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WebM Is Coming to Live Streaming
11 hours 58 min agoBarcelona-based video streaming startup Flumotion is celebrating the world’s first WebM live stream this week with a live feed from the GUADEC conference in The Hague. The conference, dedicated to the open source GNOME desktop, is a fitting coming-out for the codec, which was open sourced at Google’s I/O developers conference in May, and it seems to generate some significant interest: Early reports mention more than 100 concurrent viewers.
That doesn’t sound that much — until you realize that this is not only a niche audience event, but that most users aren’t actually able to watch the stream without installing a new browser. Opera is the only browser maker to have integrated WebM into its regular releases. Chrome users still have to install an early access release usually reserved for developers, and Firefox users will have to resort to the most recent beta version of the browser.
I asked Flumotion’s co-founder and CTO Thomas Vander Stichele when WebM will matter to the rest of us, and when it’s going to reach its tipping point, and he sent me the following reply via email:
“WebM will be important for the mass audience when Firefox and Chrome start supporting it natively outside of non-beta releases. The tipping point will be when either Microsoft or Apple ship WebM by default in Internet Explorer or Safari.”Safari users may be out of luck for the foreseeable future: Apple CEO Steve Jobs has slammed WebM for potentially violating patents. Microsoft on the other hand has said that it will hold out until the format is more mainstream.
Related content on GigaOM Pro: What Does the Future Hold For Browsers? (subscription required)
Categories: Video News
Ark Could Be Lost For the Web — If It Gets a Second Season
Wed, 07/28/2010 - 16:30The hypothetical I’ve heard posed frequently over the last year or two is this: When is online video going to get its Lost — a creative, well-produced, buzzworthy series that offers enough intrigue to keep audiences engaged? I’ve heard some people answer that question with “Never,” saying that web series budgets and talents aren’t up to the challenge. But that was before Ark premiered on Hulu last Friday.
Developed and financed by the now-defunct 60 Frames, directed by Trey Stokes and created and written by Robbie Thompson, Ark is a sci-fi thriller that doesn’t give its secrets away easily.
The first episode is largely dialogue-free, opening with Connie (Xena the Warrior Princess‘s Renee O’Connor) finding herself in an forest in space, and subsequent episodes push closer and closer to the audience understanding who Connie is and what she’s doing there.
Ark pulls off a high-quality project, including overall top-of-the-line visual effects (minus some awkward green-screening in episode 1), on a extremely limited budget: $50,000, which is about a fifth of what was spent on the Stage 9/Crackle sci-fi series Trenches. (Your sci-fi trivia of the day: Ark was shot partially on a standing set that devoted Firefly fans might recognize from the episode “Bushwhacked.”)
There have been sci-fi series with great production values. There have been sci-fi series with great writing. But Ark is the rare combination of the two.
When I say that Ark has great writing, what I mean is that the drawn-out reveal of the show’s central mystery is so compelling that it kept me enthralled for nine episodes. Of course, because Ark‘s main draw is that mystery, I’m going to advise that you don’t read the below unless you mind spoilers.
Seriously, spoilers below.
Are you ready?
Okay, spoilers start…
Right…
NOW.
HAH. Gotcha. I lied. There are no spoilers here. Why? Because the first season of Ark concludes with no firm answers, but instead a teasing cliffhanger on par with “the hatch is open.” I suppose that’s a spoiler, the fact that there are no answers to the show’s major mysteries, and to write it here might dissuade some of you from checking it out. But Stokes, via phone, does promise that they do know the rest of the story, and they hope to continue it.
Stokes put the likelihood of there being a new season of Ark at 50 percent. “Everyone wants to do one, and we owe people an ending. It’s just a matter of funding and how it does [on Hulu],” he said.
Executive producer Gabe Sachs, on the other hand, puts the odds at 85 percent, though according to him, “That’s to do with confidence — we’re going to do whatever it takes to sell the story, and would love to do a second season.” Some of that confidence comes from the fact that as of today, he and partner Jeff Judah control the rights to Ark, which means that they’re free to pursue other opportunities for the series.
That may include transferring the series to television as opposed to remaining a web series, though both options have their drawbacks according to Sachs. “If we did it for TV, we’d hopefully partner with someone who has the same vision for [the show], and there wouldn’t be as many budget constraints. But with the web, we’d have total control.”
Ark is currently geo-blocked on Hulu, though Stokes says that they plan to release the episodes for international audiences on YouTube at some point down the line (there’s no specific time frame for that plan). According to Stokes, the show’s performance on Hulu “is doing very well so far — Hulu is very interested in it, asking us what else we’d like to do and what other projects we have in mind.”
Whether Ark becomes another successful web-to-television transfer or a web series powerhouse is thus yet to be determined. But as much as I feel that the web video world needs to support great content like this, as a viewer I have to admit that I’m having a hard time caring where the next episodes come from. Because, ultimately, I just really want to know how the story ends.
Related GigaOm Pro Content (subscription required): Should You Super-Syndicate Your Web Series?
