News written by Rich Fiscus (May, 2008)

According to a report in The South China Morning Post, Hutchison Telecom has reached a deal with Apple that will allow them to offer the iPhone to customers in Hong Kong and Macau starting some time this summer. Previously Apple had previously been negotiating with China Mobile but negotiations broke down in January, reportedly because the country's largest mobile service provider wasn't happy with the revenue sharing agreement being offered.

Despite the lack of an official sales channel, hundreds of thousands of iPhones are believed to be in use in China already.

The new report was short on details. A Hutchison Telecom spokesman is quoted as saying "Due to the confidential agreement with Apple, we can't say too much beyond the formal announcement."

The report also said other carriers in Hong Kong are expected to announce deals soon to launch the new 3G iPhone, which will be available later this year.

Comcast, the largest cable television provider in the US, is looking to get a little bit smaller. The company is hoping to sell 46 cable systems in Maine, Kentucky, Louisiana, New Mexico, Virginia, Georgia, West Virginia and California. The reason for the move is reportedly because they're geographically distant from the majority of the cable giant's operations.

In Maine, where nearly a quarter of the systems slated to be sold are located, the most logical buyer would be Time Warner Cable, which already serves 85% of the state. So far Time Warner has had no comment on the matter. The 11 systems were purchased in 2006 when Comcast bought Maine-based Susquehanna Communications.

John Goran, chairman of the cable TV regulatory board in Freeport, Maine hopes that the new owners, whoever they may be, will expand the services being offered. "We don't have Internet phone, no video on demand or any of those advanced services," he said. "We have standard cable and high-definition and premium channels and that's it."

According to Rentrak, US Video On Demand (VOD) viewing for the first quarter of this year was up 59% from the same quarter a year before. Viewers reportedly watched 185 million hours of VOD programming. They also say the number of titles available for viewing increased 36% to more than 70,000.

“The operators and studios have been doing an excellent job of promoting the availability of movies on demand, thus increasing awareness and traffic in this category,” said Kristie Fortner, VP of syndication at Rentrak.

Not surprisingly, free VOD TV shows, offered by an increasing number of cable channels, saw the biggest increase at 50%. Close behind was subscription VOD with a 41% gain. This category includes content offered with premium channels like HBO and Showtime. The smallest gain was in transactional VOD, which is essentially the replacement for traditional Pay-Per-View. The increase for these offerings was a much lower 11%.

On August 26 Disney plans to release a new "Collectors Edition" version of Tim Burton's "The Nightmare Before Christmas" on DVD. What makes this release noteworth is the addition of a feature other studios have already added to some titles, namely a special copy of the movie which will be playable on as-of-yet unspecified devices. Although the specifics of the feature haven't been announced, we do know they're calling it a Disneyfile and it appears likely that other releases may also be getting it in the future.

Disney's move follows other releases in recent months from Warner Brothers and 20th Century Fox, which included similar digital copies. Both the Warner Brothers release "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" and Fox's "Live Free or Die Hard" included both a low bitrate version for portable media players and a higher bitrate version for computer playback. In both cases the copy included the use of Microsoft DRM, making them unplayable on the iPod or, ironically, Microsoft's own Zune.

MediaDefender, a company best known for their work for the MPAA has apparently admitted to being responsible for a massive Denial of Service (DoS) attack that occured last weekend in which a server used to host BitTorrent trackers was effectively shut down. The server, which belongs to a company called Revision3, is used for legal distribution of video files.

According to Revision3 CEO Jim Louderback, the problem started when someone at the company noticed that their server was being used by an outside party to provide unauthorized BitTorrent trackers. He later found out that the outside party in question was, in fact, MediaDefender. Once they cut off access to these trackers, and also to the back door which allowed MediaDefender to illegally use their server they were hit with the DoS attack. This effectively shut them down for a good part of the weekend, and due to the Memorial Day holiday on Monday they weren't able to recover until Tuesday.

Sony Pictures will be producing and distributing content for digital theaters which will include concerts, performing arts, and sporting events. The releases will come from a new unit in the company called Hot Ticket, and each title will be available for a limited time to select theaters.

"Going to your favorite theater doesn't mean just going to the movies anymore," said Rory Bruer of Sony Pictures Releasing. "Our mandate will be to identify the one-of-a-kind and sold-out events that people around the country most want to see, and we will work to present them to audiences everywhere."

Hot Ticket's plans for the remainder of 2008 includes the final performance of Cirque du Soleil's "Delirium" in August as well as the closing night on Broadway of the musical "Rent," which ends a 12 year run in September.

