Brit broadcasters colonize video site
The trinity of British broadcasting — the BBC, Channel 4 and ITV — said Tuesday that their collaborative online video site is becoming reality, set to debut in 2008.
The partners said Kangaroo (the working title) “will work independently as an aggregator of both joint venture partners and third-party content.
“The video-on-demand service will offer downloads and streaming videos served up for free or as sales and rentals.
The broadcasters currently have their own online video schemes, such as the BBC’s catch-up iPlayer. The content offered on that player — still in beta — somehow will be linked into Kangaroo.
No mention of what limits there would be, if any, on foreign users. The iPlayer stubbornly refuses to work for non-U.K. visitors, probably due to that weird TV license all the royal subjects pay. So this may not bring the States “Monarchy: The Royal Family at Work” ahead of BBC America’s schedule. Sigh.
Here’s how the thing’s supposed to work with regard to the existing U.K. online video services:
The new service will complement BBC iPlayer, the free catch-up TV service offering hundreds of programmes a week from the last seven days. BBC iPlayer content will be listed within the new service. ITV.com will continue to feature a 30 day catch up facility alongside simulcasts of ITV1, ITV2, ITV3 and ITV4 and a wealth of news, clips, stills, exclusive content and interactivity across and around ITV programming. Channel 4’s website will host a catch-up service including accompanying comprehensive programme information and clips, whilst 4oD will evolve into the new service.
Whilst we absorb that, here are your canned and imported quotes:
- “The joint service venture has the potential to become an important shop window for U.K. broadcaster content and a free destination for viewers,” said Michael Grade, the executive chairman of ITV.
- “The new service will contain some of the very best of the U.K.’s content for consumers to view in one place, which will be both easy to use and great fun,”said John Smith, CEO of BBC Worldwide.
- “We believe this deal will lead to a major step change in the on-demand services offered by UK broadcasters and is good news for independents and the creative community, for advertisers and, above all, for viewers,” said Andy Duncan, Channel 4′s CEO.
Cuban wired for cabler’s fight over P2P blocks
Comcast is getting some unlikely support as it feels the heat over its alleged sabotage of P2P file-sharing activities. “Hang in there, Comcast,” writes Mark Cuban.
“The last thing I want slowing my internet service down are P2P freeloaders,” says free-thinker Cuban — yes, the media and sports zillionaire who financed Grokster’s defense in a P2P lawsuit — and the guy who founded Broadcast.com, a seminal provider of online multimedia and streaming services.
Jon Hart, a subscriber to Comcast’s Internet Performance Plus package, sued the cabler mid-month, seeking class-action status. His lawsuit says Comcast blocks access to P2P web sites such as BitTorrent.
Hart wants Comcast to stop using applications that he says pull the plug on P2P transactions. He also wants the cabler to stop advertising its premium hookup as a solution for downloading large files. The Associated Press broke the story on Comcast’s actions last spring, based on an Oregon user’s complaints.
“Comcast does not, has not, and will not block any websites or online applications, including peer-to-peer services,” Comcast said in a statement. “We have a responsibility to provide all of our customers with a good Internet experience and we use the latest technologies to manage our network so that they can continue to enjoy these applications.”
That network management means bottlenecks for P2P networks, but the file transfers eventually go through, Comcast says. Numerous reports say Comcast’s technique is to send data packets to the computers involved in the transfer indicating that the other computer has signed off.
“The only person/organization that benefits from P2P usage are those that are trying to distribute content and want to distribute it on someone else’s bandwidth dime,” Cuban writes on his popular (and obviously unedited) blog.
The Dallas Mavericks owner says “Comcast, Time Warner, etc., should charge a premium to those users who want to act as a seed and relay for P2P traffic. … Make (distributors) pay commercial rates. That will stop P2P dead in its tracks.”
In a follow-up blog post, Cuban cited all the hate comments he’s been getting from P2P Nation. “One thing continues to be a certainty in the technology world, NEVER challenge a sacred cow.”
And then in a third post:
So I’ve come up with a better way to get rid of P2P without calling for an outright disabling of the protocol. Maybe ISPs should just treat upstream bandwidth the way cellphone companies treat minutes. Give users an option on how many upstream bits they want to be able to use and during what times of day.
You can track all that activity in Mr. Cuban’s brain by reading the following posts from his blog and their comments:
An Open Letter to Comcast and Every Cable/Telco
Let’s chat about P2P some more
Meanwhile, assorted protests have been filed with the FCC. Net Neutrality legislation continues to struggle in Congress.
Suddenly, ‘Quarterlife’ is a network show. Hmm.
After Lonelygirl15 you kind of figured the online video hijacking stratagem had played out, to everyone’s amusement.
Did viewers really mind all that much that the bedroom vlogger was an actress, playing out her little dramas in front of the writer and producer?
With Lonelygirl15, it was like going to the carnival and finding out the snakeman wasn’t really a reptile, just some weird guy with some scales stuck to his scalp. Sometimes it’s fun to be a sucker.
