Online Video News

Could Cisco router doom Hollywood, terminate DVDs?

Jim O'Neill — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 20:33:47 -0400

The Terminator it's not, but Cisco's recently announced super router, the CRS-3, may end up playing a bigger role in the future of online video and Hollywood's bottom line than the fictitious cyborg played in the evolution of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's acting career.

Time magazine today said the router, which seemingly got more pre-release hype than Avatar, might in fact be more trouble for Tinseltown than video piracy and offshore P2P sites, and could hasten the end of the DVD.

The problem? It could be too fast, allowing downloads of movies in seconds instead of the hours it currently takes. The router, Cisco said when it was released, could stream every film ever made in less than four minutes. Add to that Google's stated intent to trial 1 Gbps Internet and, Time, says, we could see a disaster flick in terms of the movie business that rivals 28 Days Later, and watch as Hollywood's painstakingly constructed pay wall cracks.

The Motion Picture Association of America has been mum so far on both developments, but Time points out that it fought tooth and nail to kill the VCR and block the evolution of the DVD because both allowed for copying and sharing of movies without the studios getting their cut.

So, perhaps Cisco's claim that the CSR-3 would "forever change the Internet" is less far-fetched than pundits who criticized the hoopla surrounding its announcement knew.

For more:
- see this article

YouTube gives users templates to build animated overlays for video advertising

Jim O'Neill — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 18:40:33 -0400

Democracy is a good thing ... just ask the folks at YouTube who say the video hub is working to make display advertising "accessible and open" to the small businesses that use AdWords in their advertising mix. To that end YouTube announced the availability of a new product for media shops and advertisers with tight creative resources, an extension of its Display Ad Builder tool called InVideo, which allows users to build animated overlays that appear at the bottom of videos.

InVideo makes it simple for advertisers to build simple overlays for campaigns of any size. YouTube say the ad format--which has been used since 2007--is the most effective format on YouTube and can be bought on a cost-per-click basis or on a CPM basis. Either way, the ads can be placed according to demographics, content categories or even placed at a video-by-video level. The ads appear for several seconds part way through a video and fade away if they're not clicked on.

Google's move is an example of the patience the company has had with the property, building video views to more than a billion a day while allowing revenue stream to percolate quietly, with a variety of tools from pre- and post-roll ads to overlays and banners. At least one analyst, Mark Mahaney of Citigroup, forecasts YouTube will generate more than $1 billion in revenue for Google by 2011, with it coming in with revenues of $945 million this year.

For more:
- see this blog post
- watch this video
- see this article

Cable, satellite prices soar 43%; Internet, TV prices decline

Jim O'Neill — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 12:54:52 -0400

Online video and over the top delivery aficionados have more reasons to be smug about the continuing growth of the medium. A Bureau of Labor Statistics report says that while the price of Internet services and even televisions has dropped in the past 10 years, the cost of cable and satellite service has dramatically out-paced inflation, rising nearly 43 percent in the same time frame.

While the rise in prices can, to some extent, be attributed to the "More Effect," as is more channels, more technology, and more picture quality, some of it, says In-Sat analyst Mike Paxton, is attributable to consumers who haven't looked for alternatives.

"Historically, particularly when the economy is poor, one of the last things households will consider cutting is their pay TV," Paxton said. "They will cut back on vacations, food costs, won't go out to eat, won't go to the movies, turn the thermostat up or down--but in-home entertainment is one of the last things they cut. ... The cord-cutting phenomenon has been kind of a myth."

And, he says, a major reason people keep the service they already has is simply to avoid dealing with the annoyance of having to change.

With online video and OTT, that's less of a problem, since any high-speed Internet connection will give a consumer access to an array of content on multiple services like Hulu, iTunes and more.

Some analysts say that OTT video delivery actually is generally seen as more of a supplement to Pay TV than a replacement. Nonetheless, OTT revenues are forecast to reach $5.8 billion by 2014 .

For more:
- see this Charlotte Observer article

March Madness on Demand kicks off Thursday with Round 1 play

Jim O'Neill — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 08:32:16 -0400

The annual gem that is March Madness--which estimates say costs U.S. businesses some $1.8 billion in lost productivity--has, for CBS, turned into a profit center on the air and online. The broadcaster earlier this week said it had sold out its entire March Madness on Demand ad space inventory, bringing in some $37 million and selling as many ads for its streaming online live coverage of basketball games as it did for its broadcast NCAA March Madness coverage, a first for the network.

CBS said revenues for its online video presentation were up 20 percent from a year ago. The NCAA tournament begins tonight with the play-in game featuring #16 Winthrop against #16 Arkansas-Pine Bluff at 7:30 p.m. ET (that game's on ESPN); the winner faces Duke in first-round play Friday at 7:25 p.m. ET. March Madness on Demand will stream every game of the tournament live starting Thursday.

Revenues for March Madness on Demand, according to AdAge, have risen from $4 million in 2006, the first year it was online as a free service to $32 million last year and $37 million this year. MMOD began in 2003 as a Pay TV service and was fee-based through 2005. The New York Times said the fee-based model peaked at 20,000 subscribers in 2005. A year later, when MMOD went to its ad-supported model, the number of viewers surged to 1.3 million. Last year 7.5 million users watched MMOD.

"What's unique about the experience is it hits the sweet spot of where online growth is," Jason Kint, SVP of CBSSports.com, told the Times. "It's video, it's live, it's D.V.R.-proof, and it's high-quality. There isn't much quality video out there. This isn't user-generated video. It's premium."

For more:
- see this Times article
- see this AdAge article

PBS documentary 'Earth Days' to run on Facebook before it airs on TV

Jim O'Neill — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 06:34:24 -0400

PBS will showcase its feature-length documentary "Earth Days" on Facebook before it's shown on the airwaves, marking another first for the hugely popular social site and helping to push online video delivery onto center stage. The documentary, part of the PBS "American Experience" series will stream on Facebook at 8 p.m. ET, Sunday, April 11; it's set to be broadcast over the airwaves April 19.

The 102-minute program will be shown to Facebook viewers across Boston-based Brand Network's social screening application that will allow users to participate in polls, and have live chats with each other and with filmmaker Robert Stone and American Experience exec Mark Samels.

Samels told the New York Times that using Facebook to show "Earth Days," which was the closing film of the 2009 Sundance Film Festival and has been theatrically released in 40 cities to generally positive reviews. was an opportunity for the series to reach out to a new audience--a younger audience--that the show doesn't normally attract.

He also said the interactivity would allow the AE team to get feedback that TV doesn't offer. "It's such a distancing medium that we work in, in television," he told the Times. "You put all this work into something, and then it goes into this black hole, the ether."

MediaPost, meanwhile, has an interesting take on the PBS play, looking at the broadcaster's attempt to reach a younger audience it feels it's not otherwise connecting with on TV; it points out that 18-24-year-olds watched 5 hours and 11 minutes of online video a month, compared to 5 hours and 33 minutes of time-shifted content on DVRs in 2Q09. Overall, those same viewers watched nearly 109 hours of traditional TV.

The question, of course, is just how many Facebook users will the PBS debut draw? As of this morning, the Facebook RSVP page showed there were 778 people who said they'd be watching and 459 who said they might watch, not exactly a massive draw, but it's early and there's still plenty of time for thebuzz to build. And, in truth, those numbers are pretty meaningless since viewers don't have to sign up to watch, just log on.

