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Now that Apple has announced that it is renting movies off iTunes and improved Apple TV, it looks like the rental/download market is getting ready to blow up. According to analyst firm ABI research, video downloads will grow from 215 million in 2008 to over 2.4 billion in 2012. About half of all downloads will be for online movie rentals.

Today, the online movie rental business is slow-going. There’s Amazon Unbox, NetFlix Watch Now, iTunes and a few other scattered video download businesses. Additionally, competition will come physical rentals like NetFlix and Blockbuster, as well as cable and satellite companie. So the competition will be fierce and now everyone’s trying to get a piece of the pie now before a clear video download winner emerges.

Additionally no one is sure what the business model will be: subscription, rent-to-own, rent. And what kinds of restrictions should be set on downloadable movies, such as copying to DVDs or portable media players.

[ABI Press release]

[tags] movie rentals, online movies, iTunes, Apple, Apple TV, video downloads, online movie rentals, Internet video [/tags]

According to an AP story, TV networks are streaming millions of TV shows over the Internet, with “Heroes” and “Jericho” the two top shows. ABC won’t say what their most popular streamed shows are, but bets are “Grey’s Anatomy” is number 1 for them.

Some quick facts from the story:

• NBC has streamed 5 million individual episodes of its shows.
• ABC streamed more than 2.5 million in the first two weeks of the new season.
• ABC says the average age of its online viewers is 29; for television viewers, it’s 46.
• NBC said it has hit the “5 million mark in total downloads” with “Heroes” accounting for about half of the downloads.

None of the top four networks say how many people watch their shows online, however and Nielsen is still about 18 months away from launching an online TV measurement system. So the next big thing is by checking total web site traffic.

Visitors to ABC.com jumped 224 percent between August and September, to 181 million, according to Nielsen/NetRatings. NBC went up 30 percent while CBS was up 3 percent.

[tags] Hollywood, Nielsen, ratings, ABC, CBS, NBC, streaming, downloads [/tags]

SanDisk announced a USB product that bridges the distance between a PC and TVs allowing viewers to transfer files from the computer to the device and into a cradle connected to the TV.

The TakeTV Video Player, is meant to make it easy to transfer TV shows and movies from PC to TVs but adds yet another equipment residing next to the TV. I guess until TV sets come with USB ports, we’ll need to have a device like this. The device is available in 4GB ($99) and 8GB ($149) versions.

I’m not convinced that this is the best way to get content to your TV, but it might prove to be quick and a good low-cost way. The alternative is to a) run a wire from your PC to TV b) burn a DVD and play it on your TV or c) use a media center extender like NetGear or even Apple TV.

With the SanDisk method, you can get decent content (without going through BitTorrent) and a somewhat easy way to bridge the famous “ten-foot” gap between the PC and TV.

The bad news? You can’t take protected content, like stuff from iTunes or Amazon Unbox.

SanDisk also unveiled Fanfare, a new online video service where users can download TV shows and movies.  Content partners include CBS, Showtime Networks, Smithsonian Networks, The Weather Channel and Jaman.com. Fanfare content will also be downloadable to mobile phones, handheld computers and TVs.

[Via Forbes,  SF Chronicle and others]

[tags] SanDisk, FanFare, TakeTV, PC-to-TV [/tags]

Forbes has a pretty good article detailing how Apple got the new Apple TV device wrong, calling it an “iFlop”.

When Apple first announced a new living room device to stream and buy movies from your TV, people had high hopes. Apple’s iPod and iTunes work so well and have tremendously successful. How could Apple not get a next-gen TV device right?

Says Forbes:

“Six months later iTV is a flat-out iFlop. Renamed Apple TV upon launch, the ballyhooed box has sold perhaps 250,000 units–far behind the 1 million sold for the iPhone, which was priced twice as high and has been on the market less than half as long. Apple, which declined to let FORBES interview Jobs and other execs for this story, provides detailed sales data for the iPod and other digital wonders but won’t reveal any numbers for Apple TV; apparently the truth is too humiliating. A company spokesman declined to respond to written questions.”

Surprisingly. Jobs said at a May tech conference that the Apple TV was a “hobby” and even Apple isn’t giving much shelf space to Apple TV in their own stores. Apparently Apple has been trying to drive the price of its video downloads, much to the chagrin of the studios. Apple wants to sell movies for about $10, while the studios want $20 per download.

The movie studios got their way with Vudu, a start-up video download service, which allows users to rent movies for 24 hours (Apple TV has no rental option) and charges $20 for purchasing downloaded movies.
Apple also had problems pricing Apple TV.

According to the Forbes article:

“It wanted to keep the price low at $300, but that resulted in cheaping out on components. The first box had a tiny hard drive (40 gigabytes to store fewer than 50 hours at standard-definition TV resolution) and an older, slower Intel chip. Even then the box’s insides cost a total $237, says research firm Isuppli. That left a scant $62 in gross profit, or 20%, to be split by Apple and retailers (barely half Apple’s typical 37% gross margin). The stores went along, but when Apple TV faltered, they had even less incentive to push the new product.”

