AllThingsD » Video on Demand

Carlyle Group Leads $100 Million Round for Video Service

Peter Kafka — Mon, 21 May 2012 20:01:38 +0000

Avail-TVN, a company that helps process and manage video for cable systems and other services, has raised $100 million in a round led by the Carlyle Group, along with previous investors including Columbia Capital, Valhalla Partners, Novak Biddle and Pioneer Ventures. Avail-TVN used $27 million of the round to buy UK-based On Demand Group, which provides video-on-demand services outside the U.S. Last year, it generated more than $200 million in revenue.

Time Warner Cable's Porn Problem: It Isn't Selling Enough Porn

Peter Kafka — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 15:30:29 +0000

Big cable companies like Comcast and Time Warner Cable keep saying they don’t see Web video cutting into their business: Even if people are watching more Hulu, Netflix, Apple TV, etc., it’s not hurting cable, say the cable guys.

But there’s at least one big, dirty exception.

Time Warner Cable said yesterday that its video-on-demand business dropped significantly in the last quarter. Asked to explain where the drop came from, CEO Glenn Britt came clean, more or less — much of it is because, instead of renting “3 Way Cheating Wives” in HD for $9.98, his customers are getting their fix on the Web for free.

There’s something quite special about listening to buttoned-down corporate chieftains talk about their porn-profit margins. If you ever get the chance, you really should hear for yourself. But this excerpted transcript will have to do for now:

One of the things going on with VOD is that there’s been fairly steady trends over some time period now for adult to go down, largely because there’s that kind of material available on the Internet for free. And that’s pretty high margin. That’s been not just this quarter, but going on for some time period.

To be fair, drooping porn rentals don’t account for all of Time Warner Cable’s VOD decline. CFO Rob Marcus said the porn gap is responsible for about a third of the drop, and that the rest is because there weren’t many big pay-per-view events like boxing matches last quarter, and because regular movie rentals are down, too.

Ah. So maybe iTunes and Netflix, et al, are taking dollars away from cable, right? After all, Time Warner Cable video subscriber totals dropped last quarter, again. “I wouldn’t draw any conclusions quite yet,” Marcus says.

Exclusive: SnagFilms Snags $10 Million in Funding at $50 Million Valuation

Kara Swisher — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 00:15:38 +0000

SnagFilms, the online video distribution site for professional documentaries, has nabbed $10 million in funding from Comcast’s investment arm and New Enterprise Associates, and will also now be distributing fictional independent film releases.

That and the new investment giving SnagFilms a valuation of $50 million should be big news at the 11th Sundance Film Festival, the famous independent film gathering opening in Park City, Utah, on Thursday.

And SnagFilms also announced that well-known industry exec Bingham Ray is joining the start-up to spearhead its distribution of fictional narrative and foreign-produced independent films.

The service, unlike the subscription-based video giant Netflix, currently distributes free non-fiction documentary films with advertising, as well as offers rental streaming and purchase options.

And it is profitable, said Ted Leonsis, the former AOL exec who is the founder and has been the driving investor in SnagFilms.

“It was always my personal frustration as a backer of documentaries that you could not get distribution far and wide,” he said in an interview earlier today.

He noted that while Netflix is really now focused on big studio fare, “what we’ve discovered is a big supply of independent video that has never seen light of day, but that has a big audience.”

SnagFilms’ strategy is to give broader reach to these films, which often don’t even have a theatrical opening–or, if they do, are very small.

Along with its site, which digitizes the films and adds advertising to them, SnagFilms also encourages Web sites and others to grab films and create a “virtual movie theater.” (You can see my effort below.)

It also has video-on-demand deals with Comcast, Verizon and more, as well as purchase options with Apple’s iTunes and others.

Earlier this month, SnagFilms also launched an impressive and free iPad full-movie-watching app.

SnagFilms also owns a popular news site called indieWIRE, which covers the independent film market, and the new funding will also be used to expand it.

That market has been in need of a boost of some kind, since it has been struggling as financing has dried up for the production of quality documentaries and outside-the-Hollywood-machine movies.

It has long been hoped that the Internet would perhaps save and strengthen the genre, with its supposed long-tail magic.

But the going has been slow. Currently, SnagFilms has 2,000 films in its online library, although Leonsis said the aim is to use the new funds to get 10,000 films on the service as soon as possible.

“We’re trying to build a beachhead in the independent film world,” he said of SnagFilms, which currently has about 40 employees in Washington, D.C., and New York. “We think we have a niche and video is the killer app on Web now.”

Leonsis, who has backed such notable documentaries as “The Rape of Nanking,” said NEA’s Peter Barris will join the board, along with existing investor Steve Case.

Case and Leonsis, of course, were the dynamic duo of AOL’s glory days.

So, I am rooting for another win in an arena that needs it.

Thus, here’s my own movie palace online and also the official press release from SnagFilms:

Watch more free documentaries

Industry Powerhouses NEA and Comcast Invest in SnagFilms

$10 million in new funding to distribute documentaries and fictional independent films on all digital platforms and devices, globally

Washington D.C.–January 17, 2011 – SnagFilms announced today it has received $10 million in growth capital from new investors New Enterprise Associates (NEA) and Comcast Interactive Capital (CIC). Existing investors, including Ted Leonsis (SnagFilms’ Founder) and Steve Case, also participated. The financing will be used to expand its distribution of independent films–including, for the first time, fictional independent releases–across all digital platforms and devices, and on a global basis.