Categories: Video News
TiVo & Apple: There’s an App for That
Wed, 07/28/2010 - 15:00Rumors that Apple is cooperating with TiVo on the next generation of its Apple TV device caused TiVo’s shares to spike earlier this week, going up as high as $9.24, only to fall back down to $8.51 in after-hours trading today. The rumors were prominently picked up by the Barron’s blog Tech Trader Daily, but short on details, and there’s a lot to be skeptical about:
- Apple’s upcoming TV device is supposedly all about streaming, foregoing a hard drive for very little Flash memory, but TiVo DVRs are still local content devices at heart. The whole notion of DVR time-shifting is built around the idea that you save shows and movies on your local hard drive.
- Steve Jobs doesn’t like broadcasting. The iPod was initially built on chips that made it possible to receive FM radio, but Apple never embraced this functionality.
- Apple would have to support CableCARD to make it possible for its users to record cable TV programming – which could turn the Apple user experience into the same nightmare that everyone else is facing. Not going to happen.
However, there’s still hope for TiVo fans: From everything we know so far, it looks like the next-generation Apple TV device will be based on iOS, essentially bringing iOS apps to the TV screen. Now what if TiVo was working with Apple on an app that made it possible to stream content from your DVR straight to your TV? This would enable TiVo users to easily enable multi-room DVR capability by just popping an Apple TV next to every other set they own. Want to watch TiVo in your entire house? There’s an app for that.
The idea isn’t as far-fetched as it might seem. TiVo is already in the business of selling software that allows you to watch your recordings on your computer, so adding the Apple TV to the mix would make sense — and it could bring in some additional revenue, provided that the app isn’t given away for free. It could also help the company to stay relevant in an age where over-the-top devices and cheap no-name DVRs provided by pay TV operators are eating its lunch.
So why should Apple do this? After all, isn’t the company planing to make money with $0.99 streams of TV shows? Again, it’s helpful to take a look at the iPod. 99-cent pricing helped to popularize the iPod, but it’s not paying the bills for Apple, which only keeps only a few cents on the dollar. And the iPod wouldn’t have been a huge success if it weren’t for the availability of free content. I’m not even talking about piracy for once, but about consumers ripping their own CDs. Well, the same can’t legally be done with DVDs, which is why it doesn’t hurt Apple to have another legal avenue to get content on its device.
Apple is betting that people will eventually buy all their media à la carte. But so far, some 90 percent of all U.S. TV viewers still subscribe to pay TV. The company needs to offer those 90 percent some way to ease into the Apple TV ecosystem. An app strategy might just be the right way to do so.
Related content on GigaOm Pro: Connected Consumer Market Overview, Q2 2010 (subscription required)
Categories: Video News
Russian Court Bans YouTube Over Extremist Video
Wed, 07/28/2010 - 13:30A local court in far east Russia has banned YouTube as well as four other sites, according to multiple reports. The court, which is in the city of Komsomolsk-on-Amur, ruled that local Internet service provider Rosnet could block its users from accessing the world’s largest video sharing site due to extremist videos that had been uploaded by some of its users.
Despite the fact that YouTube has tools in place to allow Internet service providers to request the site to block access to individual videos, the court ruled that the entire site be blocked. In particular, YouTube came under fire for hosting “Russia for Russians,” a video that was found to contain extremist elements and, according to the Moscow Times, had been placed on the Justice Ministry’s federal list of banned extremist materials.
When asked for comment, a YouTube spokesperson responded with the following statement: “We have received reports that a district court in Russia has ordered a local ISP to block access to YouTube. We are looking into the matter and are working to ensure that service is not interrupted.”
The four other sites that the court ordered Rosnet to block included three online libraries — Lib.rus.ec, Thelib.ru and Zhurnal.ru — as well as Web.archive.org, all of which were found to contain Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf. The Hitler memoir had been blacklisted by a local court in March.
YouTube is no stranger to web censorship, as it has been blocked in a number of countries. Thailand, Turkey, Brazil, China and most recently, Pakistan, have all acted to cut off access to YouTube over the past several years.
Related content on GigaOM Pro: Why Viacom’s Fight With YouTube Threatens Web Innovation (subscription required)
Categories: Video News
Vid-Biz: ABC Entertainment, Comcast-NBCU, Old Spice
Wed, 07/28/2010 - 12:00Lee Takes Over As President Of ABC Entertainment Group; ABC Family President Paul Lee will take over as president of ABC Entertainment Group for Steve McPherson, who resigned. (Deadline Hollywood)
Comcast’s Burke: ‘With NBC, Our Ad Business Will Be Worth $10 Billion’; advertising is only a $2 billion business for the cable operator annually, but that will change, as Comcast expects the NBCU deal to result in roughly $10 billion in advertising revenue. (paidContent)
Old Spice Sales Double With YouTube Campaign; body wash sales have increased 107% in the past month in part thanks to that social media marketing campaign. (Mashable)
‘Social TV’ Startup Philo Announces Funding, Apps; the privately held company’s investors include North Bridge Venture Partners, DFJ Gotham Ventures, ENIAC Ventures and television producer Stephen Lambert. (Multichannel News)
Virgin Media Posts Record Growth, TiVo Box Coming Q4; Virgin Media added a net total of 9,100 new households to its cable subscription base, with revenue growing 7 percent to £964 million. (paidContent)
Turner Sports To Drive 3-D Coverage At PGA Championship; the cable rights-holder to the 92nd PGA championship will make the 3-D coverage available to Bright House Networks, Cablevision, Comcast, Cox, DirecTV and Time Warner Cable. (Multichannel News)
Online Video Use Set to Soar; by 2014, the number of U.S. online video viewers will represent 77 percent of Internet users, or 193.1 million people, according to eMarketer’s forecasts. (AdWeek)
Categories: Video News
Netflix Adds Search to Watch Instantly on PS3
Wed, 07/28/2010 - 10:56Netflix users can now search the entire Watch Instantly catalog through their Sony PlayStation 3, the company’s VP of product development Greg Peters just announced in a blog post. Peters said that search is the first of a number of upgrades coming to devices like the PS3. From the post:
“(I)f you’re a PS3 user, you can now search for a movie or TV episode on your TV via your PS3. No need to go back to your computer to add it to your Queue. We have more cool features in store with this continuous improvement architecture so stay tuned.”Of course, the big feature that everyone is waiting for is the ability to access Watch Instantly without a disc. Currently, PS3 users have insert a special Netflix disc into their system every time they want to access the streaming service.
