Premium or Windows Vista Ultimate (64-bit currently not supported)
- Windows Media Center required — included with Windows Vista Home Premium and Ultimate
Hardware:
“If you meet the software requirements above then you most likely meet these hardware requirements as well.”
- Processor — 1GHz 32-bit processor minimum
- Memory — 1GB mininum RAM (2GB recommended)
- Disk space — minimum of .5GB per subscribed channel + 1GB add’l
- Video — 1024×768 minimum resolution; support for DirectX 9 graphics, minimum 128MB VRAM, WDDM Driver, Pixel Shader 2.0 in hardware, 32 bits per pixel
Bandwidth:
- Broadband internet connection required (cable, DSL or similiar; 500kbps throughput recommended)
- “Aways on” connection for the best experience
“NBC Olympics On The Go delivers large video files; it may use a lot of bandwidth. It is not recommended for people using dial-up or metered broadband accounts.”
Here’s a link to the Olympics video quick start guide.
Incredible to find major media acting as if the Mac were still a second-tier computer system. Hulu, owned jointly by NBC Universal and Fox, doesn’t have sports as part of its deal with the NBC network. Prospects for the files showing up on that browser-based video service don’t look good.
The set-up is coming soon to the official NBC Olympics video page, which has some feature footage up there now.
NFL stream leads to all-access future
Posted on July 29, 2008
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The NFL and NBC’s decision to start streaming their Sunday Night Football games signals an inevitable future: 100% free Internet access of all pro matchups.
The league and network confirmed Monday that the “Sunday Night Football Extra” project begins Sept. 4 (a Thursday) on NFL.com and NBCSports.com. The season-long freebie — supported by ads — is billed as a test.
These games already are broadcast coast-to-coast, of course, so there’s no real downside. (The games won’t be streamed outside of the U.S.) Quite a few viewers will run the stream along with their TV viewing, in order to access some of the interactive video listed below.
NBC’s total reach will expand a tad, with more out-of-home viewers catching the games. Wonder how the action will play on an iPhone at Applebee’s.
The nose of the pigskin is in the tent, no doubt about it:
The eventual prize for hardcore football fans will be live streams of all games — from wherever they’re played. Talk about your killer app.
The current all-access offering — DirecTV’s Sunday Ticket — scalps fans with a minimum charge of $270 per season. (For the high-def crowd that’s before “SuperFan” surcharges of $100, on top of existing HD fees.)
Sunday ticket remains a wonderful thing for those who a) have the gear and b) can afford it, but the concept clearly predates the Internet video phenomenon. Once an economic model is established for ad-supported streaming video — and that will take years, of course — the exclusionary Sunday Ticket will be shredded.
(DirecTV and the NFL currently sell PC and Mac access to all games worldwide.)
The Sunday Night Football Extra package will include:
- Multiple extra camera angles selected by viewers, including cable cam and “star cam.”
- “Picture-in-picture technology,” meaning fans can view several cameras at once.
- Highlights on demand.
- Live stats.
- “In-game studio updates from the “NBC Football Night in America” team and NFL Network talent.
- … and some kind of viewer interactivity.
The regular talent for the broadcast is Al Michaels (play-by-play), John Madden (analyst) and Andrea Kremer (sideline).
Here’s your lean-and-mean canned quote, from NBC Sports’ Dick Ebersol:
“In the first two seasons of ‘NBC Sunday Night Football,’ we created a new destination to reach viewers and changed traditional primetime football viewing habits.
Now, together with the NFL, we are adding the live streaming element where users can interact with the broadcast to enhance their experience.”
‘Gossip Girl’ streaming back, in full
Posted on July 24, 2008
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Un-gag me with a spoon. “Gossip Girl” officially is returning to online video, with full episodes expected to resume streaming for the new season.
Reports in TV Week and the New York Times cited network president Dawn Ostroff as saying the ban on full episodes of “Gossip Girl” would be lifted (paying customers had access via the usual online retail channels, of course).
In a spectacular display of old-media boneheadedness, the CW got everyone’s attention back in April as the final five episodes were taken off the streaming menu. “The epicenter of the ‘Gossip Girl’ universe will be on The CW’s broadcast television airwaves,” Ostroff declared.
The woman is in her late 40s, making her a card-carrying old-media exec. Of online video, CW Ostroff groused in January, “We don’t make the kind of money we make when it’s on the air.”