SnagFilms is a leader in distributing free, ad-supported titles from a library of over 2,000 non-fiction films. Last year, SnagFilms entered the transactional world with launches of video on demand channels on Comcast and Verizon FiOS, as well as titles for sale through the Apple’s iTunes store. Earlier this month, SnagFilms debuted its iPad application with the largest collection of award-winning U.S. films offered free to iPad users.

“As a profitable company with substantial private investors, SnagFilms didn’t need to raise outside capital,” said company founder Ted Leonsis. “However, we saw overwhelming strategic value in involving NEA, a pioneer and leading venture capital firm, and CIC, the investment arm of Comcast. SnagFilms is very well-financed and uniquely positioned now to bring the full array of independent films–fiction and non-fiction, U.S. and foreign–to global audiences on all platforms and devices. We’ve amassed a library of 2,000 documentaries since our launch, and we’re now building distribution opportunities for tens of thousands of independent films in both categories. That’s great news for film fans and for filmmakers.”

“SnagFilms is perfectly positioned to fuse technology and content in a manner that has marked many of the transformational industry leaders we have helped build in the past,” said NEA Managing General Partner Peter Barris, who joins the Company’s Board of Directors. “New devices and digital platforms will allow consumers unprecedented access to quality content, and SnagFilms will be there to delight them. We are pleased to be able to invest in SnagFilms at this time, and to help them add fictional indie films to their expertise with documentaries–and to take both genres to the full swath of digital platforms and devices.” Among many other investments, Barris serves on the board of Groupon as its first VC investor.

“We are excited about the new opportunities SnagFilms creates, especially for independent filmmakers who historically could not get distribution,” said David Horowitz, Managing Director of Comcast Interactive Capital. “This investment reflects our view that consumers are demanding a diverse selection of high-quality content that can be watched on any platform or device.”

SnagFilms also announced that industry veteran Bingham Ray will join the Company to help guide its entry into distribution of fictional narrative and foreign-produced independent films. Ray, former President of United Artists, October Films and Kimmel Entertainment, and honored for Lifetime Achievement by the Gotham Awards, has deep experience in the acquisition, marketing and distribution of motion pictures, including “Hotel Rwanda,” “Bowling for Columbine,” “Secrets & Lies,” “War Room,” “High Art,” “Last Days” and “Breaking the Waves.”

“Bingham has been an advocate for filmmakers throughout his career,” noted Rick Allen, SnagFilms CEO. “His record of successful distribution on traditional platforms provides a strategic sense and depth of relationships that will be invaluable as we extend our model into a broader array of films. Bingham will be a key member of our large presence at the Sundance Film Festival this week and beyond.”

“I’ve been a big fan of SnagFilms from their earliest days, and am truly thrilled to be part of the team as they expand the service, bringing more filmmakers to bigger audiences on a wider array of platforms,” said Ray. “This is the future of our business.”

“SnagFilms plus Bingham Ray is a great combination,” said Tom Bernard, co-president and co-founder of Sony Pictures Classics. “Bingham knows the indie world as well as anyone alive and is admired for his experience and for always delivering for filmmakers. He’ll be a big asset to SnagFilms’ expansion.”

In addition, SnagFilms intends to use its new growth capital to expand its indieWIRE unit, now in its 15th year as the leading web source of news, reviews and analysis of independent film.

“indieWIRE’s traffic is now ten times what it was when we purchased it two and a half years ago,” Allen said. “Before the Academy Awards are announced later this month, you’ll see new editor-in-chief Dana Harris add ongoing features to our coverage of the indie world, and exciting new blogs to our Network, like the recently-added blog The Playlist.”

About SnagFilms

SnagFilms features free ad-supported viewing of more than 2,000 award-winning titles from some of the greatest names in documentary film. All films are shareable across the web. Since its launch in July 2008, SnagFilms’ library has been featured on over 2 billion web pageviews, with more than 325 million minutes of SnagFilms titles streamed across over more than 100,000 affiliated sites and webpages, including through partners such as Aol, Comcast, Hulu, the Starbucks Digital Network, IMDb, the Miami Herald, hundreds of non-profits, special interest sites and blogs. SnagFilms also offers selected titles via VOD (with Comcast and FiOS), on iTunes and through a new free application for the iPad.

OVGuide has twice named SnagFilms a Top Site and MovieMaker Magazine named SnagFilms to its annual list of “50 Best Websites for Moviemakers.”

Sony Bets on a Countertop View of the Web

Katherine Boehret — Tue, 11 May 2010 20:32:29 +0000

Every time a technology product breaks new ground, it has to answer the question on most consumers’ minds: Do they really need this product? Most recently, Apple (AAPL) encountered this at the launch of the iPad, which confused some consumers who weren’t sure how it would fit in with their laptops and smartphones.

