Sony Acquires Netblender, Expands Blu-ray Authoring Software Tools

Sony Creative Software, makers of the ever popular Sony Vegas Pro video editing and authoring software, have acquired Netblender, an up and coming developer in the same field. The amount paid by Sony has not been disclosed.

The deal gives Sony access to Netblender's BD Touch software which allows control of Blu- ray players and other set top boxes from iOS and Android devices.

Brad Reinke, Senior Vice President, Sony Creative Software said of the acquisition, "[This] will allow us to continue to deliver industry-standard tools that address these issues, as well as having the resources to offer new capabilities such as Blu-ray 3D and Custom BD-J within this new product line. We look forward to working with and supporting NetBlender's loyal customers who have come to rely on these solutions for their multimedia production needs."

Netblender themselves say over 2,000 retail Blu-ray Discs have been produced with their software and they operate in 31 countries around the world, John Harrington, CEO of NetBlender said, "The combination of NetBlender's innovative products and Sony's market leadership will be a powerful force for encouraging growth in the Blu-ray industry."

All in all a purchase that Sony hope will boost their Blu-ray authoring capability and also speed up the rate at which they can put out BDs to the market all over the world. If this purchase leads to more and faster BD catalogue releases then not only will Sony be happy, I think we, the consumers, will be too.

Source is
http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=7626

Redbox Raises DVD Prices: We’ve Seen This Movie Before

In a move that no doubt caused a lot of consternation after rival Netflix‘s experience doing the same, Redbox has decided to raise the price of its DVD rentals.

The increase, which goes into effect Oct. 31, is only from $1 per day to $1.20. Prices for Blu-ray rentals and game rentals will stay at $1.50 and $2, respectively. “This marks the first price increase for a Redbox standard-definition DVD rental in eight years,” Paul Davis, CEO of Coinstar said in a press release. Davis went on to blame increased operating expenses, including recent increases in debit card interchange fees. Redbox has posted more than $1 billion in sales so far this year. However, some of the money will likely go towards Redbox’s first national brand advertising campaign, according to Advertising Age. A Redbox rep, however, says plans for such a campaign have not been announced.

Though the price increase was slight, it was enough to send parent company Coinstar’s stock down 11% in after-hours trading. One likely reason is the recent memory of Netflix’s disastrous experience with a 60% price increase that went into effect in September and has contributed to the company’s fall from grace. At least one analyst believed the move had benefited Redbox, as consumers canceled their Netflix accounts and sought out Redbox as an alternative.

Source is
http://mashable.com/2011/10/27/redbox-raises-dvd-prices/

What Can We Expect From H.265?

H.265 is the next best thing after H.264 when it comes to video compression standards, or at least this is where it aims. It is a temporary name (and probably will end up as the final one) that will be given to multiple initiatives sometimes known as HECV or HVC.

Christian Timmerer has guest posted about HVC on our Video Over Enterprise blog some time ago, and the history and technology brief there is quite interesting so I suggest you head over there for a quick read before you continue here.

H.26x series of video codecs: complexity versus compression rates

What’s the idea behind H.265?

H.265 builds on decades of research and development invested in past standards such as H.261, H.263 and H.264. In a way, it brings with it nothing new or drastic – just a logical expansion of the existing techniques.

H.265 relies on the fact that processing power is increasing on our devices, and uses brute force (=more processing power) to achieve better compression.

The interesting thing about H.265, is that it doesn’t include any SVC capabilities. These will probably be added some time in the future. It will be interesting to see on what companies will place their bets –H.265 or SVC.

What can we expect from H.265? The current guestimates talk about a reduction of 50% in bitrate requirements for a given video quality and an increase of 3 times in the coding complexity compared to H.264.

What is the timeline?

In February 2012 a complete draft of the standard should be available. From this moment on the bickering changes – from trying to push technologies and patents into the standard into fleshing out the wording to gain a shared understanding of the meaning of it.

Completion of this process is expected by January 2013, where a final draft should be ready for ratification – an editorial and bureaucratic process before publication.

After that – tweaks, touches and additions. Same as in any other standard.

Where will this lead us to?

What would H.265 mean to the industry?

Will it replace H.264/AVC and kill the concept of H.265/SVC altogether?

What will it do to Google’s WebM video codec and its adoption?

What industries will adopt it if any?

These are all questions that I’ll try to deal with in some of my next posts. As I don’t have all the answers here, if you have an opinion – feel free to contact me about a guest post regarding these or other questions related to H.265.

