Netflix, the streaming movie and DVD subscription service, announced this morning that it would no longer allow users to add DVDs to their queue from the device they use to watch instantly. Netflix offers streaming-only content to a number of devices - from gaming consoles to embedded TVs to smartphones and tablets - and previously gave users the ability to browse content and flag it to be shipped as a DVD when it was unavailable for streaming.
According to Jamie Odell, director of product management at Netflix, the company is removing this functionality "so we can concentrate on offering you the titles that are available to watch instantly."
Google has announced this morning that upcoming versions of its browser, Google Chrome, will only support "completely open codec technologies". As Chrome continues to grab a larger and larger share of the browser market, it will have more influence on developers and Google says that it hopes this move will help to push things in the direction of a continually more open Web.
Others, however, disagree that this will push the Web in a more open direction and argue it will simply complicate the already muddled switchover to HTML5.
During Samsung's keynote address at yesterday's Consumer Electronics Show (CES 2011) in Las Vegas, Hulu CEO Jason Kilar joined Samsung U.S. President Tim Baxter on stage to announce that Hulu Plus, the premium version of the streaming service for TV and movies, will be coming to Android devices in the near future.
The app was then demonstrated, in complete, running on a Samsung Galaxy S phone.
You might not think about video transcoding software very often, but the technology it takes to prepare all those videos you watch on your iPad is helping drive new developments that will enable a very different experience of online video in the future.
"Video on the iPad," says Sam Blackman, CEO of video transcoding company Elemental, "has become a game changer for interest in video delivery to mobile devices." Did you know that almost every video broadcast online now needs to have 20 different copies of it made? Faster, cheaper transcoding technology could change that, too; some day, multiple personalized versions of every video could made for every individual who wants to watch it.
mSpot, a streaming music and movie service, has just announced its partnership with Google TV to deliver more content to the Internet TV platform. The service offers full-length movie rentals, but it also works between devices so you can pick up where you left off when watching a film on your PC, tablet or mobile phone.
As the Consumer Electronics Show (CES 2011) kicks into high gear this week in Las Vegas, we're again seeing a number of 3D-enabled products from TVs to tablets to mobile devices. It's the second (or is it third?) coming of 3D, it seems, and this time around it's often glasses-free.
Much of the development around the technology is concerned with bringing 3D to your living room, such as is the case with the 3D-enabled TVs from LG and Toshiba, for example, Samsung's 3D LED monitors, or the addition of 3D movies to the streaming service VUDU, which can pipe Hollywood entertainment directly into your living room. But 3D is showing up on other screens, too - mobile phones and tablets, gaming devices and mobile 3D DTV devices - although still in early forms.
But before you go all in, early-adopting this new craze, there's a little tidbit of not-inconsequential data you need to know first.
When Sarah Perez summed up the top three mobile trends to expect at this year's Consumer Electronics Show, a trend that both of us occassionally-mobile television connoisseurs were excited about was mobile TV.
The Open Mobile Video Coalition is presenting this year and they had a handful of mobile TV devices to show off that will be exciting for the TV-viewer on the go - especially one that retrofits all your mobile Apple devices for Mobile DTV.
Iomega has just partnered with media center software maker Boxee on a new Network Attached Storage (NAS) device running the Boxee software. Boxee, which is available both as a downloadable application and as a low-cost hardware solution called the "Boxee Box" running that same software, lets you stream Internet content like YouTube, Netflix, Flickr, Facebook and Pandora plus movies and TV shows to any HDTV.
The new NAS devices include the same features as the original Boxee Box, but also lets you store your own personal media collection, providing you with easy access to the best of both worlds - local media and Web-based content.
While those of us in North America look longingly at Europe and pine for the day that Spotify makes it overseas, movie lovers in Europe, South America and Asia exhibit the same wanton look for a North American favorite - Netflix.
The DVD and streaming-video delivery service recently expanded into Canada and now, according to reporting today from AdWeek, the signs are pointing to an overseas expansion that could make many a film nut quite happy.
Looking back on the year in Web technology, we can see that several product categories have evolved significantly over 2010. We've already written about App Stores and eReaders. Another market that progressed in 2010 was Internet TV. Among the developments: Apple announced a major overhaul of Apple TV, Google launched its Android-powered Google TV platform and partnered with Sony, Boxee and Roku continued to improve their set-top box products, startups like Clicker innovated new types of web services for Internet TV, and content platforms like Hulu captured more viewers.
In this post we review the Internet TV market over 2010 and highlight the big stories of the year.