This week, I tested a product that represents Sony’s (SNE) attempt to wade into a new category: the $200 Dash (sony.com/dash). This gadget, labeled by the company as a Personal Internet Viewer, is like a digital photo frame on steroids. It’s meant to run in the background of your life, cycling through on-screen data, slide-show style, while sitting on a kitchen counter, desk or nightstand.

[ See post to watch video ]

The Dash’s content includes more than 1,000 apps, the majority of which came out of Sony’s partnership with Chumby Industries, maker of its own similar devices. These apps connect to the Internet via Wi-Fi and display frequently refreshed data like Facebook photos and statuses, tweets from Twitter.com, quiz-game questions, recipe tips, email snippets and news updates. The Dash can play videos from services like Netflix (NFLX) and Amazon’s (AMZN) Video on Demand.

But aside from some faults, Sony’s biggest challenge will be convincing people that they actually need a Dash. I used it for a week, both at my office desk and at home, and I’m not convinced I need to spend $200 to watch bursts of data appear onscreen like a slow stock ticker. I already use a smartphone, laptop or iPad to check things like social-network updates, news and email—and using these never requires waiting for the right information to cycle through a screen. There were times when I glanced at my Dash in passing and read snippets of mildly entertaining information, but these moments were few and far between.

To me, the most interesting information to pass through the Dash is that which comes from personalized apps—those that the user sets up with credentials to access content aimed specifically at him or her, like messages in email and social networks. But if the Dash is set up in a kitchen, who in the family gets to set up their account on this gadget? And is all of that content acceptable for all family members to see and read in passing? I can’t imagine teens wanting parents reading their content or vice versa.

The $200 Sony Dash is designed to offer running glances of data—some personalized—throughout the day.

Some people might like the Dash for its fancy alarm-clock capabilities. It shows weather and time information in a handsome display and can play specially chosen videos or podcasts when an alarm goes off. But smartphones like Motorola’s Backflip display time and weather information in tabletop or docked mode.

The Dash has a bright, seven-inch touch screen and an accelerometer, so it can be used vertically or flipped around and laid flat, which is better for things like typing with an on-screen keyboard that appears for certain apps. It lacks a Web browser, word-processing program and a full email program. Accessories like keyboards and mouses can’t be attached to the Dash.

Most Dash apps can be browsed directly from the Dash and added to the device, though users can load apps and adjust more app settings by going to the sony.com/mydash website, where the product must be registered, on their computer. People also can use the website to set up their Amazon and Netflix accounts so videos can play on the Dash. Pandora accounts can be set up here, too, but the Pandora app never worked correctly on my Dash.

The Facebook app lets people read friends’ status messages and comments about those status messages. They can touch an on-screen thumbs up icon to like someone’s status, and can type their own comments about someone’s status. The Twitter app let me write my own tweets, but I couldn’t retweet or direct-message other users. A Sony representative said the Dash is intended to be more of a “glanceable” product with less interaction, but that doesn’t explain why the Facebook app has interactive capabilities. The representative said they may consider improving the Twitter app in the future. Both Twitter and Facebook were slow to load on the screen, taking about four seconds each for content to appear.

Sony’s representative said my office Wi-Fi could be to blame for the Dash’s slow performance. The office Wi-Fi, however, isn’t behind firewalls and never gives me trouble for other tests. A check of my home’s Wi-Fi network showed I had a similar low 42% “link quality” on the Dash there. But my nearby MacBook and iPad showed full signal strength and worked perfectly.

The Dash has several geeky qualities. Setting it up to work with a password-protected Wi-Fi network prompts users to choose the correct key encoding—either HEX or ASCII—neither of which are familiar to most people and the Help button doesn’t clarify matters. Apps with email envelope icons in them, like Martha Stewart’s Everyday Food app, don’t let users email content (in this case, a recipe) to friends. Instead, selecting this icon sends the recipe to the person’s own email address—the one with which the device was registered—and the email says it’s from “chumby.” This name is completely confusing to people who know nothing about Chumby and its connection with Sony.

Sony is planning to fix a few flaws of the Dash and add more functions, including a way to jump directly to an app rather than cycling through the entire list of apps, through an over-the-air software update at the end of May. This fix also will enable the Dash’s USB port to play photos and music on the device. It currently isn’t functional.

Even if all bugs are fixed on the Sony Dash, I still have trouble seeing how this type of product would be worth $200 for most average users, given the way they already use other devices.

Write to Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com

Boxee, Roku Announcing Deals for Streaming Live Sports on TV

Lauren Goode — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 16:58:31 +0000

Watching live sports on television via the Web may have just gotten easier.

Starting Monday, Web-to-TV software company Boxee will distribute the National Hockey League’s Game Center Live online video content. In addition, the National Basketball Association is set to announce a similar partnership with Roku, maker of a digital video player that streams Netflix (NFLX) and Amazon (AMZN) Video on Demand via the Web, for the distribution of NBA digital video content, beginning with some of this season’s playoff games.