For more:
- watch this trailer
- see this Times article
- see this MediaPost blog post
- check out the Facebook RSVP page

TubeMogul adds online video advertising sales to its analytics business

Jim O'Neill — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 17:57:38 -0400

TubeMogul, which late last year teamed with Brightcove to provide in-depth insight into viewer engagement and behavior, has been crafting it's own video ad network on the side. The company today said it was launching a "transparent video advertising network" called PlayTime that took full advantage of the analytics its been gathering using its Mass Audience Segmentation Technology (MAST) to target viewers at a per-stream level.

The play has raised some eyebrows among competitors who feel the combination of a company selling analytics to advertisers and also trying to sell ads is a potential conflict.

"This feels like a church-and-state issue," Molly Gallatin, director of marketing for video ad network YuMe, told MediaWeek. "Nielsen and comScore have never gone in that direction. They let agencies make their own decisions on how to connect the dots with data."

But TubeMogul discounts those concerns, saying PlayTime simply is designed to give advertisers and publishers a better accounting of where views are happening.

"There is a gap between what an advertiser thinks they are buying and what they are buying," BrightRoll CEO Tod Sacerdoti recently told AdWeek.

MediaWeek, meanwhile, reports that TubeMogul has tested some 100 campaigns with clients like 20th Century Fox, Coke, Nestlé and Kmart.

"We kept hearing advertisers complain about a lack of transparency in this space," said TubeMogul CEO Brett Wilson. "The drumbeats were loud. This will be a 100 percent transparent video ad network. With our stuff, you see [what you buy] for better or for worse." Wilson said PlayTime is more efficient than contextual advertising because it does a better job of reaching users who are inclined to watch a client's ads because they know what a user already as viewed.

"Think of it as Netflix for [Web] video," he said, he told MediaWeek.

For more:
- see this release
- see this MediaWeek article

EMI picks Brightcove to power online music video properties

Jim O'Neill — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 12:40:17 -0400

New partnerships with online video platforms continue to be released, with Brightcove today announcing it will be EMI Music's online video publishing and syndication platform in North America, giving it a full playlist of the major music labels, Atlantic, Warner Music Group, Universal Music Group and Sony.

Brightcove gives EMI Music a flexible platform with high-end features that allows the label to serve up highly customized viewing experiences, including country and language-specific video experiences for its Web properties.

Brightcove will also help EMI expand the audience reach of its video content through search engine optimization, advanced social sharing tools and a wide-range of third party distribution capabilities

"These new capabilities will be great for our artists and will help us with our mission to bring fans together around high-quality music entertainment programming," said Samir Housri, Director of Business Development at EMI Music.

EMI labels include Angel, Astralwerks, Blue Note, Capitol, Capitol Latin, Capitol Nashville, EMI Classics, EMI CMG, EMI Records, Manhattan, Mute, Parlophone and Virgin.

Brightcove has joined several other OVPs in positioning itself at the leading edge of a digital music wave that continues to grow. Pundits forecast U.S. consumer spendingon digitally delived music to reach $4.56 bilion in 2013. It was $3 billion in 2009.

It's also been busy hooking up with a variety of other media companies and expanding its offshore presence this year. In the first quargter, Brightcove has added Japanese business media company Nikkei, Virgin Media in the U.K., British financial media company the Financial Times, Turner Broadcasting in Europe, and has launched a localized platform in Spain.

For more:
- see this release

Internet TV vs. cable battle of words ends in a draw

Jim O'Neill — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 11:58:54 -0400

Mark Cuban, who founded Broadcast.com and HDNet, remains one of the more colorful personalities in the tech world he once inhabited before striking it rich when he sold Broadcast.com for a boatload of money. Recently, he's become more focused on his basketball team (he owns the Dallas Mavericks) and in investing his cash to increase his substantial bottom line. Throw in with the tech entrepreneurs who are looking to innovate in the online video world now and collect paydays later? Uh, not so much. He's operating on a different plane.

That's why his comments during his appearance at SXSW with Boxeee founder and CEO Avner Ronen really aren't very surprising.

"If you think the Internet is going to replace cable, you're crazy!" he said at one point. Telling another audience member who had cut the cord because he didn't want to be "screwed by the man," that "The man's always going to screw you, dude."

Cuban is a firm believer in cable as the message and as the medium, saying its ability to deliver content is unparalleled and that its walled garden approach and subscription buy in is the best way to guarantee cash flow. Cuban has been railing against online video for a couple of years. He counts YouTube as a lost cause because it's not a big money maker, and says the stumbling block for broadband video delivery is quixotic expectations for QoS because of bandwidth limitations.

Avner, meanwhile, says he believes a "generational shift" away from cable TV and its pay walls will make the difference, pushing services like Boxee to the forefront.

For more:
- see this IFC.com article

Related articles:
Mad Mark bashes online video (again)
Cuban: Bow to Google, Little Guys
Cuban's On-Demand Disaster

Is ABC News looking to bump up its online video presence?

Jim O'Neill — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 21:09:00 -0500

Perhaps taking a cue from CNN's most recent Nielsen numbers-the news channel saw a 42 percent increase in video views in February to 152 million-ABC is looking to beef up its news gathering side with journalists who can do it all-write, use a video cam, edit and post on-air and online video.

The company, which announced major staffing cuts, offered staffers buyouts and started crafting a restructuring of its news operations last month now is looking to add the digital "one-man shops" to the news gathering operation, reports Broadcasting & Cable, which says an ABC spokesperson confirmed the network had posted multiple openings and was hiring newsies, but declined to say how many positions would be created.

Videocam-equipped DJs could establish one-person bureaus around the world, and needed to be "capable of prioritizing and handling multiple projects simultaneously, under tight time constraints," according to the job posting.

For more:
- see this B&C article

Nielsen says online video surges in February from year ago

Jim O'Neill — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 18:07:42 -0500

Nielsen reports today that February saw a 10.5 percent year-over-year increase in unique views for online video, and said CNN Digital was the big gainer for the month with a 30.6 percent increase in unique views from January; MSN saw a 21.4 percent bump and AOL gained 17 percent.

Overall, unique viewers topped 141 million for the month, up from 127.6 million a year ago, and some 10.3 billion videos-a 15.8 percent from a year ago-were streamed. As expected, numbers were marginally lower than January and historically have rebounded in March.

The company's numbers generally are disputed by the online video industry as being under-reported. For instance, Nielsen said YouTube streamed some 5.9 billion videos in February. comScore reported the Google site as streaming some 33 billion videos in January.

Still, Nielsen's numbers show continuing growth in the online video industry, with February more than doubling January's 5.2 percent Y-o-Y growth.

Top online brands, ranked by unique viewers, were YouTube (108 million, down 3.4 percent), Yahoo (25.5 million, down 2.2 percent), Facebook (22.5 million, up 4.7 percent), MSN (19 million, up 21.4 percent) and Hulu (14.1 million, down 7.4 percent).

When ranked by video streams, the top brands were YouTube (5.9 billion, off 10.7 percent), Hulu (647.5 million, up 1.9 percent), MSN (218.7 million, up 21.7 percent), CNN (152.4 million, up 46.2 percent) and Turner Sports and Entertainment (137.5 million, up 0.1 percent).

Hulu viewers watched videos the longest, an average of 244.8 minutes, with ABC Family second at 203.3 minutes, both numbers were up from the previous month.

For more:
- see this release

YouTube teams with IPL for marathon of live cricket

Jim O'Neill — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 20:06:16 -0500

When the first googlie skips by a batsman Friday, cricket fans all over the world will be able to watch it live on YouTube's dedicated Indian Premier League channel. Forty-three days and 60 games later, YouTube will have the final play live as well.