Netflix said that this would be the case until late 2010 when the company first launched Watch Instantly on the PS3, and there have been reports recently that users will be able to ditch the disc as early as this fall. Netflix didn’t respond in time for this article to comment on the specific timing of this shift.
Update: A Netflix spokesperson told us that this update is definitely coming, but didn’t have a specific date to share.
Related content on GigaOm Pro: Infrastructure Overview, Q2 2010
Categories: Video News
Internet TV More Popular Than 3-D TV
Wed, 07/28/2010 - 09:303-D TV may be the most-hyped consumer electronics trend of 2010, but it’s not actually where the money is: That’s the gist of a new report from iSuppli, which estimates that only around 4.2 million 3-D TV sets will ship worldwide this year. Internet-enabled TV sets, on the other hand, will ship at a rate of 27.7 million this year, representing 124.9 percent growth.
iSuppli doesn’t doubt that 3-D TV will eventually become more mainstream, but the limited availability of 3-D content, expensive glasses and interoperability issues are causing many people to hold out on the new trend. Oh, and I guess those warnings that you shouldn’t watch 3-D when you’re drunk, pregnant or elderly don’t really help either…
On the other hand, Internet-enabled TV sets are quickly becoming mainstream, with iSuppli estimating that global shipments will reach 148.3 million units by 2014, representing 54 percent of the total flat-panel TV market. 3-D TV shipments will reach 60.5 million units that year.
This rate of growth is also good news for the semiconductor business: Revenue from chips used for Internet-enabled TV sets will reach $2 billion by 2014, up from $222 million in2009, iSuppli estimates.
Of course, these numbers also show that strategies to enter the living room could soon shift: This year, many companies are still betting on separate boxes to bring platforms like Google TV or Boxee to consumers. However, those boxes may have a very limited shelf life if every second TV sold is going to directly connect to the Internet in a matter of years.
Photo courtesy of Flickr user bark.
Related content on GigaOm Pro: Are We Putting the 3-D Cart Before the Horse? (subscription required)
Categories: Video News
Vodpod Adds Mobile Apps for More Social Sharing
Wed, 07/28/2010 - 08:18Online video curation startup Vodpod launched mobile apps on the iPhone and Android mobile platforms today. The new apps, which are live in the Apple App store and Android Market, are designed to give its users a new way to discover mobile videos.
Vodpod has added social discovery to its feature set, enabling users to begin following other members and feeds on the site. By choosing to follow the accounts of others that have curated videos, Vodpod users can now get an inline feed of content relevant to their interests. It is taking the social discovery aspect one step further with apps that enable viewing of those feeds on mobile devices.
The new Vodpod apps feed in videos relevant to users that have been curated by the other accounts that they follow. The apps, which are built on the Vodpod API, show how others could use that resource to build similar apps or incorporate Vodpod data into their own existing apps. According to an email by Vodpod CEO Mark Hall, the iPhone app only took about five weeks to build, which shows how easily the Vodpod social discovery features could be integrated into other apps.
Vodpod isn’t the only company working on making sharing videos more social over mobile devices. Clicker just released new social features and mobile apps that enable users to connect with their friends to share what they’re watching and find new videos they haven’t seen before. And apps like Tunerfish, Miso and Philo enable users to check in to TV shows and web videos that they can share with other users.
(Disclosure: Vodpod is backed by True Ventures, a venture capital firm that is an investor in the parent company of this blog, Giga Omni Media. Om Malik, founder of Giga Omni Media, is also a venture partner at True.)
Related content on GigaOM Pro: To Ship or Not to Ship – Product Launch in the Smartphone Era (subscription required)
Categories: Video News
Envivio Shakes Up Management, Raises $15M
Wed, 07/28/2010 - 06:43Envivio announced today that it has shaken up its management team, bringing in a new CFO and COO to help lead the company, while also raising an additional $15 million in new financing.
