All right, folks…a little chicanery for you today.
I want you all to know, especially any lawyers out there, that I did NOT invent this process nor do I condone or appear to condone any activity that may even vaguely be construed as illegal, immoral or unethical in perpetuity throughout the universe.
There. That oughta shut the lawyers up. Anyway, I found out over on Lifehacker that there’s a way to download streaming video on Netflix.
Dubbed the Netflix Download Links Greasemonkey, which is downloadable online, it allows you to bypass the various DRMs and such that prevent you from watching Netflix streaming content on anything but Windows Media Player, or prevent you from watching Netflix streaming content when you’re not in your house or near a WiFi connection of any decent speed.
In all honesty, we need something like this. You know how many Netflix users out there don’t have sufficient internet bandwidth to USE a service that Netflix offers freely with subscription? Plenty, that’s how many.
If you could go somewhere with WiFi and download video off Netflix to watch later, that would be a fantastic service for people with lesser bandwidth. But, once again, that might fuel PIRACY, and we can’t have that, so for now people will be unable to use a service they pay for just to prevent other people from making a quick buck.
In case you want to use your HDTV for anything else but watching TV then get ready to embrace Vudu’s new offers. The company has confirmed that it plans to bring various services straight to your TV as long as it’s a connected one. These services are Pandora, Flickr and Picasa which I am sure you’re familiar with already. Unfortunately not every HDTV out there will be able to access them just yet. Flickr and Picasa will be available on HDTVs made by LG or Mitsubishi while Pandora will be available only on HDTVs from Mitsubishi.
Vudu will deliver even more applications to your connected HDTV in the near future so stay tuned as we’ll keep tabs on Vudu for you.
Just a few days ago we told you about Netflix intention to make its streaming service available to PS3 owners. Today we’re happy to tell you that the company is ready to ship the discs you need in order to stream movies on your PlayStation. Sure you will have to ask for one as it will not be magically delivered to your door otherwise. And yes, you definitely need to get the disc if you want to take advantage of Netflix’s streaming service on your PlayStation right now. Otherwise you’ll have to wait until 2010 to get a PS3 update which will enable PS3 instant streaming without the need of any extra disc.
So a new brand of pico projector, the SHOWWX, has burst onto the scene and has already taken orders for the tiny devices. Microvision, the company behind the SHOWWX, has struck a deal with a European mobile phone producer to basically attach SHOWWXs to their line of phones.
This is actually a really impressive development. This is the very beginning of the era of the universal home theater, in which content can follow you and be exhibited anywhere under similar conditions to your own home theater.
See, the SHOWWX is intended for mobile devices, and so works well with streaming video, Flash video, and most anything you’d see on, say, YouTube or Hulu. But that’s not to say that the streaming from Netflix wouldn’t also work. And since the SHOWWX is designed to throw up an image measuring roughly two hundred inches across, they’re just perfect for home theater, even when you’re not home. Think about that–watching a movie in a hotel room the exact same way you’d watch it at home? Oh, sure, the SHOWWX isn’t a match for a 1080p JVC, yet, but this is just the beginning.
Best Buy is ready to enter the video on-demand business. The electronics retailer has announced a partnership with CinemaNow which should bring entertainment to your home soon. Starting with next year, customers that purchase connected devices from Best Buy will be able to enjoy all the CinemaNow content they want.
CinemaNow’s video library will be included in every connected device so no matter what Best Buy store you go to, the service will be available almost immediately. Best Buy will let you watch your favorite titles on all the connected devices in your home and some new movies will be available on the same day the official DVD is released. What devices will get the new service? All TV sets, Blu-ray players, PCs, smartphones sold by Best Buy and capable to connect to the Internet will come bundled with the new CinemaNow service.
Best Buy has also partnered up with Netflix, TiVo and Napster which means that next year you will have a lot of movies and TV shows to watch on your connected devices.
Okay, while I’ll admit the thought of being able to download the latest movies and watch them, in your home, any time of the day or night thanks to stuff like Netflix and Blockbuster, and TV shows thanks to Hulu, plus any of a dozen less legally clear alternatives, is a massive slice of fried awesome, it’s not a huge surprise that the internet service providers don’t agree.
See, if people can just get whatever they want from the internet, well, then people are basically paying one price for all their entertainment needs. Suddenly, media companies take a nosedive and the ISPs are left running a massively backlogged information superhighway. So sensing their opportunity to take THEIR pound of flesh, most of the big providers are already engaged in proactive bitching and moaning about how hard it is to keep all this infrastructure up and running and why, in order to survive, they MUST start gouging their customers by requiring them to pay based on their usage.
You think I’m being funny there, but I’m not. Check this out:
So the ISPs are eyeing metered usage as a new tactic. Time Warner got as far as running an experiment in Texas and was considering expanding it to other cities until it was beaten back by consumer advocates and Congress, where a bill banning metered usage was introduced. But AT&T has implemented usage-based pricing in Texas and Nevada, Verizon is threatening to do the same, and Comcast has imposed a usage cap.
