Video on Demand (VoD) – Page 6

Oxford DVB-H Trial: Content Partners Announced

O2 And NTL Announce Oxford Mobile TV Trial NTL Broadcast and O2 have revealed the first batch of channels to be part of their forthcoming mobile TV trial in the Oxford area, announcing an initial 16 channels including Cartoon Network, CNN, Discovery Channel, Sky Sports News and Sky Travel.

The six-month trial will roll out to 350 O2 customers using the new trialled in Finland.

Dave Williams, O2’s chief technology officer, saw the mic and clicked into action: “We believe that mobile broadcast TV has the potential to sit alongside our existing customer services based on GPRS (2.5G) and 3G mobile data networks. Mobile broadcast TV aims to be a cost effective method for transmitting high quality content from one source to multiple customers whereas 3G is ideal for providing bespoke content to users.”

Terry Howard, head of media business development at NTL Broadcast, also fancied a bit of quote action: “This trial will give a useful insight into how the new technology performs, and we intend to use that information to inform the broadcasters, mobile operators and Ofcom about the consumer appeal of the service. We look forward to welcoming other channel providers and terrestrial broadcasters on board for the trial.”

O2 And NTL Announce Oxford Mobile TV Trial To support the trial, NTL Broadcast is building a new broadcast network of eight DVB-H transmitters to cover 120 square km around Oxford that will enable the lucky participants to receive digital television on the move. To enable a commercial service to be launched in the UK, Ofcom will need to license spectrum and O2 is already lobbying the UK regulator to bring forward plans to distribute radio frequencies for mobile TV services.

O2 will soon begin the process of recruiting triallists from the Oxford catchment area: but young ‘uns, silver surfers, crumblies and grannies need not apply: O2 is restricting insisting that participants be between 18 and 45 years of age. The ageists!

NTL
O2

IDV Global Media-On-Demand: Chinese Seek US Content

Chinese On-Demand Platform Looks For US Content A coalition of government policy makers, technology and broadband companies from China have rocked up to the NAB2005 Media Show in Las Vegas.

They’re in town to invite opportunity-seeking US companies to supply programming and interactive content to the Chinese coalition-backed IDV Global Media On-Demand platform, expected to launch in China early next year.

Developed by California-based IDV, the platform was a top-secret project until premiered at the China Media-on-Demand Coalition press conference last week in Beijing, and reflects China’s eagerness to create new technologies for the Internet and telecom.

IDV-Global Media – headed by ex-Microsoft’s Xbox game console designer, Kevin Bachus – expects the new technology to allow Chinese media companies to securely distribute programs worldwide, direct from publisher to consumer.

Bachus rose to media attention when he left Microsoft to start a rival games console business, Infinium Labs. Their product, the Phantom Game Service, downloaded game content directly over an Internet connection. Digital-Lifestyles has been covering the Phantom since the start of 2004, from its first demo, through the announcement of its launch, to them receiving a $50 million credit investment.

Some of the press had speculate that Bachus had left Infinium. At the start of this week he issued a statement denying that he had left Infinium for IDV Global Media.

Duncan Clark, managing director of the Beijing-based consulting firm BDA China Ltd., warned that IDV-Global Media will need support from a range of participants, including telecoms, media and electronics companies (and the government agencies that regulate them) for the project to work.

“What this initiative claims to attain, aligning the interests of many different players in the value chain, is something that has eluded many a media mogul outside China,” Clark sagely added.

IDV GMOD’s platform is an end-to-end solution that includes a second generation PC with a 3D “platform-on-platform” architecture developed by IDV – the first system to receive certification from China as the standard for second generation PCs.

Content will be delivered to consumers by digital feeds from global sources, including a next generation Internet, based on the IPv6 technology, with revenue sharing arrangements for partners.

This system will supply sports events, movies, TV shows, next gen games and other interactive entertainment direct to private residences or hotel rooms worldwide, with the same interface, in High Definition (HD) quality video.