Envivio, which provides encoding and transcoding technology for media companies and large service providers, said it closed $15 million in new financing from existing venture capital investors and banking sources. The mezzanine investment is a mix of $7.5 million in venture financing and a $7.5 million line of credit.
In addition to the financing, Envivio says its Chairman of the Board, Gianluca Rattazzi, will take a closer role in the management structure, taking on the title of executive chairman and helping to lead corporate and business development. The company has also hired new senior management members, bringing in finance veteran Erik Miller as its new CFO and Kevin O’Keefe as its new COO. They replace former CFO John McAdoo and COO Rich Stanfield, who were brought on board less than two years ago when Envivio last raised capital.
The company’s last financing round came in September 2008, when it raised $25 million in a funding round led by Harbourvest, Atlantic Bridge and Samsung Ventures. Crédit Agricole Private Equity, Crescendo Ventures, Innovacom (France Telecom), Harbinger Venture Management, Intel Capital, NTT Finance, Saints Capital, Sigma Designs and Solidarity Fund QFL have also invested in the company. Altogether Envivio has raised approximately $72 million since being founded in 2000.
Despite the management shakeup, Envivio appears to be doing well; it says sales have grown more than 100 percent year-over-year, driven by increased need for multi-bit rate encoding solutions. It says it’s involved in new service offerings and trials with the five top cable providers in North America, while also expanding its business with channel partners such as Ericsson in North America and Europe, Huawei in Asia and the Middle East, and SeaChange in the U.S. and other international markets.
Related content on GigaOM Pro: The Next Big Thing in Video: Adaptive Bitrate Streaming (subscription required)
Categories: Video News
Q&A With Legend of Neil‘s Sandeep Parikh
Tue, 07/27/2010 - 16:36One of the funniest and raunchiest video game web series out there, The Legend of Neil returned this week with the premiere of its third and final season. In today’s Q&A, director Sandeep Parikh (who you also saw dancing and kung fu fighting this morning in the newest Guild music video) discusses what we can look forward to in the new episodes, his upcoming blind script deal with Comedy Central and why, exactly, he might not make any money on Season 3.
NewTeeVee: So, tell me what we can look forward to in Neil Season 3.
Sandeep Parikh: We kind of threw everything but the kitchen sink at Season 3. We have seven episodes to do it in, but they’ll definitely be a little longer and a lot more epic and a lot more raunchy. Just, more fun.
I really think this season, more than any other, we had a lot more fun in the writing process. And we had a better handle on our characters and where we wanted to take the story than ever before. In a way that became really freeing. So, bigger, better, more epic and a finale that will be unforgettable.
Legend of Neil
Tags: Atom.com,Atom Originals,Atom Blog,Upload Videos
NewTeeVee: Why did you decide to end it on season 3?
Parikh: After the first couple of episodes of the first season, I knew this was the story of Legend of Neil was not episodic, it had a beginning, middle and end. It’s not as episodic a product as, say, The Guild or most television sitcoms — it’s more of a serial show. It’s about a guy who gets sucked into a game, so either he has to beat the game or get defeated by the game.
So I posed that question to myself very early on and I love the trilogy format, it’s sort of an ancient storytelling format. I grew up watching Lord of the Rings and Star Wars and Indiana Jones — before they made that unspeakable fourth movie. These were all trilogies that I thought were really cool, and I just wanted to emulate that.
NewTeeVee: What’s the one episode we should be looking forward this season?
Parikh: It’s hard to pick the episode I like the best, because I end up spending so much time with each of them. Because Legend of Neil has so many effects shots and we score every moment of the show — it’s all original score — I spend a lot of time with each episode in post-production. And because of that, they all kind of have a special place in my heart for different reasons.
NewTeeVee: Will you be making an appearance in the third season?
Parikh: Well, we gotta keep it a surprise, right? I don’t want to spoil that. Let’s just say that there are some Guild crossovers in Season 3.
NewTeeVee: Like the characters from the game?
Parikh: No, the actors. And I may or may not be included in that.
NewTeeVee: So with the conclusion of Neil, what’s next?
Parikh: Comedy Central has given me a blind television script deal. Comedy Central and Atom, they pushed for this — it was a part of our Neil season 3 deal — and so now I’m going to focus on making Comedy Central a kick-ass TV show. That’ll be the next thing.
But at the same time I’m going to continue to create things for the web; Tony [Janning, who co-wrote Neil] and I are going to be working together on some web stuff — nothing I can officially announce. I also still owe Atom a couple of pilots from a previous deal, so I’ll be working on those as well.
NewTeeVee: And the blind TV script deal won’t be a Legend of Neil adaptation?
Parikh: No, it’ll be a brand new concept. I can’t go into details about it because I don’t know them yet.
NewTeeVee: What’s the working relationship been like with Atom?
Parikh: It’s been phenomenal. There are folks who have been working there for all three seasons, and they all seem to genuinely love and get the show. On a personal level it’s been great. We’ve all kind of become friends.
NewTeeVee: Was there an increased budget for season 3?
Parikh: Yeah, without going into specifics we did receive an increase in budget — you’ll see that. It’s still not television money by any means, but it was a great gesture from Atom in saying that, ‘Hey, this is our flagship show, we want to help you guys in any way that we can.’ That was great.
