Just when you thought the battle would get really ugly:

The format war around next generation DVDs may be over before it has begun, thanks to a breakthrough from a British media technology company.

Britain-based New Medium Enterprises (NME) said on Tuesday it had solved a technical production problem that makes it possible to produce a cheap multiple-layer DVD disk containing one film in different, competing formats.

People who think that the slow uptake of HD-DVD and BluRay is only because of the format war are missing the big picture. High cost and high bandwidth means that the age of the expensive shiny disc are coming to a close.

After a decades of speculation it seems convergence is finally starting to appear:

The service, called Yahoo Sports for TV, will let users get detailed statistics for ongoing games through a menu overlaid on a television screen and operated with a remote control.

We’ve seen a demo of the system and its quite impressive but we’ll have to see what happens when it hits the real world. Menus are great on a computer but take on an entirely different feeling when you are relaxing on the couch with a simple remote.

Whenever we pointed our sharp stick of wit at YouTube (a frequent target here on BBB) many people would criticize us saying that YouTube was the inevitable future of media.

Yesterday, for the first time, third party metrics on how many videos are being watched from these types of sites was released and the results may astound you:

According to a new video report that comScore Media Metrix will begin offering starting Tuesday morning, 37.4 million unique individuals watched a video on MySpace in July. All told, they collectively watched 1.4 billion videos.

By comparison, the audience on Yahoo watched 812 million video streams, making Yahoo the No. 2 most popular video site as measured by video streams. Yahoo ranks No. 1 as measured by unique streamers (similar to unique visitors), but barely beats out MySpace.

YouTube ranks No. 3, having generated 649 million video streams in July.

Not only is YouTube not number 1, it is actually number 3. As if to rub it in, the number 1 site is less than six months old (congrats Rupert).

Naturally YouTube will cry foul and argue that the methodology for measuring traffic was flawed but regardless of their protests, the myth that YouTube is an unassailable juggernaut is dead.

Hold on to your hats, 3D TV is here!

The heart of the system is the digital light processing micro-mirror chip, made by Texas Instruments and currently used in television, video and movie projectors.

These devices incorporate a computer that processes an incoming digital signal several thousand times a second, changing the angle of each micro-mirror to reflect light from a regular light bulb. The resulting image is a two-dimensional video projected onto a screen.

One of Garner’s innovations was to replace regular light with laser light. Such light is coherent, meaning that it comprise light of a single wavelength, with all light waves travelling ‘in phase’ with one another. Light from a white light bulb comprises many different wavelengths that are out of phase.

Interesting that essentially they are using off-the-shelf technology with some modifications. They still predict that we won’t see commercial 3D TVs until 2020 (and if the adoption of HDTV is used as a guide it will probably take 100 years longer than that).

Disney has listened to its local affiliates and found a way to compromise on internet video:

Local ads now appear only when viewers access the player from a local affiliate’s Web site, but by next fall, the ABC.com site will seamlessly redirect users to their home markets, said Ray Cole, chairman of the ABC Affiliate Relations Board of Governors.

Cole said that, in addition to local ad participation, affiliates had wanted future broadband players to preserve each station’s designated market area for advertising.

“We are working through the technical challenges, but we are satisfied the network is sensitive to those issues and working on them,” Cole said on Wednesday.

Affiliates have agreed to promote the player software online and on air, and the ABC Affiliate Board has endorsed the program, Cole said.

Episodes now will contain up to four interactive ads rather then the test’s three spots. Up to three of the ads will feature a single national advertiser and one ad will be local.

If you hear a faint cackling in the background, that is the BBB staff laughing. The entire point of the internet is to render geography obsolete. Any attempts to introduce a “locality” to content always creates problems (both social and technological). 

For those of you in LA for the CTIA madness, we have a little wireless update. And we do mean ‘little.’

Bad ideas are legendary in the cell phone world but this one takes the cake:

The technology allows people to record a TV program on their mobile phone and then watch it later, on the train on the way to work, for example. The TI package also provides “picture-in-picture” capabilities, allowing a person to watch a prerecorded program and also track a live sports event in a smaller, on-screen window.