Google's making every minute of every game available live (except in India where there's a five-minute delay, and in the U.S. where "live" would mean a sleeping audience-the games will generally have a two-hour delay) via webcast across the world. The IPL version of cricket is one of the world's most popular games, and Google's worldwide rights mean they'll have access to legions of the sport's fans.

NBC was roundly criticized for its online video coverage of the Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Despite having the rights to broadcast every Olympic event live, the network decided to stream only 400 hours of hockey and curling.

Google has managed to put together a healthy dose of advertising to support the IPL effort as well, with eight major advertisers and a number of other advertisers buying time is specific markets like Great Britain, Australia and Southeast Asia. Google says the IPL has some 2 billion fans worldwide.

Following opening ceremonies Friday, the Deccan Chargers will play their first match against the Kolkata Knight Riders.

For more:
- see this Yahoo India story
- see this MediaWeek article
- Check out YouTube's IPL Channel.

Fliqz sees burst of customer wins, solid start to 2010 as online video growth continues

Jim O'Neill — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 13:51:21 -0500

White-label online video platform Fliqz says it has started out the year strong with a slew of customer wins and is riding a string of 12 consecutive quarters of quarter-over-quarter growth.

Fliqz CEO Benjamin Wayne said the company has signed 75 new customers since the beginning of the year and called January the company's "best month ever."

"We've seen tremendous growth so far this year," Wayne told FierceOnlineVideo. "A lot of it has been driven by the big success of our video SEO product."

Fliqz's new client list includes Shelby American, which makes and sells performance vehicles and related products, The Leading Hotels of the World, a hospitality organization that represents more than 450 luxury hotels, resorts and spas, Bally Technologies, Inc., Zip Realty, LA Magazine, Survey Sampling International, the American Society of Baking, and the Alliance for Digital Equality.

"While online video was initially embraced by a handful of global media companies, the next stage of growth will be almost entirely fueled by marketing spend," Wayne said. "As a result, video adoption is cutting a wide swath, with the greatest cumulative spend occurring in the mid-market."

Wayne said the Fliqz is well positioned for the market, specifically with it SEO experience.

"Companies have woken up to the marketing and SEO potential of video," said Wayne. "Wherever a marketing budget exists, we're going to see video adoption."

Wayne said customer growth was pushing the company's bottom line.

"Are we cash flow positive? If you measure that by the ways in which a lot of other companies measure cash flow, yes," he said chuckling. "In real world terms? Not yet. But it's coming. We're seeing more demand for what Fliqz can deliver to the market and we are on a steady path toward growth."

Spring fling: A new Flip video camera is on the way

Jim O'Neill — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 13:09:59 -0500

If it's spring, there must be a new Flip video camera around the corner. At least that's what I heard--with a wink and a nod--from a Cisco insider yesterday afternoon. No real details--as in none, zero, nada--about what the new camera will bring to the table, just confirmation that it will be available to play with around the time of the NAB convention in Las Vegas in mid-April.

Before Christmas, the rumor was that a new Flip was due just after the holidays with a sliding screen to make it easier to watch and record video, a different menu configuration and a WiFi connection in addition to its USB ear. Santa's been and gone, so maybe this is the gift he meant to leave.

Cisco--which acquired Flip via its $590 million purchase of Pure Digital a year ago-has embraced the little-camera-that-can, featuring it in a TV and online video ad campaign that showed how solid its video was by using videos Flip owners sent in to the company.

Focusing so much energy on a consumer device might seem to be somewhat antithetical for a company like Cisco that is so, well, big picture oriented, vis-à-vis its latest new product news, a router that handles 322 terabits a second. But Cisco CEO John Chambers is a believer in online video as a growth engine, as he told shareholders last August. And it all starts with capturing that little picture... maybe Cisco continuing to push for improvments in its Flip video camera isn't such a stretch after all.

Comcast deal for NBC Universal faces new concerns

Jim O'Neill — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 12:06:05 -0500

The NBC Universal hookup with Comcast is continuing to run into opposition, this time from Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) who warned that consumers had to be a major concern in a merger that involves television and online video. Rockefeller, who heads a Senate Commerce Committee panel reviewing the proposed merger, said "This hearing is an opportunity to have a serious a discussion about consumers," adding that a deal shouldn't leave the public with fewer programming choices and higher rates.

Comcast agreed to a deal with General Electric in December for the flagging broadcast property that would give it a 51 percent stake in the joint venture valued at just more than $28 billion. The deal has to be approved by the FCC and the Justice Department.

For more:
- see this Bloomberg article

Pay TV or OTT? Consumers want both

Jim O'Neill — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 11:23:10 -0500

Over-the-top delivery? Or Pay TV? Turns out-not surprisingly-that U.S. consumers want both. A study from In-Stat says more than a quarter of U.S. respondents to its survey said they view online video at least once a week on multiple devices, including PCs, Internet TVs and mobile devices.

The survey found, though, that online video wasn't replacing conventional Pay TV, it was being used in addition to existing service.

"Consumers want the best of both worlds: Pay TV and Over-the-Top Video," says Keith Nissen, In-Stat analyst. "Nearly 40 percent of consumer broadband household respondents want a combination of linear TV and on-demand TV, and nearly three quarters want to acquire all their video content from their pay TV service provider."

The study also found consumers were accessing online video across a wide spectrum of devices including PC-based media adapters, dedicated media adapters, gaming consoles, Blu-ray players, and Internet-enabled TVs.

In-Stat said that, as of 2009, there were some 24 million web-enabled devices in operation in the U.S. and forecast that number would hit 102 million by 2013.

For more:
- see this release

Online ad firm Eyeblaster revives $115M IPO bid

Jim O'Neill — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 19:09:32 -0500

Rich media ad firm Eyeblaster apparently has decided the market has strengthened enough to refloat its IPO for $115 million. The New York-based ad firm tried an initial public offering in 2008, but decided--along with a couple of dozen other tech firms--that the market just didn't have the gas to make it happen.

This time around Eyeblaster is crowing about its engorged customer base and improved income. The company, which was founded in 1999 already has raised some $40 million in VC. The company Wednesday confirmed it had filed for an IPO.

J.P. Morgan Securities, Deutsche Bank Securities, Pacific Crest Securities LLC, FBR Capital Markets & Co, ThinkEquity, and Broadpoint Capital are among the underwriters.

For more:
- see this MediaPost article

Kyte offers live, wireless streaming to its online video platform

Jim O'Neill — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 10:36:06 -0500

Online video platform Kyte is giving video journalists another way to get news content online quickly: the company today is introducing Kyte LivePro Unwired, which allows users to stream near-HD content as it happens back to the Kyte platform via a wireless, battery-operated backpack.

"SPIN is looking forward to sampling this new technology at SXSW, with an eye toward using it as a complement to our extensive year-round festival coverage on spin.com and spinearth.tv," said Mike Albanese, associate publisher of SPIN. "We are always looking for new ways to serve our online community, as well as our clients."

The backpack, provided by LiveU, requires no satellite uplink or hardwired connection. Users simply connect to WiFi or 3G/4G networks and broadcast. LivePro Unwired supports any video camera that has IEEE 1394 (FireWire) output. Video can be live-streamed directly to any online Kyte Player and also made available for on-demand online and mobile viewing.