And we threw it all on the screen. I didn’t do a really good job budgeting anything for myself. I still view it as a calling card for me, you know, and rather than pocket an extra thousand dollars here or there it’s just more important to me that I make a good show and have it be a beacon for my work.
NewTeeVee: What you’re saying is that you forwent a fair amount of your producer’s fee for the show?
Parikh: Yeah, well, we’ll see if I got one of those by the time it’s all over. This year we have double the visual effects shots — over 400 this year alone — and that’s going to soak up a lot of time and money. We just kind of threw it all on there.
Everyone was still working for those web rates that we all love, but we also found that we had a little more money this time, but we also had a lot more enthusiasm from the cast and crew, and people willing to donate their time to make the show awesome.
Picture courtesy of Flickr user vagueonthehow.
Related GigaOm Pro Content (subscription required): By The Numbers: Budget Analysis of a Web Series
Categories: Video News
New Netflix Streams Are Child’s Play
Tue, 07/27/2010 - 14:05Hey parents — you may no longer have to shell out money for DVDs to keep your kids entertained, as long as you have a Netflix subscription. By adding a wealth of childrens’ content to its instant streaming service, the subscription video company is going after the next generation of online video viewers today, with new streaming titles from Nickelodeon, PBS and Disney.
Just by clicking on its “New TV Shows” selection, instant streaming users will see that Netflix’s addition of new streaming titles clearly meant to appeal to younger audiences. The section includes a vast collection of kid-friendly titles, including PBS’ Barney, Kipper and Thomas & Friends, as well as Nickelodeon’s Blues Clues, Wonder Pets, Dora the Explorer, Spongebob Squarepants, Fairly Odd Parents, Hey Arnold! and Drake & Josh. For slightly older kids, the new titles also include Disney’s Hannah Montana and Jonas L.A..
Adding kid-friendly titles will be a boon to parents, especially to those who have Netflix streaming content available in the living room through connected TVs, Blu-ray players, game consoles or broadband set-top boxes. Those parents will no longer be subject to the whims of PBS or Nickelodeon’s scheduling, or have to purchase DVDs of their kids’ favorite TV shows to keep them happy.
The addition of kids’ content is also a coup for Netflix, which is trying to differentiate itself from a recently announced subscription service from Hulu Plus, which like Netflix, aims to make TV content availability on PCs and connected devices for a low monthly subscription fee. But while Hulu’s service is limited mostly to content from its broadcast TV parents and content partners, Netflix has been writing checks to license cable TV programming.
On the company’s earnings call, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings admitted that he saw Hulu as a direct competitor. And in his management commentary of second-quarter results, Hastings said that the company would add a mix of exclusive and non-exclusive TV content to bolster interest in the streaming service, in a move that seems to be aimed at countering the emerging threat from Hulu.
Related content on GigaOM Pro: Three Reasons Hulu Plus is No Threat to Netflix (subscription required)
Categories: Video News
Vid-Biz: Blip.tv, Discovery, UMG-Veoh
Tue, 07/27/2010 - 11:00Blip.tv Develops Pre-roll That Offers Free Downloads on Other Devices; developers at the online video startup have developed ads that could allow users to download material on gaming consoles remotely via a pre-roll ad. (Ad Age)
Discovery Promotes Digital Media Head Campbell; corporate development exec Bruce Campbell will gain additional responsibilities as chief development officer and general counsel, handing over his duties as president of Digital Media to Peter Liguori, Discovery’s COO. (paidContent)
UMG Tries to Undermine ‘Safe Harbor’ Rules for Online Video Sites; in an amicus brief, the EFF argues that UMG’s effort to hold Veoh responsible for infringing content uploaded by users would thwart federal law. (Electronic Frontier Foundation)
Some Netflix Subscribers Might be Better Off With Redbox; nearly a third of Netflix members may be spending over a dollar a movie, according to FeedFlix. (High-Def Digest)
Ooyala Now Supports Monetization of HTML5 Video; the online video platform company’s HTML5 video player now supports dynamic ad insertion for IAB-standard ads on iPads and iPhones. (VideoNuze)
‘YouTubers’ Unite for Web-Video Contest; the Open Internet Coalition has extended the deadline for submissions to “America’s Got ’Net,” its online network-neutrality video contest, from July 31 to Aug. 15. (Multichannel News)
Steve Jobs’ Mark On ABC’s Lost; the Smartest CEO in Tech influenced one of the past decade’s most innovative TV shows. (Fortune)
NASA Streamlines Online Video With VMIX; NASA is now using the VMIX online video platform to launch and power multimedia content on their flagship www.nasa.gov website. (press release)
Categories: Video News
Joshua Jackson’s “Pacey-Con” Just a Funny Or Die Stunt
Tue, 07/27/2010 - 08:53Celebrity-infused comedy site Funny or Die seems to be moving away from scripted content in favor of reality stunts these days. And not just reality stunts, but reality stunts invoking 90s nostalgia. First it put Jewel in a fake nose and planted her in a karaoke bar….