The wonderfully named Dr Fan Yeqiang, deputy director of the China Institute of Policy Studies (CIPS), said in a statement, “Now US media publishers and distributors have a direct platform on which to earn millions of dollars in incremental revenues from their content in the China market. We are offering a safe, certified delivery system never available to US media companies before.”

NAB2005 Media show

World’s First MPEG-4/AVC Broadcast on HomeChoice

Video Networks Launches World's First MPEG-4/AVC Broadcast Video Networks Limited (VNL), who operate the HomeChoice VOD service around London, have added the children’s animation channel Toonami to their line up using the MPEG-4 / AVC format, making it the world’s first television channel to be encoded with advanced compression technology.

The company teamed up with Harmonic to launch an initial video-over-xDSL service in 2004 using DiviCom MV 100 encoders configured with MPEG-2.

Since then, VNL has been using the MPEG-2 compression efficiency and picture-quality of the MV 100 to continually enrich the channel line-up of its HomeChoice service.

The MV 100’s architecture enables the progressive migration of HomeChoice’s existing broadcast channels to MPEG-4.

Additionally, the technology allows further compression improvements to extend HomeChoice’s picture quality and reach and range of service, with the Star Trek sounding “field installable software CoDec module”.

VNL told Digital-Lifestyles that the quality of the MPEG-4 picture is noticably better that the MPEG-2 stream that is currently used. They hope that the move to MPEG-4 will save them around 50% of their current bandwidth needs in the coming years.

Video Networks Launches World's First MPEG-4/AVC Broadcast VNL’s migration to MPEG-4 for its remaining broadcast channels, including the Cartoon Network and Boomerang, is expected to be completed within the next two months. In time the VOD service will also be moved to the new CoDec.

Roger Lynch, Chairman & CEO, Video Networks Ltd was absolutely delighted about what he described as a key enhancement to its platform, adding, “We are not simply adding yet another quality channel from the Turner stable but are creating a world first with the first ever broadcast channel to switch to MPEG-4 / AVC encoding.

The move to MPEG-4 allows us to provide superior picture quality, while reducing the bandwidth required to transmit our broadcast channels.”

Once VNL has made the switch to MPEG-4, the saving on bandwidth for them should be substantial. This brings the advantages of VNL having to push less bandwidth out and therefore less of the distribution network is taken up. These reductions in demands bring an opportunity for more TV channels, increased Internet delivery speeds, but most interestingly the chances to carry High Definition (HD) programmes.

We understand that VNL have been testing HD within their labs, but would not be draw on the possibility of its introduction. To us it would appear an obvious step, and given BSkyB’s very public launch of HD in the UK later this year, it would be a considerably marketing coup to launch in advance of Sky.

Dr. Yaron Simler – President of the Convergent Systems Division of Harmonic Inc and no stranger to the odd acronym or ten – had this to say:

“While much of the industry is still in a planning, evaluation or trial phase, Video Networks Limited is forging ahead with an advanced technology and pay-TV service platform.”

Video Networks Launches World's First MPEG-4/AVC Broadcast “The first commercially available encoding platform to support MPEG-2, MPEG-4/AVC and SMPTE VC-1, Harmonic’s DiviCom MV 100 enabled VNL to provision a compelling video-over-DSL service while in parallel developing the elements of an MPEG-4 environment.

It is rewarding to see that we are moving toward the world’s first broadcast TV service based entirely on an advanced codec. This has established both VNL and the DiviCom MV 100 as significant forces in shaping the future of the television market.”

Video Networks Limited
Harmonic Inc

R.E.M. On-Demand Music Channel Launched By HomeChoice

Video Networks Launches On-Demand R.E.M. Music Channel Video Networks, providers of the HomeChoice entertainment and communications service, has announced the addition of a brand new R.E.M. video-on-demand (VoD) channel to its platform.

HomeChoice customers keen to keep on losing their religion will gain exclusive access to the channel – which has been entirely designed and built in-house – from 31st March 2005.

Earlier this year also saw the re-release of nine of R.E.M.’s most successful albums including Green, Out of Time and Automatic for the People. The launch of the R.E.M. channel ties in with the band’s UK tour.