"The cycle of (news) reporting is getting smaller and the public is thirsty for footage from places that would be impossible or costly to access through traditional broadcast means," said Daniel Graf, CEO of Kyte. "Kyte LivePro Unwired gives content producers an edge over the competition by making it easy and cost effective to broadcast high quality live video to online audiences. Also, unlike other live streaming solutions, any content created on the Kyte Platform can seamlessly be made available on-demand to both online and mobile audiences, significantly increasing the value and life of any event."

For more:
- see this release

Auditude, Dailymotion partner in online ad deal

Jim O'Neill — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 09:09:36 -0500

Video ad management company Auditude and vid platform Dailymotion are partnering in an online video advertising deal that will have Auditude managing Dailymo's catalog of more than 12 million videos.

The deal helps Paris-based Dailymotion monetize its embedded player and support advanced video ad formats at scale. Auditude, in return, gets a big partner Dailymotion, the second-largest video website in the world with 19 localized editions and some 66 million uniques. Auditude has been on a hot streak of late, with video deployments including Comcast, Major League Baseball, MySpace and Yahoo. It also gives Auditude some international cred, as it's opened a London office to work more closely with Dailymotion.

Dailymotion, too, has been active of late, signing a licensing deal with Warner Music Group this week and Peter Gabriel-backed video recommendation service The Filter earlier this month.

The deal should help Daiymo's ad offerings by supporting advanced video ad formats, enhanced content targeting, enabling multi-party demand and sorting out business rules and sales rights with hundreds of content partners.

"We want to make sure our advertisers have the best ad platform to reach our users both on Dailymotion.com and through our embedded player," said Joy Marcus, General Manager of Dailymotion, U.S. "The challenges associated with the monetization of all video content are increasingly complex and partnering with Auditude creates an even stronger offering for advertisers, and new opportunities for revenue growth."

For more:
- see this release

Judge in Viacom-Google battle wants some case files opened to the public

Jim O'Neill — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 17:56:33 -0500

The Google-Viacom brouhaha is about to become a little more public after the federal judge overseeing the case told lawyers from both sides he wants them to unseal some of the potentially juiciest documents in the case and release them to the public.

The Wall Street Journal's Peter Kafka said the judge wants both sides to work together and decide on information that can be made public. (OK, there's a non-starter ... Google and Viacom are at such loggerheads over copyrights that they're buying new Porches for all their lawyers with all the legal fees they're piling up ... and the judge wants them to agree on what sensitive documents-most of which make them look stupid--can be released? Hmm.)

Specifically, the judge wants each party to release their documents that apply to each side's requests for summary judgments against the other party. Even that little bit of the case could result in a blizzard of paper coming out, perhaps within the next two weeks.

As a refresher, the three-year-old suit was brought by Viacom, which is suing Google for "massive intentional copyright infringement." Viacom says YouTube knowingly made available some 160,000 clips of Viacom entertainment properties. Google, meanwhile, has maintained that the "fair use" doctrine of copyright law, which allows for the non-commercial reproduction of work should protect it.

The battle has surprised many copyright aficionados who saw the Viacom suit as a negotiating tool aimed at forcing Google to knuckle under and make a licensing deal. Uh, no. That one didn't work out.

So, now, the case is starting to again gain some traction and both parties are going to have their dirty laundry-did Google really look the other way as materials were uploaded? Better yet, was it Viacom employees secretly doing the uploading?-aired in front of the public.

Unless the judge is taking a page from Viacom's playbook and trying to force both sides to blink.

For more:
- see this Journal blog

Sony, PS3, get HD deals with six studios

Jim O'Neill — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 13:35:04 -0500

Sony and its PS3 game console are in the catbird seat after Sony wrapped up a deal that gives the PlayStation platform access to HD movies from six major motion picture studios for rental and purchase.

The content from 20^th Century Fox, Disney, Paramount, Sony Pictures, Universal and Warner Bros. Digital will be available initially only in the United States, but Sony says the rollout will continue soon in the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Spain.

"Securing high definition content from these studios is another significant milestone further validating PlayStation Network as a complete entertainment network in the home. PlayStation Network is the first and only service to deliver high definition home entertainment from all six major studios, directly to consumers for download," said Peter Dille, senior vice president, marketing and PlayStation Network, SCEA. "PlayStation Network continues to offer the most comprehensive catalogue of HD movies to PlayStation Network members that realize the wide-ranging entertainment power of the PS3 system."

New title available include: "Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian" Disney Pixar's "Up", Jerry Bruckheimer's "G-Force", Disney's "Earth", "Star Trek", "Paranormal Activity, "Zoolander", "2012", "District 9", "Zombieland", "Inglourious Basterds", "Couples Retreat", "Public Enemies", "The Hangover", "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince" and "The Wizard of Oz."

For more:
- see this release

Cisco unveils next-gen router to speed online video

Jim O'Neill — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 11:03:06 -0500

Cisco's much-anticipated announcement that it claimed would “forever change the Internet and its impact on consumers, businesses and governments” is being touted as good news for the online video industry.

The company said its new CRS-3 Carrier Routing System has more than 12 times the traffic capacity of the nearest competing system, and is designed to transform the broadband communication and entertainment industry by accelerating the delivery of compelling new experiences for consumers, new revenue opportunities for service providers, and new ways to collaborate in the workplace.

“Video brings the Internet to life,” the Wall Street Journal quoted Cisco CEO John Chambers as saying. “You are moving from a messaging platform to a video platform.”

Cisco said online video demand was pushing Internet growth beyond expectations, with video traffic seen to grow 12 times by 2013.

From a tech standpoint, the CRS-3 triples the capacity of its predecessor, the Cisco CRS-1, with up to 322 Terabits per second. That would make it possible to download the entire printed collection of the Library of Congress in just over one second, the company said, and every motion picture ever created to be streamed in less than four minutes. The system currently is in field trials, and already has been tested by AT&T between New Orleans and Miami. The CRS-3 also saves on electricity, Cisco said, consuming under 3 watts per GB; it's forward and backward compatible with the CRS-12. The price tag? $90,000.

For more:
- see this release
- check out this video
- see this Journal blog post

Brightcove inks Financial Times as client in U.K.

Jim O'Neill — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 10:41:49 -0500

Brightcove has landed leading British business newspaper the Financial Times as a client, continuing the push U.S. online video platforms have made into Europe in recent months.

Brightcove's player will replace the FT's current Maven platform for the 200-300 videos the media outlet publishes each month. The paper is looking to make better use of videos--it recently expanded it online video staff, but plans to get more of its general newsroom staff involved in the collection and production of video for its website.

Journalism.co.uk said the Financial Times is committed to expanding its video efforts and will spend more to establish video as a viable product of the newsroom. FT videos get more than one million views a month.

For more:
- see this article

Dailymotion lands online music video deal with Warner Music Group

Jim O'Neill — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 10:05:53 -0500

Dailymotion is based in Paris, but it's developing an increasing following among U.S. online video viewers. It's latest deal with Warner Music Group licensing music videos is bound to add a few more and give music industry site Vevo--which launched in December--a run for its money.

The deal with WMG will allow Dailymotion to offer users unlimited on-demand access to music videos, concerts and interviews featuring Warner's roster of artists. Users can create video play lists they can share with other registered users.

In the U.S., Warner Music will manage sales of targeted advertising and approved sponsorships embedded in the videos, and also will have access to the editorial sections surrounding the videos, providing its roster of artists with additional promotional opportunities.