Source is
http://blog.radvision.com/voipsurvivor/2011/06/30/what-can-we-expect-from-h-265/

GoPro launches the HD Hero2 camera

Announced earlier today, GoPro released details on the launch of the HD Hero2 digital video camera. This camera is the successor to the HD Hero, a 5-megapixel camera that shot 1080p HD video. The HD Hero2 has been bumped up to 11-megapixels and can also shoot at eight or five megapixels to save on memory space. GoPro claims that the camera has an image processor that’s twice as fast at the original HD Hero. They also claim that the lens produces images that are twice at sharp. The HD Hero2 can shoot in multiple fields-of-view (FOV) including 170 degrees for widescreen, 127 degrees for a normal shot and 90 degrees for a narrow shot. It also has the same FOV capabilities for shooting video.

go-pro-hero2-burst-modeThe company also claims that the HD Hero2 has professional level low light performance for those shooting at dusk. While the original HD Hero could only shoot three 5-megapixel shots per second, the HD Hero2 is capable of shooting ten 11-megapixel shots per second. In addition, there’s a new time-lapse setting that can record a 11-megapixel photo every 0.5 seconds. Other new additions to the new model include a mini-HDMI port for viewing photos or videos on a high definition television, a language based interface instead of the numeric interface, multiple LED lights on all sides of the camera and a 3.5mm stereo microphone input for plugging in an external microphone.

Similar to the previous model, the HD Hero2 is currently available in three different packages dependent on the usage. The packages include the Outdoor edition with a head / helmet straps for activities like mountain biking, the Motosports edition with suction cups / buckles and the Surf edition with surfboard mount. All packages are priced at $299.99 and comes with a 30-day return policy if the camera doesn’t perform well enough for the activity.



Source is
http://www.digitaltrends.com/photography/gopro-launches-the-hd-hero2-camera/

Meet Shelby, Your Personalized Channel For Web Video

There are plenty of videos on the Internet. YouTube users alone upload 8 years of video every day. What the web needs is a service that helps organize them.

Shelby.tv hopes to provide that service. The startup is launching a web video player Monday that collects content your friends share on your Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr into one stream.

Instead of watching video on a small square within a large YouTube page, which can be surrounded by less-than-tasteful comments from strangers, you watch it in full-screen mode and within the context of your friends’ recommendations. You can watch the stream consistently — like TV — without searching or clicking, or you can reorder and delete videos. If you like a video, you can save it to a personal favorites feed.

“I don’t watch TV unless a friend says, ‘You have to see this show,’” says cofounder Reece Pacheco. “We’re trying to bring the same strength as word of mouth to web video.”

The startup, a graduate of TechStars’ inaugural New York class, is also launching an iPhone and iPad app Monday. The app is similar to the browser version, but portable. Pacheco says that he, for instance, sometimes watches Shelby.tv on his iPad while he’s brushing his teeth.

Despite this habit, Pacheco says the goal of Shelby.tv is not to get people to watch more web video, but to help them more easily find relevant web video. Eventually, the company plans to add “smart video” features, recommendations based on friends’ favorites, email notifications that alert you when someone watches your video and feeds that reorder themselves based on your past behavior. The player already notes and removes duplicate videos.

Shelby.tv isn’t the only startup that has these goals. VHX is a similar social web video platform that, like Shelby.tv, has a bookmark that can be used to add video from all over the web. In addition to scoping out videos in social feeds, it has users follow each other directly on the platform in order to share videos. iPad app Plizy builds you a personalized video stream based on your behavior on Facebook and Twitter.

At this point, the most obvious difference between Shelby.tv and others who are attempting similar hands-free socially curated web video is the experience they’ve each created — a point that goes back to why the team decided to name their product “Shelby” in the first place. The name comes from a sports car called the “Shelby Cobra.”

“It’s fast, powerful, sexy, cool,” Pacheco says. “That’s us.”


Source is
http://mashable.com/2011/10/24/meet-shelby-your-personalized-channel-for-web-video/

Social media’s power to amplify TV programming

Social media platforms are providing TV networks with new screens to program to drive even greater engagement and advertiser benefit. MTV and VH1 were two of the first brands that locked arms with social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, and as a result, we’ve seen the tremendous additive value that social media can provide in turning casual viewers into passionate superfan ambassadors for our shows and brands.

Today’s audiences do not distinguish content as either pure digital or television. They’re living in a hyperconnected world in which they are watching TV while simultaneously interacting via their smartphones, tablet devices and laptops. We regard social media as another screen to program, and just like with television, quality content is key to social success. We have grown our social graph tremendously by staying committed to continually creating compelling multiplatform content that propels fan interaction and sharing.