Earlier this year a similar venture from Disney, the 3-D concert movie "Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds" became a hit, grossing nearly $70 million dollars worldwide during its 15 week release.

As music-based games like Guitar Hero and Rock Star continue to enjoy strong sales, they've also created an interesting niche market for music sales. In fact the two titles have reportedly sold more than 25 million downloads combined. While most of the songs which can be downloaded for each game are familiar radio staples, a handful are new or relatively new tracks that aren't nearly as well known. You might think that's a recipe for slow sales on the newer titles, but that's not necessarily the case.

In fact it turns out that in at least a few cases sales through Rock Band, which are limited to playback using the game, have outpaced downloads from other services. According to Tenth Street Entertainment who manage Motley Crue, a new track from the band has been downloaded more than 47,000 times via the game. By comparison Nielsen SoundScan indicates that only 10,000 copies have been soldy by services like iTunes and Amazon.com.

Later today DVR manufacturer TiVo is expected to announce a deal that will allow Chicago area residents to automatically record shows recommended by a local TV critic. Maureen Ryan, TV critic for The Chicago Tribune, will reportedly be selecting the programs, which will be recorded for area TiVo subscribers who sign up.

Although the service won't be available outside the Chicago area, TiVo CEO Thomas Rogers says they're working on similar deals in other markets.

From the newspaper's standpoint the deal is almost certainly a winner. Like many other publications they're facing touch competition from the on-screen guides that have become a standard part of cable and satellite television packages. This will give them a way to offer a more or less direct connection to viewers' TVs, making them more competitive.

Chicato Tribune Managing Editor for Features, James Warren, is excited about the deal. “Maybe we’ll get a few people to do the unthinkable and subscribe to the newspaper,” he said.

In addition to picking out the shows to be recorded, Ryan will also host a twice-monthly show talking about the selections.

At this year's shareholder meeting, Blockbuster CEO Jim Keyes showed off a new kiosk that will be introduced in 2 of the company's stores sometime in the next few weeks. The kiosk, built by NCR, is designed to transfer content directly to portable media players.

“We call it a test but it’s really a beta,” Keyes told reporters following the presentation. “The goal is to bring all the pieces together—the content, the aggregation, the device—to try to demonstrate consumer acceptance. Once we do that, we’ll be able to think about a broader test.”

The details of Blockbuster's initial plans seem to highlight the hurdles companies face for even relatively simple new delivery methods. Although they eventually plan to support a wide range of portable devices, the initial tests will only support a single unit - the Archos Generation 4. The Archos unit was chosen because of its use in an existing French service called Moovyplay. This should allow them to shorten the process of getting content for the service, since most of the major US studios are already allowing Moovyplay to distribute video using the Archos player.

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings believes streaming video, which is already bundled with their popular DVD rental plans, represents the company's future. At an investor conference in San Francisco he said he considers online video delivery to be a long-term business model which will ensure the success of Netflix following the decline of DVD rentals, which he sees peaking within the next 10 years.

“The market that can be reached through streaming is much larger than DVD,” said Hastings, who didn’t give a specific timeframe for the anticipated growth, but did say “We should be able to get well beyond 20 million subscribers.” He added “We named our company ‘Netflix’ and not ‘DVD By Mail’ for a reason.”

This shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who's followed the company's recent move toward providing internet connected set-top boxes. In January Netfilx began allowing subscribers with plans for 3 or more DVDs at a time to stream an unlimited amount of video from their Instant Watching service. Since then they've also announced deals with consumer electronics manufacturers to provide set-top boxes to work with the service. Just last week the first such device, manufactured by a company called Roku, went on sale.

All the attention garnered this year by Apple's revamped AppleTV set-top box is both a blessing and a curse for competing devices and services. On one hand Apple's brand certainly gives the idea of downloaded video more respectability with some consumers. At the same time it's hard for other companies that don't have the same level of name recognition to get the public's attention. One such competitor, Vudu, is addressing that issue by selling their hardware in a small number of Best Buy stores.

Previously the Vudu set-top box was available only from online retailers, including their own website and Amazon.com. Besides increasing their visibility, the move to sell the units at Best Buy also gives consumers the opportunity to do some hands-on evaluation before taking one home. For unfamiliar technology with a price tag of nearly $300 this seems like an important step in the right direction.

Vudu currently has 5,500 titles available either for rent or purchase. As with Apple's iTunes offerings, many movies are available for purchase the same day they're released on DVD, while rentals are typically available 30 days later. The two devices also have similar storage capabilities for around 50 hours of video.

