Via TVPredictions.com, NetFlix is partnering with LG to add NetFlix downloadable movie functionality on LG’s combo HD-DVD / Blu-Ray device.   While the device is expensive ($999), I’d assume we’ll be seeing lots of announcements about this service in similiar products including game consoles, as has been rumored for some time now.  It’s a good move for NetFlix, but with a lot of competitors entering this space, it’s going to be all about the partnerships with content holders to get good downloadable content and device manufacturers like TiVo, XBox, and PS3 which are already in the living room and have internet access. 

In a nutshell, it’s all about the XBox Live service as a digital turnpike for media according to this article in the NYTimes.

(Hat Tip and Discussion: SlashDot.org)

Via TivoBlog.com, TiVo and Amazon are offering 20 free classic movies to help entice customers to try out the new Amazon Unbox service.

If you haven’t tried the Unbox service, there is no better time.

On October 22nd, SanDisk introduced a unique product TakeTV, a usb thumb drive and media player mashup to simplify playing downloaded video on your television.    NewTeeVee.com has an excellent article describing the product and it’s accompanying download service, Fanfare, which has shows from CBS and Showtime, among others.

The product includes a specialized thumbdrive that attaches to a remote, and a simple dock to connect to your television.  The idea is that users can just plug in their thumbdrive and download a show, and use the old fashion sneakerNet to hook it up to the television.  There is no need to hook up a networked device and have another computer running acting like a media server.  At $99 for the 4GB model (there is a $149 8GB model as well) , it’s a low cost solution for getting your tv connected.

On the content side, SanDisk has introduced FanFare, which is a online web service providing encrypted content that can only be played on the TakeTV.  FanFare comes as a windows application that seamlessly downloads shows from their server and puts them on the TakeTV thumb drive.

The sub-$100 price point seems like a magical place to be, but I wonder if it wouldn’t be worth $50 more to buy a Zune ($79 if you can find it on woot.com) or other full portable video player that has the ability to play video on the TV.  The trick really is making the download fast and easy, but with the small 1Mbit DSL connection, it still can take hours to download a movie depending on the format.

The lack of screen and portable playing I think could be compensated if it support HDTV, something that the current version lacks.  With HDTV sales taking off, this kind of product could find a better niche over an iPod or Zune by supporting HDTV resolutions.  Watching standard resolution video on an HDTV is just turning into a drag and finding a way to get downloaded content easily will be the next battleground for connected devices.

It’s an interesting take on a common problem, and with it’s simple implementation and price point, it might make some fans.

Sony’s Playstation 3 (PS3) has had some serious problems getting traction in the market. With only a few good games and a high price, it’s been beaten into submission from lower cost products like the XBox 360 and the Nintendo Wii.

Two strengths of the PS3 is it’s inclusion of a blue-ray player (albeit adding to the cost of the PS3) and its integration with the Playstation Portable (PSP). The PS3 comes with a feature called Remote Play that lets users use their PSP as a remote viewing device for content on the PS3 as long as both are powered up and connected to the same network (or via the internet). While the feature as it stands isn’t too useful, I really think there is some interesting ways this can be expanded.

What I suggest is the ability to use the PS3 to transcode blue-ray and DVD movies and transfer them on the PSP so users can watch content on the go. Right now, using software such as our TVHarmony Autopilot, PSP users can watch their favorite shows, but the ability to take a DVD or Blue Ray movie and transcode them are a bit more difficult to do. Sony has an excellent opportunity to build the ability to transcode that content (or if it’s a Sony Blue Ray, just add the transcoded version directly on the Disk), encrypt it in a format that ties it to the PSP, and put it on the device. With encryption, it eliminates some of the piracy concerns, and it adds a lot of value to both PS3 and PSP.

The downside is it ruins Sony’s UMD movie business, but given the failing sales of UMD movies, it’s not a great loss for Sony. It also might hurt sales of VOD movies should Sony ever create a business similiar to iTunes, but let’s face it, if you already have a DVD in your hands, I doubt many users will want to pay extra to download it again via the internet.

Sony needs something to turn the tide of it’s ailing gaming business, and while this won’t do it on it’s own, it would be a great feature that would spread the love.

The web has been buzzing about this article from Reuters that says Apple is in negotiations with studios to put movies up on iTunes. According to the article:

Apple’s Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs is said to want one flat price of $9.99 per movie, whereas studio executives want a range of prices that mirrors videos and DVDs at retail stores which, generally speaking, run from discount titles at a few dollars apiece up to $19.99 or more for new releases.

$10 seems pretty steep but $20 seems like highway robbery for something that is likely to be far less quality than a DVD, take a few hours to download, and likely will be stuck with all the DRM hassles of being to view it on the device of my choice.

Personally, I think Apple should be negotiating the opposite deal. I’d try to get studios to put iPod compatible video formatted files directly on the DVD, making it quick and simple to transfer it to an iPod, by just inserting the DVD on your computer and clicking transfer in iTunes. As a portion of the disc, the video files would be relatively small.