Fans went BitTorrent right away, getting ad-free online episodes of “Gossip Girl” anyway. Some enterprising folks put up watchgossipgirl.net and viewgossipgirl.info — still supposedly streaming as of this evening, although the featured episode never started for me on either site.
Some people can’t get the show off TV anyway, with the CW unavailable in some areas of the country and Canada.
The idea was to boost ratings, which didn’t happen, at least in a meaningful way, TV Week reported. This is the network whose magazine series “CW Now” actually posted a 0.2/00 in late January. That’s TV biz talk for incredibly horribly bad.
The good news for fans broke yesterday, but not a single official word can be found on cwtv.com. A promising button that says “Update on full episodes” leads to the forum thread “cwtv.com to Pull Streaming of New Gossip Girl Episodes,” on which a single fan posted the news deep in. Man, you gotta think these are some deeply clueless TV folk.
It’s upstream for Amazon online movies
Posted on July 17, 2008
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Amazon’s stream of movies and TV shows has begun to flow. Mac users are welcome to the party, finally.
Amazon Video on Demand (aka Amazon Unbox Streaming Service) has just opened to beta users and goes wide later in the summer. Amazon is giving beta users a $5 Unbox credit to try out the service.
“For the first time, this is drop dead simple (to use),” Bill Carr, Amazon’s vice president for digital media, told the New York Times in a story today.
As expected, the content streams to viewers’ computers and TVs — meaning it can be viewed right away — and is stored in “Your Video Library,” so space isn’t required on local computers. The library allows purchasers to access the content as they please — from multiple places and with multiple devices.
Amazon’s pitch goes like so:
“Don’t want to wait for your video to download? Want to avoid downloading additional software? Want to watch Unbox videos on a Mac? Amazon Video On Demand is the solution to these common customer requests.”
Amazon chieftain Jeff Bezos, pictured, started teasing the streaming video service in late May.
The content can be viewed on a computer or ported directly to television sets via the Sony Bravia Internet Video Link (and presumably similar devices).
The usual studios are involved and pricing arrangements are as before. Viewers who liked the Unbox downloading scheme apparently still have access to that.
Amazon plans deals with other hardware manufacturers who link their home entertainment systems to the Internet.
PlayStation movies available ‘to go’
Posted on July 16, 2008
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Sony’s PlayStation Network has plugged in a video service that allows viewers to transfer downloaded movies and TV shows to their PlayStation Portable devices.
Tuesday’s news from E3 comes a day after Microsoft’s confirmation of its Netflix hookup for streaming video via Xbox Live.
While the Netflix service begins next month, the Play Station Network (PSN) videos are flowing now, using the existing login and “wallet” system. No firmware update is required. The network’s interfaces have been overhauled.
Sony says it’s launching with 300 movies and 1,200 TV episodes; the pre-existing Netflix streaming rental service has some 10,000 titles. The Xbox Live Marketplace also has a separate library of titles for sale.
Both the Sony and Microsoft video moves had been foreshadowed, but the confirmations are big news in both the download/streaming business and the game console world.
Studios providing sell-though (sales) titles to the PS3/PSP chain are Sony Pictures Entertainment (of course), Fox/MGM, Paramount, Lionsgate and Warner Bros. Disney titles such as “Pirates of the Caribbean” are available for rentals.
Pricing and rental policies will look familiar: Movie purchases from $9.99 to $14.99; rentals from $2.99 to $5.99. Renters have 14 days to watch the content. Once content playback is started, the clock ticks on a 24-hour self-destruct mode.
Downloads are progressive, meaning viewers can watch as the video content is delivered, similar to viewing a just-started recording on a TiVo.
The combined announcements by the makers of the PS3 and Xbox 360 mean the movie downloading and video streaming distribution channels have become significantly wider.
Sounds fantastic, but it’s not hard to imagine these black (and off-white) boxes moving quickly beyond their game-console beginnings, as to some extent PS3 has started to do with the popularity of its Blu-ray drive.
“The PS3 helped drive Blu-ray to victory and now Blu-ray is ready to return the favor,” Sony’s Jack Tretton said at the E3 presentation. “The story of the year is Blu-ray winning the format war, and PS3 is the best Blu-ray player on the market.”
Wherever these consoles are headed, it looks like Hollywood is game.