We know that social media can amplify the proverbial “watercooler” chatter into a real-time global conversation. However, you can’t rely solely on social media to drive this message. You have to create the ecosystem for the conversation to take place. We’ve embraced this behavior and have created cross-platform second screen co-viewing experiences MTV’s WatchWith and VH1’s CoStar. These provide an additive and complementary experience to the primary television viewing for series as well as tent-pole events. Unlike outside developers and platforms, when it comes to our shows and tent-poles, we’re armed with the knowledge of what happens next. Having this advantage enables us to tailor and program content to viewers in tandem with the storyline unfolding on television. The goal here is to turn each episode into a can’t-miss event where our co-viewing experiences are facilitating the conversation and information exchange, while simultaneously delighting the audience.

With larger tent-pole events like MTV Video Music Awards or VH1 Divas, we’ve designed more robust, full cross-platform takeover experiences that provide fans with multiple points of entry. For example, with this year’s VMAs, we produced an entire lean-forward second screen co-viewing platform across web and mobile where fans can activate their own experience including selecting their own camera angle, such as a backstage or audience view, to being part of the conversation via our Twitter Tracker. Additional lean-forward activities at the VMAs this year included providing fans the tools to share video content across their social graph, send congratulatory tweets to winners, and view a live map of artists tweeting from their seats. This isn’t cheap and takes investment at every level. The payoff, however, was huge as the event ranked as the most tweeted-about award show of all time, as well as MTV’s most watched broadcast ever.

As early pioneers, we’ve accrued a myriad of best-practice learnings that we eagerly share with our partners in order to help them grow their own social graph. We have been leaders in creating partner awareness and engagement across all platforms in the form of premium ad products. We’re now exploring ways in which to create an ad experience that syncs up across multiple screens to create a whole new level of partner awareness and engagement.

Measuring the correlation between ratings and social buzz is clearly top-of-mind. We’re encouraged to see social activity drive traffic to new platforms, and pleased at the recent reports that social buzz drives ratings. While it’s not an exact science by any means, it is infinitely clear is that social buzz delivers awareness and builds brand affinity. In such a crowded marketplace, that in itself is exciting and worth the continued investment. In the end, regardless of the platforms you build, or partnerships you make, you have to ensure you are producing high quality content. This is the only way to ensure your audience will continue to discover, interact and share with your brand with their social graph.

Source is
http://gigaom.com/video/frank-on-social-media-in-tv-programming/

Five Android Giants Will Steal Apple iPhone 4S Thunder

Apple Inc. received an overwhelming response from all around the world for iPhone 4S. Apple iPhone 4S is expected to face competition from Android devices like Samsung Galaxy Nexus, Motorola Droid RAZR, HTC EVO Design 4G, Motorola Atrix 2 and Samsung Captivate Glide.

Apple Inc. took the wraps off the iPhone 4's sequel earlier this month. Pre-orders for the iPhone 4S started on Oct. 7 and has since registered 1 million units on the first day, surpassing the previous single-day record of 600,000 for the iPhone 4. Apple said it has sold 4 million units of the iPhone 4S during the opening weekend.

iPhone 4S comes in either black or white and features some important upgrades that were rumored to be a part of the imaginary iPhone 5. The main features that adorn iPhone 4S are: 1GHz dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 processor, PowerVR SGX543MP2 GPU, an Apple A5 chipset, an 8-megapixel LED-flash camera with 1080p HD video recording and a secondary VGA front-facing camera for video chat.

Apple's latest smartphone also has a 3.5-inch TFT Retina multi-touch display and is loaded with Apple's latest operating system, iOS 5. In addition, the phone comes with alternating antennae for better call reception, CDMA and GSM support, a personal assistant called Siri, iCloud and Bluetooth 4.0 wireless technology.

The smartphone is available in the U.S. for a suggested retail price of $199 for the 16GB model, $299 for the 32GB model and $399 for the new 64GB model.

Here is a list of the top smartphones which can give iPhone 4S a run for its money:

Samsung Galaxy Nexus

Samsung and Google Inc. introduced the Galaxy Nexus at an event in Hong Kong on Wednesday. The smartphone was scheduled to be launched last week, but was postponed as a tribute to the late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs.

The smartphone was also known as Samsung Google Nexus Prime, Samsung Google Galaxy Nexus I9250, Samsung Google Nexus 3, and Samsung Google Nexus 4G.

Loaded with a dual-core 1.2GHz Cortex-A9 CPU, TI OMAP 4460 chipset, Samsung's new device touts a 4.65-inch high-definition "super" AMOLED display with a pixel density of about 315 ppi. It also has a face recognition function to unlock the phone.