"We are delighted that our large and growing repertoire of quality music videos includes content from Warner Music Group, Universal Music Group, EMI and leading independent The Orchard," said Joy Marcus, General Manager of Dailymotion US." This breadth and depth of repertoire is a big win for our users who, quite simply, love music. Advertisers will also be pleased with new opportunities to reach a large audience of highly-engaged music fans."

Dailymotion has almost doubled its global and US audience in the past year while vastly expanding its library of premium and independent music video, film, TV and short video content.

Dailymotion attracts 66 million unique monthly visitors and one billion videos views worldwide. It offers content from users, independent content creators and premium partners in high-quality and HD video. Dailymotion is available in 19 localized versions.

For more:
- see this release

Hulu scores deal with the NFL Network for online video

Jim O'Neill — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 09:35:40 -0500

Think Hulu's going to suffer because it lost The Daily Show and The Colbert Report? Maybe, but it gained a whole new audience by adding more than 600 clips of NFL content--more than 400 hours worth--to its site this week.

Hulu, which comScore said slipped in videos served up to just over 900 million in January after cracking the 1 billion mark in December, may see March numbers rebound as a result of the new content deal with NFL Networks.

Some material began appearing in January, but the league and Hulu say they plan to have more than 1,000 hours of content online at Hulu by the start of the season, which is frighteningly just around the corner. Hulu's NFL page has episodes from shows including Game of the Week, Greatest Games, Hardknocks, Live Wire, Season in Review, Sounds of the Game, Super Bowl Highlight, Team Highlights and individual microsites for each of the leagues teams. It's a football junkies nirhana.

It's an interesting turn of events, after several years of cordoning off the clips on NFL.com.

"This is really the next step or phase in the development of our Internet business," said Hans Schroeder, vice president of NFL Digital Media. "The first phase was definitely built around a model of exclusivity, particularly with regard to game footage and highlights, but we're now out looking at strategic syndication opportunities and want to have more content in more places."

For more:
- see this portfolio.com article

BBC Online head says budget, staff cuts won't hurt

Jim O'Neill — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 08:15:57 -0500

When the BBC announced drastic cutbacks to its online presence, reaction was immediate and vitriolic. But, BBC Online head Erik Huggers today told The Guardian that the cutbacks would actually make the Beeb's online presence better. Is he simply being a good soldier and falling on his sword for the Grand Dame of broadcasting? Or will the winnowing of programs and refocusing create a world-class presence?

Huggers compared the launch of the BBC Online with the BBC's initial foray into television, saying early programs were just "radio programs with pictures," adding that online growth was similar and that its sprawl was the result "of not being constrained by spectrum."

He said the BBC is committed to doing "better with less," a common cry in the news media-be it print, broadcast or digital, and one critics say just isn't possible.

Last week, the BBC, the only homegrown Top-10 Internet website in the U.K., began dealing with edicts to cut $150 million a year in overhead from its budget and retask some $900 million to focus on news, children's programming, culture and arts, and U.K. drama and comedy.

For more:
- see this article

Hulu slips in January; online video growth continues

Jim O'Neill — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 07:51:44 -0500

Hulu's visit to the Land of 1 Billion views lasted only a month, comScore said. Its Video Metrix Numbers for January showed the site, which cracked the 1-billion-views barrier in December, slipped back to just over 903 million in January, a dizzying drop of some 11 percent.

And, even though overall U.S. video viewership declined slightly from December to 32.4 billion videos viewed from 33.2 billion in December, the year-over-year stats tell a dramatically different story. Total videos viewed a year ago in the U.S. rose more than 118 percent from 14. 8 billion.

Overall, comScore says some 173 million unique viewers watched an average 187 videos, down from 177 million uniques in December (average videos watched were essentially unchanged); a year ago only 147 million uniques watched an average 100 videos.

Google properties continue to take the Lion's share of viewers and videos. It served up 12.8 billion videos in January, down from 13.2 billion in December but up from 6.4 billion a year ago.

The rest of the Top 10?

Hulu served up 903 million views, down from 1 billion in December
Microsoft served up 492 million views, down from 561 million
Yahoo served up 435 million views, down from 539 million
Viacom served up 361 million views, down from 373 million
Fox served up 293 million views, down from 551 million
Turner served up 283 million views, down from 367 million
AOL served up 242 million views, up from 210 million
Vevo served up 226 million views, wasn't in the top 10 in December, it replaced Megavideo.com
CBS served up 217 million views, down from 297 million views.

What's it all mean?

Essentially, it's a wash.

The amount of time viewers are spending watching videos continues to increase (it was 4.1 minutes in January, compared to 4.0 minutes in December and just 3.2 minutes a year ago), and a growing number of video sites are taking tiny pieces of the pie from Google, which saw its share of videos edge down from 39.8 percent to 39.5 percent; it was at 42.9 percent a year ago. And, while there's a certain amount of churn, the Top 10 in essence has remained the same players for the past year (with the exception of the music video site Vevo, which launched in December and already is in the Top 10 properties).

What could be interesting, is whether Hulu's fall continues, in the wake of its loss of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, which kicks in this week. Are the shows really critical to Hulu, or just to the media? Time will tell.

For more:
- see the metrics for the Top 10 sites

Online video distribution firm SeaWell exits stealth, announces $7M Series A funding

Jim O'Neill — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 09:27:59 -0500

Startup online video distribution company SeaWell Networks is exiting stealth mode and announcing a $7 million funding round led by BDC Venture Capital; the round also included Northwater Intellectual Property Fund and Ontario Centres of Excellence. SeaWell will use the funds to expand development and marketing efforts of their Internet video streaming solutions that will redefine how video content is delivered over the Internet.

The company, founded in the fall of 2008 by self-described serial entrepreneur Brian Collie, is testing a software solution that uses H.264 scalable video coding, that reduces cost of delivery for CDNs and content producers and also assures delivery of HD-quality content to any screen or device.

"The value proposition is pretty simple," Collie told FOLV. "For the end user, it's better quality. For the content producers or companies who are delivering it, it's less expensive and its more scalable. It's just more efficient."

SVC already is in use in video surveillance and video conferencing, but Collie says he believes SeaWell is the first to target it to the workload of the Internet video stream. Although he declined to name the partners he was testing the software with, he said SeaWell has been working with two of the largest U.S.-based content producers in early trials, and that results show the software produces quality "as good or better than adaptive streaming" with lower expense. Collie said SeaWell also would target CDNs, MSOs and telcos.

"This technology is absolutely game changing, and the technology actually works; it's not a pipe dream," said Collie. He acknowledges SeaWell is in a race to get a product out first, and said results should start to show up by the middle of 2010, adding that "by the end of 2010 you'll see it really being picked up. It allows for huge cost reductions."

Collie said the initial $7 million in funding will allow SeaWell to ramp up sales and introduce multiple products. "It gives us plenty of runway," he said. "Our last 18 months has been pretty focused on R&D."

For more:
- see this press release
- check out SeaWell's white paper on SVC.

YouTube—a billion dollar baby by 2011

Jim O'Neill — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 16:00:41 -0500

What are the billion video views a day that YouTube records worth? In a word: More. According to Citigroup analyst Mark Mahaney, the video hub will generate more than $1.1 billion in revenues by 2011... and that's a conservative estimate. He also says that Google will see about $700 million of that as net revenue. This year, he says, YouTube should gross just under $1 billion, about $945 million.

Mahaney's guesstimate is based on sound facts: YouTube has continued to grow its ad load, especially in the past nine months, and its video uploads continue unabated.

