Clickstar and Danny De Vito Launch New Entertainment Channel
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DOCUMENTARY CHANNEL IS THE FIRST OF MANY ARTIST-CREATED ENTERTAINMENT CHANNELS TO BE FEATURED ON CLICKSTAR'S BROADBAND ENTERTAINMENT SERVICE
ClickStar, Inc. and Danny DeVito will launch Jersey Docstm, an artist-created entertainment channel dedicated exclusively to documentary films that will be available for digital download on ClickStar's broadband entertainment service.
The partnership announcement with Mr. DeVito delivers on ClickStar's promise of bringing film lovers “closer to the stars.” Mr. DeVito's passion for documentaries will provide fans a ground breaking, interactive, and immersive experience.
ClickStar, Inc. is a digital entertainment venture founded by Revelations Entertainment, the production company headed by Morgan Freeman and producer and business partner Lori McCreary, with investment from Intel Corporation. ClickStar anticipates that its service will be available later this year and will target millions of broadband consumers using Intel® Viiv™ technology-based PCs, which enable consumers to enjoy full screen high-fidelity films conveniently on their big screen TV from the comfort of their homes, or on-the-go through Intel Centrino® mobile technology-based laptop PCs.
DeVito joined ClickStar CEO James Ackerman in announcing the alliance at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival in Durham, North Carolina, where the company is acquiring additional documentaries for the channel.
Artist created channels are an exciting new platform for artists and consumers to come closer together for a dynamic and immersive entertainment experience. More filmmaker alliances and artist-created channels will be announced in the coming months.
Morgan Freeman said, “Danny and I have known each other for years and we both share a passion for documentaries. I am thrilled that through ClickStar we can introduce a wide variety of documentaries and emerging filmmakers to audiences. We see Jersey Docs as being the go to destination for documentary filmmakers who are looking for a distribution outlet that ensures their work is seen by the largest possible audience.”
ClickStar's core mission is to become the online destination for premium content, designed to give filmmakers a vehicle to connect directly to their fans with new ways of experiencing home entertainment in a very affordable and flexible way. ClickStar's service plans to offer first-run, pre-DVD-release films as well as the artist-created entertainment channels as part of its online services.
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MPA Goes After Razorback2
In a joint operation this week police and prosecuting authorities in
Belgium and Switzerland shut down the file-swapping network Razorback2.
Razorback2 was the number one eDonkey peer-to-peer server facilitating the illegal file
swapping of approximately 1.3 million users simultaneously.
Razorback2 was operated
as a commercial enterprise indexing over 170 million files including millions of
copyrighted movies, software, games, TV programming and music with international and
U.S. titles. The site was regularly used by people located all over the world, with the
vast majority of users based in Europe.
“This is a major victory in our fight to cut off the supply of illegal materials being circulated on the Internet via peer-to-peer networks,” said Motion Picture Association (MPA) Chairman and CEO Dan Glickman. “By shaving the illegal traffic of copyrighted works facilitated by Razorback2, we are depleting other illegal networks of their ability to supply Internet pirates with copyrighted works which is a positive step in our international effort to fight piracy.”
Full Press Release from the Motion Picture Association
It is unclear what effect the shutting down of the Razorback2 server will have on overall file-sharing figures.
Studies of the different file-sharing networks show that the numbers of people using Edonkey is on the increase. It has become the dominant network in South Korea, Italy, Germany and Spain.
However, following raids and shutdowns, many file-sharers simply move to other networks such as BitTorrent or have turned to older systems such as Usenet.
Notes posted on discussion groups by Edonkey users following the raid show that the number of people on the Edonkey network was back to normal a few hours after the server was shut down.
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New Directory for Video Downloads
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A new directory aimed at iPod users. There's a lot of great iPod compatible video out there. Searchforipod makes it easy for you to find it. They aggregate unique, interesting and - of course - funny, weird and wacky video from hundreds of video podcast feeds, and then organize it all into easy-to-understand categories.
Searchforipod makes it easy to get iPod compatible video into iTunes in one click. Once you have the video in iTunes, sync it to your iPod and you're ready to go. (Or watch the video right in iTunes!)
When you click a "Download to iPod" link for a video (including a playlist you have created), iTunes will open and the video will start downloading into iTunes. Once the video has finished downloading, click on the "Podcast" tab in iTunes and you will see the video you have just downloaded. You can then either watch the video right in iTunes or sync your iPod to watch the video on your iPod.
SearchforIpod is an offshoot of Searchforvideo.com
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BitTorrent to Integrate with Opera
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Opera Software today announced that it has teamed with BitTorrent Inc. to include the BitTorrent™ protocol in the upcoming version of the Opera Web browser. Integrating this popular technology in the Opera browser means faster and more efficient downloads of large files.
Their latest press release reveals that they have signed an agreement covering Opera's use of the BitTorrent trademark and access to the BitTorrent search engine from the browser's user interface.
BitTorrent's technology will be made available to users of the Opera browser in two ways: first, users can search for torrent files in the Opera browser's integrated search field, and second, when a file has been selected, Opera's Transfer Manager feature will handle the download. As a result of integrating BitTorrent into the Opera browser, users no longer need separate software for the searching and downloading of torrent content.
"Implementing BitTorrent is a natural choice, considering its efficient use of bandwidth and worldwide popularity. For users this means that they can browse and download content in an application they're familiar with," says Christen Krogh, VP of Engineering, Opera Software.