The V:MX R.E.M. channel is being trumpeted as the first artist specific video-on-demand package in the world and will sit within HomeChoice’s suite of V:MX music channels, which feature a library of over 3,000 music videos.

The R.E.M. channel will offer a R.E.M. videography (a what?!), featuring the nine re-released R.E.M. albums.

Sofa reclining HomeChoice customers will be able to access music videos – and associated live and documentary footage – by selecting the appropriate album cover using their remote control.

The functionality of the HomeChoice service will let customers create their own R.E.M. play list from the music videos on the channel and optionally purchase downloadable tracks by SMS.

Video Networks Launches On-Demand R.E.M. Music Channel While useful, this isn’t quite as slick as it sounds: if a viewer hears a track they want to buy, they have to click on the onscreen information button which will provide a number to text. A code is then sent back to them which they can enter when they log onto the Internet to download the music track. When we spoke to HomeChoice, they told us they were working on a more integrated way of getting pay-for content to their customers.

Naturally, there’s the usual ring tone guff provided for those who like to display their ‘individuality’ with irritating phone noises, with the channel offering 10 R.E.M. true tones of their most popular tracks, purchasable via SMS for £3 (US$5.60 /€4.40) each.

The R.E.M. channel will also include four competitions throughout the life of the channel, with prizes including an MP3 player pre-loaded with R.E.M. tracks, a pair of VIP tickets to R.E.M.’s concert in Hyde Park in July plus several R.E.M. goody bags.

The deal is what ghastly corporate types would call a “synergetic win win situation”, with Video Networks telling us that “no money has changed hands as both parties have brought certain elements to the channel and will then be sharing the revenue from the downloads and ring tones.” This would make sense, Warners/R.E.M. are providing a lot of content, and HomeChoice/Video Networks are providing a lot of design, programming and, of course, bandwidth. Video Networks have 34 people working in their in-house design studio and within the TV product team.

Video Networks Launches On-Demand R.E.M. Music Channel Roger Lynch, Chairman and Chief Executive, Video Networks Ltd said: “The addition of this on-demand channel is not only a true coup for R.E.M. fans but also ensures Video Networks continues to offer the most innovative music content on TV in the world today.”

The R.E.M. music channel will be automatically available to all shiny, happy customers who currently subscribe to the HomeChoice music package.

The negotiations for the deal with Warner Music have been underway since the beginning of 2005, brokered by a Video Networks BizDev person, who joined them from the music business. The service launches on 31st March 2005 and is available for a total of 16 weeks.

Home Choice
Video Networks
R.E.M. official site

Legal TV Downloads Offered by UK Channel Five

Legal TV Downloads Offered by UK Channel Five Channel Five yesterday became the first UK broadcaster to launch a legal video download store, offering DVD-quality downloads of some of the most popular features of its flagship car show, Fifth Gear, from its Web site.

Fifth Gear, produced by North One Television, is selling downloadable high-resolution videos of 12 supercar reviews, including the Porsche 911, Ferrari F430 and Mercedes McLaren SLR, all for £1.50.

Payment can be made by debit or credit card with a provision for ‘younger car enthusiasts’ to pay by mobile phone.

To get the ball rolling, the company is offering four free videos available from their Web site.

Car fans will also have access to a selection of Fifth Gear shoot-outs – one of the programmes most popular features, whereby two similarly priced or similarly powered vehicles race around a track to find out which one is fastest.

Legal TV Downloads Offered by UK Channel Five Powering the UK’s first legal video downloads store is a system developed by 7 Digital, the company behind download stores for a raft of leading music companies including Universal and EMI.

7 Digital’s Managing Director, Ben Drury said: “Broadcasters have seen the revenues attainable from music downloads and are eager to do the same with their own content. TV footage can work so much harder for broadcasters, with the Internet now a commercially sound distribution channel.”

Richard Pearson, Executive Producer of Fifth Gear said, “Ever since Fifth Gear launched in 2002 viewers have regularly asked whether it’s possible to purchase content. It’s great that we can expand the Fifth Gear brand in this way and give people an affordable opportunity to acquire high quality downloads of their favourite moments from the archive.”