His note shows that YouTube's ad coverage on its Top 100 videos has climbed from 33 percent in June 2008 to 54 percent last month. And, he says, YouTube's viewers increasingly are watching professionally produced content.

For more:
- see this Wall Street Journal blog

Will ESPN get the 2014 Winter Olympics? Hope so

Jim O'Neill — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 12:48:37 -0500

For an awful lot of online video viewers, the 2010 Olympic in Vancouver, during which NBC had scheduled only 400 hours of actual live streaming video, were disappointing (despite bonus points for its hockey coverage).

But for NBC Universal, the Games set some significant records, or at least some milestones for whoever bids on the next available games (Sochi, Russia, in 2014). NBC says it scored some 710 million page views and 46 million unique visits as it served up 45 million streams.

The issue for many viewers was that NBC enforced a paywall around much of the available content, ticking off viewers who were not already subscribers to cable, IPTV or satellite services. Plus, live streaming of hockey and curling ONLY? C'mon, you have to offer more than that. There are big story lines all over that deserve more than delayed coverage.

For the second games in a row, Yahoo drew a bigger audience to its coverage of the games than did NBC. Of more interest, perhaps, is that ESPN saw its numbers soar this Olympics as well.

Why is ESPN a bigger deal than Yahoo? Simple... it's a player in the bidding for the Sochi Winter Games, and it's already suggesting it would be committed to more coverage--live coverage, especially--than NBC offered.

NBC paid $820 million for the Vancouver Games, and had rights to show every minute of competition if it chose to. The network claims it lost about $200 million, although there's an awful lot of debate about whether it actually lost as much as it claims.

Rights to Sochi are likely to be less expensive and, you have to believe, online and multi-screen options should both be cheaper to offer and more lucrative to present.

ESPN's EVP of content John Skipper told the New York Times last week that he was surprised NBC showed so few live events, "It's hard for me to imagine, in our culture, not showing events live."

Would ESPN show the entire thing live? Probably not. Sochi is eight hours ahead of Eastern Time, so while it could push everything to cable and online, it would need to save some of the matinee events, like figure skating, downhill skiing and snowboarding for primetime audiences.

Would it show more than the woeful NBCU effort? That's a no brainer. -Jim

P.S. Want some more numbers from the NBC effort that are a little more, well, Olympian in nature? Check out this Giga Om blog post

Apple's iPad hits stores April 3; a new online video world?

Jim O'Neill — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 11:08:06 -0500

Apple has announced its long-awaited, overdue, deified, reviled iPad tablet (WiFi only at this point) will go on sale in U.S. stores April 3. The 3G models become available later in April. If you're not into the "stand-in-line-and-make-new-friends" social scene that has become de rigueur for all new technology launches of late, you can also pre-order your iPad starting March 12 from Apple's online store or for in-store pick up April 3.

The WiFi-only line includes three models; 16GB for $499, 32GB for $599 and 64GB for $699. Add 3G to the mix and the price heads north pretty quickly; 16GB is a whopping $629, 32GB is $729, and 64GB is $829. And you get the dubious privilege of paying for an AT&T network connection-if you want the 3G functionality.

The online video industry is eagerly awaiting iPads's arrival, expecting a burt of activity in usage and innovation to accompany it. It could effectively bridge the abyss between the mobile screen and the PC screen, spurring demand for more on-the-go programming.

In case you need a refresher, the iPad:

Has a 9.7-in. display with a 1024-by-768 pixel resolution at 122 pixels per inch
Is 9.56-in. tall and 7.47-in. wide.
Is 0.5 in. thick and weighs 1.5 lbs.
Has a multi-touch interface
Advertises a 10-hour battery life
Comes with a dozen apps, including the iBookstore and iTunes
Is No. 1 on my Christmas Wish List

For more:
- see this release

ClipSync: Online video viewers want company

Jim O'Neill — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 10:25:16 -0500

San Francisco-based startup ClipSync says its research shows four out of five people who use online video would rather have company watching the latest episode of, say, "Lost," than watch it alone.

It's Social TV platform allows viewers to enter "private viewing rooms" online where they can watch an episode, chat with others in the room, even through virtual items-like tomatoes - at the screen. Or, you wan just sit and watch the episode. The software, which currently is being used by CBS and Epix, as well as several other online video sites, allows users to join shows already in progress or created their own rooms and invite friends through Facebook to join them.

At CBS.com, it's "Watch & Chat" offers episodes from "Survivor," "CSI:NY, Miami et al," "NCIS," "The Good Wife," 20 different shows in all. There generally are two or more rooms active at any time, some very busy, others nearly silent. And after the video ends, the chatter between viewers often goes on, so much so that CBS began running ads after the episode ended.

ClipSync today said it was going to be used to host live the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas. The Independent Film Channel will use ClipSync and Akamai for live, interactive, HD video broadcasts three times a day starting Mach 12.

Viewers will be able to chat, react to the video, even pose questions to performers and celebrities featured in the SXSW sessions, a form of video conferencing.

For more:
- see this L.A. Times blog
- Check out CBS's "Watch & Chat"

FCC Chairman Genachowski: We need America to take its game up a notch

Jim O'Neill — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 08:56:15 -0500

The cost of not having access to broadband connections is rising, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski told Wired Magazine, as high-speed Internet connections become as ubiquitous as newspapers and even more critical: "Ten years ago, if you were looking for a job, you could get a newspaper. Today, classifieds have moved online, and you're at a real disadvantage if you don't have broadband access," he said. "If your kid doesn't have broadband access, that's a real disadvantage for participating in modern education. You don't have access to health care information online as we move to electronic medical records. That's why it's so essential why we tackle the broadband challenge."

Genachowski said companies-which already have spent billions on building out fiber-need to spend more, and he reiterated the FCC's goal to have 100 million homes connected to 100Mbps broadband.

He also said companies need to give consumers better speeds at lower cost and need to be more transparent.

For more:
- see this Wired interview

Associated Press, Livestream team to stream live online pre-Oscar coverage

Jim O'Neill — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 15:18:24 -0500

Can't get enough of the Oscars? Really dying to know what Eva Longoria and Keira Knightly will be wearing this year? You're not alone, and you have some new tools available to you to help keep you ahead of the crowd at this year's 82^nd annual Academy Awards Sunday at the Kodak Theater in L.A.

The Associated Press will be capturing celebrity arrivals from 6-8 p.m. ET and streaming them live online via Livestream. "Oscars Red Carpet" already is up and running with Oscar features like celebrity interviews, packaged features and content that will draw Oscar-ites like moths to a flame.

In addition to the live coverage of celebrities strutting their stuff on the way into the awards show, AP reporters will post updates via Twitter and Facebook.

"This is the biggest Hollywood event of the year, and we are excited to introduce a new way for breaking news and entertainment fans to experience the Oscars," said AP Global Director of Entertainment Products Michael Dutton. "We're thrilled to team up with Livestream, as AP continues to pioneer the distribution of packaged news and event content using emerging technologies."

Livestream CEO Max Haot said the AP LIVE player would provide year-round celebrity news and features from AP.

"We look forward to supporting AP as they move forward to cultivate their events-based reporting for millions of fans across all screens and platforms," he said.

For more:
- see this release

The BBC's decision to gut its online video presence creating much ado about something

Jim O'Neill — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 12:08:24 -0500

The BBC's decision to pare down its investment in Internet and digital delivery of news and programming because of budget worries has raised some eyebrows--and questions--about what the future of the world's largest broadcasting company.

Primary to concerns is the Beeb's commitment to delivering online video, both via streaming and on demand.

