Cablevision slings online video to TVs
While Comcast is busy herding online video behind its TV Anywhere walls, rival Cablevision plans to help viewers watch streaming video in the wild — via the new PC to TV Media Relay hookup.
Cablevision says the service allows customers to transfer anything (their italics) that displays on their PC monitors to that widescreen TV. “We are putting an end to the need for families to huddle around their laptops or PCs to watch content together,” Cablevision COO Tom Rutledge press-released.
“Anything” presumably includes iTunes video and Hulu’s trove of network TV fare, an improvement over current PC-TV link of choice Boxee.
A “simple” software download to the PC activates the link, with no hardware in sight. Handheld personal electronic devices that are running through the home network also can make their debut on the big screen, Cablevision says. Internet radio and applications for email and spreadsheets apparently will work as well.
The signal slings through the Cablevision network system and onto a dedicated (unused) TV channel, similar to how home video players work.
Anyone with a computer and a burning desire to watch “Smosh” and “Happy Tree Friends” on the idiot box already has figured out how to do this — but there’s something to be said for a solution that loses the boxes and wires.
Cablevision said its beta test of PC to TV Media Relay will get under way in June. Mac users should stand by for the usual techno-lag, as it’s PC only for now.
Wal-mart gets Vudu, online HD provider
Wal-Mart confirmed that it’s buying Vudu, the online video pay-per-view service.
The move puts the retail giant on the cutting edge of the streaming video space, where it’ll compete with Amazon’s Video on Demand and the iTunes Store.
Wal-Mart also could choose to challenge Netflix, with its “free” Watch Instantly service, which comes with the standard snail-mail DVD rental packages.
Vudu streams its high definition content in 1080p, using the kind of state of the art equipment that few would associate with the Arkansas-based big boxer. Vudu’s customers can buy or rent the video titles.
The New York Times, which does a good job of tracking online video news, broke the Vudu story. Wal-mart pushed out a news release on the Vudu buy shortly thereafter.
Vudu’s on-demand service is built in high-definition TV sets and Blu-ray players from home electronics hardware makers such as Toshiba, Samsung, Sanyo, Sharp, Vizio and Mitsubishi.
BetaNews points out that Vudu is the only major streaming service to serve up adult content, via its deal with the AVN network. Wal-Mart, known for pulling CDs with dubious cover art, no doubt will take a hard look at that.
Update: Wal-Mart wasted no time in cleaning up the streets of Vudu. “After Dark” subscribers told told almost immediately that the adult movie services was being axed. The naughty vids were supposed to stop flowing within days, according to the email sent to the premium pervs.
The Vudu buyout, which had been anticipated, is expected to close in a few weeks, Wal-mart said. The price could be as high as $100 million, industry wags say — a ton of money for a small player in the relatively small online video industry. The asking price reportedly was $50 million.
Meanwhile, the Times reported that the iTunes Store is experimenting with renting network TV shows for 99 cents instead of the current $1.99 (for standard def).
And MediaMemo followed up on the move to monetize Hulu (at viewers’ expense) with speculation that its online video offerings could be available on the iPad only via subscription.
Olympics: the online agony of defeat
NBC remains in full retreat from live online coverage of the Winter Games from Vancouver, slashing the number of hours offered during the 2008 Summer Games by something like four-fifths.
Meanwhile, Canadian broadcasters are boasting “every second of every competition” live on two web sites.
Computer stuck here in the U.S.? Hope you’re into curling. And hockey. Those sports dominate NBC’s live Olympics video offerings, with a dash of the higher-profile sports that we’ll see on TV.
Want those online scraps? You’ll have to prove to NBC that you’re a paying customer of their cable TV and satellite partners.
Otherwise, you’re in for 3-minute clips of events that already happened. Or the lame 2-minute “Defining Moments Montage” of the day’s action. Accompanied by preroll ads.
As of early Sunday, the highlights on the free video page were dominated by recaps of Friday’s opening ceremony.
Perhaps you’d like to stop by the athlete profiles section, with plenty of canned video.
The upside is the video images filtered through the Microsoft Silverlight platform are pretty good and clear, but we haven’t seen much in HD. You’ll have to download the latest version of Silverlight as the first step in accessing the live content.