Legal TV Downloads Offered by UK Channel Five Legal music download sites have become hugely popular in recent years, but TV companies have so far not used the same technology to put programmes online – despite British viewers being the biggest downloaders of copied TV shows.

The BBC has already run trials with what it calls its Interactive Media Player (iMP), which allows surfers to use the Internet to download and watch programmes from BBC TV and Radio

Channel 5
7Digital
Fifth Gear

Ourmedia Launches Free Community Site For Podcasters And Vloggers

Ourmedia Launches Community Site For Podcasters And Vloggers See our interview with co-founder of OurMedia, JD Lasica

OurMedia is a new community site providing online media creators a place where they can publish their content and share it with others, for free.

That last bit is important. Free. Nowt. Zip. Nada.

Anyone who creates digital media – whether it be podcasts, video blogs, photos, whatever – will soon learn that there’s no such thing as ‘free’ web space when you’re looking for a place to host those large media files.

Either you have to put up with a web page plastered with adverts or you’ll be lumbered with punitive restrictions on your bandwidth allowance.

Once you’ve got your latest artistic meisterwork online, the next problem is letting people know about it – unless you’ve got a degree in marketing or a hefty advertising budget, your video may get less hits than the Wurzels.

But – oh the cruel irony! – if by chance your work does become the hit’o’the web, you’ll be busting through your bandwidth allowance like an over-excited steam train and face having your page pulled by your web host – or be lumbered with wallet-draining excess fees.

And here’s where the self-styled “grassroots media organisation” OurMedia come in.

Using their service, video bloggers can log into the site, use the ‘upload’ tool to transfer their 50 meg video onto their server and waheey! – the file is now hosted online, complete with its own Creative Commons license – and with no bandwidth or file size restrictions.

Because it’s a community site, multimedia files can now potentially be seen and shared by thousands of people, with film makers and video buffs able to link to each other’s work, pool resources and share tips.

So what’s the catch? Well, none really, so long as you’re the sharing, caring kind.

Supported by free storage space from the Internet Archive, a nonprofit digital library backed by the entrepreneur Brewster Kahle, ourmedia’s mission statement explains that they are a “free, not-for-profit effort to create a global home for grassroots media”.

Their mission is to provide a “resource to bring homemade video, audio, music, photos, text and public domain works into an easy-to-access network” with the site acting as a “clearinghouse” to allow others to “search for video or music, download it, and reuse or remix it, with proper attribution. All legally.”

After the huge success of text blogging, pundits are predicting that video blogging (vlogging) could be one of the Next Big Things to hit the web, with a new audience tuning into alternative on-demand services, like a sort of alternative TiVo online.

Ourmedia.org The idea must be good, their servers appear a little slow

Interview With JD Lasica, Co-Founder, Ourmedia.org

During our preparation of our news piece on the launch of OurMedia today, we had a quick chat with JD Lasica, that we thought you might like to see. It gives a glimpse of the future for Ourmedia.

Ourmedia Launches Community Site For Podcasters And Vloggers DL: Is the site entirely bankrolled by Brewster Kahle (The Internet Archive) or are there plans to raise revenue through advertising/affiliate programs etc?

JD Lasica: The Internet Archive is providing free storage and bandwidth, and that won’t change. We’re also getting subsidized hosting from Bryght (a Drupal site), and Marc Canter’s Broadband Mechanics has kicked in some dough to pay for some programmers in New Delhi to get us across the finish line. Other than that, it’s been an entirely open source effort.

We plan to meet soon with some foundations. An infusion of grant monies would go a long way toward taking us to the next level. We have a very long road map of features and improvements we’re planning.

Marc and I are still discussing revenue models. We won’t clutter up the site with banner ads. But we are open to the prospect of corporate sponsors in addition to foundation underwriters. It certainly seems that the kinds of digital creativity we’re helping to enable would attract a wide swath of companies involved with helping consumers create personal media.

DL: Sadly, I imagine that scammers, spammers, porn merchants and ne’er do wells will be attracted to this venture like a moth to a flame. What measures have you in place to keep these undesirables at bay – or will the site remain a free-for-all with no censorship (past legal necessities)?