Picture-in-Picture? On a two-inch screen? Are they serious?

Unfortunately, while watching short clips on your cell when you are bored seems like such an obviously good idea, competing tech standards, hardware incompatibilities and wireless provider micro-management, tv-on-cell has largely been stillborn. Even the cellphone industry press is skeptical of the huge numbers projected by the vendors.

It seems the latest Death-of-TV trend is to premiere programming online before TV:

Time Warner Inc.’s AOL on Monday plans to announce that it will offer two new NBC programs on its Web site a week before their broadcast TVpremiere.

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AOL’s move follows on the heels of other experiments by U.S. television networks and show producers to promote new shows and lure new categories of viewers who may shun traditional TV viewing.

Earlier in September, CBS Corp. teamed up with digital video recorder pioneer TiVo Inc. in a similar experiment. TiVo subscribers will be able to watch the pilot episode of CBS’s “The Class” a week before the TV broadcast.

Interestingly the article makes no mention of network affiliates crying foul. They certainly can’t think web-first programming is a positive trend for their revenues. On the other hand, we have never heard of these “new catergories of viewers who shun traditional TV viewing.” That sounds like marketroid speak to soften the blow for the aforementioned network affiliates.

“We’re not cannibalizing our TV audience, we’re just luring internet-only TV viewers!”

Who’s gonna buy that claim?

This week can be summarized as:

The movie business is about to change: Apple Computer Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. are in the final stages of building online services that allow easy, legal access to potentially thousands of movies on demand.

Isn’t it amazing that people (especially journalists) fail to take the lessons from one arena and apply it to another?

Example: when iTunes introduced TV downloads for the video iPod everyone heralded it as a revolution. Now within months, all the TV networks realized that they didn’t need Apple to sell their content for them. They cut out the middleman and allowed people to download content from their own sites, and sometimes the let the public have it for free with ADVERTISING. What a novel concept!

How long do you think it will take the studios to realize they don’t need Apple or Yahoo to sell their content?

Actually, they already have. Remember MovieLink and CinemaNow (if you are a regular BBB reader you do)? People, you can download movies LEGALLY off the ‘net for almost six years now. Get over it.

UPDATE: We tried to use Amazon’s service but got bitchslapped:

OPERATING SYSTEM: The Unbox Video player application is only compatible with Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition Service Pack 2 (SP2), Windows XP Professional SP2, Windows XP Tablet PC Edition SP2, or Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 Update Rollup 2. The Unbox Video player is not compatible with Apple/Macintosh operating systems.

We here at BBB live in Linux land.

Hope you like Katie Couric:

CBS said on Thursday it will stream its prime-time news program with Katie Couric live on the Internet simultaneously with the newscast, a first for a major TV network that highlights U.S. broadcasters’ rapid expansion on the Web.

A genius move. First, the blogosphere hands Dan Rather his ass when they uncover fake evidence in one of his key stories. Now, as a concession to them, CBS will air his replacement “live on the web” (whatever that means). Set aside the fact that “live TV” has no meaning in the 24-hour, interactive, on-demand internet.

At least CBS knows what side it’s bread is buttered on.

A company that you’ve probably never heard of just beat iTunes and BitTorrent to the punch:

Through its deal with Warner, Guba will initially sell almost 200 movie and television titles (quickly expanding shortly thereafter), ranging from new releases like “Good Night and Good Luck” to ‘classic’ television content like “The Jetsons”.

Guba will offer two services to users. View-On-Demand (VOD) is priced from $1.79 to $2.99 and affords the user a 24 hour rental. Download-To-Own (DTO) will range from $9.99 to $19.99 for newer titles and allows unlimited viewing on 2 computers and 1 portable device, while allowing a single DVD burn for backup. The service will play content through Windows Media Player on a 640X480 screen. Downloads are progressive and will run up to 1.3MB/second.

Unfortunately, the pricing model for VOD will be problematic as iTunes sells TV episodes for $1.99 that don’t expire after 24 hours. Welcome to the party Guba.