So can we continue to get all we can use internet? Or will we soon be facing massive price hikes for literally every second spent online? Only time will tell.
Cisco unveils another potential gadget that should allow you to save movies via USB device. The FlipShare TV is a three-piece package which makes use of a software to transfer movies via USB from a computer for possibly playing them on a standard TV set. Thought that last part wasn’t mentioned, the pictures below perhaps best explain the purpose for these interface buttons and jacks. No word on pricing and availability yet but at least you know it is coming after getting FCC approval.
You didn’t expect Netflix to miss out on all those Wii consoles out there, did you? The company is already streaming movies to the Xbox 360 and Sony’s PlayStation should be ready to offer you support for Netflix videos in November.
According to leaked information Netflix is currently working on video streaming for the Wii and it should be all available by the end of the year. A launch before Christmas isn’t guaranteed as Netflix might be waiting for Nintendo to unveil the Wii HD which could happen sometime early 2010.
If you want cheap streaming media entertainment, the money is geared towards Netflix members and Amazon Video on Demand users who are enjoying this privilege through the use of cheap Roku media players. Now Roku broadens the package by offering two new HD streaming media players with the the Roku-HD-XR ($130) and the Roku SD ($80). Both are sure to fit into one’s budget, media players that should satisfy the streaming video entertainment and keep the costs of home entertainment at affordable levels.
Just a couple of days ago we told you how Netflix is going to bring its streaming service to a new gadget out there. As suspected it proved to be a game console. And it’s not the Xbox 360! It looks like Netflix has partnered up with Sony and the PS3 will also be able to let you watch Netflix movies. All you need is a Netflix account and a PlayStation Network account which happens to be available for free.
The service will be available starting with next month so make sure you get ready for it. You’ll need a Blu-ray disk from Netflix in order to be able to access its library until a software update for the PS3 becomes available.
Disney is going to take a whole new approach to DRM. The company is going to offer a new feature called the Keychest which is apparently going to let you enjoy your content anywhere you want. Nothing is certain yet but Keychest will probably let you enjoy a movie on any device and you might even be able to play the content on more than one device at a time. What do you think, does that sound interesting enough? Hopefully others will follow this Keychest concept in the near future.
We’ll get back with more news about the whole buy once view anywhere concept as soon as it becomes available. The technology should be unveiled sometime next month so until then you’ll just have to deal with more DRM content.
We still don’t know what the mysterious device is but according to Netflix’ CEO Reed Hastings, the company is getting ready to make Netflix streaming available to a new gadget. The thing in question has a “material installed base” so can we assume that we’re talking about a console? Netflix streaming is supposed to be an Xbox exclusive but does that mean that PlayStation support is out of the question?
And just in case you’d like to be able to use Netflix services in other countries too then you’ll be happy to find out that Netflix is considering expanding internationally next year. Naturally we’re talking about Netflix’ streaming service. Sending DVD to other countries is out of the question!
So I’m still hearing dark muttering out of Camp General Electric, which indirectly owns Hulu, that they need to start making people PAY for this stuff. But they’re considering a whole lot of different plans, including one I actually suggested a few months back.
After reading Chris’s piece over the concept, my own idea suddenly took on a stark new importance. Why is Hulu not getting more involved with advertising if it wants to boost its revenues? They’re talking in that direction, but nowhere near as aggressively as they should.
“I know [Hulu is] looking at any number of things, like adding inventory (more advertising) or creating a subscription model with different windows.”
More advertising. That’s your ticket right there. Frankly, I’ve long believed that internet advertising models are WILDLY divorced from reality. Pay per click? Excuse me? No. You don’t pay a newspaper or a magazine or a TV station based on the number of people who come into the store after the ad. No. You pay a RATE based on viewership numbers. Higher the viewers, higher the ad bill. You don’t like the results, you go elsewhere AFTER you cut the check.
But Hulu’s pretty popular as it sits. If it can present more ads, or bigger ads, to the wide audience that shows up for free Hulu TV, well, then why not? There’s how you make your money. And if a big name like Hulu can help lead Internet advertising AWAY from the pay-per-click model and into a model more in line with the rest of the advertising industry, then what we have here is a whole new paradigm. Frankly, the world is moving to the Internet anyway–newspapers are shutting their doors, magazines are fleeing to their web sites and dumping their paper equivalents, Kindle is the new bookstore.
Let’s get Internet advertising to a respectable state for all web sites.
This is not a thought that had occurred to me, myself.
If you’ve been here a while, you already know that I went on an extended diatribe a while back about how streaming wouldn’t kill DVD in under five years for a whole panoply of reasons. In case you’re new, you can find that article right here. But one wrinkle I hadn’t thought of that I just read about is that streaming video just might kill off Blu-ray.