Undercover Karaoke with Jewel from JewelAnd now we have Joshua Jackson, who’s been setting the hearts of young ladies afire since The Mighty Ducks trilogy, descending on Comic-Con to host his own side event: Pacey-Con, a convention meant to celebrate all things Pacey Witter (his character on the teen soap phenomenon Dawson’s Creek).
Pacey-Con with Joshua Jackson from Joshua JacksonPhotos from Pacey-Con had leaked thanks to the Livejournal community Oh No They Didn’t, including the fact that Jackson was selling “fan fiction” he’d written for $10 a pop. And if I’m to be honest, the whole thing seemed a lot funnier when it was just Joshua Jackson doing it on his own, as opposed to an orchestrated FOD event.
But the above video includes some choice moments, including Jackson’s casual dismissal of his current hit series on Fox, Fringe, as being a way to fund his fan fiction habit. Also, the security guards at Comic-Con (which never pass up an opportunity to yell at a dude) are in fine form.
End result — I somehow missed Pacey-Con while I was there this weekend, but I am glad there’s video documentation of it taking place.
UPDATE: Wondering who approached who to work on this project? Well, according to a Funny or Die representative via email, “Josh wanted to work with us, and he was open to playing off Dawson’s Creek if we found the right angle. We did some brainstorming, and away we went.”
Related GigaOm Pro Content (subscription required): A Guide To Online Video Monetization Options
Categories: Video News
Break Media Investing In 3-D With New Channel, Programming
Tue, 07/27/2010 - 07:00Online video startup Break Media wants to get ahead of the curve on 3-D. It announced today it is investing heavily in the technology with the launch in the coming weeks of a new, dedicated 3-D channel that will be populated in part by a slate of programming it will produce. The company will also seek to aggregate 3-D content from across the web in order to fill out the channel and create a go-to place for 3-D videos.
As part of the initiative, Break’s Creative Lab is producing a lineup of three new original 3-D programs. Those shows include X3D, an extreme sports series, Scare3D!, a horror series full of flying knives, axes and other weapons, and Life in 3D, which seeks to make everyday minutiae more exciting by adding another dimension.
Break is also working closely with advertisers to create videos and branded landing pages in 3-D, as well as 3-D ad units that it will integrate into its in-house ad server. An example of the work it’s doing on the ad front can be seen on this mockup landing page for 3-D Halo videos and on this Comic-con roundup it produced in 3-D that was sponsored by Alienware.
In a phone interview, Break Media CEO Keith Richman said the company was investing in 3-D because it tends to have an early-adopting audience. “We know that over next 12 months they will be buying TVs or gaining interest in 3-D content due to the proliferation of 3DTVs and 3-D movies,” Richman said. Those early adopters who buy into the next technology also tend to be more affluent, which is the demographic that advertisers want to target anyway, he said.
“No one else is really doing 3-D content now,” Richman said. Therefore Break is looking to get a first-mover advantage in drawing consumer interest and in getting the experience necessary to produce compelling 3-D content. That said, that experience won’t come cheap; the cost of producing 3-D video is about 300 percent higher than producing comparable HD video, according to Richman.
While most viewers will be watching Break’s new 3-D content on 3-D capable PCs, the company is working to deliver that content out to television screens through its consumer electronics partners. Viewers can watch Break Media videos in their living rooms through partnerships with TiVo, Roku and Samsung, and Richman sees the company expanding its consumer electronic (CE) footprint over the next one to three years.
For now, though, the focus will be on creating the best collection of 3-D content. “Not everything that works online is going to work on a 52” plasma,” Richman said. “We’re not necessarily rushing to get 50 [CE] deals done. The worst thing we could is put something up that’s not compelling.”
Related content on GigaOM Pro: Are We Putting the 3-D Cart Before the Horse? (subscription required)
Categories: Video News
ZumoCast Streams Media to iPad, iPhone From a Home Computer
Tue, 07/27/2010 - 05:58
The ZumoDrive folks are at it again, but this time, they’re taking the cloud storage to your home computer so you can stream media files right to an Apple iPad using ZumoCast. The new ZumoCast service is a take on my “personal cloud” thought — instead of storing data on a third-party web server, ZumoCast shares the files already on your PC or Mac. You just tell ZumoCast which files or folders you want remote access to and the software does the rest. The company is wise to go after the iPad market since the device makes for a great mobile media player.
DRM-protected files won’t play on an iPad or iPhone using ZumoCast, but that’s about the only major limitation aside from requiring your home computer to be powered on. However, you can sync media files with ZumoCast for offline playback on a mobile device — in that case, the home computer can be sleeping peacefully. The ZumoCast desktop software handles all file-sharing aspects and it supports adaptive transcoding. That means the audio and video quality will adjust on the fly to offer the best experience based on your web connection.
Initially for iPad and iPhone, ZumoCast is planned for additional mobile platforms. That makes sense as ZumoDrive, the cloud storage service, is also supported on Google Android and Palm webOS handsets. The company also says that “video sharing and enhanced music and photo interfaces” are in the works. ZumoCast is in an open beta, so you can sign up to try it. At this time, no pricing has been announced for the media streaming service.