It would be a win for Apple by making it more entrenched as a standard, it would be a win for iPod users who don’t have to worry about the nuances of fair use and copyright and who won’t have to wait hours for it to transfer, and it would be a win for the studios in that they are offering more features to their users and providing an alternative that keeps some sort of DRM in place.

Via tarheel-euphoric DigitalMerging.la, News.com quotes Michael Arrieta, senior vice president of Sony Pictures:

“We want to set business models, pricing models, distribution models like (Apple Computer CEO Steve) Jobs did for music, but for the film industry.”

Further in the news article:

To that end, Arrieta said, his group plans to digitize Sony Pictures’ top 500 films and make them available for the first time in various digital environments within the next year. He said the distribution for films like “Spider-Man 2″ will go beyond just Movielink, the video-on-demand joint venture of Sony Pictures and several other major studios, which to date has hosted a limited library of Sony’s movies.

For example, Sony plans to sell and make films available in flash memory for mobile phones in the next year, Arrieta said. It also will further develop its digital stores for downloading and owning films on the PC, he said in an interview.

While not specifically mentioned in the article, it also certainly means support for the PSP, which in my mind, is no brainer service for young professionals that travel for business. Software like PSP Video 9 are certainly handy for PSP users, but I’ll trade the hassles of converting a DVD to a usable file format and the hours it takes to transcode it for an inexpensive download of a video file that must be watched within a few days.

Gamespot has more noise on the expanding role the Playstation Portable may have in the future. According to the article, when the PSP is released in South Korea in May, it will include a new piece of bundled software called the Network Utility UMD. With that running, users of the PSP will be able to:

Other networked services scheduled for PSP consumers in Korea include on-demand streaming music, on-demand streaming videos (including TV shows), e-learning options, and electronic books. SCEK and KT expect that they will be the first companies to provide a full online experience for the PSP user in any market.

It’s unclear from the article whether this service just streams content wirelessly for real-time viewing or if you’ll be able to save the result on a Memory Stick Duo card for later viewing. Assuming that you can save the results to the Duo card, this could be a great way to grab a few videos before hopping on a plane.

From my point of view, this seems like a better approach for video distribution than buying UMD discs of movies. I can’t really see the financial justification of buying a PSP UMD movie for the same price as a DVD, but only be able to watch it on a small PSP screen. On the other hand, having the ability to download a video for a reasonable fee of $5 to watch while travelling makes a great deal of sense.

Since VOD service provider MovieLink already has licensed content from Sony Pictures, it’s not a stretch to think that a service like Movielink would extend their service into the PSP. It’s even less of a stretch to think that since Sony is already dipping its corporate toe into downloadable movies, it might try the same approach for the PSP.

Via the TVPredictions.com newsletter, I found one jewel of an article describing the fiture of cable. Brian Roberts, CEO of Comcast, had some candid comments on the company’s strategy for the future when he spoke to students at Wharton. The future as he described it boils down to three letters: VOD (Video on Demand).

Earlier this year, Comcast unsuccessfully tried to acquire Disney in what some analysts thought was a move for Comcast to diversify out from the cable business. Roberts, on the other hand, says it’s the wealth of content that he can add to his Video on Demand services that made them such an attractive acquisition candidate.

The article states:

In his talk at Wharton, Roberts made it clear that he believes his company’s future hinges on video-on-demand. That, he argues, is why the Disney bid made sense. On-demand allows customers to choose not only what they want to watch but also when. It also lets them control their viewing via functions such as pause and replay. Satellite TV, cable’s biggest competitor, offers abundant programming but not two-way communication.

Roberts stated further:

“Television today is a one-way experience. It seems totally clear to me that the personalization of television is the future. Everybody wants to do what they want, when they want. And we happen to have a platform for that, where our competitor, satellite, doesn’t. So all of our energy is to give our customers, on demand, the ability to get as much content as possible.”

Does the “what they want, when they want” sound familiar? It should if you’ve been watching the new Tivo advertising blitz that uses a similiar refrain as its mantra. It’s clearer than ever that cable operators have their own centralized vision of the future, and that Tivo is more a competitor than a partner.

There is also a glimpse on the difficulties facing the Netflix/Tivo deal in acquiring a large library of content. I think the success of this deal largely rests on the ability of Netflix and Tivo to get enough titles online to make it worth getting the service.

Comcast, which will have five times more subscribers for its VOD service even if Tivo makes it’s forecast, has had difficulties licensing content. Roberts says:

“We go to movie companies and say, ‘We’ve got this great on-demand in five million homes, and it will be ten million by the end of this year.’ And you know what they say? ‘The problem is DVD sales are so good right now that we can’t tick off Wal-Mart.’ The single largest revenue source for Hollywood is Wal-Mart. How did they get themselves in that situation? And they say, ‘I know, I know. We have got to stop giving it to Wal-Mart. They squeezed us on the price last quarter, but we have got to make budget.’ That’s what’s happened with the music business. They were making all of this money on CDs, and one day Napster just took it away.”

There is a lot more to the article, so put it on your reading list if your are interested in the mechanics of the industry.