NFL stream leads to all-access future
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
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
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’
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.
Netflix streams to Xbox 360
Xbox 360 ownership looks even better this week with a couple of big-deal announcements out of the E3 games convention in L.A.
Netflix and Microsoft confirmed that the rental giant’s online video streaming service will be coming to Xbox Live, offering up something like 10,000 movies and TV shows. Netflix recently rolled out the instant movies service for a black box made by Roku.
You’ll have to be a Netflix subscriber and a paid-up subscriber to the Xbox LIVE Gold service, which is arguably worthwhile for gamers, anyway.
(Update 7/16: Sony also confirmed its PlayStation Network movie plans, offering PlayStation device owners to ability to move downloaded content between their PS3 and PSP.)
Microsoft, meanwhile, plastered a discontinued-item tag on its $350 Xbox 360 Pro, which now comes with a measley 20 GB of hard-drive space. The fire-sale price is $300. Replacing the Pro will be a 60 GB version, going for $350 as well. If your interest is in playing games off discs and not much more, that’s a decent $50 price break, especially since you get the HDMI output for HD TVs.There’s also the Arcade version at $280, but screw that waste of 256 megabites.
The economics of the Pro vs. Elite Xbox consoles remain basically the same, however.
If you want HDMI output and 5.1 digital audio, you have to get the Xbox HDMI accessory package, which has an OK 6-foot HDMI cable and an audio adapter. Microsoft, in character, designed the Pro console so you can’t fit a standard HDMI cable and the old Xbox 360 digital audio adapter. Unless you start cutting serious plastic. This is the rude surprise you’ll get unless the sales kid knows his stuff.
If you want the best picture and sound, that means $350 plus $50 or so for the Pro with HDMI and 5.1 digital audio.
The Elite, which has a 120 GB hard drive, includes the proper HDMI cable and audio adapter, so you’re looking at a $50 price difference for a lot more storage. People with an interest in storing games, music and downloading movies as keepers should make sure they understand that dynamic.
Does the HDMI and digital audio make all that much of a difference? The jury is out about the HDMI, but to me it looks better on, say, the new “Grand Theft Auto.” The audio, definitely, but some games are slack on the mixes. It’s like anything in video/audio — if you can afford to ensure you’re getting the best connection, do that. (Let’s skip the Monster debate today.)
The Xbox LIVE Marketplace Video Store has a well-stocked selection of films and TV shows, quite a few in high definition. The count is something like 6,000 hours of content.
If you’re buying, my advice is to suck it up and go with the Elite, the place to be if your interests include streaming and downloading video.
(Update 7/16: Sony is cutting the price of its 80GB PlayStation 3 by $100, to $400. The 40GB PS3 is hitting the showers.)
The Netflix deal, rumored and blogged since the beginning of the year, is exclusive in the games universe, at least for now. The service begins next month.
The new “Xbox experience” push toward interactivity and community, coming in the fall, allows viewers to watch, say, “Blade Runner” with their pals cross-country and comment back and forth, Microsoft says.
Here’s how the Netflix stream works, the companies said:
“From the Netflix Web site, members simply add movies and TV episodes to their individual instant Queues. Those choices will be automatically displayed on the TV screen via Xbox 360 and available to watch instantly. Once selected, movies will begin playing in as little as 30 seconds. In addition to instantly streaming movies to the TV, Xbox LIVE Gold members can fast-forward, pause and rewind, all using either their Xbox 360 Controller or Media Remote. In all, the user interface creates a highly personalized experience that puts viewers in control.”