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Categories: Video News
Elemental Gets $7.5M For GPU Transcoding From Disney Venture Arm
Tue, 07/27/2010 - 05:00Video processing startup Elemental Technologies announced today that it has pulled in a $7.5 million Series B round of financing led by Disney venture arm Steamboat Ventures. Also participating in the round were existing investors General Catalyst and Voyager Capital. In addition to the financing, Steamboat managing director Scott Hilleboe will join Elemental’s board of directors.
Elemental has two products — Elemental Server and Elemental Live — which use GPU processing cores running in parallel along with some proprietary software to transcode video files with five to 10 times better performance than traditional CPU processing. While its Elemental Server, which was launched in 2009, enabled customers to lower the total cost of ownership for encoding and transcoding on-demand video streams, Elemental Live, launched earlier this year, is aimed at addressing multiple live and mobile video streams in one server box. Elemental Live is capable of encoding up to four simultaneous 1080p HD video feeds or eight simultaneous 720p streams on a single platform.
Elemental CEO Sam Blackman said adding Steamboat as an investor was a “good strategic fit,” as the venture firm could at a very high level make introductions to decision-makers at ABC, ESPN and other Disney media properties. “They’re very media savvy, which is something we have to work on, coming from a tech background. Media is always a learning process, so Steamboat is a good partner as Elemental expands,” Blackman said.
According to Blackman, the funds will be used to expand sales and support as the firm ramps up its efforts to capture larger media customers. “We want to make sure our evaluation customers get a good experience,” he said.
Elemental had previously raised $7.1 million from General Catalyst and Voyager Capital in July 2008. The company is based in Portland, Ore. and has 30 full-time employees. Existing customers include ABC, CBS Interactive and Oceanic Time Warner Cable.
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The Guild‘s Game On Music Video Goes Live on Bing
Mon, 07/26/2010 - 22:50Were you not at this year’s Comic-Con and thus missed the premiere of The Guild‘s follow-up to 2009′s Do You Wanna Date My Avatar?
Don’t fret — Game On, the Bollywood-inspired music video with some other moments of Asian flair (as well as an elephant) is up on Bing.com right now.
<br/><a href=”http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/season-4-music-video-game-on/y0da39gh?fg=sharenoembed” mce_href=”http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/season-4-music-video-game-on/y0da39gh?fg=sharenoembed” target=”_new”title=”Season 4 – Music Video – “Game On”">Video: Season 4 – Music Video – “Game On”</a>
The video was produced by Felicia Day and Kim Evey, and directed and edited by Evey and Sean Becker. Jason C. Miller produced the song, music for which was written by Miller, Jamison Boaz and Russell Ali, with Day and Sandeep Parikh crafting the lyrics.
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Web Content Still Finding Its Place At Comic-Con
Mon, 07/26/2010 - 15:33Comic-Con is a great gorgeous whale of pop culture, one that may have finally outgrown the San Diego tank in its effort to bring together every single possible form of entertainment out there. And if you approach the event as a microcosm of media today, then the way web content has squeezed itself into this five days of panels, exhibits, events and parties is mirrored accordingly.
Following on last year’s successful panel, The Guild this year took over the Indigo Ballroom at the neighboring Hilton, which was filled to capacity at over 1,600.
Wide-angle POV on 'The Guild' panel. Photo by Lan Bui.
Not all of those 1,600+ people were there specifically for The Guild — because of Comic-Con’s high capacity, fans who want to attend a specific panel will often spend the entire day camping out in the same room to make sure they can get in. In the case of this Saturday, The Guild was immediately followed by the panel for NBC’s Community, so it’s impossible to tell how much of the room consisted of loyal Joel McHale fans biding their time.
However, I will say that the two girls sitting next to me were definitely Guild fans (I could tell because they sang along with Do You Wanna Date My Avatar? when it played before the panel). It’s also a huge credit to The Guild‘s popularity that Comic-Con felt it worthy of commanding such a space.
And The Guild owned that stage, entertained the fans with not only an early look at the third episode of the season, but also the fourth season’s heir apparent to Date My Avatar, a Bollywood-infused music video featuring plenty of dancing, a old-timey kung fu sequence and an elephant. Game On will premiere on YouTube later this week, according to Tubefilter.
Walking the convention floor meant discovering traces of web video in various places. Comic-Con superstars The Guild had its own booth in the middle of the floor, but the bigger sites in the space, like Sony’s Crackle and Comedy Central/Viacom’s Atom.com, shared booth space with their corporate brothers.
Crackle didn’t premiere any big projects, but Atom did early previews and panels for the Season 3 launch of Legend of Neil as well as upcoming horror short The House That Drips Blood on Alex on Saturday night.
Also on the floor, I spent some time talking to Geoff Ramsey and Gustavo Sorola from old-school machinima web series Red Vs. Blue, who had a corner booth in an area of the hall otherwise devoted to web comic properties like Penny Arcade.
This was their seventh year at Comic-Con (and their first with a panel that was apparently packed), and while sales were down for them, they said that they’ve built up a fanbase from the convention over the years — there are regulars who buy the latest season of RvB on DVD every convention.
Photo courtesy of Tom Konkle.