If you have a computer running Windows Vista Home Premium or Windows Vista Ultimate you may already be using the included Media Center software to make it an HTPC. If so you'll be getting access to a new Online Media channel from CinemaNow that will offer the same selection of movies, TV shows, and music videos already available through the company's website.

CinemaNow's content is available on a download-to-own basis for prices ranging from $9.99 to $19.99 for movies, or as little as $1.99 for TV shows and music videos. If you prefer rentals to purchasing they can be gotten for significantly less (usually $2.99 to $3.99) for a 24 hour viewing period. Some videos can even be burned to DVD. CinemaNow has more than 3,400 titles to choose from, with some even available on the same day they're released on DVD.

With the growing amount of video available on the internet for either streaming or download, perhaps the biggest question for many people has been how to get it from the computer monitor to a TV. One approach, used by companies as diverse as Apple and Netflix, is to provide a separate set-top box that works similarly to a cable or satellite receiver, or even a DVR. With a growing number of consumers getting access to the necessary hardware and software to have a media center PC it seems logical to give them options to use their existing configurations for a similar purpose.

Almost since the introduction of CableCARD technology there have been complaints about its lack of support for interactive services like Video On Demand (VOD). Last year the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), representing electronics manufacturers, and National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA), representing cable television operators in the US, both submitted proposals to the FCC for a new communications standard to be used in the next generation of CableCARD. Unfortunately the two proposals were different and incompatible with each other. On Tuesday Sony became the third major electronics vendor with plans to support the NCTA proposal, called Tru2Way.

At the CES expo in Las Vegas this January Panasonic and Comcast announced the development of consumer electronics products which will use Tru2Way technology to give them the full range of features available from a digital cable receiver. Earlier this month Samsung announced a deal of their own to develop devices using the technology. With the addition of Sony to their ranks, any concerns about competing standards should all but disappear.

New York City residents may soon have a new alternative to their current cable television provider. That's because the city's Franchise and Concession Review Committee has approved a cable franchising agreement with Verizon to provide their FiOS television service as a competitor to the incumbent Time Warner Cable. Assuming the deal is approved by the mayor's office and New York State Public Service Commission, Verizon plans to have complete coverage for the 5 boroughs that make up the city.

"When our proposal is fully approved, New York will be the first major city in the nation to break the cable TV monopoly and bring the network of the future to its residents today," Monica Azare, Verizon senior vice president for New York and Connecticut, said in a statement.

Currently only about 20% of the city's residents have access to Verizon's fiber optic network, which has so far only been used for high speed internet connections. These people should have the company's television service available nearly immediately after the franchise agreement is approved by the various parties. From that point on the company will have 8 years, until June 30, 2004, to make the service available to the entire populations of Manhattan, Brooklyn, The Bronx, Queens, and Staten Island.

There has been a lot of discussion over the last several months about whether consumers even care about the availability of Blu-ray or any other high definition disc format. A significant drop in sales volume following the death of HD DVD would seem to suggest that price is currently a bigger factor than resolution or other quality factors. Apparently that's not true for everyone though. Specialty electronics retailers like Ultimate Electronics and Crutchfield are expecting to be moving more Blu-ray players than standard DVD units before the end of 2008.

On one hand these retailers are seeing the benefits of the upcoming transition to all-digital TV signals next year. “I think HD of any kind is experiencing a lift, as people become more cognizant of the DTV transition,” said Matt Duda, Ultimate Electronics merchandising director of video. “People wonder if they need a new TV, and it’s a great time for retail to capitalize on that. Just getting that footstep in the door is a great way to educate consumers about all high-def products.”

Verizon has begun offering subscribers a new video download service from Starz Entertainment. Called Starz Play, it offers unlimited movie downloads, as well as access to live streams from the various Starz and Encore cable channels. The service costs $5.99 per month.

In addition to the new service, Starz Entertainment also owns Vongo, a movie download service that offers unlimited downloads for $9.99 a month. Unlike Starz Play, however, Vongo doesn't include content from the company's cable channels.

While the deal with Verizon is the first time Starz has sold movie downloads as a wholesaler, it likely won't be the last. The company reportedly sees this sort of arrangement as the future of internet movie distribution.

Given the challenges that companies trying to turn a profit in the marketplace face it's anyone's guess whether this is true, but unlike other companies they appear to be establishing some kind of regular revenue stream. That's something their competition would do well to pay attention to.