The NHL’s Game Center Live streams approximately a thousand of the league’s 1,200 games per season, or any games that are not national exclusives on Versus or NBC, the league’s partner networks, for $19.95 a month. No additional fees will be applied for the streaming of NHL Game Center Live content through Boxee’s social-media enabled, web-to-TV platform. Since the NHL is currently wrapping up its 2009-2010 season, the new NHL content available through the Boxee platform is minimal, but a spokesman for Boxee says this should lay the groundwork for a continued partnership into next season.

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How to Watch Video, Wirelessly, on Your TV Set

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 02:03:34 +0000

An increasing number of people are watching video, including TV shows and movies, on their computers, instead of via traditional TV sets.

Many young people don’t even bother with a cable or satellite subscription and just use their PCs or Macs to get their video fix.

[ See post to watch video ]

But computer screens are small, so some folks hook the computer up to the TV for their viewing sessions. The problem with this is that it can be complicated for the technically challenged. And it can involve long cables stretching across the floor, or leaving a computer you might want for other tasks permanently connected to the TV. So companies have been working on ways to beam Internet video wirelessly from your computer to your TV.

I’ve been testing two of these wireless PC-to-TV solutions. Both require a secondary device that remains connected to the TV to receive the wireless signal from the computer.

One product is a new system from Intel (INTC), several major laptop makers and the networking equipment company Netgear (NTGR). It’s called Intel Wireless Display, or Wi-Di for short. The other is a software product called PlayOn, from a company called MediaMall. It beams video to your TV through popular game consoles such as Microsoft’s (MSFT) Xbox 360, Sony’s (SNE) PlayStation 3 and Nintendo’s Wii. Both of these products only work on Windows computers.

In my tests, both systems mostly worked as advertised, but each had some downsides. The Intel system works with any video from any site you can play on the computer, but the video disappears from the TV if you are playing it in full-screen mode and get the impulse to use the computer for any other purpose while it is playing. And it only works on a handful of new, specially equipped PCs.

The PlayOn system will work on an existing computer, and it keeps showing a video even if you choose to use the PC for some other task. But it can’t beam just any old video to the TV, only those from services PlayOn has enabled. For instance, you can watch TV shows and movies from Hulu (partly owned by News Corp., which also owns The Wall Street Journal and its Web sites) but not from your favorite random Web site.

Intel’s new Wi-Di system is so far only available on three specific laptop models, one each from Toshiba, Sony and Dell (DELL), that range from $900 to $1,050. And these laptops are so far only available from Best Buy (BBY). It also requires a small $100 adapter called Push2TV from Netgear, which comes free with these laptops.

Wi-Di requires computers equipped with Intel’s brand new 2010 Core processors, Intel’s graphics chips and Intel’s wireless chips. Netgear and Intel say the feature will be available on other PC models later in the year.

I tested Wi-Di with the $900 Toshiba E205, a capable laptop with a 14-inch screen. Setup was a breeze. I just plugged the Netgear box into my TV and pushed a special Wi-Di button on the Toshiba. I typed in a code number the first time I used it, and I was in business.

Instantly, anything showing on the Toshiba’s screen was wirelessly replicated on the TV screen, even though I was eight feet away.

I tested the system with YouTube, Hulu and many other Web sites with no hitches or glitches. I also played videos stored on the PC’s hard disk.

Video mostly played smoothly over Wi-Di, though the quality on the TV was a bit degraded from that on the laptop screen, and HD videos didn’t look nearly as good as normal HD TV broadcasts. Also, the system isn’t satisfying unless you are streaming a video that can be viewed in full-screen mode on the PC.

I tested PlayOn with a Lenovo ThinkPad laptop and a PlayStation 3. After hooking up the PS3, I installed the $40 PlayOn software, which runs in the background. I then navigated to the Video section of the Sony’s menu, found PlayOn listed and used the Sony’s remote control to select from supported services, which include YouTube, Hulu, Netflix (NFLX), CBS.com (CBS), Amazon (AMZN) Video on Demand, CNN.com,and ESPN.com.

PlayOn also allows third-party plug-ins to add other Web video sources, such as NBC.com, but the company admits that the plug-in process can be clunky.

Video quality was about the same on PlayOn as on Wi-Di, and most programs played smoothly. With PlayOn, you don’t see the actual Web site, and you’re limited to the navigation system and options of the game console you’re using. So, I had to tediously find shows on the Sony by trolling through long lists.

PlayOn failed to display videos and photos stored on my PC, though to be fair the company lists this as a beta feature. And it displayed brief error messages frequently, even when it proceeded to play my chosen video properly.

PlayOn costs $40, and can be downloaded from www.playon.tv. You also must own or buy a game console, or one of a smattering of less- well-known TV adapters that the system supports.

Watching Internet video is a better experience with no wires to get in the way. But it can cost a lot, and needs some work.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

Wall Street Punishes Netflix for Making Wall Street Happy

Peter Kafka — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 18:11:27 +0000

Shares in Netflix, which have have more than doubled in the last year, are a bit down today, sagging some three percent. What gives?

Best to be wary of anyone who tells you why a stock moves on a given day, but a good bet here would be: Shares in Netflix have more than doubled in the last year.

