Amazon want in on subscription tv

Amazon, famous for book sales more than anything else are looking to enter the subscription tv and movie market according to reports. Reported in the Wall Street Journal, the service which would give Amazon customers unlimited streaming of television shows and movies across the internet, is seen as a direct attack on the Netflix and Hulu Plus services.

After seeing the rapid growth of Netflix and Hulu’s new subscription service and Apple preparing to get serious about online streaming, Amazon want in on the emerging online tv market.

Amazon do have an existing video-on-demand service based on a pay-per-view basis. However, the proposed subscription deal will give viewers unlimited access to streaming for a fixed monthly price. It is believed that the service would be available on pc and a range of other devices such as the internet connected tv, smartphones and games consoles.

It is said that Amazon have been in talks with media companies including Time Warner, CBS, NBC and Viacom although results of the talks are still unclear. It is thought that like the Netflix streaming service, the majority of TV shows and movies would be aged, as the tv companies are wary of devaluing their content. The existing pay-per-view Amazon streaming service supplies a variety TV shows and movies for around $1.99 each.

How Amazon would charge for the service is unclear, although reports say they may bundle the service with its existing $79 per year Amazon Prime service, giving an instant large subscriber base. Prime gives members free 2-day shipping on Amazon products.

The deal would be a good fit as Amazon are a massive retailer with a household name. They have existing relationships with many media companies. They have an existing streaming set-up and from the side of the tv and movie companies. They are seriously looking at striking online deals as a way to increase revenue and reduce piracy.

Project Canvas is coming

The local TV group Six TV, will formally this week request an Ofcom investigation of the Project Canvas online venture, stating that its likley to be a “poison pill” for the regional broadcasters.

Virgin Media has already complained to Ofcom, which sees Project Canvas as an anti competitive cartel that will crush the nascent online TV market. Later this year Ofcom is expected to make a decision on whether to scrutinise Project Canvas, the joint venture that also includes TalkTalk, BT, Arqiva, Channel 4 and ITV. Orange and Channel 5 are also looking to get involved.

But Six TV the largest holder of local TV licences in the UK – has warned that new entrants will be kept out of the broadcasting market if Canvas is allowed to go ahead. Given clearance by the BBC Trust earlier this year, Canvas will add online functionality to the current free to air Freeview digital terrestrial TV service.

After trying to get its local TV channels on the Freeview platform, Six TV fears Project Canvas will present the traditional broadcasters with a way of ensuring their dominance of the new era of digital TV.

The Chief executive of Six TV Daniel Cass, which owns licences to broadcast digital channels in Oxford, Reading and Southampton, said: “Far from a panacea, we regard Project Canvas as a poison pill which will have a negative effect on opportunities for important new television services to enter the market.”

Six TV, he said, “has already been forced to delay plans to launch its channels on Freeview because it was allotted a channel in the 200s on the service’s current electronic programming guide EPG.” He said his core audience may be unable to find its channels because they would first have to scroll through Freeview’s children’s, interactive and adult services.

“We are calling upon Ofcom to launch a full investigation of the actions of the joint venture partners in Canvas as we do not believe local TV will be viable in the UK otherwise,” he said.

Not content with just contacting Ofcom, Six TV will also submit its complaint regarding Project Canvas to the Office of Fair Trading who approved the project.

Keeping Project Canvas in its current form would be “catastrophic for small-scale services seeking to promote democratic participation and civil society.” Six TV also says it wants to lobby communications minister Ed Vaizey, whose Wantage & Didcot constituency would fall within reach of its Oxford service if it became operational.

Rent movies from Youtube

Youtube have in the past been experimenting in pay-per-view services in a small way, but now it appears they are ready to get serious. Owner,  Google are said to be in discussions with film studios to offer streaming movies a’la Netflix.

Irish contestant Mary Byrne, who was regarded as one of the stars of the X Factor’s audition stage in last weekend’s show, has already won a TV singing competition in the past, it has been revealed.

The Irish singer had wowed the audience and judges with her powerful performance of the Tom Jones Hit I (Who Have Nothing) during the audition show on Saturday. The singer had told the judges in Dublin – Simon Cowell, Louis Walsh, Cheryl Cole and guest judge Katy Perry – that she had lost confidence in her singing ability during the last few years, and only recently got the nerve to perform back again, but it was not said that she had been a talent show winner in the past. It has now been reported that Mary won an Irish TV singing contest, Nollaig No.1.

The producer of Nolliag No.1 said: “She was very nervous when she appeared on our show. She really lacked confidence in her ability. If nothing else, winning the contest gave her belief in herself. She’s had a tough life and I hope she goes far. I think she will do really well if she goes to the live shows”.