In 2003 Disney began a trial program to sell disposable DVDs that became unplayable 48 hours after the packaging was opened. The discs, dubbed EZ-D by their developer, Flexplay, were an unqualified failure and the trial was cancelled after less than a year. Despite claims to the contrary from Convex Group, who bought Flexplay around the time the Disney trial ended, most people considered it a dead product. However Flexplay's critics were apparently a little premature in writing off the technology. Flexplay DVDs, notably lacking any Disney movies, will be available from office supply retailer Staples.

Although lacking the high visibility they enjoyed while the Disney trial program was in place, the EZ-D format has already made a quiet comeback of sorts. In 2005 Flexplay licensed the technology to a Japanese company, and they're currently available from kiosks in some US airports. This time around the discs feature movies from Warner Home Video, New Line Home Entertainment, Paramount Home Entertainment, and DreamWorks.

Officials from the United States, European Commission, Japan, and Switzerland are among those secretly working out details for a new anti-piracy treaty to be discussed at this year's G-8 Summit being held in July. A leaked discussion paper for the proposed Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) suggests the adoption of several new legal measures in participating countries that would radically increase the role of government in copyright, patent, and trademark enforcement. Other countries participating in the on-going discussion of the treaty include Canada, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and Mexico.

Discussion on the ACTA proposal started with an initiative begun last October by US Trade Representative Susan C. Schwab along with 5 members of the Congressional Caucus on Intellectual Property and Piracy Prevention in the US House of Representatives. Although consumer rights groups have been denied access to the text of the proposal, according to IP Justice "select lobbyists in the intellectual property industry" have been given access to the document.

Well known tech site Ars Technica has been purchased by magazine publisher Condè Nast, whose other properties include Wired magazine. Ars Technica will become part of Wired Digital, which is also responsible for Wired.com. The price wasn't disclosed, but is rumored to be $25 million.

In a statement to the Ars Technica community on May 19, Editor-in-Chief and co-founder Ken Fisher wrote "Ars Technica will remain an independent publication, with the same editorial leadership in place. I will remain the Editor-in-Chief, and Jon, Eric, and the rest of the editorial team is staying on board, too" referring to Senior Editor (now Deputy Editor) and co-founder Jon Stokes and Managing Editor Eric Bangeman.

According to Fisher the sale will mean an immediate expansion of the site's operation, including hiring more staff in more locations. They plan to have offices open in both Chicago and San Francisco in just weeks. He says they're already going through "notebooks full of ideas for Ars Technica from over the years" to take immediate advantage of having Wired Digital's resources behind them.

When Hulu, the online video service jointly owned by NBC Universal and News Corp, opened to the public earlier this year many people were pleasantly surprised to find that they actually liked it quite a bit. In addition to providing TV shows and movies from their own portal they also have a number of partners offering the content to their own visitors. On Tuesday Hulu announced deals to add content to another 7 websites, including TV.com (formerly TVTome), TVGuide.com, and Zap2it.com.

According to figures from Nielsen's VideoCensus Hulu streamed more video in April (its first full month of operation) than any US television network website. Hulu viewers reportedly streamed 63.2 million videos compared to 60.8 million from former the former frontrunner, Disney's ABC.com.

But as successful as they've been, not everything appears to be going as well as some analysts expected. James McQuivey, Vice President and Principal Analyst with Forrester Research, feels websites like AOL, MySpace, and Yahoo could do a better job of promoting Hulu videos. At the Reuters Global Technology, Media and Telecoms Summit he said "the partners have a little more work to do to capture their fair share of the audience."

Comcast is investing in a company developing a streaming video service that uses P2P technology. GridNetworks, based out of Seattle, is receiving an unspecified investment from Comcast and will be collaborating with the cable provider to make the service "friendly" to internet service providers.

In the wake of the recent controversy over their "network management," which effectively blocks a significant amount of P2P traffic, Comcast has apparently had a change of heart about how to handle subscribers who transfer a lot of data. No doubt the threat of FCC action and Net Neutrality legislation from Congress has played a part in their decision to support the creation of a so-called P2P "Bill Of Rights" and consider a new billing model with explicit monthly download limits.

Today Netflix began promoting the first set-top box for streaming movies directly to a TV using their Instant Watching service. Instant Watching is part of every subscription to Netflix DVD rental plan, but until now a computer with Windows Media Player has been required for taking advantage of it.

The Netflix Player, which is manufactured by Roku, can be connected to a home network via Ethernet or Wi-Fi. TV outputs include HDMI, component video, composite video, and S-video. It's being offered from the Roku website for $99.99.