Unless you are live under the proverbial rock, the talk of the town has been Apple’s negotiations with studios to finally sell feature films on iTunes. What is interesting is that most people haven’t been discussing why this has taken so long. You see, unlike the music industry, Apple doesn’t have the studios over a barrel:

ITunes was the first etailer to start selling songs and TV shows online, but when it adds movies, it will enter a competitive market. Movielink and CinemaNow already sell permanent downloads of films. BitTorrent has a deal in place with Warner Bros. and is in talks with other studios. Amazon.com also will start selling movies online soon, possibly through its IMDb Web site.

Recently in the NYTimes:

In the first episode of “Lovespring International,” a new comedy on the Lifetime channel about a dysfunctional dating service in Southern California, the owner of the agency storms into an office, furious at two employees.

“Do you know how many people have signed up for Perfectmatch.com in the last five minutes?” she barks. “1,623.”

In real life, Perfectmatch.com is a subscription-based online dating service with more than three million members. On “Lovespring International,” Perfectmatch.com will appear throughout the season as a faceless nemesis that is mentioned flatteringly as it steals clients from Lovespring.

Call it sponsorship, branded entertainment or product integration, but Perfectmatch’s deal with Lifetime is increasingly common in advertising — weaving the name of a product into a television show or film, not as an obvious ad, but as a distinct part of the story. (In another episode, a disgruntled client screams, “I would have had better luck on Perfectmatch.com.")

As the idea of the 30-second spot becomes extinct, the TV world is scrambling to come up with new ideas. Branded entertainment is a return to the early years of TV before the advent of content-interrupting commercials. Branded entertainment has the advantage that it survives ripping, bittorrenting, Tivoing, slingboxing and just about any other kind of time-shifting or place-shifting technology.  The problem is that this is the equivalent of burning in a giant corporate logo over the entire screen. Sure, everyone will see your logo but does that mean they want to watch a show all about your logo?

Naturally AdAge is the type of publication to understand the importance of this development:

Walt Disney Co.’s ABC issued a statement today confirming the network was prepared to negotiate with agencies using the existing ratings metric of “live only,” meaning it will only charge marketers for viewers who watch programs when they are aired (and not for viewers who watch later using a digital video recorder).

The issue of which metric to base this year’s upfront negotiations on has held up deals. Media agencies were united in their stand that they would only pay for live viewers, while the broadcast networks wanted to charge for those viewers who watched programs either later that same day (live plus same day) or later that week (live plus seven days). But late last week, ABC began to soften its stance, offering to negotiate with buyers on “live plus same day.”

Perhaps the silver lining in the networks’ clouds is that they will try to make up for the loss of advertising in TV via their new internet properties.

We swear we are not making this up:

News Corp.’s MySpace.com will begin selling episodes of Fox’s “24” next week as part of a plan to turn the popular teen Web site into a business rivaling Yahoo Inc. and Apple Computer Inc.’s iTunes, according to the Wall Street Journal.

MySpace, one of the fastest growing Web properties, will begin selling episodes of the show “24” for $1.99 per episode from seasons one and five, the report said.

While we are more than happy to see everyone and their grandpa get in on the IPTV bandwagon, it is a little disappointing that no one is competing on price or features. Folks, do we have to wait for Wal Mart to step in and offer TV downloads for $1.79?

Feel free to send us your guesses for who will start selling TV downloads next. 

One day we’ll all look back on this bubble and laugh:

YouTube is rumored to have quietly raised another $25 million in venture capital after raising two rounds totaling $11.5 million from Sequoia Capital. The hit video-sharing site might need it: YouTube’s bandwidth fees are said to be approaching $1 million per month.

We don’t get it. YouTube is Napster for video. While they have slyly introduced some advertising onto the site, this hardly constitutes any long-term business model. Unless that business model is “we’re going to get bought by Fox.” Welcome to the bubble 2.0…

In a victory for PR and Marketing:

Several major film studios are announcing plans Monday to make movies available for download onto PCs.

Consumers would be able to save the films to watch any time, and would pay between $10 and $30 to download, depending on how new the film is. New movies are expected to be released for download the day the DVD goes on sale.