JD Lasica: It won’t be a free for all. We have a good-sized team of moderators around the world (including Britain) who will be watching everything that’s published on the site. The two big rules are: no porn and no copyrighted material (unless it falls within the scope of what we Yanks call fair use).

We won’t be the censorship police, so we expect a wide range of media that won’t be to everyone’s tastes. For those who violate our site rules, we’ll be relying on our team of volunteer moderators to shut them down, much as Wikipedia does.

DL: What measures have you taken in case of copyright disputes?

JD Lasica: Our site rules spell out the steps a copyright owner should take if he or she believes their copyright has been infringed. We respect U.S. copyright laws, so you won’t see Metallica mp3s winding up here — unless Lars himself uploads them.

DL: Is there a long term plan as such, or are you going to ‘go with flow’ and see where the venture takes you?

JD Lasica: We have a long road map of immediate features, functionalities and fixes that need addressing, and a longer-term plan for versions 2 and 3, which will incorporate more social networking functions, ratings, improved search, and so on.

DL: You mention that you will be getting involved with P2P – are there any other technologies up your sleeve?

JD Lasica: We’ll be looking at BitTorrent right away. I’m attaching a press release about some of the other things we’re doing.

One interesting item that will be rolling out soon: We’ll be working with Jon Udell and Doug Kaye to devise a standard for what we’re calling a media clipping service. Users will be able to cite a particular portion of a video or audio clip (a 2-minute dialogue that falls in the middle) rather than just point to the entire clip.

Here’s our version 2 roadmap as of this moment: http://www.socialtext.net/ourmedia/

DL: Thanks for sparing us time when you must be busy.

JD Lasica is co-founder of Ourmedia.org, author of “Darknet: Hollywood’s War Against the Digital Generation” (May 2005) and Senior editor of the Online Journalism Review.

He also writes the following blogs:

http://newmediamusings.com
http://darknet.com
http://socialmedia.biz/

Tango.TV: TELE2 Launches Free 3G TV For Phones

TELE2 Launches Free TV For 3G Phones European telco AB has announced that it’s launched the first worldwide free TV station available on 3G mobile phones, via its own TV channel Tango.TV (TTV).

Describing themselves as the “leading alternative pan-European telecommunications company” (have they got, like, cray-zee hairstyles and listen to The White Stripes all day?), the TV station is a product of their development centre located in Luxembourg.

The centre is in charge of applying the company’s convergence strategy and has also created an Internet radio, the painfully cheesy-sounding Sunshine Radio, also available on 3G phones.

The streams are available to any customer looking for some full-on AOR action from the new wap portal T.TVMobile.

We gave the channel a listen via the Web and weren’t impressed. The Dad-friendly soft rock was bad enough, but the dire tunes were rendered even more unlistenable by the stream jumping around like a hyperactive flea on amyl nitrate.

We couldn’t work out if this was supposed to be the 3G TV station or not, but after five minutes of looking at a blank screen on our desktop media player, we gave up waiting.

Lars-Johan Jarnheimer, CEO of Tele2 said; “With the launch of this TV over 3G service, Tele2 is showing that it is at the leading edge of mobile technological developments. We look forward to monitoring the development of this service in Luxembourg to learn about customer behaviour, which we can apply later to our other mobile markets”.

There’s no doubt that mobile TV and radio has a strong future, but this venture strikes me as being more of a publicity stunt than anything. And seeing as I’m writing about it, I guess it’s worked too. Doh! Outwitted again!

Tele2
Sunshine Radio
TTV Online

MTV Unveils Interactive TV Portal – CeBIT 05

MTV Unveils Interactive TV Portal MTV in Germany has been demonstrating an interactive TV portal that combines satellite and broadband services.

The interactive portal will shunt a veritable cornucopia of personalisation and revenue-boosting options to customers, including games, news and the latest pop-tastic charts.

A deal with T-Online will also let annoying teenagers download the latest cray-zee ringtones for their mobiles, with the option to download extra goodies like wallpapers and song downloads from the comfort of your armchair.

