In Variety today: TiVo comes to the PC

Here's a short piece of mine from Variety this morning: TiVo functionality is coming to the PC, for $199.

The Nero LiquidTV/TiVo PC is a $199 package of hardware and software that will enable a PC user to watch cable, satellite, or digital broadcast content, pause it while it’s playing, or record it for later viewing.

"This is the TiVo experience without the need for a set-top box," said Richard Carriere, president of Nero AG Americas. "This is acknowledging the fact that mainstream consumers are ready to enjoy their media in a very fluid manner — any time, on any device."

I do note, though, that watching live TV on PCs, while it has been possible for a while, hasn't yet taken off with the mainstream.

Amazon's New Video on Demand Service: A Shift From Downloads to Streams?

Today's big news is that Amazon.com is planning to offer its library of film and TV shows in streaming form, according to the New York Times, transforming Amazon Unbox into Amazon Video on Demand. Brad Stone explains:

The video store will be accessible through the Sony Bravia Internet Video link, a $300 tower-shaped device that funnels Web video directly to Sony’s high-definition televisions. That is an awkward extra expense, for now. But future Bravias are expected to have this capability embedded in the television, making it even easier to gain access to the full catalog of past and present TV shows and movies, over the Internet, using a television remote control.

And Amazon is also eager to do deals with other set-top box makers.

But the new streaming service is still being tested, and it won't actually launch until later this summer.... for now, all you can do is sign up to be notified about it.

Two questions I've got:

1. Will Amazon still offer downloads? Downloads are kinda nice when you're away from connectivity (like on a plane or train or car trip), and also for transferring to a handheld device (though Amazon Unbox only works with a few Windows-compatible portable video players, and not the iPod).

2. Will Amazon still deliver movies (either in streaming or downloadable form) to TiVos? A lot more people have those than the Sony Bravia Internet Video link.

Here's the NewTeeVee post on the news, and another from Hot Hardware.

TiVo/Disney: The Clock Starts Ticking ... NOW

Renting movies and watching them within 24 hours is great for people who:

- Never fall asleep during a movie
- Don't have children
- Don't receive phone calls that interrupt a movie
- Don't ever remember that there's a live broadcast (like a sporting event) that they'd rather be watching, mid-way through a movie

But a new partnership between TiVo and Disney dictates that, while you can now rent some Disney movies and have them delivered directly to your TiVo, you must watch them within 24 hours. If you start at 8 PM, they vanish by 8 PM the next night. Here's the Variety coverage.

YouTube Hearts TiVo ... Video Overload on the Net ... ShoWest Report ... And More

- YouTube and TiVo have gotten together to deliver YouTube videos to about 800,000 TiVo users who have the right box and the necessary broadband connection. TiVo has never shared any stats on how many of their users are getting content from the Internet this way (and likely won't, anytime soon). TiVo did an earlier deal with Brightcove; the new YouTube link won't be active until later this year, says the Wall Street Journal.

- Could video kill the Internet star? Here's a NY Times piece worth reading. Steve Lohr writes:

Moving images, far more than words or sounds, are hefty rivers of digital bits as they traverse the Internet’s pipes and gateways, requiring, in industry parlance, more bandwidth. Last year, by one estimate, the video site YouTube, owned by Google, consumed as much bandwidth as the entire Internet did in 2000.

- The LA Times offers a good overview piece of what has been happening at the ShoWest convention in Vegas this week... mostly excitement about digital 3D. Jeffrey Katzenberg was there plugging 'Monsters vs. Aliens,' the spring 20009 DreamWorks Animation release, and its first in 3D. Katzenberg says the extra cost is about $15 million; he hopes there will be 3000 to 5000 screens capable of showing 3D by the time it is released.

