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.
10% of consumers prefer downloads
DEG: The Digital Entertainment Group, the DVD industry’s cheerleading squad, just released a study showing that consumers prefer watching a movie on DVD or TV instead of downloading it.
The video industry trades both positioned this bit of non-news as “just 10% preferred to watch a movie via streaming or downloading.”
Download Movies 101 finds it surprising that 10% of consumers actually do prefer downloading over just spinning a disc. The number probably is partially explained by the fact that all of the respondents reported they watched three or more hours of streaming video a week — read, YouTube.
The news stories didn’t say how the survey question(s) were phrased, but here’s betting it didn’t go like this:
“Would you prefer to download a rented movie for $3.99 and watch it right away on your computer or TiVo, or pay twice as much to rent a used disc that you have to pick up and return — or wait days for in the mail.”
When you consider something like 5% of the computer world is on Macs, that 10% looks a bit more promising.
“It was interesting to learn that while consumers are embracing digital entertainment, DVD remains the most popular means for viewing video content in the home,” said DEG co-chairman Matt Lasorsa of New Line.
Did DEG seriously expect to find anything else?
One interesting result: 24% said they would pay to watch a movie online (or burn a DVD) at the same time the movie runs in theaters — what the biz calls day and date.
The SmithGeiger-conducted study “Online Content: New Pathways of Discovery and Use” surveyed 1,035 broadband users in the U.S., ages 18 to 49.
Vongo – 14 Day Free Trial. Start downloading movies right now. Get your free 14-day Vongo trial.
http://my.vongo.com/cj
Download, streaming revs rise put at 39%
Streaming and downloaded A/V will produce $2.6 billion in revenue this year, according to the research outfit AccuStream iMedia Research. That’s an increase of 39% from last year, the number crunchers note.
Of that total revenue, only 2.2% is expected to come from movies. “Entertainment,” including TV shows, should register 3.4% Real Networks’ SuperPass video service will pull 4.1%, AccuStream said.
The lion’s share, of course, goes to music, which is predicted to snare 85% via mostly download sellers such as the market-leading iTunes Store. Sports is tagged at 5.4% and news 1.2%.
The downloading of movies, forecast at $60 million in 2007, is up 133.4% over 2006, and is on track to break the $100 million threshold in 2008, AccuStream predicts. “Movie revenue growth has been hampered by limited availability of both front line titles and catalog depth,” the researchers note, to nobody’s surprise.
“Demand for premium content from studios and broadcast networks will boost revenue and share as offerings expand over a 3-7 year period,” commented Paul Palumbo, wonk-in-chief at AccuStream.
Want a copy of the report? No problem. Scrape together $1,900 and “add to cart.”
Washington Post down on downloads
The Washington Post isn’t buying movie downloading in its current form.
Here, Rob Pegoraro takes a shot at MovieLink and CinemaNow:
If you must obtain a movie in the next few hours but can’t leave your house or have anybody else pick up the flick, these two Windows-only stores might work. Otherwise, it’s unclear who would bother with them: They stock far too few movies, charge too much for them, offer them at a quality inferior to any DVD and grossly restrict your use of these purchases.
But, he allows:
Movielink is less annoying than CinemaNow, but not by much.
And the kicker:
Collectively, these sites amount to the most hostile movie-procurement option since the video store in Kevin Smith’s comedy “Clerks” (which, by the way, you can’t rent or buy at either site).
The movie downloading business has some serious PR campaigns to wage — most of the coverage I read is either clueless or hostile.
All in the game: downloads via Xbox 360
The best player for movie downloads on the market: the Xbox 360
From setup to signup, to selecting a title and starting the show with a press of the remote’s play button, the Xbox 360 is simple. It is as easy to use as the on-demand and pay-per-view services familiar to most watchers of cable or satellite TV. … But at $400 for the model that includes a hard disk, which is needed to download movies, the Xbox is a big investment. If you aren’t a gamer, it is hard to justify spending that amount just to watch a few movies.
Writer Joe Hutsko notes that Xbox Live has 165 titles available for “rental.” A Microsoft spokesman vows there would be at least a title every day added to the service. The Xbox 360 elite, due this winter with its 120-gig hard drive, will make more video-related activities possible.
The story is pretty basic but a decent roundup of movie download options. It goes through the alternatives — the usual suspects such as MovieLink, CinemaNow, Vongo, the Unbox and the only Mac-friendly system, Apple TV.
There are scores of alternatives, but at this stage the movie selection is a factor for each one. Steve Swasey, a Netflix spokesman, said: “Whether it’s Netflix or Apple or Amazon or Wal-Mart.com, we’re all facing the same constraint: title availability.”
Not mentioned is the other advantage to the Xbox 360: its ability to play HD DVD movies. The format is on the run from Blu-ray, but this should be handy for a couple of more years anyway. The add-on HD DVD player