Worse yet, is Apple’s relationship with Hollywood. NBC Universal dropped plans to put its new Fall TV shows on iTunes and switched to Amazon. Again, the issue was pricing—NBC wanted higher prices, while Apple stood firm on its price.

Bonus: Unfortunately, Forbes requires free registration to read their articles online. Try BugMeNot to get access to free user names and passwords for sites that require free registration.

[tags] Apple, Apple TV, Vudu [/tags]

If you’re like me you have lots of movies on your Netflix queue. I just checked my account and found that I have 246 movies in my queue. How many are in your queue?

There’s been some buzz around this plug-in for Tivo DVRs that lets users view their Netflix queue via Tivo. It also works with Amazon’s Unbox and Blockbuster online, but who uses those anyway?

The plug-in is open source, and can actually let you browse and purchase movies from Amazon. (Ok, that’s a pretty cool feature.) Although you can’t download movies via Netflix’s service yet, you can still browse and re-order your queue. Perhaps once Netflix opens up their movie download service to more users, this feature can be added.

The bummer is that the software runs on Galleon, which is software you have to install over your Tivo operating system. And how many people are going to do that? Someone who’s either a geek or a borderline geek.

Actually, I’d like to give it a try. I just wish I had a spare Tivo that I could use in case I have to re-format it or something else goes wrong. I’ve got lots of shows from 5 months ago, that I’ve really been meaning to watch (this means you The Aleut Story).

Bonus: Watch a video of the Galleon in action.

[Via Sickles Insight]

[tags] DVR, Tivo, Netflix, Galleon, digital video recorder, Unbox, Amazon [/tags]

Did some searching and found some pretty good reviews of the Tivo and Amazon Unbox movie download service. WebWare (a CNet property) has some pretty good details. Here’s a summary of what they say:

• Hard to Find Tivo Downloadable Content. “A separate section of Amazon Unbox would be preferable,” says WebWare.
• Not Enough Tivo Content. Even though Amazon Unbox has lots of videos available for download, not all of them can be transferred to TiVos. Webware says that there are “1,433 videos labeled TiVo, which includes TV shows and movies.
• Biggest Disappointment? Tivo doesn’t do widescreen. A movie had to be switched from Wide to Normal.
• Not DVD Quality Video. WebWare said it’s a “pretty significant step down from watching a DVD.”

In a world of HDTVs, DVDs and high quality media, Tivo and Amazon Unbox should step up their quality. As WebWare points out, why not just rent the video for the same price as the download? Or order pay-per-view?

Another blogger says, why bother? Is there an advantage to using Tivo? There’s definitely less portability than a DVD.

TechCrunch points out that Tivo/Amazon beat Apple’s AppleTV product out the gate. They also offer rentals, whereas Apple TV will not. Having that lower price point( $4.99) sure helped me to try out my first Unboxed Tivo rental.

Anyone else have any experience with Tivo/Amazon Unbox?

[tags] Amazon, Unbox, Tivo, DVR, PVR, digital video recorder, personal video recorder [/tags]

Well, it’s here. Tivo users can now sign up for Amazon’s Unbox service which delivers rented or purchased movies via the Internet to Tivo boxes. And if you register before April 30th, you get a $15 credit for free movies or TV show downloads.  I’ve already signed up.

You must order online at Amazon.com/unbox, then when you check-out, you have to choose to deliver the movie over the Internet to your Tivo.  You have 30 days to watch a movie from when you first download it. And you can always re-download movies that you’ve purchased from Amazon, so you don’t have to fill up your Tivo’s hard drive with all your purchases.

Seems like a win-win, except I would have preferred to use NetFlix since I already have my queue and movies that I’ve already watched and rated. I don’t want to do that all over again with Amazon! Plus, I wish I could order directly from my Tivo in my living room, rather than from Amazon in my office. Still, it’s much faster than NetFlix mail delivery and I can order a movie at work, and have it waiting for me when I get home. Not bad.

So what’s the downside?

1. You Must Have Broadband. This is a gimme. Broadband is very popular, and you should expect to need broadband if you’re having a movie downloaded to your computer. Telephone users will have to upgrade.
2. You Need to Network Your Tivo.  Not too terrible since everyone should do this. But some people still don’t have a home network. That’s just another barrier. And yes, using the Tivo wireless adapter is the way to go.
3. The Prices are High. New releases, like The Departed, cost $14.99. That’s too much. I just want to rent it, and there’s no option to rent it yet. Rentals, however, are reasonably priced at $3.99.
4. Not Available to DirecTivo Customers. Yet again, customers that use DirecTV’s Tivo are left out of this. Only Series 2 and Series 3 are eligible. Yet another reason to drop DirecTV and go with a stand-alone Tivo. (Fortunately, Amazon can sell you a Tivo.)

I just rented The Prestige. I’ll report back on my experiences.

[Tags] Tivo, Unbox, Amazon, DirecTV, DVR, PVR, digital video recorder, digital downloads [/tags]