Supermarket cashier Mary made it through to the Boot Camp stage of The X Factor, after receiving high praise from the judges. Cowell told the 50-year-old that she had “the best voice out of everyone who has auditioned today”.

It is highly unlikely that she will be disqualified over these revelations (as well as the stance that the new American version will take on these cases when it begins), as even former professionals, including former boyband member Daniel Pearce last year, have been allowed to enter the show, but the news will certainly impact any potential ‘rags-to-riches’ story as seen with former Britain’s Got Talent star Susan Boyle, and could even be a dent to her chances of winning now that the judges and public know of her past success.

Reports indicate that Blockbuster is preparing to file for bankruptcy within the next month, following many reports of their expected downfall. In an amazing turnaround from the glory days when Blockbuster bulldozed all competing video rental businesses, they are now being driven out by the new Internet movie streaming technology used by rivals Netflix and Redbox as Blockbuster failed to embrace the online streaming market.

Are Blockbuster restructuring or going down?

The LA Times report says that Blockbuster would be closing around 500 to 800 stores across the US as it hopes to restructure its debt and stay afloat after making a loss of more than $1 billion since fiscal year 2008. The writing has been on the wall for the last couple of years that it might need bankruptcy court protection as the company try to fight back from dwindling cash reserves and a business being attacked by fierce competition and its own store closings.

Blockbuster executives have held rushed meetings with six of the largest Hollywood film studios to discuss the crisis, as ongoing support from them is vital in any successful bankruptcy exit as Blockbuster must continue to receive new releases as well as exclusive titles to stay competitive, relevant and in business.

The plan for the bankruptcy would keep Blockbuster paying the majority of creditors and the movie studios, but could help them get out of store rentals at underperforming locations. The film studios would want to keep Blockbuster alive as the more competition in the market for their movies and DVDs equals higher licensing fees.

The Threat from Online Streaming

Experts are agreed that Blockbusters downfall was caused by online video streaming and mail order video rental such as the model operated by Netflix. After it became apparent that mail order and online streaming were here to stay, Blockbuster’s competing Internet and mail services never really got going even though Blockbuster did start a streaming service. Many thought the service was too little and too late.

A further issue is that many experts think that the DVD by mail format may be dead soon as streaming takes over. To that end, Netflix recently signed a new five-year deal to stream movies online from major film studios, MGM, Lionsgate and Paramount.

The big difference between Netflix (who made a 115 million profit in 2009) and Blockbuster is that Netflix has no store leases and staff to pay for. As Netflix run from an online store, overheads are low and stock levels always plentiful. Paul Dergarabedian, an analyst at Hollywood.com said:- “What happened is that Netflix and others have simply built a better mousetrap. In the same way that iTunes and file-sharing have killed the major record chains, technology is changing everything for movie rentals.”

And if Netflix were not taken enough customers, Blockbuster also has Redbox to compete with who use low cost ($1 per night) self-serve kiosk video rentals to achieve amazing growth. And of course the online streaming services such as Hulu, Youtube and iTunes with there planned $1 video rentals.

It seems that Blockbuster are in the last chance saloon just now and the decisions made next will make or break the once major player in DVD rentals.

The future of Internet-enabled TV is set to be influenced by Silicon Valley and they will help shape the future of TV in pretty much the same way as it came to influence the latest crop of smartphones.

As phones became much more sophisticated and added computer like capabilities, the industry strayed into the area of expertise of Valley companies. Apple developed the iPhone, Palm introduced the Pre and Google has pushed out its very successful Android operating system.

Televisions and set-top boxes are now adding similar features with powerful processors, fast video chips and more sophisticated operating systems and interfaces.

The silicon content of TVs has grown quite dramatically since the switch from analogue TVs with cathode ray tubes to flat LCD panels serving digital content.

Many are now backlit by LEDs, lighting which is made of and driven by silicon chips.

The iSuppli research firm sees internet-enabled televisions giving a major boost to silicon chipmakers, with networking semiconductors, TV systems on a chip (SoCs) and more memory needed.

It predicts a compound annual growth rate for video decoding chips, DRAM memory chips and Wi-Fi integrated circuits in internet TVs of more than 55 per cent, creating a $2bn market by 2014.

The central and graphics processors (CPUs and GPUs) of Valley companies Intel and Nvidia are likely to be used extensively to deliver video and web services.

Intel said in a meeting in May: “It was struggling to cope with demand for its latest Atom chip. It was faced with an order backlog of more than 1m units, and customers including France Telecom and Telecom Italia waiting to put the chip in their set-top boxes.”

Paul Otellini, chief executive, said then that “the biggest revolution since television went from black and white to colour was about to take place.”