Galaxy Nexus, the first LTE-enabled smartphone to feature Ice Cream Sandwich, has 1 GB of RAM and 16 or 32 GB of internal memory, as per users' choice. It comes with a 5-megapixel rear-facing camera with 1080p video capture and a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera for video calls. The phone also features an accelerometer, compass, gyro sensor, light sensor, proximity sensor and barometer lurking in there as well.

The phone comes in 135.5 x 67.94 x 8.94 mm dimension and weighs 135 grams. The additional features include Bluetooth 3.0 version with A2DP, Wi-Fi 802.11a/b/g/n, HTML, 4G LTE, HSPA+ versions, NFC support, advanced noise cancellation with dedicated mic, MP4/H.264/H.263 player, MP3/WAV/eAAC+/AC3 player, Adobe Flash support, Voice memo/dial/commands, microUSB 2.0 version, A-GPS support and comes with Li-Ion 1750 mAh standard battery.

Avatar tops illegal download list

Netflix recently published a list of the ten most rented movies of all time and this got the people at the TorrentFreak web site thinking; what are the most downloaded movies on BitTorrent?

With an estimated 21 million downloads, Avatar is the most pirated movie of all time, followed by The Dark Knight and Transformers with about 19 million downloads each. Interestingly enough, none of the above films were present in Netflix’s list.

The BitTorrent and Netflix lists do show some overlap, as Inception and The Departed make an appearance in both.

Despite the massive piracy, the films below have not done too shabbily at the box-office. Avatar is the best grossing movie of all time and The Dark Knight is third, right before Star Trek, notes Torrent Freak.

Last April, Torrent Freak noticed that Netflix is “killing” BitTorrent in the US – with the number of Netflix subscribers going up, the number of illegal downloads is going down. “the only way to decrease piracy is to compete with it and offer products that are superior to its pirated counterpart.”

Top 10 illegal BitTorrent downloads

1. Avatar (2009) – 21 million – $2,782,275,172
2. The Dark Knight (2008) – 19 million – $1,001,921,825
3. Transformers (2007) – 19 million – $709,709,780
4. Inception (2010) – 18 million – $825,408,570
5. The Hangover (2009) – 17 million – $467,483,912
6. Star Trek (2008) – 16 million – $385,680,446
7. Kick-Ass (2010) – 15 million – $96,188,903
8. The Departed (2006) – 14 million – $289,847,354
9. The Incredible Hulk (2008) – 14 million – $263,427,551
10. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End (2007) – 14 million – $963,420,425

The list above is based on statistics is gathered from public BitTorrent trackers, dating back to early 2006. The figure after the title denotes the number of illegal downloads, the $ figure the estimated total world-wide box office earnings

Top 10 most rented movies on Netflix

1. The Blind Side (2009)
2. Crash (2004)
3. The Bucket List (2007)
4. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)
5. The Hurt Locker (2008)
6. The Departed (2006)
7. Sherlock Holmes (2009)
8. Inception (2010)
9. Iron Man (2008)
10. No Country for Old Men (2007)

The above list was published by Netflix at the end of September 2011

Source is
http://www.broadbandtvnews.com/2011/10/15/avatar-tops-illegal-download-list/

Ice Cream Sandwich supports WebM streaming, MKVs

Here’s a small nugget about Android 4.0, also known as Ice Cream Sandwich, that hasn’t gotten much play yet: The mobile OS now natively supports the playback of MKV files as well as streaming of Googe’s WebM video format (hat tip to Richard Lawler). The changes were announced through an updated list of supported media formats on the Android developer website.

MKV is an open container format for video files that has become particularly popular with people who download HD movies or TV shows from the Internet. However, don’t expect your Ice Cream Sandwich handset to natively play all your BitTorrent downloads; the MKV support in Android 4.0 is restricted to MKV files that use Google’s VP8 codec, which is also used in WebM.

Google released WebM under an open-source license in early 2010, which is based on the company’s VP8 video codec. The format has since slowly gained traction; YouTube, for example, has converted almost all of its videos to WebM, and Skype is using VP8 as its default codec for video conferencing.

Adding support for WebM streaming and VP8 MKVs shouldn’t matter as much to end users, but it should lead to an increased adoption of the formats among developers. VP8 has been optimized for real-time video applications, which means video conferencing app developers now have an option to rely on a royalty-free codec on new Android handsets.

Source is
http://gigaom.com/video/android-mkv-webm-streaming/

Video: How Does The iPhone 4S's Video Camera Compare With a Canon 5D?

The iPhone 4S is receiving rave reviews for its fantastic camera, which can record surprisingly good video at 1080p. One videographer, in fact, was so impressed with the camera’s performance, he decided to test how it measures up to a full-fledged DSLR camera used for HD video capture.