The BBC is a Top-10 Internet website in the U.K., in fact, it's the only homegrown site on the list. And, as any news junkie knows, it's a great place to browse online for a different, often more global perspective on world news, and it often comes with compelling video that's ahead of the crowd.

But the BBC Trust--the group that decides where the state-supported media company spends its money--is mandating that it cut $150 million a year in overhead from the budget and earmarked some $900 million to focus on news, children's programming, culture and arts, and U.K. drama and comedy.

The changes will cut the budget to BBC online by at least 25 percent, and eliminate quarter of its staff. It also will mean shutting down online platforms BBC Switch and BBC Blast that are more teen focused.

This year's budget strategy is a far cry from a year ago, when the Trust cut back on TV and film spending and bumped the BBC's online budget by $44.3 million, less than management wanted, but still an increase. The Trust wanted more news online, more programming for children and an improvement in site navigation.

That increase was, no doubt, fueled by the Beeb's increasing success on the Internet in the U.K., where it was second in traffic only to YouTube. The BBC last year began feeding video content to several U.K. newspapers, primarily news of British politics, business, health and science and has continued to expand its online news and entertainment presence.

For more:
- see this MailOnline article

Will Adobe's new HTTP Flash streaming support lower CDN prices?

Jim O'Neill — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 09:12:04 -0500

Adobe's Project Zeri, which adds support for HTTP streaming and includes support for all Flash players, is due to debut sometime next month. The long-awaited deployment is aimed specifically at content delivery networks trying to deal with increasingly long viewing times associated with larger streamed events.

Adobe said in its blog that Project Zeri will leverage existing HTTP infrastructure and cache technologies, include adaptive bit-rate switching support and allow users to stream live or on-demand with no additional encoding to live encoding technology.

Earlier this week, analyst Dan Rayburn wrote that the technology was being tested at several CDNs with beta customers. He says the switch from RTMP to HTTP should reduce management and distribution costs to CDNs. But, he said, he hasn't started to see any drop in prices from CDNs that already are using HTTP online video delivery technology from Microsoft in the form of its SmoothStreaming product.

But, he wrote, "if the CDNs can reduce their internal cost with delivering video, even if they don't lower the price to customers, the positive impact could be that it helps the CDNs become profitable, something that almost all of them are still struggling with."

For more:
- Check out Dan Rayburn's blog

thePlatform goes social with premium online video

Jim O'Neill — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 23:01:33 -0500

thePlatform, the Seattle-based, white-label online video platform, has been a linchpin player in Comcast's TV Everywhere strategy that's helped the cable company extend its content to the web and in the process, hopefully, begun to monetize some of the programming.

Now, in what might once have been seen as a radical change of direction, the company is helping unlock the gate that surrounds that same walled garden content. But thePlatform's CEO and co-founder Ian Blaine hasn't gone dewy, he's simply helping Comcast and other professional video sites and content owners take advantage of social media's incredible ability to take video viral overnight.

thePlatform today rolled out its new social media player that allows media companies to embed and share premium online video on social networks. The company also debuted a Player Development Kit that allows users to clip, and then share, portions of videos.

"Historically, there has been some resistance from traditional media companies to fully empower consumers to share their videos across social networks because of the need to maintain some control over branding and monetization,"Blaine said. "Our video management system gives them this control. The advertisements can travel with their virally syndicated content, no matter where it has been embedded."

"About 18 months ago we began talking to customers about how to syndicate content, while reassuring them they would always have control of their video," VP of marketing Marty Roberts told FierceOnlineVideo. "We met with resistance at first."

But as thePlatform developed a player that would maintains the business policy that sits around a video, content owners began to change their minds.

"It helps to generate interest around a particular video," Roberts said. "It's a nice way for our customers to drive more video views. It actually allows your audience to be your best promoter."

Using social media to share funny, or poignant moments of online video content from programmers isn't just the purview of entertainment companies. News organization also see the new player as an opportunity to further their reach as well.

"There's no question that sharing and other social media capabilities are becoming increasingly important features for video players, and that's also true on AP's Online Video Network," said Bill Burke, global director, Online Video Products, Associated Press. "Right now, we're building enhanced players for our 1,500-affiliate network, and having these features as a standard part of thePlatform's tool set means faster and less costly player development-a real long-term benefit."

For more:
- see this release

Blackwave brings enterprise-capable video delivery platform to market

Jim O'Neill — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 23:01:33 -0500

Internet video storage and delivery company Blackwave is coming to market with its second major project since its launch three years ago. The Acton, Mass.-based company said its Blackwave Chorus video delivery platform provides enterprise-class software suitable for the massive delivery requirements of very larger Internet content providers, including content publishers, video aggregators, telcos, wireless network operators, Cable/IPTV providers and Content Delivery Networks.

Blackwave CEO Bob Rizika said the new platform would help the company continue to develop its global market.

"The Blackwave Chorus platform sets a new standard that provides the high performance and resiliency that major customers demand while also dramatically reducing their capital and operational expenditures," said Rizika in a prepared statement. "We are having enormous success with Blackwave Chorus at large-scale customer implementations in Japan and South Korea with blue-ribbon customers like SkillUpJapan and Shinsegae. The Chorus platform puts us at the forefront of the global market for ultra-fast distribution of high-quality video content over the Internet."

Forrester analyst Henry Dewing agreed; he told FierceOnlineVideo Blackwave's recent wins in Asia helped validate the technology.

"I believe that the announcement and delivery of the new Blackwave Chorus video delivery solution promises to enable Blackwave to increase penetration of large file video content delivery market," Dewing said. "The capability of their solution is endorsed - and their market success will be powered - by the types of relationships they are developing in Asia with the likes of SkillupJapan, Biglobe, Shinsegae, Mitsubishi, N2, and Toshiba." The company recently opened offices in Tokyo and Seoul and has signed major customer and partner agreements in both countries, where it feels it can develop a solid leadership position as a provider of advanced video delivery solutions for Japanese and South Korean corporate customers and reseller partners.

The base of Blackwave's Chorus is software that optimizes what is essentially off-the-shelf hardware. "We take commodity parts and get near solid-state speed out of data-class drives," CTO Mike Kilian told FierceOnlineVideo. "In Japan, we've already been able to complete a deployment with a customer where we took 20 racks of servers and replace them with one rack of Blackwave servers."

With Chorus, he said, that deployment would experience enterprise-class reliability.

"We've made this appliance software combination truly enterprise class," he said. "Any component can fail and the system will continue to deliver content. All of the disc drives are self-healing and they use slack capacity for managing repairs. It's fully automated."

It's also a key to being able to assure high-quality video delivery while keeping opex and capex as low as possible.

"In the high end of the content distribution market for VOD in HD or even SD you have three options today--host in-house and overbuild and overprovision your compute, storage, and bandwidth infrastructure--requiring you pay out very big bucks, outsource the content to a CDN and pay lots of money to those CDNs, or host in-house and use Blackwave," Michael Peterson, chairman of GoDigital Media Group told FierceOnlineVideo. "Blackwave's approach to content performance optimization revolutionizes content hosting and provisioning for large scale on-demand services, allowing companies to regain cost control and improve operating efficiencies. Reducing complexity, cost, and improving efficiency is incredibly valuable to all companies in today's economy."

Chorus has taken a couple of years to bring to market because, Kilian said, Blackwave wanted to make sure it was truly robust. "We want to be sure that whatever fails, whether somebody trips over a cord or puts a bullet through a server, it will continue to deliver content."