Opera already supports other file transfer protocols such as FTP and HTTP . BitTorrent is the logical next step in the company's strategy to increase productivity and improve the overall Internet experience for end users.
The challenge for Opera is whether they can equal or improve on the performance of dedicated BitTorrent clients such as BitLord? Will it support simultaneous downloads, download queue, selected downloads in torrent package, fast-resume, disk cache, speed limits, port mapping, proxy, ip-filter, etc.???
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Promotional Video Downloads From Square Enix
Square Enix has launched a new Japanese site named Square Enix Promotion Video .
As the site's name may somewhat hint, it will function as a video podcast distribution area where visitors can check out promotional trailers of Square Enix's various games.
The site currently features only a trailer of Front Mission 5: Scars of War, but it will be updated multiple times each month with new trailers.
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This is the link to the Square Enix feed
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Video Downloads - Under Consideration at Amazon
Amazon have been offering Music Downloads for a while. This week there are two reports of an iminent Video Download Service.
It's just a matter of time I suppose that Amazon and possibly eBay get in on the act..
Red Herring Said:
Amazon is in talks with various studios, such as Image Entertainment, Ardustry Home Entertainment, and First Look Entertainment, to get digital content for the service, the report said. It will launch the service with at least two major names as partners. “They’re moving towards digital downloadable merchandise,” said Patti Freeman Evans, an analyst with JupiterResearch, who’s heard talk about the service. “This seems like a natural extension.”
Variety had this to say:
One supplier explained that an Amazon customer could stream a digital copy of a film for a fee and apply that charge as a credit toward the eventual purchase of the DVD. Another plan is for a customer to buy a DVD; while waiting for it to arrive, he could stream the content over his computer.Some competition for Google Video Store and iTunes
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SmaratVideo To Offer Full Length Music Videos
A company behind a subscription video service for mobile phones has launched an ad-supported, 24-hour free music video channel for Internet-enabled phones, computers and other portable devices capable of playing video.
The service, launched Monday by SmartVideo Technologies, offers full-length music videos from recording artists such as U2, Kanye West and Mariah Carey, said Richard Bennett, president and chief executive of the Duluth, Ga.-based company.
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SmartVideo has licensed thousands of videos, although not all of the major record labels have come aboard, Bennett said. He declined to name the record labels. The company plans to add music video channels tailored to urban, dance, rock and other genres.
Users of the service, which is available throughout North America, must download copy-protection and licensing software to their portable device to see the music videos. At launch it was compatible with more than 100 handsets, but works with any wireless carrier
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AOL Set to Enter the Video-Movie Download Fray
When it comes to online video delivery, the venerable Web portal holds a couple of trump cards.
Last October, Apple released the video iPod, and has since sold 8 million video clips and television shows through its iTunes music store. In December, Intel announced a new PC design called Viiv , which the company hopes will coordinate digital media in the living room and be a first step toward the digital home. U.S. cellular carriers are rolling out broadcast TV content and customized shows on the small screen . Meanwhile, Yahoo is showing a heightened interest in delivering digital video to PCs and televisions, and last week Google announced it would open an online video store.
Highlights
Amidst all this hullabaloo over Internet video, it would be easy to lose track of AOL, the former dial-up giant that's struggled to find an identity and a mission in the new world of broadband Internet access. But longstanding facts and recent events suggest that the company cannot be discounted yet.
For one thing, it has access to an immense trove of video and film through its parent company, Time Warner. For another, AOL has brought in some of the Internet's most advanced video search technology by buying startups like Singingfish and, most recently, Truveo. Moreover, since 2000 -- an eon in Web time -- the company has been exploring how people want to use Internet video.
While video is a new feature at Google and Yahoo, AOL has been offering original video, movies, music, news, sports, and live concerts for years. "We were the first online Internet service to push the envelope, featuring shows before they aired [on the networks] -- the kind of stuff Yahoo does now," says Fred McIntyre, AOL's vice president for video-over-Internet protocol.
There was one problem, according to McIntyre: AOL wasn't making money on video delivery, in part because the material was available only to AOL subscribers. "We had all this video and it was living inside the four walls of the AOL service," he says. In a radical shift, the company recently decided to provide this material free to anyone, and support the service by selling advertisements.
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SKY Offers P2P Video Downloads
In the first major deployment of peer-to-peer (P2P) technology for consumer video downloads, United Kingdom satellite television firm Sky, a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation , has said it had made feature-length movies and sports available for download over the Internet.
More than 200 movies, including recent releases such as I, Robot and Spiderman , are to be available for no additional fee to Sky's 8 million U.K. subscribers, by virtue of the bandwidth-strain reduction techniques of Silicon Valley startup Kontiki.
The offering followed a wave of video-over-broadband announcements and previews by a range of companies including Google , DirecTV, and Intel at the International Consumer Electronics Show conference in Las Vegas last week.
Video downloads have been held up by bandwidth issues—the files are just too large to shove down the pipes—as well as movie studios' concerns about piracy and cannibalizing existing revenue streams like theater tickets and DVD sales.
But peer-to-peer technology distributes the bandwidth strain among users by having them share files with each other.
Kontiki adds a layer of digital rights management (supplied by Microsoft or another outside provider) and control (including delayed delivery and usage reporting) so that content providers can enjoy efficiency while content owners can rest easy about piracy.
The settings on the Sky offering make files expire after a month and limit them to play only within the U.K.
The U.K has been at the forefront of the race to deliver legal video over P2P, with the BBC now losing out to Sky as its P2P delivery system takes its time getting out of beta.
Continue the story over at Red Herring
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