DivXNetworks, developers of the popular DivX MPEG-4 ASP codec, have announced a closed beta test for a new MPEG-4 AVC (H.264) decoder. The DivX H.264 decoder, given the codename of "Project Rémoulade," is intended to compete with CoreAVC, a popular and low cost AVC encoder from CoreCodec, as well as the free ffdshow decoder.

Based on tests documented by DivXNetwork internal testers, the new decoder can decode AVC video significantly faster (more frames per second) than ffdshow, and usually slightly faster than CoreAVC. Although most testers seem to confirm the comparison with ffdshow, some find CoreAVC to be consistently faster.

CableCard technology, which allows devices from televisions to DVRs to decrypt QAM broadcasts from US cable operators, has proven to be a mixed blessing for consumers. One of the chief criticisms of the technology is its inability to work with the Video On Demand (VOD) services that have become a standard feature of the cable landscape. This has lead to the development of a more advanced standard called Tru2way, which will allow a new generation of CableCard equipped devices access to VOD and other interactive services. Now Samsung has signed a licensing deal that will them to manufacture devices compliant with the standard.

The lack of VOD capabilities in first generation CableCard devices is due to not allowing bi-directional communication. While standard digital cable receivers, like those provided by cable companies, have the capability to both receive signals and send instructions back to the head end (the equipment used to distribute television signals to subscribers), first generation CableCard technology doesn't include any way to transmit the information required to take advantage of interactive services. As a result, the instructions necessary for VOD simply aren't available through the CableCard interface.

At last week's MEDIA-TECH Expo in Frankfurt, Germany, media analyst Richard Cooper of Screen Digest predicted that the struggling US economy will have a major impact on the growth of Blu-ray in 2008. During his presentation on the future of Blu-ray Cooper backed up his assertion with some interesting figures, largely from DVD sales, showing that US households have historically purchase more titles annually than those in Europe. Based in part on those figures he sees Blu-ray sales continuing to remain low during 2008.

As we reported last month, sales of Blu-ray players dropped significantly after the end of the so-called format war with HD DVD, and have yet to return to their January levels.

His presentation also included detailed analysis of the affect PS3 sales may have on the market. He pointed to a recent study showing use of the game console as a BD (Blu-ray Disc) player in the US increasing from the end of 2007 through the beginning of 2008 as good news for movie sales. Also of note, however, was the competition for consumer dollars between games and movies. Such competition could prove problematic for the Blu-ray industry as long as the game console dominates the player market.

Last month the FCC issued nearly $4 billion dollars in fines to various retailers across the US for failing to label TVs without digital tuners. The labels are required by a rule adopted last May requiring retailers to label TVs with only analog (NTSC) tuners as incompatible with digital television (DTV) broadcasts. Starting in February of next year such TVs will require a converter box to receive over the air broadcasts.

Yesterday Circuit City filed papers with the agency claiming their fines, which total $712,000, should be thrown out because the FCC doesn't have any jurisdiction to enforce the rule. The company also alleges the agency acted improperly by not asking for public comment prior to setting the policy.

According to the filing, "Circuit City made extensive and good faith efforts to comply with this unprecedented regulation despite lack of notice or baseline for compliance." It also goes on to complain that errors were made by regulators in assessing the fines.

The announcement earlier this year by Blockbuster that they were interested in buying the faltering Circuit City consumer electronics chain were largely greeted by skepticism over the video rental giant's ability to finance the $1 billion bid. But at least one major player, Hollywood Video founder Mark Wattles, is more optimistic about the deal's potential.

Wattles, whose Wattles Capital Management (WCM) holds more than 6% of Circuit City's stock, has a high opinion of Blockbuster's management. He told This Week In Consumer Electronics “I’ve competed against them and they have an exceptional employee hiring and training program.” He also described Blockbuster CEO Jim Keyes as an outstanding chief executive.

Last week Wattles reached an agreement with Circuit City executives that will give WCM a voice on the company's board of directors in exchange for supporting the board's other nominees, avoiding a very public fight that would almost certainly be damaging to the company, at least in the short term.

Over the past few years public libraries in the US have steadily increased the number of titles offered in that format. Some of the nation's larger libraries have in excess of ten thousand titles available. Also on the rise is the availability of downloadable titles, which comprise a much smaller, but growing area of interest among library patrons. Despite all this interest in digital video, it appears that Blu-ray has yet to make an appearance on the shelves of most libraries, and in fact doesn't seem to figure into most institutions' short term plans.

The results of a survey conducted by Reed Business Information indicate that only 3% of public libraries currently stock high definition titles, compared to 33% already offering movie downloads.