See, here’s the interesting part. Streaming video is on par with Blu-ray in terms of quality. Most of the people who would be interested in Blu-ray technology are early adopters, and most early adopters live in urban settings where they’re most likely to be able to get their hands on the new stuff. They’re also most likely to have the highest speeds of internet access available, and without download restrictions or limitations.
Thus, the people most interested in Blu-ray technology are also the people most likely to be interested and have the necessary infrastructure available to engage in streaming video. Now why would you get a Blu-ray disk delivered to you, or buy one, when you can simply stream the content directly to your TV?
I can’t think of a reason either. Meanwhile, the people who are the least interested in Blu-ray are enjoying their DVD libraries, not caring about Blu-ray, and couldn’t get streaming if they wanted it anyway.
Are you ready for a new Home Theater in a Box solution? LG just happens to have a new HTIB for you, the HB954SP. The device features a 5.1-channel sound system, 1,000 watts of power, five oval drivers, a subwoofer, a BD-Live Blu-ray player, a couple of HDMI inputs and even a dock ready to take in your iPod or iPhone. Other specs include 1080p upscaling of DVDs, touch sensitive controls, USB and Ethernet ports and an optical audio input. As always, the press release doesn’t include a price for this HTIB but LG plans to launch it in November. Only a few weeks left…
Ooooh boy. Well, folks, if there’s anything you wanted to see on YouTube you may want to go there now and watch, because it looks like the lawsuit Viacom’s bringing against them is about to blow wide open.
Check THIS out:
In addition, internal YouTube e-mails indicate that YouTube managers knew and discussed the existence of unauthorized content on the site with employees but chose not to remove the material, three sources with knowledge of the case told CNET. The e-mails, according to the sources who asked for anonymity because of the ongoing litigation, surfaced during an exchange of information between the two sides of the legal dispute. They are one of the cornerstones of Viacom’s case, as well as that of a separate class action lawsuit filed against Google and YouTube by a group of content owners, the sources said. The group includes a European soccer league and a music-publishing company.
And this torpedoes YouTube’s defense. It was one thing for YouTube to have no idea that the content was getting posted. It was another to know and be working on it. It was something entirely different to know and do nothing about it, which is what those documents seem to show.
YouTube, and through them, Google, is about to have a seriously bad time fending off Viacom’s attack. But YouTube’s defense may not be for naught after all–see, they have one excellent point backing them up: all these people uploading copyrighted content…some of them are the ACTUAL OWNERS of the copyright. Viacom’s doing the uploading in some cases. So how can YouTube ever be expected to know the difference between Viacom’s own uploads and uploads from some guy who converted his VHS collection into MP4 and uploaded it himself?
Better safe than sorry though, folks–best get your video fixes while they’re there to be got.
Coming soon to a Hulu near you–hand over your credit card number to watch?
It’s a downright scary proposition that Hulu may someday go the way of Napster and the like and start demanding payment, but it’s a possibility, according to recent moves by Comcast to acquire a stake in Hulu.
It only makes sense, really–if your options are between watching content from Syfy or Food Network or the like free on Hulu or with pay on Comcast or a similar cable or satellite provider, your first choice will probably be whatever doesn’t require you to pay. This is just basic math and economics coming together to righteously pound Comcast.
So Comcast, in turn, figures that if you can’t beat ‘em, your next logical step is to buy ‘em out and make them dance to your pay-tv tune like so many puppets.
But then, if you have to pay to watch Hulu, what’s the point of having it in the first place? This means, of course, that Comcast’s investment will collapse like a toothpick structure being used as a jack for a Cadillac Escalade.
Who said that a tiny netbook can be a part of your theater? Remember, it’s not the size that matters but the motion of the ocean, not that I’ve heard that line myself. What I mean to say is that it looks like NVIDIA’s and Adobe’s joint efforts have finally paid off. The video above shows 720p Flash video coming from a netbook. The netbook that does GPU-accelerated 720p video happens to be the ION-powered HP Mini 311 but don’t get all too excited right away. The technology behind it will be available only next year so you’ll have to wait a while before you start streaming videos from your little netbook..
NETGEAR has launched a new all-in-one set top box for people investing in home theater entertainment with the Digital Entertainer Live. With this new compact all-in-one set top box, people can now enjoy streaming Internet videos and playing home media right in their very own homes.
The NETGEAR EVA2000 is an easy to use set top box which you can simply connect to your TV sets to enjoy videos from video sites such as YouTube and Roxio CinemaNow people normally access via a standard laptop or desktop.
The EVA2000 Digital Entertainer Live is now available at leading retailers in the U.S. for $149.99. Worldwide availability of the Digital Entertainer Live is planned for the coming months.
All right, folks…a little chicanery for you today.