The industry has been moving toward online distribution for a while, though just how eagerly is subject to debate. The new services, available through MovieLink and CinemaNow, should prompt repercussions along the distribution line, from DVD sales to cable TV to the video rental business.

Those of you who are regular readers of BBB will recall that MovieLink and CinemaNow (gotta love those iNterCap names) have been the long forgotten stepchildren of hollywood and the tech industry. What is amazing about this story is that it is a story at all. These services have been available for years (although the details have changed a bit) this is nothing new. Perhaps in light of the success of the iTunes Music Store selling tv downloads, the ugly stepchildren feel a little more confident these days.

We tried to checkout the details at the MovieLink site but encountered a stern:

Sorry, but as of May 2, 2005, Movielink no longer supports Windows 98 and ME operating systems.

Movielink also does not support Mac or Linux.

In order to enjoy the Movielink service, you must use Windows 2000 or XP, which support certain technologies we utilize for downloading movies.

And a similar warning pops up at CinemaNow:

You must use Internet Explorer Version 6 or higher on a PC running Windows 2000 or later in order to use the CinemaNow service.

Uh oh, we think we can predict how successful this Microsoft DRM‘d crap is going to be already.

When reading this rumor about Steve’s negotiations with Hollywood studios a funny thought occurred to us.

With the debut of Apple’s true video iPod on the horizon, sources have told Think Secret “the eleventh hour” has approached in negotiations between Apple CEO Steve Jobs and major powers in the industry over how to offer movies on-demand and that the situation is not looking good for larger deals.
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According to a highly placed industry executive, talks between potential partners from movie distributors and Apple have been in “the fast mode” for the past three months on how to sell full-length feature films through Apple’s iTunes service. Major obstacles remain to a finished deal, however.

Steve Jobs has now developed a perfectly, vertically integrated pipeline for content. Think about it. He is the CEO of Apple who makes the iPod and the Mac Mini, both excellent hardware solutions for enjoying music and movies. The iTunes Music Store is fast becoming the most popular media streaming app on the internet, surpassing even Real Player with about 30 million users. And to top it all off, he is now a chairman of Disney having ruled over Pixar for decades.

Steve now creates content, distributes content and sells the hardware to play the content. That’s quite an empire you’ve got there Mr. Jobs.

In what is perhaps the most oxymoronic headline ever, the Guardian reports that the latest proponent of the death-of-dinosaur-media is none other than ol’ Rupert himself:

Rupert Murdoch last night sounded the death knell for the era of the media baron, comparing today’s internet pioneers with explorers such as Christopher Columbus and John Cabot and hailing the arrival of a “second great age of discovery”.

The News Corp media magnate nurtures a long-held distaste for “the establishment” but last night confided to one of the few clubs to which he does belong - The Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers - that he may be among the last of a dying breed.

“Power is moving away from the old elite in our industry - the editors, the chief executives and, let’s face it, the proprietors,” said Mr Murdoch, having flown into London from New York after celebrating his 75th birthday on Saturday.

Don’t you just love it when the man who symbolizes the most powerful and elite of all media barons rails against the power of the elite media barons?

This guy must hang out on Myspace too much.

Seems the local TV business isn’t as profitable as it used to be:

Sinclair Broadcast Group is planning to shut down local newscasts in several markets, including Milwaukee, Raleigh, Buffalo and Tampa. Several Sinclair affiliates will be impacted by the closure of the UPN and The WB networks. Some Sinclair stations might not join the new CW network.

What could possibly be the cause of scrapping of local TV news. It couldn’t possibly be the internet…

Seems like sanity is busting out all over the TV world:

YouTube.com, a popular video-sharing Web site that was smacked around in recent weeks by CBS and NBC, is starting to make friends in the TV world.

The site has struck its first formal partnership to obtain copyrighted content with MTV2, a cable channel overseen by Viacom’s MTV Networks, a spokesman confirmed.

Assuming that MTV2 doesn’t go out of business tomorrow, we hope this will be taken as a good sign throughout the industry.