- Imax and Texas Instruments have apparently done a deal to use TI's DLP (digital light processing) chips in a new kind of projection system being designed by Imax. (It's not clear yet who will actually make the projectors.) The Hollywood Reporter writes:

Imax...has since its inception 40 years ago used 70mm film to distribute and exhibit movies. By converting to digital, it will dramatically change its business model as digital distribution removes print costs -- about $22,000 for a 2-D print and $45,000 for a 3-D print -- from the equation.

Imax's move to TI is a blow to Sony because Imax had been developing a digital system that employed two Sony 4K projectors and proprietary technology.

- I've been having a good time using Hulu in the beta test period. It helped introduce me to 'Arrested Development,' and I actually didn't mind going out to rent the DVDs of episodes that weren't available on the Hulu site. I also deepened my knowledge (and enjoyment) of '30 Rock,' a show I catch on TV only occasionally. I didn't mind the commercials; the one thing that occasionally bugged me was the fact that you can't store video on your laptop for later viewing (IE, put a show on pause, wait for the whole thing to stream, and then start playing). That makes Hulu tough to use with spotty Internet connections, or if you want to store a show while you're sitting in the airport and then watch it on the plane. (I tried.)

But on the whole, Hulu does a lot right... including allowing you to embed the videos anywhere.

Dan Carew, a blogger in Hong Kong, has a very different opinion, since users outside the US are barred from Hulu (likely because of NBC and Fox's distribution contracts in foreign territories.)

Here's the NY Times story on Hulu's launch.

For Thursday: Set-Top Box Reviews, Upconverting DVDs, and Player-Developed Games

- NY Times columnist David Pogue evaluates four leading Internet-connected set-top boxes, and gives the $300 Vudu the highest overall grade. (Others included in his survey include Xbox 360, Apple TV, and TiVo.) Pogue also makes some good points about the limitations imposed on all of the boxes by studios:

...[N]o matter which movie-download service you choose, you’ll find yourself facing the same confusing, ridiculous time limits for viewing. You have to start watching the movie you’ve rented within 30 days, and once you start, you have to finish it within 24 hours.

...What would the studios lose by offering a 27-hour rental period? Or three days, or even a week? Nothing. In fact, they’d attract millions more customers. (At the very least, instead of just deleting itself, the movie should say: “Would you like another 24-hour period for an additional $1?”)

Then there’s the fact that to protect their cash cows, most studios don’t release their movies on the Internet until a month after they’ve been available on DVD.

- NY Times reporter Saul Hansell talks to an electronics retailer who says that until the cost of Blu-ray players drops below $200 or $150, most consumers will still be happy buying standard-def DVD players that upconvert, producing a very nice looking picture from a garden-variety DVD.

- This feels important, somehow: Microsoft allowing players to develop their own videogames and share them with others via Xbox. A vidgame twist on YouTube?

Tuesday Links: Blockbuster's New CEO ... Grouper Becomes Crackle ... DVD Still On Top ... 'Simpsons' ... Digital Cinema ... YouTube Ads ... And More

Catching up here: Some news from the weekend, and Monday:

- The NY Times writes about how Blockbuster's new CEO will compete with Netflix, video-on-demand, and the TiVo/Unbox combination. From the piece:

“The opportunity for Blockbuster is to provide true total access whether in the form of physical stores or mail delivery or digital distribution,” [James] Keyes said. “The goal for Blockbuster would be to be the preferred provider in whatever venue is preferred by the customer.”

- Grouper, the Sony-owned vid-sharing site, is now Crackle. And they're now paying video-makers. Not just any videomaker. But chosen videomakers. This is very similar to what AtomFilms has been doing for a few years now. From the NY Times story:

Other sites have tried this approach. Revver, for example, promised to share advertising revenue with video producers, but foundered. Sony will instead offer upfront cash payments to some producers. These will range from a few thousand dollars to well over $10,000 a segment, Mr. Feltzer said. That is somewhat more than some other sites, like Heavy.com, that have been paying for video segments.

Sony has created a unit called Crackle Studios, with 15 employees, that will produce its own segments for the site. One example is Judgment Day, a reality show in which a person judges other people, then interviews them to find out if their first impressions were correct.