Zombie horror series Universal Dead shared booth space with Twin Suns Productions and also held signings with its cast. 3-D comedy series Safety Geeks SVI also had booth space in the autographs section of the exhibit hall, on the second level of the convention center. “There’s such a buzz about 3D right now that people were drawn over to see what Safety Geeks was about. The response was great and we certainly picked up new viewers as a consequence,” Safety Geeks star Dave Beeler said via email.
Other independent series didn’t even get inside the convention center, however. That was the motivation behind the organization of Celebrate the Web 2, which as previously reported provided an opportunity for independent series to be showcased for potential newcomers to the medium.
300 people attended the off-site event Saturday afternoon, with 250 watching the live-stream, and the discussion during the first half (I was unable to stay for the second half) proved spirited. That was mostly thanks to After Judgment creator Michael Davies proclaiming that there was “nothing religious” about his clearly Rapture-inspired series, followed up by complaints that no one was making any money making web content.
Kelly Parks, who created the zombie horror series Universal Dead, stated that his motivation for making a web series was strictly to “get noticed by a film company,” a goal he and his team achieved; Universal Dead is set to become a 3-D feature film, currently targeted for late 2011. But cinematographer Lan Bui, representing another zombie post-apocalyptic project (the pilot Pride Pryce), commented that this approach wasn’t necessarily good for web content in general. “The web is definitely a great place for discovery, but if we just do one-off hit after one-off hit, we won’t build anything in this space,” he said.
The highlight of the event, though, was the trailers for upcoming web series, including Blake Calhoun’s extremely intriguing sci-fi series Continuum.
So let’s review: The Guild pwned, the corporate-owned entities stuck close to their parent companies, and the other indies struggled to find their place, but demonstrated strong community spirit. Sounds about right to me. But I look forward to next year, and seeing how the continuing evolution/revolution of web content is reflected in Comic-Con’s programming.
Photo above courtesy of Flickr user Lan Bui.
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Categories: Video News
Yes Men Make $11,000 on First Weekend of P2P Release
Mon, 07/26/2010 - 13:30
The Yes Men have gotten more than $11,000 in donations since they released their latest movie The Yes Men Fix The World on file sharing networks late last week, according to the duo’s co-founder Mike Bonanno, who told me during a phone conversation that new donations are currently coming in at a rate of $500 per hour. “It’s going great,” he said, adding that there has been “tons” of e-mail feedback from viewers as well.
The Yes Men have teamed up with VODO for this release, and the movie is currently promoted on the home page of The Pirate Bay as well as uTorrent.com and within the LimeWire client. VODO’s Jamie King said that the platform has seen around 200,000 downloads of the movie, and VODO’s tracker currently lists more than 15,000 seeders for different versions of the file.
Bonanno told me that the duo had a hard time securing distribution deals for the movie, which chronicles pranks against Haliburton and Dow Chemical, amongst others. For instance, the film won an audience award at the prestigious International Film Festival in Berlin, but hasn’t gotten any distribution in Germany. There has also been only limited theatrical release in the U.S., and getting the movie even in a few theater oftentimes took a lot of work. “It’s just kind of amazing how much easier it is,” said Bonanno about reaching an audience via P2P.
Bonanno still seemed skeptical about the long-term viability of the donation model for the entire industry, questioning whether donations will be enough to make really expensive films. “This is a great supplement,” he said, adding that there could potentially be a tipping point at which enough people would donate.
For the Yes Men, that tipping point could actually come sooner than later. The duo has already said that it will definitely publish its next movie on file-sharing sites again to give back to people who finance its production with their donations. But Bonanno said that they could also change their mind on other distribution methods, like theatrical releases or TV deals, depending on how much money the current donation campaign will bring in.
The duo is currently planing to sell its next movie to TV again, but doing so tends to add a lot of additional costs for legal clearances and similar issues. “There is a chance that we would just release it on P2P,” if enough money came in via donations, he said, adding: “We might consider it as a completely alternative distribution model.”
Related content on GigaOm Pro: The Quest to Monetize File Sharing (subscription required)
Categories: Video News
Vid-Biz: NBCU Ad Network, iOScars, Overture Films
Mon, 07/26/2010 - 12:00NBCU Creates Its Own Ad Network; the company has created an online ad network comprised solely of its owned-and-operated sites. (MediaWeek)
iPhone 4 Films Get Their Own Awards, the iOScars; BBH Labs just launched the iOScars, an online award that honors the best movies shot and edited with the iPhone 4. (Tubefilter)
Starz Shutters Overture; the independent movie studio owned by Starz has closed its doors after unsuccessfully trying to find a buyer, but Relativity Media will take over marketing and distribution of its final three films. (Multichannel News)
iPhone Becomes Focus Of Media Measurement Consortium; the Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement is preparing to sign up the Media Behavior Institute (MBI) to help figure it all out the iPhone’s relationship to consumers’ habits. (mocoNews)
Icahn Renews Lionsgate Bid; activist investor Carl Icahn renewed his battle for control of Lions Gate Entertainment last week, rejuvenating his tender offer for the parent of the Lionsgate studio’s stock after a 10-day truce. (Multichannel News)
Categories: Video News
