Sexual affairs, fast sports cars and 30 day trial periods for CD burning software: Those are just some of the elements of a pretty juicy lawsuit German software maker NERO has filed against MPEG LA, the company that licenses video codecs like MPEG-2 and H.264. Read more »
Ever wondered how live streaming companies can possibly make any money? Well, how about this for a clue: Ustream announced its new Global Production Services division today, offering offers professional streaming services for concerts, conferences and other events. Live streaming a gig costs $20,000 a night. Read more »
The season finale of Lost yesterday was seen by 13.5 million viewers in the U.S., plus millions more around the globe through an unprecedented simulcast aimed at preventing P2P piracy. Pundits may think that’s weak, since earlier episodes of had up to 20 million people viewers, […] Read more »
Hulu content won’t play on Google TV devices – or will it? A new hack that makes it possible to view Hulu videos on Android phones with Android 2.2 and Flash 10.1 raises more questions about the viability of content restrictions for the Google TV platform. Read more »
Are you going to buy a Google TV devices? If so, which one? The Blu-ray player, the Sony TV set or the Logitech box? If not – why not? We’d love to find out, and put together a little poll to make things easier for you. Read more »
Americans love their TV much more than they love YouTube, Hulu and Netflix streaming, but this is going to change: A new report from The Diffusion Group estimates that U.S.-based consumers will watch more Internet-delivered video than traditional broadcast or cable TV by 2010. Read more »
Los Angeles-based District Court judge Stephen Wilson issued a permanent injunction against the torrent indexing site Isohunt.com and its owner Garry Fung yesterday, giving Fung pretty much no choice but to shut down Isohunt or make it otherwise inaccessible for U.S.-based file sharers. Read more »
Google used the NBA, Sesame Street and House to show off capabilities of its new Google TV platform, emphasizing how well upcoming devices will work with existing broadcast programming. Dan Gillmor however believes that Google TV will also be a big boost for niche microchannels. Read more »
Logitech’s CEO Jerry Quindlen doesn’t think that consumers are sick of buying new boxes for the living room. In fact, he believes that the Google TV-powered set-top box his company is introducing this fall will lead to consumers buying even more hardware. Read more »
Google and its partners Sony, Logitech and Intel plan to launch first Google TV devices this fall, but it’s still unclear how much of the web users will actually be able to access with it, and what kind of ads they’re going to see in the future. Read more »
Google TV officially introduced its Google TV platform at its i/O developers conference today, showcasing a customized version of Android that will offer full web access through an search bar and an integrated Chrome web browser. Read more »
MIPS is one of more than a dozen hardware companies that was mentioned during Google’s announcement of its open source WebM video project. MIPS Director of Strategic Marketing Kevin Kitagawa told us why his company is supporting WebM and its open source video codec VP8. Read more »
Theora’s Monty Montgomery is excited about Google’s announcement to open source VP8 with its WebM Project, but doesn’t believe it will kill Theora in the near future. Other open source and open video advocates are stoked as well, but some caution about possible patent lawsuits. Read more »
Google announced today that it’s open sourcing it’s VP8 video codec as part of a new project called WebM. The move is supported by Mozilla, Opera and Chrome, as well as Adobe and virtually all leading encoding and video platform vendors. Read more »
Jonathan Gay is fed up with Steve Jobs calling Flash a closed platform while at the same time preventing cross-platform development for the iPad and iPhone. He also thinks Apple’s move to support H.264 web video via HTML5 is a danger to the open web. Read more »
Cloud encoding service provider Zencoder wants to support VP8 as soon as absolutely possible, and the company is excited about Google’s plans to open source the video codec at this week’s Google i/O developer conference in San Francisco. However, don’t count H.264 out just yet. Read more »
Best Buy customers can start downloading movies straight to their LG Blu-ray player soon, thanks to a new download service launched by the retailer later this month. The service will be called CinemaNow – a name that brings back memories for digital media insiders. Read more »
This week’s Google i/O developer conference has been sold out since early March, but the keynotes will be available to everyone through a live stream hosted on YouTube. Expect Google to open source VP8, announce its Google TV platform, dance tango with Intel and more. Read more »
Google, Sony and Intel are reportedly ready to announce an Android-based “Smart TV” platform at this week’s Google I/O developers conference. What’s gonna make it so smart, you might ask? Well, how about collaborative meta-data remixing that could turn TV viewing into a truly social experience? Read more »
Major Hollywood studios succeeded in shutting down The Pirate Bay’s website today, but the victory celebrations may not last that long. Site admins are already working on a return, and file transfers between Pirate Bay users are continuing as usual, with millions swapping digital goods. Read more »
