Technomaly » streaming

Paid Subscriptions Coming to Hulu

J. Matthew Zoss — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 16:12:27 +0000

Online streaming television content has changed the way many of us watch TV, and no site has had more of an impact than Hulu. The streaming TV hub currently offers content from several networks for free, with the primary restriction being a steady cycling of new and old programming. According to sources “with knowledge of the plans,” Hulu will soon be unveiling Hulu Plus, a paid subscription service that will allow greater access to older shows for a $9.99 monthly fee.

Personally, I’d be more than willing to pay $10 a month to access older content, provided that said monthly fee allowed me access to complete archives of shows I enjoy. Currently, most shows on Hulu make the five most recent episodes available. Upping that nominally to the 10 most recent shows wouldn’t be worth it, but I might even drop my Netflix account if you made complete seasons available. And would it kill you to get some Law and Order episodes up on the site? I need to keep up on New York City’s war on crime!

Image and Story Source: Lifehacker

Netflix Trades New Releases for More Streaming

J. Matthew Zoss — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 15:36:19 +0000

If you needed more evidence that streaming video will one day supplant physical media, you need look no further than Netflix’s recent announcement on its agreement with Fox and Universal. Following in the steps of a similar agreement with Warner Bros., DVD new releases from the studios will be delayed by 28 days – you won’t be able to rent them from the service until a month after they’ve been available for purchase.

The agreement is designed to help prop up declining DVD sales, but the real benefit for Netflix users is that the service agreed to the delays on the condition that the studios provide more streaming content for Netflix’s “Watch It Now” feature. In my mind, that’s a completely worthwhile trade. Then again, I have no intention of ever renting Avatar, the first film that will be affected by the delay.

Via Gizmodo.

Netflix Streaming Coming to iPhone?

J. Matthew Zoss — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 16:00:18 +0000

Tech companies often use online surveys to gauge interest in new features or products, and oftentimes these surveys lead to leaks of the proposed features. The most recent Netflix survey has leaked online, thanks to a very interesting potential feature that was mentioned: a new app that would bring Netflix’s “Watch Instantly” feature to iPhones. That’s a picture of the question at the left, and the full text is below in case you don’t like squinting.

For those of you who can’t be bothered to read multiple paragraphs, it comes down to this: You’d be able to watch movies and shows on your iPhone for no extra cost, provided that you have a Netflix account. However, you would only have access to the feature while connected to a Wi-Fi network, rendering the app pretty useless on a car trip and in many other situations. But even many planes have Wi-Fi now, so if this feature does come to pass I’d expect it to become pretty popular pretty quickly.

“Imagine that Netflix offers its subscribers the ability to instantly watch movies & TV episodes on their iPhone. The selection availability to instantly watch includes some new releases, lots of classics and TV episodes. There are no advertisements or trailers, and movies start in as little as 30 seconds. You can fast-forward, rewind, and pause or watch again. The movies & TV episodes you instantly watch are included in your Netflix membership for no additional fee.

Whenever you want to instantly watch content on your iPhone, your iPhone must be connected to a Wi-Fi network (such as one you might have at home or at work, or in public places like coffee shops, book stores, hotels, airports, etc.)

If this functionality were available, how likely would you or someone in your household be to instantly watch movies & TV episodes on your iPhone via a Wi-Fi network?”

Image and story source: Hacking Netflix

Oscar Red Carpet Streamed Live Over Livestream

Asterios Kokkinos — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 13:00:26 +0000

The NYC based live streaming startup Livestream just partnered up with the massive newswire service Associated Press to run all of the AP’s live video streams, streams until this point I had no idea existed. The first event to be covered under the new Livestream/AP partnership? The Oscars!

Look, I could give two craps about the Oscars, but I know that there are people out there who do care about them – those people should be excited to know that they’ll be able to check out free AP red carpet coverage of the Oscars at livestream.com/aplive. I swear to god someone was just excited to hear that news.

The Livestream player will also be embeddable for blogs and Facebook pages for free, which will hopefully make AP/Livestream more money on advertising than they’ll lose on bandwidth.

Other Livestream partners include ESPN, NPR, Fox, Scripps, and National Geographic. Livestream’s number one competitor? UStream, which is a service you probably have heard of.

Why anyone would want to watch something live on the web, I have no idea. Isn’t the whole point of web video that we watch it when we want, be it two in the morning or in the middle of the work day?

Source & Photo Source: TechCrunch