If the responses from many libraries are an indication the key issue that still needs to be resolved is consumer confusion about Blu-ray, rather than an actual rejection of the technology. Several reportedly weren't even aware of Blu-ray's recent "victory" over HD DVD in the so-called format war. Most said there was simply no demand for high definition discs at this time.

Last December legislation was introduced in the US House of Representives that would increase penalties for both commercial and personal copyright violations and create a new IP enforcement office in the Department of Justice. This new division, headed by a new so-called "Copyright Czar," would assist copyright holders in civil actions related to intellectual property infringement. The Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property (PRO IP) Act has been widely praised for taking an important stand against commercial piracy operations, but equally criticized by consumer rights organizations for applying the same measures to non-commercial infringement. This week the bill passed in the House by an overwhelming margin (410-11), sending it to the US Senate for consideration.

The original bill, as introduced in the House Judiciary Committee last year, would have increased penalties for many works by counting each part of a compilation (each song on an album for example) as a separate violation. While this language has been removed, other questionable provisions remain. In addition to an increased role for law enforcement in the handling of civil cases, it would also allow the government to seize property from those successfully sued in copyright infringement suits but not convicted, or even accused, of any crime.

With the scheduled date for nearly all analog TV broadcasts in the US to be shut off just over the horizon, the FCC is finally getting around to some real world testing. Wilmington, North Carolina has been chosen for the tests, in part because all the local broadcasters already have digital signals available. On September 8 WWAY, WSFX, WECT, WILM-LP, and W51CW will turn off their analog signals, leaving only the digital signal available to viewers.

"The commission identified Wilmington as one of only a limited number of potential test markets because all the commercial stations in the market have already completed construction of their DTV channels and are operating at full post-transition power," said FCC chairman Kevin Martin. "The commission will use the test market as an opportunity to work very closely in advance with broadcasters, viewers, cable companies and others who will be affected to anticipate and address any problems."

Fellow FCC commissioner Michael Copps, who first suggested the idea last March said "This is very good news for the DTV transition. Real-world experience is an extremely important step -- although only one of many -- that will help minimize consumer disruption next February. Broadway shows open on the road to work out the kinks before opening night. The DTV transition deserves no less."

At the Digital Hollywood conference, where entertainment industry representatives are meeting to discuss technology and trends in digital content delivery, David Hughes of the RIAA made bold statements about the future of DRM. Despite a clear move toward selling DRM-free music by every major label Hughes, the RIAA's Senior Vice President of Technology, says DRM is far from dead, and even intimated that it's nearly impossible to make money on digital music without it.

"(Recently) I made a list of the 22 ways to sell music, and 20 of them still require DRM," said Hughes. He added "Any form of subscription service or limited play-per-view or advertising offer still requires DRM. So DRM is not dead."

Fritz Attaway, of the MPAA had a slightly different perspective. He characterized DRM as a tool to make sure consumers understand the licensing content is released under, saying "We need DRM to show our customers the limits of the license they have entered into with us."

Just a few weeks ago BitTorrent site TorrentSpy was shut down by parent company Valance Media LLC, replaced with a message explaining that the owners "feel compelled to provide the ultimate method of privacy protection for our users - permanent shutdown." TorrentSpy's demise is the result of a MPAA victory in U.S. federal court where they accused the site's operators of inducing copyright infringement. In a final ruling this week (pending an appeal) the court awarded the MPAA $110 million dollars.

"This substantial money judgment sends a strong message about the illegality of these sites," MPAA chairman and CEO Dan Glickman said. "The demise of TorrentSpy is a clear victory for the studios."

In an interview with CNET News, Valence Media attorney Ira Rothken refuted the MPAA's claim, saying "What is really going on here is a Hollywood public-relations stunt." He added "The reason for the size of the judgment was so a bunch of news organizations would write that 'a $100 million judgment was issued against a bunch of pirates' when, in fact, it was declared against a company with no appreciable assets that has already declared bankruptcy."

The majority of the news about digital television (DTV) here at Afterdawn seems to revolve around the upcoming transition in the US. While that's understandable given our large American audience, we could learn a thing or two from how the UK is handling a similar, if infinitely more organized, shift from analog to digital signals. Just this week regulators at Ofcom confirmed that high definition channels will become available over Freeview in some areas starting next year. By the time the transition is complete (in 2012) the HD channels should be available across the entire UK.

In order to take advantage of the new content viewers will need a HD capable set-top box, and of course they'll need a HDTV as well. If you're in the UK and considering the purchase of a new HDTV you may even be able to find one with an integrated HD tuner to avoid the additional cost of a separate receiver.