Crackle will also invite submissions from users, and all of them will be posted unless they violate the site’s terms of service. But since the user videos are meant to be added to Crackle’s existing channels, Mr. Feltzer said he hoped they would be in the spirit of the site.

People who submit unsolicited videos will not be paid, but they can try to submit ideas to get financing from Crackle for future projects.

- DVDs are still the top cash-producer for the movie industry: a record $23 billion in sales and rentals in 2006, according to the Entertainment Merchants Association. (Box office was $9.5 billion.)

- Fox isn't doing advance screenings of 'The Simpsons' movie for critics, according to the LA Times. The studio says that it isn't because the movie is bad (the traditional reason for withholding movies from reviewers), but rather to thwart Internet scoops and spoilers.

- The Economist has a short overview piece on digital cinema, circa July 2007.

- The Age in Australia writes about the Portable Film Festival, taking place in August.

- Matt Dentler tells us what Harry Knowles DVD wedding invitation was like.

- If you're in the Boston area, this screening of 'Willie Wonka' (the 1971 original) in Smell-O-Vision (or at least an approximation of it) looks like fun.

- Anne Thompson has a brilliant piece in Variety about the evolving relationship between celebs and their fans. A snippet:

The dynamic between celebrities and their audience is shifting. The critics and the media no longer have the last word. Thanks to evolving technology, moviemakers and stars have new weapons to not only promote their projects directly to moviegoers, but to fight back against what they perceive as misinformation. They are taking advantage of their Internet fanbases to promote their projects, skipping the marketing middlemen and interacting directly with the people who buy tickets. Fan sites offer them valuable feedback about what their audiences like and dislike. But they also offer an opportunity to set the record straight. And sometimes, change the world.

- Here's what the new video ad format on YouTube (or at least one of them) looks like:

Lotsa Tuesday Links: Mark Cuban + Video...Unbox + TiVo...Technicolor + Satellites...Warner + Total HD...Spielberg + EA...And More

- Mark Cuban has some hypotheses about the value of video. Number 5 is especially interesting, and one thing I've been focusing on in my presentations and panel discussions lately:

5. The greater the number of content alternatives at any given point in time, the more expensive it is for any given piece of content to acquire an incremental viewer. The cost may come in the form of investment into the production of the content, advertising, promotion or placement. It may come in the form of sweat equity from hustling to promote the content.

- TiVo users can now order Amazon Unbox movies directly from their television set, rather than from a Web-connected computer.

- Technicolor Digital Cinema says 'Transformers' is the first movie sent by satellite to theaters in the US and Europe.

- Warner's Total HD discs, which offer a movie in Blu-ray format on one side and HD DVD on the other, have been delayed until 2008. Is that the same thing as dead in the water?

- The Wall Street Journal reports on what Spielberg has been working on in his partnership with videogame developer Electronic Arts.

- A fun story about copyright squabbles on YouTube; in the case of Uri Geller, the site may actually have been too quick in removing a video from its library.

- The schedule for Comic-Con 2007.

Why Isn't TiVo/Unbox Taking Off?

I had lunch in San Francisco yesterday with Macrovision CEO Fred Amoroso and the company's chief evangelist, Richard Bullwinkle.

As is often the case with these lunches, the best discussion happens after the dishes have been cleared, after my lunch companions have gotten their marketing messages out, and after the coffee has arrived. I asked Richard, who used to be TiVo's chief evangelist, why the combination of TiVo and Amazon's Unbox didn't seem to be taking off.

Essentially, months before Apple started selling AppleTV, Amazon and TiVo got together to make it possible for users of Amazon's Unbox download service to have movies sent directly to their TiVo boxes. All you need is a TiVo Series 2 or 3 device, connected to your high-speed home network. Unlike AppleTV, you don't need to buy a new dedicated device to bring Internet content to the TV.