Robino Films compared the HD video shot with an iPhone 4S with the video from a Canon 5D MK II, a popular DSLR, on similar settings. The iPhone 4S, which can shoot 1080p video at 30 frames per second, could theoretically give amateurs a great way to capture high-quality video, even in various tricky lighting situations — much like the iPhone 4 did for still photography.

“I was blown away by how good the video quality was,” said Robino Jones of the iPhone 4S’ video capabilities. “The resolution was nice. There was very little aliasing and moire was not visible. I really think that Apple made an amazing 1080p video camera, and to be able to carry that much power in your pocket is awesome.”

Knowing that the iPhone was “crippled” in comparison to the DSLR, Robino did his best to use similar settings when comparing the two cameras. The Canon 5D Mark II was set with an ISO of 160 to 640 and an F-stop of 7 to 22 (varied to match that of the iPhone). The DSLR was also set to a shutter speed of 1/60 of a second, automatic white balance, standard picture style, and 1080p at 30 fps.

Despite its great-for-a-smartphone camera specs (which we describe below), Robino Films said the iPhone fell short of the DSLR in six areas: compression (the iPhone 4S produces noisy video, even in daytime shots); sensor size (the iPhone’s is extremely small); lens quality (great for a smartphone, but nowhere near that of a DSLR); and the inability to adjust frame rate, shutter speed or picture style. However, Jones said, “the iPhone 4S is holding very well against the 5D’s standard picture style.” The smartphone also produces a warmer image overall.

Jones said the iPhone scores points on resolution (which is better than on the 5D) and portability. He also praised really great dynamic range. The 5D’s video has a softer overall look, and more aliasing and moire.

In a comment on Vimeo, Jones said, “This test is really only to show that the 4S is coming close to the 5D but in NO WAY is it better. The iPhone is a great 1080p pocket camera and shows us where technology is heading. Give it two, three years, and we should see some interesting micro high performance cameras.”

As for the iPhone camera of today, the 4S features impressive specs. It shoots 1080p video with real-time image stabilization (to help mitigate the problems of a wobbly hand) as well as temporal noise reduction (to enhance low-light capture). The camera boasts a maximum aperture of f/2.4 and five lenses for sharper, brighter photos with a shallower field of focus. A backside-illuminated sensor paired with an image-processor on the phone’s A5 chip help things run quickly and smoothly.

Check out the video below to see how the iPhone 4S and Canon 5D Mark II’s 1080p video footage measures up side-by-side. Vimeo’s HD content only goes up to 720p, but you can download the 1080p footage to check it out yourself.


Source is
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/10/iphone-4s-dslr-video/

Hackers make Panasonic GH2 micro four-thirds camera record 176Mbit video

If you are a hard-core camera geek, you may be the sort that is into hacking firmware to give your camera the features you wish the maker had given it from the factory. There have been some interesting hacks put forward for the Panasonic GH2 in the past and the latest that has surfaced makes the camera video quality much, much better.

Out of the box, the GH2 can record video in 24Mbit AVCHD format full HD resolution video. For some of us that is plenty of quality, but others want more. This new hack has cranked the GH2 up a bunch of notches and lets the camera record 176Mbit AVCHD Intra video. That Intra tagged onto the back is a huge change.

AVCHD grabs only some of the frames from the sensor to make the video. AVCHD Intra on the other hand will grab every frame from the sensor making video look better when played back. You can see a video below from a user going by Driftwood that was shot using the GH2 in 176Mbit AVCHD Intra and see what you think. How exactly you apply this hack isn’t mentioned in the video.

Source is 
http://www.slashgear.com/hackers-make-panasonic-gh2-micro-four-thirds-camera-record-176mbit-video-14188050/

Hulu isn't for sale say owners

The bidding for Hulu has ended with the company's owners deciding not to sell.
The saga of Hulu's quest for a buyer began in June with an unsolicited offer from Yahoo. In the weeks that followed, other companies, including Google and Amazon got involved.

Eventually Yahoo dropped out of the deal, thanks to the recent corporate shakeup which resulted in the firing of CEO Carol Bartz over the phone.

When the dust settled, the 2 top bidders were reportedly Dish Network and Google. Google offered the most money, but demanded longer guarantees for content than Hulu's controlling owners, News Corp, Disney, and Providence Equity Partners, were interested in.

Dish Network was willing to agree to their terms, but offered significantly less money. In the end, both offers were rejected.

Today a statement was released on the official Hulu blog stating:

    Since Hulu holds a unique and compelling strategic value to each of its owners, we have terminated the sale process and look forward to working together to continue mapping out its path to even greater success. Our focus now rests solely on ensuring that our efforts as owners contribute in a meaningful way to the exciting future that lies ahead for Hulu.