Like a number of broadband ISPs, Comcast has a policy of contacting subscribers who use an excessive amount of bandwidth, and giving them the choice of either reducing downloads or having their internet service canceled. However, as we reported last year even when the company terminates service the customer isn't told exactly where the line they supposedly crossed was.

As part of what looks like a campaign to repair their tarnished image with both customers and the FCC, Comcast is now considering a change to their terms of service that would limit subscribers to 250GB of downloads per month. Under this plan users who download more than 250GB could be charged as much as $15 for each additional 10GB transferred.

So far the company hasn't made any decision whether to go ahead with such a plan. They've already received a lot of criticism over the proposal already, perhaps enough to give up on the idea completely, but perhaps the most vocal critics are missing the point just a little. The issue doesn't seem to be whether Comcast will be able to cut off customers for using "too much" bandwidth. The real question is whether subscribers are told what the limits are up front, and that seems to be at least a slight improvement.

Sony's PlayStation 3 has hit a milestone in Europe by finally passing the Xbox 360 in total console sales despite the lowest priced PS3 costing nearly twice as much as the entry level version of the Microsoft console (£299 compared to £159) and a 16 month head start for the Xbox 360.

Games consultant Nick Parker credits the console's eventual success to Sony's strategy of giving it more of a mass-market appeal, saying "The PS3 is far more mass market than 360, which has gone for traditional adult males - and that does not go down well in continental Europe."

At a European PlayStation event in London Kaz Hirai of Sony spoke about the PS3's early struggles, noting "There were teething problems... and customers were a little underwhelmed by early games." He also expressed optimism that the PS3 is poised for similar success within the next 2-3 years in North America.

Speaking about Sony's future plans for the console, he said the company intends to focus on promoting it as a "multi-faceted interactive entertainment system," a strategy they've had since the PS3's launch, but have often been criticized for in light of Blu-ray's failure to capture a significant share of the home video market. However, as the success of Microsoft's Xbox Live online store has shown, there are other markets available to be exploited.

At Sun Microsystem's 2008 JavaONE conference, being held this week in San Francisco, one of the topics being discussed is the use of Java in Blu-ray movie (BD-MV) authoring. The keynote speaker on Tuesday was legendary recording artist Neil Young who talked about plans to release his long awaited "Archives" project on Blu-ray.

The project, which will be released as a series of multi-disc box sets, will eventually include Young's entire catalog. The first installment is slated for release in the fall will include 10 discs spanning the years from 1963 to 1972, including a number of previously unreleased songs and rarities.

In addition to the ability to encode the audio in losslessly compressed 24/192 (24 bit / 192kHz) audio, he cited Blu-ray's BD-Live feature, which he plans to take advantage of by offering additional material, including any additional songs that might be turn up in the future.

"Previous technology required unacceptable quality compromises," he said in a statement. "I am glad we waited and got it right."

At the end of January a service called Qtrax had what may have been the most controversial launch to date for an online music service. Qtrax promised 25 million free and legal downloads, leading to so much interest their website had to be taken off line for a few hours, but that wasn't what people were talking about. Instead nearly all the discussion revolved around the selection of music available, or more accurately the lack of any music. It looks like that's going to be changing as their talks with Universal Music Group (UMG) seem to have come to an agreement to allow Qtrax to offer songs from their catalog.

At the time of the ill-fated January launch, apparently timed to create industry buzz during the annual MIDEM music industry conference, Qtrax executives were claiming to already have agreements in place with each of the four major labels; a claim which was quickly debunked by representatives of the labels themselves. This time around the label in question issued a joint statement with Qtrax, verifying that the deal is in fact real, although small details like whether an actual contract is in place are a little fuzzy right now.

Qtrax spokeswoman Shamin Abas told The Associated Press "All of UMG's music available digitally will be available for free, legal downloads on Qtrax."

Last week Google received a DMCA Takedown Notice in regard to a relatively obscure project called coreavc-for-linux. The notice, which can be read in its entirety on the Chilling Effects website, claims that the the project's Google Code page included a download containing code owned by CoreCodec, Inc., developers of the CoreAVC MPEG-4 decoder.

A DMCA Takedown Notice is the official mechanism put in place by the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) for copyright owners to deal with infringement issues without making hosting companies liable for everything published on their servers. They've most famously been used to have copyrighted video removed from sites like YouTube, although they're routinely issued for everything from printed works to audio files.

What makes this particular case noteworthy is the that the notice specifically states "The Site hosts and/or contains one or more links to CoreAVC, which contains CoreCodec's copyrighted Software." However, comments posted over the weekend by CoreCodec founder Dan Marlin appear to cast some doubt, or at least confusion, over the infringement claim.