Thought Google’s upcoming Androind-based Google TV platform was just about advertising? Think again: TV apps are estimated to generate nearly $1.9 billion in revenue by 2015, according to a new report from our friends at GigaOm Pro titled TV Apps: Evolution from Novelty to Mainstream. Read more »
Watch out, Justin.tv and Ustream: BitTorrent inventor Bram Cohen is working on a new P2P protocol, and it’s all about live streaming. BitTorrent Inc. announced the new protocol for the first time this week, and it could release a first implementation as early as this summer. Read more »
The Nazis fled Germany at the end of World War II, thanks to a secret space travel program, and settled on the moon. 70 years later, they’re ready to come back. That’s the premise of the collaboratively produced movie Iron Sky. Click through for first footage. Read more »
Thailand’s government is cracking down on opposition protests in Bangkok, leaving protesters wounded and dead. Opposition groups are using the Internet do get the word out, but live streaming sites like Livestream.com and Justin.tv can’t be accessed from within the country due to censorship. Read more »
A New York court found LimeWire guilty of copyright infringement. Among the evidence used to convict LimeWire were Google Adsense ads that touted LimeWire as a replacement for Napster as well as testimony from the company’s former COO. Read more »
YouTube serves more than one billion video views per day, but half of them are from catalog content. The site also now claims to be the world’s second largest search engine, so better pay attention to your SEO. Read more »
Brightcove teams up with Freewheel to deliver advertising to the iPad and other HTML5 video devices. That’s good news for publishers, but could also be a big boon for both Brightcive and Freewheel. Read more »
NewTeeVee relaunched last night as part of the GigaOM network-wide redesign that started in November of 2009. It’s the second redesign since NewTeeVee started more than three years ago, and it’s our most ambitious one yet. Read more »
Adobe introduced a new version of Flash Access 2.0 at Streaming Media East that features the ability to utilize output controls. In other words: Some Flash content won’t play on non-authorized displays. Read more »
Motor sport fans can soon watch races live from the Nürburgring on their computer, thanks to a new broadband network dubbed Speed2 that is going to be launched by Fox this June. Speed2 is tied to Fox’s Speed cable channel and will initially only be available […] Read more »
Showtime is working on its own TV Everywhere play with a website that will offer subscribers online access to its programming, according to a report from Bloomberg. The CBS-owned premium cable channel apparently plans something similar to HBO Go, a site launched by HBO in February. […] Read more »
Licensing negotiations between YouTube and the German music rights group GEMA have broken down, and GEMA is now demanding that the video share site take down or block access to hundreds of works. Representatives of GEMA announced today that they’ve struck an alliance with a number […] Read more »
Internet users trying to access Justin.tv from within Thailand are currently being forwarded to a government website telling them that access to Justin.tv is temporarily suspended due to an “emergency situation.” The emergency in question is civil unrest against Thailand’s government. Protests, which have also been […] Read more »
Roku owners will soon be able to browse Netflix’s entire Watch Instantly catalog and search for titles through an entirely new interface, the company just announced. Watch the promo video embedded below the jump for a first demo. A company spokesperson told us that Roku boxes […] Read more »
AT&T relaunched its U-verse Online site today, serving free TV episodes and movie clips to both U-verse customers and the general Internet audience. The site features full episodes of shows like Heroes and CSI, which AT&T gets as embeds from Hulu and CBS, respectively. U-verse customers […] Read more »
Editor’s note: Mark Cuban published a post on his blog yesterday titled The Future of TV is……TV in which he proclaimed that consumers don’t want over-the-top video, but instead want to watch cable TV and VOD on their new, shiny HDTVs. Naturally we disagreed, and couldn’t […] Read more »
Seagate is introducing a new line of external drives dubbed GoFlex today that is in many ways a direct response to the way people use storage for video. The drives themselves come with a modular cable system that allows end users to quickly change from a […] Read more »
Okay, we admit it: We’re a little sad today that GigaOM didn’t win a Webby, but that shouldn’t stop anyone from checking out the long list of web video sites and ventures that did. In fact, web video was one of the big winners of this […] Read more »
Mark Cuban is always good for a rant, and one of his favorite pet peeves is Internet video. This week, he’s complaining that all those evangelists of over the top video are ignoring the way average Americans use their TV, which is for cable and VOD, […] Read more »
The number of companies booking display ads on YouTube grew by a factor of 10 in the last year, according to a Bloomberg report published today. This revelation comes as Google is looking to boost its overall display ad revenue, which some think may hit $1 […] Read more »
