Cool Tech Reviews

The NBC television network seems to be trying a little bit of everything to snag Internet viewers. In addition to selling shows via Amazon Unbox (mentioned last week), they have announced a new service called NBC Direct which allows free download and viewing of a selection of NBC programming for up to a week after a program airs.

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There’s already Internet television programming, so what not an Internet Television on which to watch it? Apparently they’ll be arriving next year from several Japanese electronics manufacturers:

Sony, Matsushita and three other Japanese electronics makers plan to start selling Internet televisions next year, the Nihon Keizai newspaper reported Thursday.

The new TVs aim to make accessing video and similar online content easier than with current methods such as computers, the newspaper said without saying how it got its information. The other companies are Sharp Corp., Toshiba Corp. and Hitachi Ltd.

They are jointly going to be publishing a common “Internet TV” standard which ought to be interesting since there are so many competing services and digital rights management schemes today.

Ed Oswald at BetaNews:

Marking the first time a major studio has agreed to work with a peer-to-peer service, NBC Universal on Friday announced a deal with Wurld Media, creator of the legal Peer Impact P2P service. The agreement would allow users to download Universal movies and NBC TV events for a fee.

Customers would be able to “rent” movies from the service and view them within a 24-hour window. NBC said that it wanted to give its viewers another way to access the studio’s content in a way that protects it from illegal distribution.

Unlike other P2P networks, Peer Impact itself is the only authorized user that can upload content to the network. The company says this prevents illegal content from being transferred through its servers.

The service already offers downloadable video games, and music that is either in MP3 format or protected using Windows Media’s DRM technology.

Some of the movies slated to become available through the service include “Ray,” “Meet the Fockers” and “The Bourne Supremacy.” TV shows will include “Jerry Springer: Uncensored” and the company’s “Blind Date” franchise, among others.

More old Universal movies, less “Jerry Springer: Uncensored” please! More seriously, this is just like the AOL-Warner Bros. deal earlier in the week in that the customer is expected to join a peer-to-peer network in order to view the content, but in this case they get to pay for it too. Doesn’t sound like a winner.

Press release:

Thousands of episodes from some of the most popular television series of all time will make a comeback exclusively on AOL.com (http://www.aol.com) in early 2006, thanks to a pioneering collaboration between AOL and Warner Bros. Domestic Cable Distribution to form a new broadband network. The network– called In2TV – will allow consumers to stream full-length episodes from favorite series such as Welcome Back Kotter, Sisters, Beetlejuice, Lois & Clark, La Femme Nikita and Growing Pains free and on-demand on the Web. Along with full-length episodes, In2TV will also include unique interactive features such as games, quizzes, polls, trivia contests and more.

This first-of-its-kind interactive video experience demonstrates the impact of broadband—now in 53% of U.S. households*–on the television industry, as broadband provides a new platform for television assets on the Internet.

So what took them so long? This is one of the synergies that were promised as a rationale for the original AOL merger with Time Warner.

And how are they going to make money off it? In2TV will be supported by advertising much like regular broadcast TV:

In2TV will provide AOL’s advertisers with compelling video inventory for instream broadband advertising as well as opportunities for sponsorships and accompanying banner ads. Video ads, 15-second and 30-second spots, will be limited to a total of 1-2 minutes within each 30-minute episode as compared to 8 minutes of advertising on broadcast television.

There are more programming details available by following the link, but from a technology perspective there’s something else:

These series will be offered in a new DVD quality video format called “AOL Hi-Q.” This new technology, which builds upon AOL’s industry-leading online video experience, enables high resolution, full-screen viewing. It will be made available free to any broadband user (along with standard-quality streaming). AOL.com is the first major portal to offer this kind of high quality video experience to consumers.

And in fact, there’s a separate press release devoted to it:

The AOL.com portal is the first to introduce a trial for a new “AOL Hi-Q” high quality video format. The AOL Hi-Q format builds on the AOL.com Web portal’s industry-leading video experience ( http://www.aol.com/video) and can deliver DVD quality videos, in addition to standard quality streaming video, free to broadband users. Consumers can view AOL Hi-Q video on demand as well as select to have new Hi-Q videos in a particular category of interest, such as online movie trailers, music videos, video game trailers and more entertainment content, pushed to them when they are available.
…
Using one of the industry’s first commercial-grade, peer-to-peer grid distribution networks, developed in partnership with Kontiki, AOL® Hi-Q™ can deliver DVD quality videos directly to consumers more quickly and efficiently. The peer-to-peer distribution network built by Kontiki features robust security to protect copyrighted content through digital rights management (DRM) and a centrally managed, highly-scalable delivery model that enables AOL to reliably deliver content to consumers. Through the installation of a simple plug-in, a special AOL Hi-Q video player provides a high resolution display with image quality designed for full-screen viewing on PC monitors or televisions capable of showing a PC interface.

So you’re actually signing up for a peer-to-peer (P2P) network developed by Kontiki and sponsored and managed by AOL. Interesting times indeed!