Problem #1, according to Richard, is that 20 percent or fewer of TiVo's users have connected their box to a broadband connection. That's strange, he said, because running the phone banks that TiVo boxes dial into to get program information and advertising is one of the company's biggest operating costs. Why isn't there an incentive that TiVo offers -- maybe a free wireless adapter, or one month of free service? -- to get people to conect their TiVos to a broadband network?

Second, while both companies are promoting the offering on their Web site, there hasn't been any high-profile promotion beyond that. Contrast that with Apple's hype and advertising around AppleTV.

Third (and this was my contribution to the coffee talk), you'd think the studios would want to work with -- and possibly co-promote -- Unbox, just so that Apple/iTunes doesn't wind up as the only game in town for movie downloading. They need multiple marketplaces, each with the ability to connect with the TV set.

Your take?

Three Worth Reading: Incompatible Movie Formats, TiVo's Web Smarts, and More Burton in 3-D

- Stephen Wildstrom of BusinessWeek writes about the many incompatible formats and viewing options for digital movies. He writes:

The problem is that the quickly growing stock of movies and shows available for download is scattered among an assortment of stores including Movielink, CinemaNow, Google Video (GOOG), and Amazon.com (AMZN) Unbox, as well as Apple's (AAPL) iTunes Store. And while there's a lot of overlap, there's also a significant amount of content exclusive to one or another service.

This has happened because the digital-download business isn't like any other sort of retailing. Any bookstore can order any book in print from its publisher. And once customers buy it, they can do whatever they wish with it. But download services must negotiate their rights studio by studio, sometimes title by title. And the deals cover not only which movies and TV shows are available but also what sort of video quality can be offered at what price, and, in excruciating detail, just what consumers can do with the video they have bought or rented.

Consider the rules covering movies purchased from Movielink, typically for $13.99 (different rules cover rentals). You can watch your movie as often as you want, but only on a Windows PC. Some films can be watched on up to three different PCs; others can't. You can make a backup copy to DVD, but you must copy it back to a PC to view it; you can't watch it on a standard DVD player.

- David Pogue of the NY Times appreciates TiVo's recent efforts to create a simple, useful connection to the world of Web video, including the ability to download movies from Amazon Unbox.

- Disney is converting one of Tim Burton's first animated shorts ('Vincent') into 3-D for this fall's release of 'The Nightmare Before Christmas 3-D,' according to The Hollywood Reporter. Carolyn Giardina writes:

Made in 1982, "Vincent" is a six-minute stop-motion film that tells the story of Vincent Malloy, a youth who imagines that he is like Vincent Price. The black-and-white short is based on a poem written by Burton, who was influenced by Price. Price narrated the film.

"When you have an evergreen title like 'Nightmare,' it is very important to give the fan a chance to sample something new," said Chuck Viane, president of Disney's Buena Vista Pictures Domestic Distribution. "Each year on bring backs, we are going to try to add some value."

From the NAB Futures Summit: Technologies to Watch

Arrived in Pebble Beach yesterday, where the National Association of Broadcasters holds its annual Futures Summit, a gathering that looks at some of the trends and technologies changing television and radio. I don’t play golf (aside from the miniature variety), but went for a nice afternoon bike ride along the 17-Mile Drive.

When I arrived in the conference room, Brian Cooley from CNET was giving a talk about the most important consumer electronics trends to watch, most of them media-related.

He observed that people in the 15-to-24 age group are listening to more MP3s than radio, and using more Internet than TV. Cell phone usage is growing, which magazine and newspaper readership is waning. These technologies are taking advantage of (and perhaps spurring) some of those shifts. Some rough notes:

- TV on Phones

Image quality improving, and more content is available. First service he mentions is VCast Mobile TV. CBS, Fox, NBC, Nickelodeon are all providing content – and importantly, none of the stations offered are local broadcasters.

He also talks about Apple’s iPhone – which won’t receive live TV broadcasts, but will enable video viewing from the iTunes Store – and notes some of the drawbacks: no 3G data connectivity, no memory expansion slot. Then, on to Modeo, which is building its own network and marketing a Windows Mobile smartphone that will take advantage of it. Modeo is currently in beta in the NYC area.

