Blockbuster streams to Samsung
Hard to get too excited about the link-up of Blockbuster and Samsung — a couple of second-stringers when it comes to quality — but now we have OnDemand movies streaming through the hardware maker’s machines.
New Samsung HDTVs, home theater systems and Blu-ray players will be incorporating the OnDemand digital delivery service, a rival to various VOD schemes and Netflix’s Watch Instantly.
The “select” Samsung hardware will be showing up at retailers in the fall. In addition, current owners of “select” 2009 Samsung Blu-ray players and home theater systems, as well as Samsung LCD and Plasma HDTVs Series 650 and above, and LED HDTVs Series 7000 and above, get the OnDemand after firmware updates. The machines would have to be connected to the Internet.
Blockbuster OnDemand will have “preferred positioning on the Blu-ray interfaces,” the companies said. Meaning who shell out out for the hardware and don’t care for the service get to look at what amounts to an ad for Blockbuster as they boot up.
Blockbuster’s streaming media service comes into “millions” of new homes under the deal. Those potential viewers will be freed of the need for the existing OnDemand set-top box.
Blockbuster differs from Netflix’s largely catalog-driven Watch Instantly by offering current films and TV shows at the going rate. The Blockbuster service also offers an on-screen interface that doesn’t call for queue management via PC.
Watch Instantly requires a pain-in-the-rear double queue for those who want to watch a movie that streams in via PC and then to a digital device such as the Xbox 360.
Access to the Blockbuster streaming service is free; they company gets paid by the rental. Watch Instantly comes at no extra charge with a Netflix subscription.
Blockbuster chieftain Jim Keyes vows “the newest hit movies and high definition Blu-ray product” — say what? — the latter a major head-scratcher.
As part of the deal, of course, Blockbuster’s brick-and-mortar stores and web site will sell Samsung’s products. The rental dinosaur also made an OnDemand deal with TiVo.
Netflix’s streaming partners include Samsung, Tivo, Sony, LG and Microsoft via its Xbox 360.
I’m underwhelmed by Netflix’s Watch Instantly, and more than dubious that Blockbuster will be the one to make this type of direct digital delivery work. The presence of Samsung America in the chain is even more troubling, considering that company’s problematic machines and its Nixonian customer service.
But you never know.
Meanwhile, the CBS network has joined the other On Demand, from Comcast cable. The service, staggering about in some sort of beta, aims to give cable subscribers access to digital video content without additional fees. The handle is “TV Everywhere,” meaning the subs can get programming by streaming and downloading to a variety of digital devices, such as computers and mobile phones.
The test universe is something like 5,000 Comcast homes. The meta plan is to divert those viewers from Hulu and similar online services that give away their ad-supported content.
TV Everywhere driver Time Warner threw HBO content into the mix a few days ago. Starz! is aboard as well, for what it’s worth.
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Jackson memorial streams overflowed
The memorial service for pop star Michael Jackson delivered online video’s second biggest day, according to an assortment of gaudy numbers flowing in Tuesday and Wednesday.
The king of online video streaming remains the inauguration of President Obama.
During the Jackson service:
The wide-ranging content delivery network Akamaidelivered more than 2,185,000 live and on-demand streams (in Flash and Windows Media formats). Global traffic peaked at 3,924,370 visitors per minute, the company said. The load was about 2 terabits per second, the CDN said.
The Obama inauguration hit a peak of over 7 million active simultaneous streams, Akamai reported at the time. The CDN said global traffic was up about 20& during the service.
The CDN handles about 20% of the world’s Web traffic. A typical day’s peak would be something like 580,000 active streams.
CNN.com said it served up 9.7 million live video streams to 11.8 million unique visitors, in the period between 12 a.m. and 5 p.m. ET. CNN’s site hit a peak of 781,000 concurrent live streams, according to an online traffic report from the network.
Ustream reported 4.6 million total streams with 1.6 million total unique visitors. Its streams included one from CBS News. More than 12,000 messages per minute ran through its chat rooms. Ustream says its feed was the only one available on the iPhone.
Facebook saw 1 million users post about 800,000 “status updates” related to the Jackson memorial stream provided by CNN.
ABCNews.com, CBSNews.com, FoxNews.com and Hulu.com provided streams, to lesser numbers.
MSNBC.com said it served 3 million live streams of the event and a total of 19 million Jackson-related videos for the day. There were 7 million uniques during the service.
Hulu said its video streaming output was second only to the Obama ceremony. Hulu showed the Fox News feed.
Note: Different sources are reporting numbers for various time periods, but the above stats give the big picture.
In reaction to the big numbers, Akamai exec vp Robert Hughes had this quote moonwalked out to the media:
“When a public figure of global prominence such as Michael Jackson passes away, the public’s desire for up to date information and news is rarely satiated. Akamai’s network has seen a steady stream of online traffic when news of any sort related to Michael Jackson is updated, and we expected demand from a global online audience around the online streaming of his funeral would be no different.”
Update: Yahoo says it pumped out 5 million streams of the Jackson memorial, its biggest flow ever. During the Obama ceremony, it served up 1.8 million streams.
Online videos want more of your time
The attention span of online video watchers continues to expand, as viewers have come to expect more than clips of kids and dogs doing the dumbest things on YouTube.
The mainstreaming of TV on computers via Hulu and a few other outlets has acclimated many people to watching premium content at traditional lengths, such as those of sitcoms and feature films. Producers of online video programming are taking advantage of the added time.
“A few years ago, three minutes ‘watching’ your computer felt like a novelty; now, it’s as familiar as your television set,” one web producer tells the New York Times.
The Monday media section of the Times examines the shift, which is news to pretty much no one with an interest in streaming video. Still, the story “Rise of Web Video, Beyond 2-Minute Clips” pulls together some interesting quotes and observations.
Here are some of the highlights of the Times’ story on online video lengths:
- “People are getting more comfortable, for better or for worse, bringing a computer to bed with them,” says Dina Kaplan, the co-founder of Blip.tv. … “On the Web, producers have this delicious freedom to produce content as long as it should be. They’re starting to take advantage of that.”
- Tom Konkle of the Web series “Safety Geeks” says the tradition of short Web videos reflected limits in Internet speed and server space. The online video experience has grown along with advances in computers and bandwidth capabilities.
- “More than anything else, the longer viewing spans may speak to the maturation of the medium itself,” the Times reported, noting that early kinetoscopes were about 30 seconds long, reflecting both the technology limits and expectations of audience’s attention spans.
- Jon Gibs, a vice president for analytics for Nielsen, said online video “(historically) has been very much a clip-based experience online. We believe we are moving into a transition period where more of that viewership is going toward long-form video.”
I’d add that the documented increase in video durations also reflect that the streaming audience is filling with teens and preteens who grew up with online video — and are far more likely to appreciate and consume longform entertainment on computers than older viewers accustomed to big-screen TVs.
That audience behavior — of convenience over presentation — brings to mind younger listeners’ widespread acceptance of inferior but highly portable audio formats such as MP3.
In addition to the longer durations, total time spent viewing online video has seen a significant jump in the past year.