As for verifying, be prepared to enter your password for your cable system or satellite provider’s web site. Don’t have one? You’ll be signing up for that, too.
(Give NBC some credit for its integration of Twitter, Facebook and wireless apps.)
NBC acknowledges that people who seek out live video become more involved with the Games and are more likely to watch the (mostly canned) TV broadcasts.
The problem seems to be the unauthorized sites and social video destinations that host pirated online feeds. No live feed online, no problem.
“Our aim is to make access to pirated material inconvenient, low quality and hard to find,” an NBC suit told Mediaweek. Another rep noted that viewers like “instant storytelling” and not the live action coverage that fans get in football, basketball, baseball — almost every sporting event.
Here’s a concept: Let the “instant storytelling” crowd get their soft-focus feel-good profiles on TV, while motivated sports fans can get their live fix online. That’s what multiplatform multimedia is all about, boys.
NBC has rights to the 2012 Games in London, so expect more of the same. The 2014 Games are up for grabs, with NBC up against ESPN/ABC and Time Warner/CBS. Comcast cable, the likely new owner of NBC Universal, might not be too thrilled with the prospects of another quarter-billion-dollar money loser, however.
That leaves the door open for ESPN, which presumably sees the value in doing right by the international community of sports fans.
The Worldwide Leader has the channels, the online chops and the intelligent love of sport that NBC lacks.
YouTube brings in a new Net nanny
YouTube has managed to stay relatively family friendly, but it’s no trouble finding a bad neighborhood or two. And so we have Safety Mode, just rolled out to users.
Most nanny filters turn out lame — blocking things like the name “Dick.” (Yep, saw that one ****’d elsewhere today.) YouTube passed the Dick test, so perhaps this censor system has some common sense.
“While no filter is 100% perfect, Safety Mode is another step in our ongoing desire to give you greater control over the content you see on the site,” the YouTube blog explained.
Let’s give it a test:
As the demo shows, using “naked” as a search term returns nothing but a red text notice (top right) that says results were deleted because of the protective feature. Searching for “violence” returns a filtered result, but presumably catching the rough stuff.
Our own Safety Mode-enabled search for “pussy” returned no results, but there were plenty of PG-13 Pussycat Dolls videos. “Asshole” produced an empty page. Going for the less obvious, “Felch” delivered the nasty without resistance. The video “Thanksgiving Felch” was an R-rated hoot; another video began with an adults-only warning. Better hope the kids keep to the classic four-letter words.
The Safety Mode opt-in is located bottom left of any YouTube page. To get the protection, just hit the link and then select a radio button. OK to go back in forth in a session.
If you’d like to leave Safety Mode on for future users with impressionable minds, log out and it can’t be changed on the browser until you log back in.
Comments with nasty language will have the specific words blocked out. Hopefully not Dick.
Watch Instantly reels in 300 indie titles
Netflix’s streaming video service goes arthouse with the addition of 300 new indie and foreign titles, from the likes of the Criterion Collection and Kino Lorber.
Other distributors announced as part of the Watch Instantly expansion into the indie arena include Gravitas Ventures, Music Box Films, Oscilloscope Laboratories and Regent Releasing.
“We’ve found that a large number of members enjoy the innovative, artist-driven nature of independent film,” press-released Robert Kyncl, vice president of content acquisition for Netflix.
Much of the Watch Instantly fare that’s classified as independent fare is of mixed value, a lot of aging B-movie crap. The new indie film deals are designed to bring in higher-quality films, such as “Au Revoir Les Enfants,” “Departures,” “As It Is in Heaven” and “A Nos Amours.”
Criterion’s online video service began more than a year ago, serving up titles such as “La Strada,” “Grey Gardens,” “Monterey Pop” and “M.” It’s not clear how many of those titles will be available via Netflix, since the Tiffany DVD label charges for those films on its site.
On Criterion’s “Online Cinematheque” site, the movies go for $5, but they’re renting for $3 on Vudu, another online video service that recently cut a deal with the DVD distributor.
Pretty much everything released by the Criterion Collection is worth watching and owning, but so far the streaming movies contain only a few of the label’s greatest films.
