Yesterday, we wrote both on Roku Netflix Player, and on Amazon Video on Demand. EngadgetHD reports today that Amazon Video on Demand will be available on the box after a free software update early this year. Any of Amazon’s 40,000 other titles will be able to be purchased and played back to the TV for a 24 hour window. Unfortunately, the maximum bitrate is only h.264 compressed 1200Kbps. No HD as yet.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=a3d0c5d0-e8fe-4b80-a250-da8f4847005e)
MATTHEW BOWERS has been paying to have HBO piped into his home every month for nearly two decades. He tunes in for the occasional episode of “Entourage†and every couple of months orders a movie on demand. Recently, the whole family watched “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.â€
But when his company laid him off in September, he started to think about the value he was getting out of the premium cable channel. “It’s ridiculous to pay for this service I rarely use when I can get the same stuff online and save a lot of money,†he said. The result? HBO is losing a customer.
DVD Sales are dropping, and crucial car advertising on TV is drying up. And most importantly, TV watchers now have cheaper ways of watching programming, including Netflix, Hulu, and others we’ve mentioned.
Warner Brothers Television, which supplies “The Mentalist†and “Eleventh Hour†to CBS, recently asked the network to pull full-length episodes from its Web site, along with the comedy “Big Bang Theory.†The thinking is that they were potentially too hurtful to old-fashioned syndication sales to television stations down the road.
MGM signed a deal recently with YouTube to provide content, but it doesn’t include any of its most valuable content. They have chosen less popular movies such as Bulletproof Monk and reruns of the original American Gladiators series.
There is certainly potential profit in digital streaming, as seen, but it hardly compares to the profit studios make in television and DVD syndication. None of these sites, however popular, offer a full catalog of options, thus buying or renting physical media is still viable option. You never know when something might be pulled from Hulu or Youtube, thus making it unavailable for impulse viewing.
So, while DVDs might be replaced by Blu-Ray, or other media…while more and more people may choose to stream their videos directly to their televisions, or take advantage of new download and burn yourself services, there will always be a market for owning a copy of a video free and clear, and without entanglements.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=e5aa2daa-7163-4242-aded-df6aa33ad42d)
Senator Herb Kohl, Chairman of the Anti-Trust Subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee sent a letter this month to the four major wireless carriers, AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, and T-Mobile asking them to explain the increase.
Carriers limit the number of characters in a text message to 160. Assuming a maximum of 140bytes stored per message, that means that if you were charged the same per-byte rate to download a 4MB song, you would pay about $6000. Nothing has changed particularly in the cost of providing the service, however, companies have the right to charge whatever they can get away with.
The odd thing is that math. We have a phone where text messages are 20 cents each, yet megabytes of downloaded data are 1.99 each. If we want to use Instant Messenging applications provided on our phone, they use text messages as opposed to using data time so they can charge more(We’re Verizon customers, in the interest of disclosure).
Kohl has asked for a response by October 6th. Some experts feel the increases may be a reflection of the decrease in competition as the four major players absorb smaller regional providers.
We look forward to hearing the response from the providers and hope it sparks some sort of change. The current system is ridiculous.
Our current cable provider, Time Warner…with which we’ve had many problems…offers two digital packages…the Value Pack and the Standard Pack. On top of that, you can get sports extras, premium channels, and an HD package. Ideally, we’d prefer some more finely tuned options.
The cable companies insist that ala carte will increase the costs…as channels are often sold to them in blocks. However, they could sell them in much smaller blocks than they do now.
The Consumerist suggests you write John Kerry and have him write a letter to Martin.
For more information, ZDNet has an analysis of the patent infringement. Most feel the language is too general for the accusation of infringement to hold up.
Vonage chief executive Mike Snyder has left the company, and founder and chairman Jeffrey Citron is taking over until a replacement is found. Citron is legally banned from associating with stockholders.
Forest Blog, written by 29 year old developer Patrick Robin, is distributed under a Linkware license, which means that anyone who uses it must link back to his site or purchase a license. So essentially, the MPAA is so upset about piracy that they pirated software to run their blog. It is not the first time they have been guilty of such hypocritical behavior.
So far, Dell has yet to respond to the complaint with any degree of serious consideration. We will continue to monitor it for updates.
With increased features and functionality being in demand, and the decreasing cost and storage space of flash memory, the move can be a good one. But 32GB of flash memory is only as good as the lowest standard iPod storage space count…although the availability of larger flash memory modules is no doubt around the corner. Flash memory does have a shorter possible lifespan than hard drive storage, but the estimated lifespan is not that far off the warranty period of a standard hard drive.
We tend to prefer flash memory systems over hard drive ones. Mostly because we can’t foresee needing our entire music collection in our pocket at all times. With video…there is a need for more space to store each hour…but for those who need it…technology marches on.