We’ve been watching Joost since the days it was The Venice Project.
Well yesterday it left its invite-only beta stage, opening up for all to sign up. Given the large interest we saw in people wanting to sign up for the Joost beta when we offered it, we imagine that the take-up will be strong.
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The latest results results from Virgin Media, Q2 2007, show that they’ve lost 40,000 cable TV subscribers. The most likely reasons – the loss of Sky TV programming, following their spat with Sky. To rub salt into the wounds, Sky gain 90,000 TV customer over the same period.
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Channel 4 is set to become the first UK broadcaster to slap its back catalogue online, completely free of charge,
From next month, Channel 4 will add some 4,000 hours of the channel’s archived content to the 4oD catchup service – making something like 10,000 programme titles available.
It’s only been four months that Ashley Highfield has been with Project Kangeroo, the UK independent TV answer to the BBC’s iPlayer, but it’s been reported that he’s leaving – before it’s even publicly launched.
Adobe have launched a stand-alone Media Player (AMP).
Using Adobe Air, the AMP plays back high quality video both on PCs and Apple computers at standard def and 1080p.
Nokia has signed a deal with Microsoft to put PlayReady on some of their handsets.
Nokia say that they “plan to support PlayReady across a range of S60 and Series 40 devices starting in 2008.”
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Last week, MusicTank held a panel discussion “The F Word: Monetising Filesharing”.
For once the panel (detailed below) had more members from the Internet side of things than the music industry, though Playlouder sit somewhere in between.
About a year ago a cross music industry grouping announced a new process called “Value Chain Proposition” whereby rather that sue end-users, they wanted ISPs to pay a license fee as they allowed users to file-share and that “added value” to their service and that added value had a monetary value that the music
industry should have a part of.
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As if you don’t already spend enough time looking at your computer, the folks at Democracy would like to introduce you to the delights of free Internet TV.
Democracy have just launched the latest upgrade to their open-source TV application, Democracy Player. The player offers downloads from over 300 channels of Internet video and provides RSS support, an auto-download feature and integration with Bittorrent. Democracy Player is available for Windows, Mac and 3 different flavours of Linux (Ubunu, Debian and Fedora).
The player is a breeze to use. We tested the Mac version and it looks and feels just like a well written Mac app. Functions are intuitive and smooth and there’s more than a hint of iTunes about the interface. Locating videos is easy. You can browse the 300 channels via the channel guide, select from the latest popular material, run a search or add your own videos. Having located your video just double click the item to download to your computer and sit back as Democracy Player runs it in full screen mode.
For those interested in making their own videos, Democracy also offers Broadcast Machine, an application allowing you to set-up channels and RSS feeds as well as enabling video uploads, all from your own Website.
Democracy is a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to the principal of free, open access to media through the use of open-source software.
While Democracy focuses on free content, moves towards commercial Internet TV services are proceeding apace. Last week Channel Four announced its intention to launch a video-on-demand service based on ‘closed’ channels such as cable, BT Broadband and the Internet. The service will include a film download service offering movies typical of the channel’s soon-to-be free FilmFour movie channel. There will also be a wide range of other material including Channel 4 shows and pay-for content from the archives. In addition Channel Four is expected to start online streaming of its own content (films and US exports expected) in the very near future.
Not to be out done, the BBC proposes to launch its iPlayer (previously named iMP – Interactive Media Player) service in two versions; a free service offering a seven-day catch-up for all its TV and radio output and a commercial version offering archived versions of programmes.
Elsewhere Apple continues to develop iTunes with Steve Jobs in serious talks with Hollywood studios about making movies available over the service. This may well prove to be an insurmountable challenge, given the movie industry’s scattershot approach to electronic licensing, distribution and DRM.
Cardiff vicar Reverend Kimber is hoping that by introducing wireless broadband access from the pews of his city centre church, more people will be encouraged to join his flock at St John’s Church.
The decision was made after the tech-savvy Reverend discovered that the thick walls of the 1473 church blocked his own wireless signal as he used his laptop to write sermons and create orders of service.
The Welsh capital is awash with Wi-Fi after a joint project between Cardiff council and BT Openzone resulted in more than 100 wireless broadband points being created around Cardiff city centre and parts of Cardiff Bay.
With the streets full of wired Welsh business folks looking for a fix, Kimber realised that they might appreciate a quieter place to do business.
“The church is a sanctuary for everyone, including business people with laptops and mobiles who may want to find a quiet area without lots of noise and loud music to sit in peace and do some work or just send an e-mail,” Kimber told the BBC.
The laptop-toting vicar added, “I couldn’t do my job without one and it has made me more aware of other people’s needs.”
After Kimber approached BT, the company agreed to fill in the gap in Cardiff’s wireless broadband network and fitted the church with its own Openzone node, providing access to surfers sitting in the corner of the north aisle at St John’s.
Hopeful to convert Skype surfers into Bible-troublers, the Rev Kimber said: “This church has a strong commitment to be open for people in the city, and of course, if this will encourage more new people into the church, the project will have been a success.
Fearful of mass sessions of multiplayer shoot-em-ups and virtual battles breaking out in the aisles, Kimber added, “All we ask is that they respect the church environment and do not to use loud mobile ring tones or play music on their computers, especially when a service is in progress.”
It wouldn’t be the first time the church has seen battle – the original medieval church was severely damaged during the revolt of Owain Glyndwr in the early 15th century.
According to Ann Beynon, BT’s director Wales, when it comes to wireless connectivity, Cardiff is now one of the most connected in the UK.
EVE is a MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game), and is unique from other on-line games in that every player experiences the same game world. The premise of the game is rather like that of the old BBC Micro favourite, Elite: trade, kill pirates (or be a pirate) and upgrade your craft and equipment, all in a galaxy of several thousand stars, planets, stations and asteroid belts.
MMORPG games such as EverQuest and Star Wars Galaxies have more subscribers, but run several game worlds across their server farms, with each instance of the game world holding perhaps as many as 3,000 players.
As not everyone is in the same instance of the game, then if you are on a different server from your friends (or enemies) then you can’t meet them, and your experience is different from theirs. As EVE has one game world, it is possible to interact with every player – which has very interesting implications for economics and social interaction in such large simulation.
EVE is the first title from CCP, an Icelandic company founded by Reynir Hardarson, formerly of OZ.COM and reached its current incarnation last year. Interestingly EVE’s “high water” marks for most connected users seem to be occurring on Sundays – possibly a valuable snippet of information if any market research companies out there can decode what it means.
The MMORPG market is now becoming, not exactly crowded but, well-served with a variety of differently-themed games. Because of the time commitment such games demand and the monthly fee payable (typically from $9.99 to $14.99) users are reluctant to hope from game to game, losing carefully built-up characters and items. As broadband use expands and the games lose their somewhat nerdy image this could potentially be a huge and innovate sector of the On-line entertainment industry.