That go-go growth prompted Citigroup (C) analyst Mark Mahaney to downgrade the stock from “Buy” to “Hold” late yesterday. It’s the kind of perverse punishment that Wall Street occasionally doles out to companies it loves, sort of akin to Yogi Berra’s “It’s too crowded, nobody goes there anymore” malapropism.

In any case, Mahaney makes it clear that while he’s dinging Netflix (NFLX) the stock, he loves Netflix the company. Still, if you wanted to find reasons to worry about the company, you don’t have to look very hard: For many years, it owned the market for a la carte entertainment delivered straight to your home. But that’s finally changing.

Cable companies like Comcast (CMCSA) have finally started to figure out how to promote video on demand, and a bevy of digital types, from Apple (AAPL) to Amazon (AMZN) to Google (GOOG) will be beefing up their home entertainment offerings in the next year.

Then again, prognosticators have been predicting that Netflix would get overtaken by heavyweights since it launched. No one has caught it yet.

A Clicker To Watch TV Online

Katherine Boehret — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 01:43:07 +0000

Finding TV shows online can be a major hassle. If you can remember which network hosts the show, you then must hunt through a maze of listings of several other television shows on that network’s Web site to find it. The show you want to watch might not even be available since many networks rotate only a handful of recent episodes online at a time. And if you do finally find the correct episode, you may be required to download a special media player to watch it.

Some services make this process a little easier. Hulu holds episodes from 1,200 television shows, but is still missing many. Apple’s (AAPL) iTunes Store offers over 50,000 episodes, but unlike network sites or Hulu, it requires viewers to pay to download and watch them (though they are commercial-free). Video search engines like Truveo browse the entire Web, returning an often-overwhelming number of results. And while YouTube is the king of Web video, it can too easily return a search result that isn’t a complete and genuine episode of the show you’re seeking.

[ See post to watch video ]

This week, I’ve been testing Clicker, a free Web site that aims to be the TV Guide for all full episodes available to watch on the Web. It searches over 1,200 sources, so it can index some 400,000 episodes from 7,000 shows. Results include television programs as well as “Web originals,” or shows that are native to the Internet and are of broadcast quality. Clicker either plays the video on its site or links you to where this content is shown on another hosting site—like NBC or Hulu. If a show isn’t available online, Clicker tells you so you don’t have to keep hunting all over for it.

I like Clicker and found it to be a quick resource for finding all sorts of shows online. In many cases, it directed me to find the episodes I wanted to watch and saved me the hassle of less efficient searching. It also suggested shows I might like and offered a playlist where I could subscribe to receive episodes as they became available or save available videos to watch later.

Clicker makes descriptive pages about each show

Though it has a search box, Clicker feels more like a directory than purely a robotic search engine that relies mainly on algorithms. In fact, Clicker created a descriptive page for almost every show, and these pages can be edited or created via user submissions, which Clicker will review before posting them to the site. And because it’s focused on TV shows or Web originals, it won’t clutter your results with kids’ birthday parties or cats on skateboards.

The site is still rather new, so it has some kinks to work out—like links to videos that didn’t actually play if, for example, they were pulled by the network. But these were rare, and for the most part, if a video wasn’t available, a clear, brief explanation was displayed at the top of the page. Also, if Clicker sends you back out to a network’s site and that network uses a special player for videos, you’ll still have to download that player.

Filtering Results

Clicker’s program pages contain a description of the show, and a way to filter results by season, airdate or popularity. And the site shows the actual airdate of each video—something that not many other sites do. A column on the right side of each page displays several related shows, like the suggestion of “Modern Family” for fans of “How I Met Your Mother”; and “Roswell” and “Dead Like Me” suggested for people who like “Heroes.” In December, these recommendations will become even more personalized.

Some of Clicker’s sources include NBC, Fox, ABC, PBS, the Food Network and Web original content (i.e. “The Onion”). It also can search movies and music videos; the movies can be watched free in some cases, or paid for via Amazon’s (AMZN) Video on Demand or Netflix (NFLX) Instant Streaming. In January, Clicker plans to incorporate shows and movies from iTunes, using Apple’s pay-and-download method.

Clicker is especially handy when you’re looking for a show that isn’t where you think it should be. “Seinfeld,” for example, is on TBS rather than NBC, where it originally aired, and only nine episodes are available at once before they rotate out and are replaced by nine more. “Friends” is found on theWB.com, rather than on NBC’s site. “Damages” isn’t available on its network site, FX; instead, it can be found at Crackle.com, another video-hosting site. It’s easy to understand why people settle for missing an episode rather than trying to find a show online.

Clicker finds over 400,000 television and Web-original episodes so you can search less and watch more.

Clicker also comes in handy when you’re querying something or someone you need to learn about. By typing in a term like “Thanksgiving travel,” I get news results from NBC’s “Nightly News with Brian Williams,” the “CBS Evening News” and the Associated Press. I also get tips for traveling during this busy time of year from an AOL Travel online video, as well as a 1968 episode of “The Beverly Hillbillies” called “The Thanksgiving Spirit.”

Clicker isn’t the site to use if you want to find the hot video clip that everyone is watching. When I searched for “Whitney Houston” the morning after the American Music Awards, the most recent video I found was the singer performing on “Good Morning America” in September—not the one showing her singing during the awards show the night before.