Kilian said the company has made inroads in Asia, and expect to continue, partially because of the difference in the delivery architecture between North America and Asia. There, Blackwave is seen as being a bigger piece of the puzzle than they are in the U.S.

"In Asia, they see us as the whole delivery system, almost a CDN in a box," he said.

Kilian said the company is anticipating increasing interest in the U.S. marketplace from telcos and cable companies as they try and reign in-and monetize-over the top delivery. "They're losing revenue because OTT currently takes it away from them. They have to figure that out, and, since we support all three screens out of one platform, we've become part of the possible solution."

He said the company already is beginning to probe deeper into the Tier 1 space but knows Blackwave needs partners before it'll be taken seriously. "I can't expect to go to Verizon as a start up and try to sell them," he said. Nonetheless, he believes that early conversations with some major partner will go a long way toward getting the company closer to its goal. "In a ‘five-nines' kind of space, you need to have partners that the big players are comfortable with," Kilian said. "I'm hopeful we can bring that sort of deal to market before the end of the year."

For more:
- see this release

Ooyala jumps into TV Everywhere pool with Backlot TV-E

Jim O'Neill — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 23:01:07 -0500

Online video platform Ooyala is jumping into the TV Everywhere fray, just weeks after arch rival Brightcove announced its entry into the market, adding that Mexican Broadcaster, TV Azteca and US-based broadcasters have signed up to begin testing the TV-E platform later this month.

Ooyala says the platform will have offer broadcast and cable networks integrated paywall authentication, will give networks more control of online monetization and consumers a broader choice of online video. The company said several customers already are beta testing Backlot TV-E, which is has native support of video delivery to Roku and Boxee, offers HD video over secure HTTP, includes audience measurement reporting tools and quality of service reporting across various CDNs.

"A lot of companies are trying to make announcements and ride the wave pushing the TV Everywhere vision," Bismarck Lepe, co-founder and president of products for the company told FierceOnlineVideo. "We feel that most of our competition is just building new doors to the same walled garden that has existed for years. We think the real solution should be a clearinghouse of content to individual consumers."

From a consumer standpoint, Backlot TV-E seems to be a real boon, or at least it's less discriminating as to audience. The platform makes content available to anyone willing to pay for it; there's no subscription required. Users will make a payment for an episode through PayPal, Amazon's Flexible Payment system or Google Checkout, and will have access to the content. The micropayment model lowers transaction fees.

Lepe said that some of what will be its TV Everywhere platform remains up for discussion. In addition to Boxee and Roku, Ooyala is working with other set-top box and OTT partners; additionally, Ooyala and its content partners are also still looking at experimenting with different business models for different markets. For example, Ooyala and partners are weighing how long a content rental window will remain open. "We'll be experimenting to see what makes sense," Lepe said.

Lepe was somewhat dismissive of some TV Everywhere products that already have come to the marketplace, saying that in one case, the company had, in his opinion, simply repackaged its enterprise product and introduced it as new.

"Backlot TV-E is a completely new product for broadcast and cable networks," he said. "We're already beginning to see interest in it from some newspapers and sports organizations; people who have topical content with short shelf lives," Lepe said.

Ooyala's move onto the TV Everywhere playing field is an attempt by the company to get in front of a moving train, one that isn't slowing down for anybody as OTT continues to gather momentum and to divert revenues from programming networks and cable companies.

"Monetization of online video content is going to play an increasingly large role in Ooyala's business," Lepe said. "It's going to be significant. In term of aligning our business on the value side, Backlot TV-E will bode well. It really marks a change for us, as opposed to being an infrastructure enabler."

Lepe said Ooyala's TV Everywhere play would include more partners outside the U.S., specifically in Europe and Latin America.

"One of things we believe as we look at the industry is that fully ad-supported content is not going to survive; it can't support the industry," he said, echoing an industry sentiment that was pushed to the forefront as the recession dented online and broadcast advertising growth. "We think it has to be a hybrid that is both ad paid. And, even having said that, this is just a first step, it's not the answer to all problems. But it is a first step that we think will provide an opportunity to help the industry."

Right now, though, that small step won't include smaller content programmers. "During the first phase, we'll concentrate on testing the model (with a major U.S. broadcaster)," said Lepe.

As to the pace of the project moving forward, Lepe said there's no doubt: "It's an interesting period of time right now, everybody is coming to the table, looking at how they're going to monetize content and worried that unless they figure out how to do it, they're not going to have jobs in five years."

For more:
- see this release
- see a slideshow of Backlot TV-E screenshots

Related articles:
Ooyala says 2009 was breakout year, expects 2010 to be brilliant
Ooyala's new online video platform gives users flexibility in sharing clips

'If I Can Dream' makes Hulu debut

Jim O'Neill — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 11:33:44 -0500

Simon Fuller's "If I Can Dream" makes its debut on Hulu today (you can watch episode 1--a lead up to the action--here), the online video hub's first stab at original content. How is it? The lone poster on USA Today summed it up in one word: Lame. It's hard to disagree.

But the effort is an interesting one in that Hulu, which comScore ranks as the No. 2 video property in the U.S. with some 1 billion views in December, should see some traffic from the reality show that follows five wannabe stars singing and acting their way to the big time. What makes it different from "American Idol" (another Fuller brainchild) is that it melds in elements of other reality successes like "The Real World" and "Jersey Shore," following the cast as they pursue their dreams while living in a fully wired Hollywood home. Viewers can watch a 30-minute highlight of the show, or they can follow the cast 24/7 live on a streaming video site, which seems a little too close.

What also makes it interesting for the online video world is that it's designed to live--and prosper--on the web. "If I Can Dream" isn't a catch up TV episode, it's ours alone. At least it is for the moment. Ford and Pepsi have agreed to cover most of the show's costs, but it will also include several pre-roll ads in the highlight episode from other advertisers as well, although the load is much less than you'd sit through on a traditional broadcast. Hulu has some display ads on the site, too.

Fuller and 19 Entertainment wanted to go the traditional route (if there is one) for a reality show, and offered "If I Can Dream" up to broadcast and cable first, with no luck. Hulu ate it up.

We'll have to wait and see what the public thinks.

For more:
- see this Reuters article

Kaltura teams with Remote-Learner on open-source e-learning delivery

Jim O'Neill — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 10:27:56 -0500

Open-source online video platform Kaltura says it will partner with educational tech company Remote-Learner to deliver rich media elearning programs that allow lecture delivery, video commenting and feedback, social networking, and note taking with interactive video to educational institutions using R-L's Moodle Learning Management System.

Remote-Learner said that using open-source delivery allows it to offer the "Kaltura Moodle" at reduced cost.

"The partnership between Kaltura and Remote-Learner once again demonstrates the power of open-source software to deliver cost-effective, compelling learning experiences," said Bryan Williams, Remote-Learner CEO. "With Kaltura we can offer our clients the ability to seamlessly integrate rich-media capabilities into their Moodle course with a cost effective, robust technology. Teachers and students will have the ability to share video, audio and pictures with each other using only their browser and a web cam."

The Moodle software is an open-source, global development project that already has more than 30 million registered users and sees more than 1,000 new installations every month.

"We are delighted to partner with Remote-Learner to further expand our reach into educational institutions' e-learning programs," Ron Yekutiel, Kaltura chairman and CEO said. "We are seeing loads of new and exciting EDU video applications being created using our flexible open-source platform, including library digitization, internal YouTube-like applications and much more."

For more:
- see this release