It's no great surprise that video game retailers are very happy with the release of GTA IV, the latest installment of Rockstar Games' wildly successful Grand Theft Auto series. What is a little surprising is the buzz being created in the music industry by the addition of a new feature that connects players to Amazon.com's online music store, where songs featured in the game can be purchased.

"It's a very big deal for us," says Cynthia Sexton, senior vice president of marketing and licensing for EMI Music North America. "We're continually looking for new ways to sell our music. There are millions of people buying 'Grand Theft Auto,' and we hope they will enjoy the music and in turn buy those tracks."

Unlike most game developers, who typically leave the selection and licensing of tracks for inclusion in games to the publisher, Rockstar makes a point of developing and licensing game soundtracks themselves. This can result in high visibility for songs that might not receive any attention from the mainstream market otherwise. In fact, according to Rockstar music supervisor Ivan Pavlovich Amazon had less than 40% of the songs from GTA IV available for sale before when they originally inked the deal to sell it.

On May 1 Sezmi Corporation announced a service intended to compete with both cable and satellite television services in the U.S. The service, also called Sezmi, uses a combination of broadband internet and terrestrial DTV broadcasts to deliver both live and on-demand television offerings.

The company describes the Sezmi service as "The first complete TV 2.0 offering that seamlessly integrates traditional television with movies and Internet video, optimized for on-demand viewing and is personalized for the viewer," referring to a combination of features that make the service unique.

The internet component appears to be the linchpin of the whole operation. In addition to using it for on-demand programming, Sezmi is looking to the internet, or more accurately telecommunications companies themselves, to promote their product.

“Sezmi focused on the television consumer and built an entirely new television offering from the ground up to meet the needs of viewers that want a premium experience at an affordable price,” said Buno Pati, Sezmi co-founder and chief executive officer. “We have rallied support across multiple industries and are excited to work with our partners to offer a new and differentiated TV choice to consumers.”

Over the last three months I've been working hard on a number of MPEG-4 related guides for tools like SUPER and AutoMKV. I'm now pleased to announce a number of guides for one of the most powerful tools available MPEG-4 AVC encoding, called MeGUI.

MeGUI is one of many programs designed to make converting video from various formats to MPEG-4 with free tools easy for the average user. Although it's a little more complex than other tools made for this purpose, the result is a program that includes more tools, options, and customizable features than any other available at the current time.

To help get you started with MeGUI you can start with MeGUI Installation and Configuration, which walks you through installing and updating MeGUI. In addition to the main program and the tools included in its autoupdate feature, this guide will walk you through downloading and installing additional helper applications, like the Nero AAC (audio) encoder, to take full advantage of MeGUI's features.

Zattoo, a company based out of both Switzerland and the US, by streaming live TV signals from the UK without authorization from the original broadcaster. The broadcasts are available for free from the Zattoo website, along with TV channels from other countries. Although the company has made deals with broadcasters in other countries for re-broadcast of their signals, they're taking advantage of what the company's owners see as a loophole in UK copyright law that they say doesn't require such an agreement as long as they're only providing the live signal.

Although Beat Knecht, chief executive and co-founder, said: "Zattoo is not in conflict" with broadcasters, adding "We feel we have legal title to retransmit."

While the broadcasters clearly aren't happy about the way Zattoo is doing business, there haven't been an actual legal challenge to the practice yet. The BBC is concerned about the lack of a licensing agreemement, but so far has had nothing to say about the legality of Zattoo's operation.

According to the Financial Times, a representative from Channel 4 said "We are looking in detail at the legal position."

Apple has made it clear in recent months that they believe their iTunes online store is capable of taking the lead in online movie downloads in much the same way it practically created the online music market. Now it appears they've taken a significant step in that direction by getting agreements with a number of studios to offer downloads on the same day movies are released on DVD.

Apple 's new deals with 20th Century Fox, Walt Disney Studios, Warner Bros., Paramount Pictures, Universal Studios Home Entertainment, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Lionsgate, Image Entertainment and First Look Studios will allow them to sell movies as much as 45 days earlier than they've been able to in the past, and represents a major departure for the studios.

While this may seem somewhat surprising at first glance, it's not necessarily as shocking if you consider the generally accepted fact that DVD is on its way out. After watching the music industry's failing efforts to prop up the CD market, studios have made it clear that they dont' intend to make the same mistakes. While officially they may still be pinning their hopes on the success of Blu-ray, the faltering U.S. economy would seem to make any predictions of massive growth for that technology less realistic every day.