Now comes news that “Quarterlife,” the webisode series from “thirtysomething” creators Marshall Herskovitz and Ed Zwick, actually is going on the air — picked up by NBC. Imagine that. How handy that the chapters in each episode add up to the same time occupied by an hourlong network show. And because of the way “Quarterlife” was produced outside the studio system, it appears to be “strike safe” to air.
Yes, this could be a case of serendipity. If the networks turned to the bustling world of Web video looking for replacement material, no doubt the project had a giant neon sign attached to it. Nothing produced so far for the Internet can compete with “Quarterlife” quality-wise. And since the trusted brand of Herskovitz &Zwick made the show as independents, the pickup seems a no-brainer.
But then there’s this: “quarterlife” debuted on MySpace a week ago. The deal with NBC Universal “had been finalized before the (writers) strike” started Nov. 5, The L.A. Times reported.
Herskovitz told the paper the network deal hadn’t been announced partly because no time slot had been set aside. This apparently more important than coming clean to the fawning media that the show was no longer a Web-only property. The Times noted yesterday that ” ‘Quarterlife’ has benefited from reams of favorable press coverage as a pioneer of quality drama on the Web.”
And so at least a week passed with “Quarterlife” headed for the bigs while its makers claimed or implied cool Internet-only status.
The L.A. Times published a curtain-raising story a week ago that made no mention of a network deal or the possibility of one. That Times story of Nov. 11 had this exchange about a sneak preview at USC:
After the screening — which previewed the first hour of “Quarterlife,” in eight-minute segments — audience member Frank Chindamo, an adjunct lecturer at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, asked Herskovitz a simple question:
”To me it looked exactly like an hour of TV with six commercial breaks in it,” Chindamo said. “Did you do that on purpose?”
Herskovitz didn’t hesitate.
”You can’t teach an old dog new tricks,” he said.
”I don’t know how to create real emotion in less than an hour — I know how to do it in two hours, I know how to do it in an hour — I don’t know how to do it in a half-hour, and I really don’t know how to do it in eight minutes. So we made a decision to stick with what we know.”
There are several layers of uncharitable interpretation available here; connect the dots according to your level of cynicism.
Two decades in the Hollywood trades tells me the snake man is alive and well and vlogging away.
Good show anyway. Be sure to check out “Quarterlife” before your Tivo gets involved.
Download update, via speedlinks
A mixed bag of video download-related news this week — let’s cram it in with some speedlinks:
Hulu, the new online video site from NBC Universal and News Corp., is operating at least somewhat in the spirit of the web. Its beta search function produces hits on shows from rival networks such as CBS, ABC and A&E. Advertising Age has the Hulu story. …
“Why are fewer viewers watching the new fall television series?” the New York Times asks. “Perhaps because they are too busy watching video online.”
More Hulu: NBC Universal vows something like 3,600 hours of Olympics coverage on its nbcolympics.com video site, most of it live. That’s the spot to check out the weird Olympic sports like badminton that no one will touch on network TV. Oh yeah, the network said, some clips might will find their way to Hulu, the New York Post reports in a story on online Olympics ads. The B-status doesn’t sound good for Hulu, Silicon Alley Insider reports.
Miro, the new open-source video player, was released midweek. TechCrunch lists the advantages over Joost thusly: “Miro is open-sourced, DRM-free, friendly to all content creators, connected to all the popular video sharing sites like YouTube and blip.tv, high definition, full of content, and BitTorrent-enabled.” Mark Hendrickson calls it a “purer” player worth checking out.
High-definition: YouTube plans to serve up HD videos in the next few months. Reel Pop says streaming HD movies would contribute significantly to the video playground’s overhead costs. Meanwhile, Vudu, the set-top box download system, is conjuring up high-definition titles from Paramount and Lionsgate. The P2P-driven player went on sale last month. Read some of the early reviews on Vudu.
AT&T’s investment in Vobile — maker of “VideoDNA” technology for tracking videos as they cross networks — could lead to the telco blocking subscribers’ dubious downloads, Silicon Alley Insider speculates. Bitstreamers could counter with a shift to VPN services, the site says. Virtual private networks keep the snoops away from your online streams — but anyone who’s wrassled with one of these pain-in-the-ass connections would seek other remedies.
Google video talks with ‘Idol’ maker reported
Super-duper secret talks regarding online video are under way between Google and Simon Fuller, the man who brought us the Spice Girls and created the “American Idol” format.
At least that’s the report from Britain’s The Observer, which quotes undercover sources:
“It’s a big idea on a global scale,” the guy close to Fuller said. “It will change television in much the way iTunes changed the way music is disseminated.”
Fuller did not comment personally, of course, nor has Google had anything to say about this. But that quote sure made the rounds on a slow holiday weekend. (Now it’s here on Download Movies 101, too. Sad.)
Looks like a content deal, most likely on a proprietary format of some kind. Or it’s rubbish.
Google Video, as you recall, folded in a big hurry after the search giant bought YouTube.