A fourth owner, NBCUniversal, was forced to give up their voice in the company as part of their merger with Comcast earlier this year.

Despite their optimistic statement, there are significant questions about Hulu's future. NBCUniversal has shown interest in pursuing other outlets for digital content distribution since losing their voice in Hulu's management.

In addition, News Corp recently made a change to their corporate policy, forcing Hulu to wait more than a week to air Fox Network content.

Over time, content providers have expressed dissatisfaction with Hulu's failure to match the advertising revenue formerly generated by traditional broadcasting and relationships with pay TV outlets have become strained by a perception of Hulu as a competitor.

While Hulu CEO Jason Kilar has consistently shown an interest in reaching as many viewers on as many devices as possible, he has frequently been forced to block platforms like Boxee which are seen as too competitive with the traditional TV business.

Hulu's future will depend on their willingness and ability to embrace the new reality of Internet distribution, putting them at odds with the legacy broadcasting business. Without a monumental change in attitudes among their corporate parents, the chances of that aren't looking good.

Source is
http://www.afterdawn.com/news/article.cfm/2011/10/14/hulu_isn_t_for_sale_say_owners

Dear Netflix CEO: We Accept Your Apology. Love, DVDs

Dear Reed,

We were delighted to learn that Qwikster is no more this morning. You finally came to your senses, shuttered that DVD ghetto you had planned and admitted us back into the Netflix family.

After our last letter, we’ll admit, we didn’t hold out much hope of you changing your mind. You seemed so hell-bent on washing your hands of us, so certain we were tainting your chances to create that dynamic, forward-looking streaming service of your dreams. And we don’t flatter ourselves that we changed your mind. It was the subscribers — or more likely, it was Wall Street, which has sent your stock plunging more than 60% since July.

Still, if there’s one thing movies have taught us, it’s forgiveness. Well, okay, Unforgiven taught us the opposite, but we’ll let that go. By the way, did you know that Unforgiven is one of many thousands of movies you can currently only see on Netflix DVD, and is nowhere to be found on streaming? Just thought we’d mention that.

Seriously, though, that’s kind of the point. If you want Netflix to be comprehensive — and that does seem to be what the customers want — you can’t possibly forget about us. You need us, like it or not. So you just got Breaking Bad and Walking Dead on streaming? Bully for them. But if you want to see The King’s Speech, or Inception, or Thor, or Avatar or Weeds season 6, streaming can’t satisfy you. Only we can. Sorry, but that’s just the way it is.

The fact that you ever thought otherwise suggests you haven’t been thinking like a movie fan for a while. So here’s a suggestion: take a couple of us home tonight. Any of us will be happy to accompany you; we’re not jealous. We suggest something big and brash in Blu-Ray, or some major release of the last year you’ve been meaning to see. Let your gaze linger over our special features, our deleted scenes, our director’s commentaries. Then tell us: can streaming do that for you?

And if we might make one more suggestion: Before you radically restructure the company again, focus on the user experience. For instance, we couldn’t help but notice that the Netflix iPad app is a little limited. We’re not mentioned at all on it, for one thing! What are we, chopped liver? There’s no way to reorder your queues, either, and customers do like to do that — play with the order in which they’re going to get us. They like to push the good stuff to the top of their streaming queue, too. It’s kind of a Christmas morning experience, if you will. By the way, remember A Christmas Story? Totally not available on streaming. Just FYI.

Alright, we’ll stop rubbing it in. We’re truly grateful you came to your senses, and we’re looking forward to our date. And please, let us never mention that awful “Q” word again.

Love,

Your DVDs

Source is
http://mashable.com/2011/10/10/dear-netflix-ceo-qwikster-apology-dvds/

Video Stream: Bosses, Lantern Benefit From UV Technology

The big news coming out of Warner Bros. this week doesn’t relate to the two summer titles they’re releasing, but rather the technology associated with them.

Horrible Bosses (Rated R, Warner Bros., $35.99 on blu-ray combo pack, $28.98 on DVD, 3.5 out of 5 stars) and the Green Lantern (Rated PG-13, Warner Bros., $40.99 3-D blu-ray combo pack, $35.99 blu-ray combo packs, $28.98 DVD, 3-out-of-5 stars) represent some of the first discs to be released with UltraViolet technology.

UV is allows streaming by six people on multiple devices for what should ultimately be a three-screen experience.  It’s currently available for many mobile devices, but not for TVs.  The studios – Sony, Paramount, Lionsgate, and 20th Century Fox - promise that will come soon. Notice the absence of Walt Disney Studios and Universal. Until then, what’s the upside?  Complete portability as long as you have an Internet connection and the right device.

