GridNetworks goes over the top of everyone
Content distribution network provider GridNetworks on Monday unveiled a new streaming platform that allows content owners to deliver video directly to a TV set, bypassing online portals like Hulu or YouTube and eliminating the need for a dedicated set-top box.
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Pirates using camcorder codec to target Blu-ray
DVD pirates in China have come up with an innovative approach to churning out cheap counterfeit Blu-ray Discs, the Wall Street Journal reports this morning.
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OPINION: New President, new rules?
Paul Sweeting is editor of Content Agenda NOV. 14 | Beyond its already-historic nature, the election of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States presages the most sweeping changes in the laws and regulations shaping the media and technology industries in at least a decade and perhaps longer.
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OPINION: Stock block
Paul Sweeting is editor of Content Agenda NOV. 7 | Blockbuster has never been much of a Wall Street darling. Not since the go-go years of the video rental business in the ’80s and early ’90s has it been able to capture much of a premium in its share price.
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OPINION: Grab and grow
Paul Sweeting is editor of Content Agenda OCT. 31 | The railroads are broadband Internet connections, whether wired or wireless. Leading the land-grab right now are Netflix and CinemaNow.
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OPINION: Jobs blue on Blu
Paul Sweeting is editor of Content Agenda OCT. 17 | It can’t have thrilled the folks at Disney , who have worked so hard to establish Blu-ray Disc as the next-generation optical disc standard, to hear their largest shareholder call the format “a bag of hurt.”
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OPINION: Blu stock
Paul Sweeting is editor of Content Agenda OCT. 10 | With global stock markets cratering and credit markets freezing, the U.S. and much of the rest of the world appears on the brink—if not already in the midst—of a serious economic recession.
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OPINION: Use of fair
Paul Sweeting is editor of Content Agenda OCT. 3 | In the end, I suspect, the studios felt they had no choice but to bring a lawsuit against RealNetworks in an effort to shut down sales of its RealDVD copying program.
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OPINION: Need this?
Paul Sweeting is editor of Content Agenda SEPT. 26 | Does the world need another physical format for music and video? That’s what analysts and commentators are wondering in the wake of announcements last week from SanDisk and Toshiba regarding the use of NAND flash-based memory cards for storing recorded music and downloaded video.
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OPINION: Good, bad news
Paul Sweeting is editor of Content Agenda SEPT. 19 | There was good news and bad news for the studios at last week’s HDTV 2008 conference sponsored by DisplaySearch.
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OPINION: Question of legality
Paul Sweeting is editor of Content Agenda SEPT. 12 | On one level, RealNetworks ’ announcement last week of a software program for coping DVDs to a hard drive or portable storage medium— RealDVD —was no big deal.
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OPINION: The art of treading lightly
Paul Sweeting is editor of Content Agenda SEPT. 5 | It has been a busy few weeks for Comcast Corp. , the country’s largest cable TV provider with 14.1 million subscribers and largest Internet Service Provider.
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OPINION: Box battle
Paul Sweeting is editor of Content Agenda AUG. 22 | You have to wonder if this is what studio backers of Blu-ray Disc , during its long battle with HD DVD, had in mind.
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OPINION: Apple's seed
Paul Sweeting is editor of Content Agenda AUG. 22 | The ever-active Apple rumor mill has been whirring since the company’s third-quarter earnings call last month, when chief financial officer Peter Oppenheimer referred cryptically to a “future product transition that I can’t discuss with you today.”
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OPINION: WB on VOD
Paul Sweeting is editor of Content Agenda AUG. 15 | On the eve of the Consumer Electronics Show in January, Warner Bros. shocked its long-time technology partner Toshiba by dropping its support for Toshiba’s HD DVD format and embracing Blu-ray Disc exclusively. However, Warner’s move may not have been such a ringing endorsement of Blu-ray, either.
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OPINION: New window or new business model?
Paul Sweeting is editor of Content Agenda AUG. 8 | Would offering major studio releases through video-on-demand prior to their release on DVD and Blu-ray Disc represent a new business model for the industry? The question may seem academic, but the answer could turn out to be crucial for DVD retailers .
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OPINION: Rental turnover
Paul Sweeting is editor of Content Agenda AUG. 1 | In reprise of its performance in the late ’80s and early ’90s, the video rental business seems to be weathering a gloomy economy better than other industry segments.
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OPINION: Opposing VOD views
Paul Sweeting is editor of Content Agenda JULY 25 | The CEA , NATO and a consortium of consumer-rights groups urged the Federal Communications Commission to deny a petition by the MPAA to relax the regulations barring the use of selectable output controls (SOC) on cable set-top boxes.
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OPINION: Special delivery
Paul Sweeting is editor of Content Agenda JULY 18 | At the E3 show in Los Angeles, both Microsoft and Sony made news with announcements of expanded movie and TV download offerings for Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network, respectively.
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OPINION: Testing ground
Paul Sweeting is editor of Content Agenda JULY 11 | Despite the billions it has made for the studios over the past three decades, the home video business has never gotten a lot of respect, either from Hollywood or from the self-anointed “visionaries” who have been predicting the demise of packaged media since at least the Reagan Administration.
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