There are also plans afoot to provide interactive voting and advertising, as well as offering access to video-on-demand archives.

Content and links to the interactive television services will be transmitted via satellite, while a broadband connection will be used to deliver specific items requested by the user (viewers will need an MHP compatible satellite receiver with broadband access to take advantage of the service).

The service was showcased at the CeBIT trade show in Hannover and MTV intends to introduce the service as soon as suitable receivers are available in retailers.

“Being the first to offer this interactive TV technology, MTV has once again confirmed its leading role in the field,” beamed Catherine Mühlemann of MTV.

MTV Unveils Interactive TV Portal MTV is using Alticast for the technical implementation and broadcast of the interactive service.

The company will be using Nionex´s HTML-based pontegra platform, which acts as a browser supporting a fully compliant subset of DVB-HTML, OCAP 2.0 and ACAP-X.

Pontegra’s open-ended concept makes it suitable for all kinds of iTV services, with the company claiming it to be the “iTV platform par excellence for all kinds of iTV services as EPGs, iTV-portals, T-commerce, voting and polls, interactive TV shows and commercials, community functions such as email and chat, etc.”

MTV in Germany
Nionex pontegra platform

Blinkx, Movielink Provide Dialogue Searchable Movies

Film Site Lets Users Search For Downloadable Movies To Buy Or Rent A deal between a search technology company and an online film distributor could be a further step towards the next Big Thing on the Web: search engines that let you find movies and TV episodes by what is said within them – and then buy or rent them.

The tie-up between Santa Monica-based Movielink and Blinkx from London/San Francisco, has got some excited analysts declaring it to be a key development in bringing together television and movies with the world of Internet search. We’re inclined to agree and have touched on Blinkx TV search before.

The two companies plan to announce that Movielink, a downloading service owned by five major studios, will make its pictures available through the Blinkx search engine.

There’s no cash involved in this deal, as the synergetic partnership will give Movielink additional exposure and Blinkx access to movies that other search engines lack.

Blinkx uses speech-recognition and other technologies (licensed from Autonomy) to make a searchable index of trailers for the movie service’s nearly 1,000 titles.

So far, it has permission from Movielink to index only film trailers, but the company hopes to expand the index to include dialogue from the movies themselves allowing users to type in key phrases to find the required film and immediately download it for a set fee.

So an amnesiac Monty Python fan wanting a side-splitting night of sacrilegious entertainment could simply type in “he’s a naughty boy!” into the search engine and be offered “The Life of Brian” to immediately buy or rent and then download it to his media centre.

Not surprisingly, there’s a veritable minefield of technical, legal and DRM issues to be overcome before legal downloading of films and TV shows hits the mainstream, but Movielink’s willingness to work with Blinkx may open the door to Web big boys like Google, Yahoo and AOL etc.

“It is the next frontier,” said Allen Weiner, an analyst with research firm Gartner, “What we’ve been working with until now, is one-dimensional content on the Web that is advertiser supported. The next level, which will really change the economics of the Web, is searching and indexing premium content that does not live on the Web.”

“It’s kind of a small deal, but I think it will be a forerunner to the types of deals that you’ll see,” said Yair Landau, vice chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment, a unit of Sony Corp. and one of Movielink’s owners. “We’ve been waiting for Yahoo, MSN and Google to get serious about video distribution.”

The big search engines are already starting to index video content: Yahoo’s Video Search program already crawls the Internet looking for video files and Google has been recording thousands of hours of programming and indexing the closed-captioning text.

Film Site Lets Users Search For Downloadable Movies To Buy Or Rent With TV networks starting to distribute more of their productions on the Web and the growth of broadband-enabled, home media PCs there’s clearly a growing demand for consumers to be able to access and download content legally.

This partnership between Blinkx and Movielink appears to be the first tentative steps into what may turn out to be a stampede of Web-based movie distribution deals.

Film Download, Search Firms to Link Services (LA Times)

Movielink
Blinkx
Sony Pictures Entertainment
Gartner Inc
Yahoo Video Search