But the fact that Clicker can find Whitney Houston on “Good Morning America” is useful in itself. A search for Warren Buffett’s most recent appearance on the “Charlie Rose” show can be conducted in a similar manner—either by typing his name into the box at the top of the page or by opening the show’s page and searching within that show for anyone who has appeared as a guest. Performing a search within a show like this anywhere else is nowhere near as easy as on Clicker.

Playlist of Your Shows

Clicker can be used as a TiVo (TIVO) of sorts if you create a username on the site or simply sign in using Facebook Connect, which I did.

Users can make playlists where they can add just one episode, all episodes, or new episodes to this list—subscribing to receive all new episodes in the playlist as they become available. I added episodes of “The Amazing Race” and “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” to my playlist. This list can be accessed anytime, and it’s helpful for people who don’t have enough time to watch a show that they found. In December, email and Facebook notifications will be added to tell users that new episodes are in their playlists.

If you spend a lot of time in front of your computer and find yourself searching all over the Web for the TV shows you’d like to watch, Clicker will be a huge help. And even if your show isn’t available, you might find something similar—or better—in Clicker’s recommendations.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg. Email mossbergsolution@wsj.com

Cable Clicks on Interactive Ads Again

Nat Worden — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 15:05:08 +0000

The traditional TV ad is losing luster as viewers get savvier about skipping commercials and some advertisers shift to the Internet to save money and target specific audiences.

Cable providers have helped undermine the 30-second spot by supplying digital video recorders to their subscribers and offering ad-free video-on-demand services.

Now they are promising to help marketers reach TV watchers with new interactive advertising that seeks to engage viewers and borrows techniques from the Internet.

“It’s about making the TV a more lean-forward medium than a strictly lean-back medium,” said Bob Ivins, vice president of research and data products with Comcast Corp. (CMCSA)

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Pink Slips at Big Blue?

John Paczkowski — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 19:45:25 +0000

[ See post to watch video ]

StealDVD? Well, You Were Asking for It…

John Paczkowski — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 19:24:28 +0000

Well, that didn’t take long at all, did it? The Motion Picture Association of America has filed suit against RealNetworks (RNWK), seeking an injunction to stop the company from distributing its RealDVD DVD-ripping software. The MPAA argues that RealDVD violates the Digital Millennium Copyright Act because it circumvents the copyright protection that protects DVDs from piracy.

The MPAA “RealNetworks’ RealDVD should be called StealDVD,” said MPAA Executive Vice President and General Counsel Greg Goeckner in a statement. “RealNetworks knows its product violates the law and undermines the hard-won trust that has been growing between America’s movie makers and the technology community. The major motion picture studios have been making major investments in technologies that allow people to access entertainment in a variety of new and legal ways. This includes online video-on-demand, download-to-own, as well as legitimate digital copies for storage and use on computers and portable devices that are increasingly being made available on or with DVDs. Our industry will continue on this path because it gives consumers greater choices than ever. However, we will vigorously defend our right to stop companies from bringing products to market that mislead consumers and clearly violate the law.”

Sue. Rent. Rip. Return.

John Paczkowski — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 17:01:55 +0000

Turns out RealNetworks Inc.’s new DVD ripper, RealDVD, is as legal as its creator is litigious. RealNetworks (RNWK) debuted RealDVD this morning and along with it, a preemptive lawsuit against the Hollywood interests that will inevitably attempt to litigate it into oblivion. Brought against the DVD Copy Control Association and a who’s-who of major studios, the suit asks the court to rule that RealDVD complies with the DVD Copy Control Association’s license agreement not only by retaining the “content scramble system” used to protect DVDs, but by enhancing it with an additional layer of digital rights management protection.

“RealNetworks took this legal action to protect consumers’ ability to exercise their fair-use rights for their purchased DVDs,” the company said in a statement. “We are disappointed that the movie industry is following in the footsteps of the music industry and trying to shut down advances in technology rather than embracing changes that provide consumers with more value and flexibility for their purchases. For nearly 15 years RealNetworks has created innovative products that are fully legal, great for consumers, and respectful of the legitimate interests of content creators and rights holders. RealDVD follows in that tradition. We expect to successfully defend our right to make RealDVD available to consumers and consumers’ rights to use it.”

We’ll see, I guess. Clearly the silly little “RealDVD is for saving a DVD you own” disclaimer attached to the software isn’t going to cut it with Hollywood. I imagine we’ll be hearing from the Motion Picture Association of America before the day is out.

Dear Fellow Stockholder: Blah Blah Blah …

John Paczkowski — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 18:00:53 +0000

[ See post to watch video ]

Amazon Announces Video Service You May Actually Want to Use

John Paczkowski — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 15:05:37 +0000

About the best thing to be said about Amazon Unbox, the mediocre, odiously restrictive, video download service the retailer launched last year, is that it was … er … Windows-only, I guess. Which, obviously isn’t saying much. Amazon (AMZN), of course, knows this better than anyone. Which is why the company is enhancing Unbox with a new video store that its customers may actually want to use. Called Amazon Video on Demand, the store streams movies and television programs just like a cable video-on-demand service. “For the first time, this is drop-dead simple,” Bill Carr, Amazon’s vice president for digital media told The New York Times (NYT). “Our goal is to create an immersive experience where people can’t help but get caught up in how exciting it is to simply watch a movie right from Amazon.com with a click of the button.”

