Remember a couple months back, when we were all waiting breathlessly for Netflix to release an app for the iOS, so we could finally watch streaming movies on the go? Well, iPhone and iPad users finally got their wish, as did Windows Phone 7 users, but Android users are left awaiting their own, device-specific app.
According to Netflix VP of Engineering Christian Kaiser, this is a key area of focus for Netflix in the coming year, and the company hopes to help define a standard that will bring streaming video to a variety of consumer electronics using HTML5.
The Mobile Content Venture (MCV), a joint effort by U.S. broadcasters, recently announced its roadmap for its mobile TV network. The roll-out plans to have 20 U.S. markets covered by the end of 2011. And we should see mobile TV-compatible devices by the second half of 2011.
Could it be true? A real, broadcaster-led, freemium mobile TV service is launching next year?
When I first plugged in my Logitech Revue Google TV unit, I was excited. Then, as I browsed around for the usual free content - Hulu.com, network websites like ABC or Fox - and found they were blocked from Google TV, I became a little distraught. It was only when I got to Netflix, however, that the true panic set in. This was how I would have to watch Netflix videos? By using a completely separate device to line things up in a queue before returning to my Google TV? Ludicrous!
Today Google has offered an update to the Google TV software that fixes one of the biggest problems with the service - the Netflix app - and offers a few other enhanced features to boot.
In this reemergence of the Internet-enabled TV (remember Web TV of the 90's?), there is a land battle over screen real estate. Web browsers are free to watch recent episodes of nearly any TV show on their computer, simply by going to a network's website. Can they go to these same websites using Internet TV devices like Google or Apple TV, though? Surely not.
One startup, called Snapstick, is introducing a solution that is device and screen agnostic, meaning whatever content you wish, from whatever device, brought straight to the big screen in your living room.
Netflix just keeps getting better and better. First it introduced streaming-only subscription plan in the U.S., then it added first-run films, and now the company has struck a deal with ABC, the Disney Channel and ABC Family Shows to provide even more streaming content.
If you felt eternally confused by "Lost" and you want to give it another go, or you have children that love "Hannah Montana", then Netflix just gave you another reason to join.
There's one great big difference between Internet TV and good, old cable television. Cable television, even at its most complex, is simple - you either subscribe to a channel or you don't. Once you make up your mind, you can sit back, relax, and surf away. Internet TV is a whole other story, with a mountain of different apps vying for your television screen. Luckily, there are a few that do an exceptional job at organizing the sometimes overwhelming variety that is the video catalog available on Internet TV. Here are our picks.
Over the last year, Netflix has gone from a mail-order DVD subscription service to a streaming Internet video service. In the company's last quarterly report, it announced that streaming had surpassed DVDs as the preferred method for content delivery and just last month it began offering a streaming-only option in the U.S.
Seeing this success, then, it doesn't come as a surprise that Amazon - the world's largest Internet retailer - is looking to make a subscription-based, streaming-only option of its own to compete with Netflix.
Last week, I caught the plague that'd been making its way around town and I responded as any rational person. I propped myself up in bed with my trusty Roku by my side and began a Netflix marathon of Dexter episodes. Two days later, I was fully hooked on the show, but there was just one problem - I'd run out of episodes.
This is a problem all streaming Netflix users are acutely aware of and today news comes from the New York Post that the company is willing to shell out some serious cash to fix the problem.
Hulu, the partnership between NBC, ABC and Fox experimenting with high-quality, ad-supported, professional online video content, is aiming to break out of its US-only limited service.
Jessica Vascellaro and Sam Schechner reported in the Wall St. Journal this afternoon that Hulu CEO Jason Kilar told them the company is looking to expand internationally and may be willing to take on additional investors to do so.
Netflix announced today that it has signed a multi-year deal with newly-formed film distribution company FilmDistrict to bring first-run films to its streaming catalog.
Last week, Netflix introduced a streaming-only subscription plan in the U.S. and this deal is one step in battling a prime criticism of the plan - that content does not reach Netflix's streaming-only subscribers quick enough.