I set up Bosses on my HTC EVO 4G smartphone run through the WiFi on my home and boom, a quality streaming experience – albeit in standard definition.  I put the flick through its paces via the Flixster movies app that I download from the Android Market and there were no noticeable problems.  Flixster is required for use on portable devices. For the record, I also own an HTC Flyer tablet, but current software limitations prevent using it there.

The primary advantage of this technology?  For anyone familiar with getting digital copies from iTunes, you know that you’re limited to a single device. That’s not the case here.   Although iCloud will probably eventually take care of that.

Is this system perfect?  Nope, but in a world of complicated digital rights management issues, I’m willing to give it a shot.  The only downside is ensuring that your UV account information doesn’t get out. In short: read privacy notices regarding sharing of information, etc.

And what about the films themselves?

Green Lantern, which will hit store shelves Friday, can’t be labeled anything but a disappointment, creatively and financially.

The blu-ray contains an extended cut of the movie that adds some perspective overall, but not enough to save it from two weak villains, a cardboard performance from Blake Lively and direction from Martin Campbell who doesn’t seem to know what to do with the characters or a script that feels a bit messy.  What’s there to recommend?  Ryan Reynolds as Hal Jordan/Green Lantern.

Here’s hoping that he gets another shot at another Green Lantern film that corrects these problems.

Extras:  For comics fanboys and sci-fi geeks such as me there is a smorgasbord of extras to enjoy here.  Most notably is the Maximum Movie Mode in-film experience.  Right now in the world of home disc releases, no one does this better than Warner Bros. studios.  It lends a movie perspective, even when it’s of questionable quality such as this.  Surprisingly enough, I also enjoyed the sneak peek of the upcoming Green Lantern: Animated Series.

Horrible Bosses proved a more enjoyable flick for yours truly.  It’s that wallow-in-inappropriateness kinda of movie that you watch with your buds while enjoying some cold beverages.

The story of dealing with bosses who are complete and utter d-bags is a universal one.  Everyone has had such a boss at some point in their careers. It’s how you deal with him or her that makes the difference.  In this flick, three friends decide to kill off theirs.  Jason Bateman, Charlie Day and Jason Sudeikis are hilarious as the put-upon underlings while Colin Farrell and Kevin Spacey deserve, a slow torturous death given their characters overall scumminess.  However, it’s Jennifer Aniston who takes the prize as the sexy boss who needs an itch scratched and refuses to take no for an answer.

Extras: The extended version – dubbed The Totally Inappropriate Edition – adds some uproarious moments to the mix.   Beyond that, the extras prove pedestrian – deleted scenes and a couple of documentaries about bad bosses and being mean.

Source is
http://www.examiner.com/movie-in-cleveland/video-stream-bosses-lantern-benefit-from-uv-technology

Movie studios launch view-everywhere system

LOS ANGELES – A Hollywood initiative that aims to revive home video sales by enabling you to watch your purchased movies on multiple devices had a soft start Tuesday as Warner Bros. released Horrible Bosses without many of the hoped-for partnerships in place.

Several movie studios had intended to launch the UltraViolet system with an array of retailers and gadget makers to form an interconnected web of shared commerce. The concept was that you could buy a Blu-ray disc from Wal-Mart and have a digital version streamed to you by cable giant Comcast without even removing the shrink wrap.

Today, when you buy a digital movie, you are typically restricted to watching on specific devices. Movies bought on Apple's iTunes work only on Apple devices, and those bought on Amazon can be watched on computers and TVs but not iPhones or iPads. The idea behind UltraViolet is to unshackle movies from those constraints.

In reality, a back-end system to allow such seamless viewing across devices hasn't been created. The early version of UltraViolet lives inside a walled garden that is owned entirely by one movie studio — in this case, Warner Bros.

Sony's movie studio launches its first UltraViolet titles, including The Smurfs, on Dec. 2, but it also has no third-party digital streaming partner lined up. It, too, plans to have customers redeem online copies from a website it owns.

Still, the early trial is meant to familiarize people with the notion of owning something that doesn't sit on a shelf — in part to jump-start sluggish sales of digital downloads of movies. That is something Hollywood needs to counter shrinking sales of discs.

"We are at the very beginning of the rollout of UltraViolet. It's a first step," said Thomas Gewecke, Warner Bros.' president of digital distribution. "You'll see more and more services launching with every coming month."

Netflix kills off idea for splitting streaming, DVD-by-mail

Last month, Netflix outraged subscribers by announcing that they would be splitting the DVD-by-mail and streaming services of their company.