Ah, one-click cinema. Seems that Amazon’s finally realized that there simply aren’t enough media junkies to support the download model it embraced with Unbox. “The people who pay to download video are extreme media-philes,” Forrester (FORR) analyst James McQuivey told Variety last year. “They are not the tip of an iceberg. They may grow their own spending, but there aren’t many people like that left. In the video space, iTunes (AAPL) is just a temporary flash while consumers wait for better ways to get video. They’re already coming.”

New From Google: Google Undersea Data Cable

John Paczkowski — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 19:00:36 +0000

[ See post to watch video ]

ABC Announces "Must Flee TV"

John Paczkowski — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 22:42:19 +0000

I’m not so sure that the whole issue really is one of commercial avoidance. It really is a matter of convenience–so you don’t miss your favorite show. And quite frankly, we’re just training a new generation of viewers to skip commercials because they can. I’m not sure that the driving reason to get a DVR in the first place is just to skip commercials. I don’t fundamentally believe that. People can understand in order to have convenience and on-demand [options], that you can’t skip commercials.”

–ABC President of Advertising Sales Mike Shaw, July 2006

Leave it to ABC to devise a service that offers all the convenience of video-on-demand with all the annoyance and vapidity of broadcast TV in one joyless package. This morning the network and its affiliates announced fast-forward-disabled video on demand, which prevents viewers from bypassing commercials.

Designed to combat the now nearly ubiquitous DVR, the service offers viewers the chance to watch ABC shows like “Lost” and “Desperate Housewives” for free, at any time they choose, as long as they’re willing to suffer through the advertisements that accompany them. And just to make sure that they do, participating affiliates will disable their video-on-demand services’ fast-forwarding capability. “This does counter the DVR,” Anne Sweeney, the president of the Disney-ABC television group (DIS), told the New York Times. “You don’t need TiVo if you have fast-forward-disabled video on demand. It gives you the same opportunity to catch up to your favorite shows.”

And your not-so-favorite commercials. Which would seem to make it about as uncompelling a proposition as … well, as over-the-air broadcast TV. But ABC, which has been testing the service with Cox Communications in Orange County, Calif., insists it’s got an audience. The company says 93% of users it surveyed said they would be willing to give up the fast-forwarding option and watch the commercials if they were given VOD programming for free.

So perhaps the 30-second TV ad has a few more years left in it still. But only a few. According to a study by the Association of National Advertisers and Forrester Research, 62% of marketers believe TV advertising has become less effective in the past few years. And 87% said they plan to increase their online ad spending this year, while many said they will cut their TV ad buys substantially when DVR penetration tops 50%.

ABC Announces "Must Flee TV"

John Paczkowski — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 22:42:19 +0000

I’m not so sure that the whole issue really is one of commercial avoidance. It really is a matter of convenience–so you don’t miss your favorite show. And quite frankly, we’re just training a new generation of viewers to skip commercials because they can. I’m not sure that the driving reason to get a DVR in the first place is just to skip commercials. I don’t fundamentally believe that. People can understand in order to have convenience and on-demand [options], that you can’t skip commercials.”

–ABC President of Advertising Sales Mike Shaw, July 2006

CES: Comast CEO Announces 4 MegaBatman-Per-Minute Internet

John Paczkowski — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 21:58:45 +0000

“Comcast 3.0.” That was the subject of Comcast CEO Brian Roberts keynote address at the Consumer Electronics Show today. And what is “Comcast 3.0?” Well, like Web 2.0 and 3.0, it’s a marketing term–in Comcast’s case, one for its transformation from “broadband” provider to a “wideband” provider.

In 2008, said Roberts, Comcast will begin upgrading its network to offer significantly faster download speeds. “Wideband takes four channels and bonds them together and will enable speeds to go up from 12 to 16 megabits a second to over 100 megabits a second,” he explained. The technology will be rolled out to “millions” by the end of this year, with more to come–”if it’s as popular as we expect,” he added.

And it undoubtedly will be. At speeds like that, Roberts noted, you could download an HD copy of “Batman Begins” in about four minutes. “Superfast movie downloads are only the beginning,” Roberts said. “This will open a whole new world of Web-based innovation.”

A few other points worth noting:

Roberts also announced “Project Infinity,” an effort to exponentially expand its video-on-demand programming. “Comcast will put 1,000 HD choices in every Comcast HD home by the end of the year,” Roberts said. “What satellite says they’ll offer pales in comparison.”
Comcast is now the country’s fourth largest residential phone provider.
Finally, he pitched Fancast.com, a new online-entertainment portal that gathers film, TV and videos scattered across the Internet in one place. “It’s the content-hungry consumer’s dream,” Roberts said. “With user-generated content, there’s the possibility of millions of choices. You’ll never want to get off the couch.”