TiVo Mobile allows you to program your TiVo box from a BREW-capable cell phone, for $2 a month. But you can’t actually watch video.

- Internet on TVs

68 percent of adults are interested in watching Web based video on their TV, and 45 percent are interested in watching Web video on their PC, according to eMarketer. (This is among people ages 18-34.) “Online video is becoming HD,” Cooley says, observing that Apple TV will support 780p content. SlingCatcher, for under $200, will beam anything on the PC onto a TV, and also has HD support. He also mentions a device called the Miglia TVMax, which adds DVR capability to a Mac Mini, and also can export video in iPod format. It costs $200, and is apparently on sale now.

The HP MediaSmart TV can be linked to a wired or wireless network, but seems to only give access to a few providersm including CinemaNow. Sony’s Bravia Internet Video Link only works with new, 2007 Bravia TVs. It clips onto the TV, costs $300, and will be on sale in July. “My concern is that it limits where you can get content,” from services like AOL TV and Grouper.

The Netgear Digital Entertainer ($399) is for the true techies. It supports 1080p HD. If you have two of these, the content you’re watching can follow you from one TV to another. Offers access to YouTube, BitTorrent, and others.

- HD TV

“We’re starting to get people to understand it,” Cooley says. The typical HD TV people were buying last Christmas was a 42” LCD flat panel, with a price of $1327. The prices came down 30 percent in 2006, and that should continue. Biggest-selling brands: Philips, Samsung, Funai, Panasonic, and Sharp.

- High-Def DVD Battle

“We recommend people stay on the fence.” A CNET analyst thinks that by this September, HD DVD will capitulate. Blu-ray began outselling HD DVD just before Christmas – but the numbers are still small. He gets a laugh when he shows a chart of the number of titles available – about 250 for each format. “This isn’t in thousands, or millions,” he says. “It’s 250 titles.”

Warner Total HD Dual Disc – a disc with a Blu-ray file on one side and HD DVD on the other – will be available in June 2007. WB says that the price won’t be “materially higher” than either format.

Sony has introduced a Blu-ray player, the BDP-S300, for $600. A PlayStation 3 is still cheaper. Howard Stringer, Sony’s chairman, hinted that he though the market needs a $300 deck – which could mean Sony has one in the works.

- Internet in cars

Dash Express gives you traffic data, and lets you do local searches via Yahoo. It has two ways to get on the Net – WiFi and 3G cellular. Every unit reports how fast it’s going, and where it is – which is a way to collect traffic information from each user, to benefit the community. It’ll cost $600 to $800 a month, plus a monthly service fee.

AutoNet and WAAV, using a 3G cellular connection, turn the entire car into a WiFi hotspot. Opens up the possibility of streaming Internet radio, rather than listening to broadcast or satellite radio, or viewing streaming video. Avis is starting to offer AutoNet in some selected market, for about $11 a day.

Sirius has a $300 box that links in to a Sirius receiver in the car that may be out this spring, which delivers TV. Programming will be geared to kids.

- HD Radio vs. Sat Radio

Cooley answers a question I’ve had about the proposed Sirius-XM merger: a new radio will be required to access the merged Sirius-MX channel line-up, though current radios will still let you listen to the stations from whichever provider you initially signed up with. Cooley thinks the merger is necessary for satellite radio to provide.

- Death of the Disc?

This is the possibility that people don’t upgrade to either of the HD disc formats, and instead skip right to downloads. Cooley says that the predictions of $2 billion in online downloads of movies and TV shows by 2009 might actually be on the low side.

I think he’s on crack, though, when he says that Wal-Mart will be a big player in digital downloads. But he acknowledges that “iTunes is still the category leader.”

He characterizes Netflix’s “watch now” feature as a preview service – rather than a genuine movie-viewing service.