The new company for DVDs, called Qwikster, would have its own login portal and would require subscribers to log in to both Netflix and Qwikster if they want to change their respective queues.

This move came on top of the already unpopular decision by Netflix to raise prices on those that wanted both services, from $9 to $16.

Today, Netflix has shut down the idea for Qwikster, based on user feedback.

Says CEO Reed Hastings (via Bloomberg):

Consumers value the simplicity Netflix has always offered and we respect that. There is a difference between moving quickly -- which Netflix has done very well for years -- and moving too fast, which is what we did in this case.

Users can switch their DVD and streaming queue from Netflix.com as usual, with their usual login. 

 

Source is 

http://www.afterdawn.com/news/article.cfm/2011/10/10/netflix_kills_off_idea_for_splitting_streaming_dvd-by-mail

WD reveals updated TV Live set-top box

Western Digital has introduced its updated TV Live set-top box today, this time adding support for Spotify.

For Spotify, premium subscribers can stream 15 million songs in 320 kbps quality.

The 802.11n Wi-Fi device also has streaming access to Netflix, Hulu Plus, Pandora, YouTube and many other channels. As in the past, the WD TV Live will play a wide variety of file formats, notably MKV, in full 1080p.

Additionally, WD has shown off their updated WD TV Live Hub, a similar set-top box that also includes 1TB of internal storage. The Hub will require ethernet, however.

Both boxes will also launch with a new "intuitive user interface."

Says WD:

    WD incorporates Spotify's popular features in the new service, including the ability to create and manage Spotify playlists, share songs to Spotify friends, and see and subscribe to friends' playlists via their Spotify profiles. Users can also share tracks by sending songs directly to other Spotify users' inboxes. Spotify for WD TV Live and WD TV Live Hub delivers an exciting new way to enjoy and share music on the best sound system in your home.

The Live costs $99 and the Hub costs $199.

Source is http://www.afterdawn.com/news/article.cfm/2011/10/07/wd_reveals_updated_tv_live_set-top_box

YouTube Now Offering 2D to 3D Video Conversion

In the wake of adding an in-browser editor so users can edit video on the go, YouTube is now rolling out a beta feature that will allow you to convert your videos from 2D to 3D. Yeah, that’s happening. YouTube, aware that 3D video is a thing and that hardly anyone has hardware capable of actually shooting it, decided that they might as well try their hand at 2D to 3D conversion, and although it’s still in beta, it seems like it might be pretty legit.

In an attempt to make this feature as widely accessible as possible, YouTube is supporting pretty much every 3D option available, 3 colored-glasses options, interleaved, even cross-your-eyes side-by-side view. Unfortunately, I don’t have the capability of testing anything except the cross-your-eyes version, but that seemed pretty alright despite the fact that it gives you a little bit of a headache by its very nature.

Videos that have been 3D-converted will have a little 3D icon at the bottom that, when clicked, will bring up the 3D options menu. From there you can test out all the different methods and settings and see how it feels. It’s easy to convert a video you uploaded to 3D as well. All that you need to do is look at the video, hit “Edit Info,” enable 3D, and YouTube’s conversion algorithm does the rest. Beware though, when you’re enabling 3D on the user side, the menu can get a little annoying and you may find yourself scrubbing or pausing the video when you didn’t intend to.

I definitely recommending playing around with it and at least seeing what all the 3D options are, even if you can’t necessarily use them all. While it probably isn’t going to look professional grade (because it really isn’t) this is a step in the right direction for 3D video footage, I think. If we can find a way to make 2D to 3D conversion work well, it means that 3D videos won’t have to define themselves by being 3D and throw baseballs at the camera or whatever. Should be interesting to see where this goes. Play with a 3D-enabled video here.

Source is http://www.geekosystem.com/youtube-adds-3d-converter/

UK set to legalize CD and DVD copying for personal use

DVD Copy

The fact that it hasn't technically been legal may not have stopped many folks in the UK from ripping their CDs all these years, but it looks like there may soon be a tad less anarchy involved in that process. Reuters is reporting that the British government will announce tomorrow that it plans to legalize the copying of CDs and DVDs onto computers or portable media players for personal use -- a move that will bring it up to speed with most other European countries (and the US and Canada). Of course, the key words there are "personal use." You still won't be legally allowed to share that music over the internet after you copy it without permission, and it's not yet clear how the new rules will apply to DVDs (or Blu-rays) with copy protection measures -- although the British Video Association unsurprisingly doesn't seem too pleased with the changes regardless, calling them "extremely damaging."

Source is http://www.engadget.com/2011/08/02/uk-set-to-legalize-cd-and-dvd-copying-for-personal-use/