Burst Case Scenarios

John Paczkowski — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 09:31:11 +0000

Burst has added another notch to its patent-infringement settlement belt. The scrappy three-man company, which once beat a $60 million settlement out of Microsoft over charges that the software giant had stolen its streaming media technology, has managed to squeeze a few million out of Apple as well.

Bringing an end to an often contentious legal battle that began about two years ago, Apple on Wednesday agreed to pay Burst.com $10 million to settle charges that it illegally incorporated the company’s audio and video-on-demand media delivery solutions into the iTunes ecosystem. In return, Burst agreed to grant Apple a nonexclusive license to its patent portfolio–with certain eyebrow-raising exceptions and caveats. The settlement specifically excludes from Apple’s license one issued and three pending Burst patents on digital video-recorder technology. But it also precludes Burst from suing Apple for any future infringement of the those patents. Now that’s an odd twist, isn’t it? Especially since a patent license is often little more than a covenant not to sue the licensee.

Why promise not to sue for infringement, but refuse to license? Why accept a settlement of just $10 million ($4.6 million after court and attorney fees), when a damages award might have been many, many times greater? And why announce the settlement of a bitter legal battle on the eve of the Thanksgiving holiday when so few people will pay attention to the news? Why do all that, unless there’s something more here? An acquisition in the works, perhaps. Or something else entirely.

My DVD Business! It's Melting, Melting … Melting

John Paczkowski — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 16:06:24 +0000

Time was, when a movie bombed at the box office, Hollywood studios could always slap it onto a DVD, ship it off to retail outlets and make some or all of their money back.

No longer. The salad days when you could rush dross like “Police Academy: Mission to Moscow” and “From Justin to Kelly” out of empty theaters, onto digital media and into the living rooms of those willing to actually sit through them are over. Total DVD sales are down 7% so far this year. Which is a far cry from the double-digit growth the industry enjoyed just two years ago. High-definition DVDs were supposed to offset this decline, but the silly format war between the HD DVD and Blu-ray supporters has curbed adoption of the next-generation format. Worse, according to analysts, the sparring between the two camps is likely to continue for another 18 months. Which means sales of high-definition discs likely won’t be substantial enough to improve studio revenue this year or next.

So what’s the movie industry to do? Put more emphasis on video on demand and explore digital downloads? Tough call. “While the music and television industries are likely to benefit from an increased array of opportunities in digital distribution, it is not clear to us how the movie industry benefits,” Pali Research analysts Richard Greenfield and Mark Smaldon wrote in a 2006 report. “We believe the inherent value of what a movie is implies that most consumers will want to view most movies in a high-quality experience … the more we think about the movie industry, we keep thinking, what is the benefit from digital? Cheaper distribution and no physical inventory? That sounds great at first, but if the product has to be sold at a discount (comparable to the lower cost to create/distribute) because it is inferior to physical DVDs (in picture quality and usage restrictions/DRM), how does it help the studio business?”

Hey, you guys are the analysts … Anyway, bottom line is this: Film industry screwed for time being. Said Greenfield and Smaldon: “Keep an eye on 2007 film industry profits. We suspect the risk to expectations is increasingly to the downside, with downside risk growing into 2008 unless there is a notable acceleration in next-gen DVD sales and/or a more attractive business model emerges for digital movie distribution.”

My DVD Business! It's Melting, Melting … Melting

John Paczkowski — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 16:06:24 +0000

Time was, when a movie bombed at the box office, Hollywood studios could always slap it onto a DVD, ship it off to retail outlets and make some or all of their money back.

Next Blockbuster Initiative: Renting Copies of Netflix Business Plan

John Paczkowski — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 18:00:58 +0000

[ See post to watch video ]

Movielink Tapped to Star in Blockbuster Remake of Netflix Business Plan

John Paczkowski — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 12:35:51 +0000

From top to bottom, Blockbuster is deliberately and willfully infringing on our patented methods. Netflix invented a 100 percent better mousetrap that Blockbuster copied.
- Netflix spokesperson Steve Swasey, April 5, 2006

Apparently, Blockbuster isn’t as hopelessly tethered to its VHS rental-business past as you might think. Yesterday, the video-rental retailer acquired studio-owned movie download service Movielink and with it a potentially significant foothold in the video-on-demand market. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but early this year when rumors of an acquisition first began to circulate, analysts had estimated that Blockbuster might pay as much as $50 million.

Founded in 2002, Movielink is backed by Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Universal Studios and Warner Bros. Studios. But while its impressive catalog makes it one of the Web’s largest digital-movie libraries, the service hasn’t caught on because of its strict digital-rights management software and prices (roughly the same as a typical DVD). Still, it’s likely a good acquisition for Blockbuster, whose market value has declined to just over $800 million from $8.4 billion, largely because of its failure to buy Netflix when it had the chance.

Blockbuster chair and CEO Jim Keyes called the deal the next “logical” step in the company’s transformation. Presumably, that means the next phase in Blockbuster’s re-creation of the Netflix business model, which the video-rental chain has been diligently following for the past few years. Netflix, of course, is spending some $40 million this year on its own VOD service, which is already up and running.