Eric Kim, who was then head of its Digital Home group added: “We’re seeing the beginning of explosive growth… right now, we’re gearing up for a massive retail launch of [connected devices] this year.”

Intel is aiming its chips at the 300m TVs, 200m set top boxes and 100m Bluray players it expects to be sold a year by 2014.

However, technology companies have failed to make an impression on the TV market in the past – Intel’s own Viiv platform for media PCs in the digital living room, introduced in 2006, never made an impact.

“Before Viiv there was Microsoft’s Web TV, tech companies have all tried to develop ways to distract us from our TVs with multiple applications like email and none of them have really worked out, so I do wonder,” says Kurt Scherf, principal analyst at research firm Parks Associates.

Intel began to address the TV market seriously two years ago with its Atom 3100 processor and a partnership with Yahoo, which introduced internet widgets to the TV screen offering weather forecasts, stock quotes and social networking updates.

Now, with their more powerful 4100 processor it has moved its focus to Google TV as providing an operating system platform to drive widespread adoption of internet TV.

“Multiple manufacturers can adopt it and the requirements of supporting one-off designs reduces significantly for us,” says Wilfred Martis, general manager of retail consumer electronics at Intel.

“Manufacturers can add their own user experience on top of Google TV if they want, just like what’s happening in smartphones with Android.”

While Intel views internet TV as a major new growth market for its chips, Google sees it for its advertising potential as it brings search to the TV set through its Android operating system and Chrome browser.

At the launch of Google TV, Rishi Chandra, a senior product manager, said key metrics for the internet company Americans spend five hours a day on average in front of the TV, $70bn a year are spent on TV advertising in the US alone, while worldwide there are 4bn TV users.

Those are huge numbers even for a company thats built on big numbers. Googles earnings potential and the threat to the traditional advertising industry are very clear.

Netflix bring the big screen to the little screen

Netflix has released an application for the iPhone and iPod which allows you to stream TV Shows and Movies to your portable device.

The official Netflix Blog Says: “Jamie Odell, director of product management, here. We hinted at a free Netflix App for the iPhone and iPod touch in April, announced it in June and I’m happy to share that it is available now!”

The Netflix Blog Continues: “If you want to instantly watch TV episodes and movies on your iPhone or iPod touch, all you need to do is get the free Netflix App from the App Store at http://iTunes.com/apps/netflix and have a Netflix membership starting at $8.99 a month. What’s the first thing you’ll watch via your iPhone or iPod touch.”

The good points going for this application are:

1. Seamless playback across multiple devices: You can start watching a movie or television show on your computer or another device that streams Netflix and at whatever point you stop what you are watching, you can resume where you left off on the iPhone application.
2. Playback available on WIFI or 3G: You can watch media from Netflix using AT&T’s 3G connection or a WIFI connection.
3. Modify your Netflix Queue: You can add movies to your Netflix Instant Queue from the iPhone app.

The biggest drawback unfortunately is the actual playback of the media from Netflix. Playback was very choppy for me. I tested this on an iPhone 3G, 3GS, and 4G. I tried playing a few different TV shows and movies using AT&Ts 3G connection and 2 different WIFI networks and had problems with the media wanting to loop back a few seconds a few times each time.

Hulu’s Hulu Plus is a service that streams television shows for $10 a month to various devices including the iPhone. Playback on the Hulu application has been flawless.

While the Hulu selection of movies is not that great compared to Netflix, if you are mostly interested in watching television shows on your iPhone, then the Hulu app is a good choice over the Netflix app.

Hulu Plus is currently only available by invite, but you can request an invitation from Hulu.

Its an exciting week for 3DTV loving and glasses hating viewers. After Toshiba were rumored to be launching a revolutionary 3DTV set that does not require glasses, Sony are getting in on the act too.

3D doesnt have to be this way

The news puts Sony and Toshiba in direct competition to see who can create the first big screen 3D with no headgear required model. Glasses free 3DTV requires the users head movements to be monitored and it is thought the process will be based on technology known as autosterescopic 3D. However, there are many cost and technological hurdles to overcome before the new models can go to market.

Current 3D TV sets available currently require glasses and are becoming a common feature in living rooms around the world. This depends on customers buying into the new technology of course. Of the 15 million LCD televisions that Sony expects to sell this year, they expect 2.5 million of those will be 3D enabled.

But there are already screens that don’t require glasses, mainly intended for store displays. They require the viewer to stand in specific spots for the 3D effect to emerge, and the image quality isless  than that of screens using glasses.

Sony Vice President Yoshihisa Ishida states the obvious; “Seeing 3D without glasses is more convenient” he declared, before adding pricing concerns made a release date uncertain.

It may however  be a good idea to get the market actually wanting the 3D, before trying to improve on the concept.