Business News Holding

Category: hdtv

  • FootageBank Launches HD Content Service For Mobiles


    FootageBank HD has launched a new royalty-free division offering high def content for online and mobile platforms.

    Called footagehead.com, the service provides web accessible HD content for use in PodCasts and webisodes.

    Paula Lumbard, founder and president of FootageBank HD, said the new service had more than 10,000 new clips with more coming weekly.

    "Early on, we recognized the value of HD footage, which allowed FootageBank HD to prepare for the high demand," she said.

    "With an eye on the future, we anticipate the same need for programming and tools to create content for PodCasts, webisodes or anything in the mobile media space."

    The LA-based HD footage specialists shot most of the content with Panasonic P2 and Sony XD cameras within the last year.

    All the clips are offered in their native codecs, without compression.

    The HD 16 X 9 widescreen format is immediately downloadable and royalty free.

    footagehead.com is offering the clips at one price point.

    "It is our intention to be the leader in serving the growing demand for downloadable 16 x 9 content in digital files created with the new mobile HD camcorders," states Lumbard.

    "We are seeing growth in this market around the world, and expect demand to continue as the consumers of media more and more turn to their mobile ‘third screens’ for their entertainment."

  • Shoppers To Be Tempted With Reduced Price HDTVs And Bundled Blu-rays


    Greatly reduced HDTV price tags and packages bundling sets and blu-rays are among the retailing treats likely to be on offer to US shoppers this holiday season, according to DisplaySearch.

    With the US economy ailing, Paul Gagnon, DisplaySearch’s director of North America TV market research, said stock market declines have impacted on people’s investments and consumers weren’t generally saving very much money.

    Paul Gagnon, director of N.American TV market research,DisplaySearch

    He said this could impact on their purchasing decisions during the Thanksgiving weekend and Black Friday holiday period, traditionally one of the busiest weeks of the year for the US CE and PC industries.

    “It’s an interesting time we’re in now," he said. “To combat this, retailers are expected to pull out all the stops this holiday season—lowering HDTV prices, offering bundled electronic packages with HDTVs and Blu-ray disc players, using ‘creative’ financing deals when possible such as in-store credit or ‘pay when you get your tax return’ options with the hopes of achieving their sales targets this holiday season.

    "Keeping shopper traffic high for the holiday season will be a priority for both retailers and TV manufacturers.”

    Speaking in a webinar exclusively for DisplaySearch clients, Gagnon detailed several potential TV scenarios for the 2008 holiday season:

    •   Consumers will become increasingly conservative in discretionary holiday spending, despite discount and promotion opportunities—leading to negative Y/Y Q4’08 shipment growth.
    • Consumers will take advantage of the best bargains and low price points—causing retailers to hit their unit sales targets, but miss revenue goals and negatively impact margins.
    • Consumers will continue to spend as they have on larger sizes and better featured sets—taking advantage of dramatically lower prices and sggressive retail promotions.
    • Consumers will turn to discount stores such as Costco and Walmart in greater numbers for electronic purchases this holiday season, in order to save money and get more shopping done in fewer trips.

  • Consumers Driving Indian HDTV Market


    Growth of The HDTV Market In India

    The general trends in the HDTV market shows that this will probably swell up to 78% as most of the consumers are planning to replace their old television sets with the HDTVs.

    Moreover, this fact is supported by the survey conducted in United States by “Hitachi America”.

    The expansion prospective of the HDTV market in India is equally promising. People, who earn a decent income per month, feel that this can be a proud possession for them and it is fine to pay a good amount as the quality of picture and other facilities associated with it are simply great.

    The surveys revealed the fact that 85% of the people with an annual income of more than Rs. 14.3 lakhs and about 70% of those with the annual earnings of less than Rs.14.3 lakhs are keenly interested in purchasing a HDTV.

    • What are the triggers to success?

    The secret to success of the HDTV market in India depends mainly on the intense desire of the consumers.

    In fact, the women are keener about getting these high definition televisions just like the other consumer durable products.

    They are the ones who take interest and spend ample time to browse the HDTVs available in the market from various companies.

    About 73% women and 51% men take interest in knowing more about the televisions and the specs.

    The functionality and designs of the HDTVs are very much important to acquire the huge market in India.

    In fact this is a general trend that the larger would be the TV screens, the more consumers will be enticed. In fact people are often ready to go beyond their budget to purchase a HDTV with bigger screen.

    • What are the barriers to entry?

    Though the HDTV market in India is quite promising but still there are a few barriers to be conquered.

    First of all, most of the consumers are not much aware of the difference among the available HDTV options.

    In fact, most of the customers do not have any idea what are the different technologies used in the DLP, Plasma and LCD televisions-they feel all of them are same and the features are similar as well.

    This is a complete wrong notion and the brands who wish to avail the huge market in India should put some light on this fact.

    Secondly, some of the buyers are prevented from buying these televisions because of the high price range compared to the normal televisions.

    Some of the local brands sell their products at a very reasonable price and this is why people take more interest in their goods.

    • What does a company need to do to be successful in these markets in India?

    Well calculated strategies are really important to capture the large HDTV market.

    The companies need to educate the buyers and let them know more about the technology, specs and other intricacies of the HDTVs.

    Now only the women but the men should also take equal interest in it.

    This is a great idea to provide as many features as possible keeping the price tag nominal.

    This is a competition market and the companies need to target on larger sales than making large profit from each sale.

    Quality of the products is definitely important and for this they should keep updating the technology and features on a frequent basis.

  • Netflix "Watch Instantly" Comes To Macs


    Online movie rental giant Netflix is finally offering Mac users its instant watching service.

    Windows users have been able to watch movies and TV episodes instantly since early 2007.

    The upgraded service will initially only work on Macs with Intel chips – but the Los Gatos, California-based online DVD rental pioneer said that was around 70 per cent of their Mac subscribers.

    It requires Microsoft’s Silverlight software and Mac users will have to download a Silverlight player to access Netflix’s extensive streaming library.

    The deployment is the first step in an anticipated roll-out of the new platform to all Netflix subscribers by the end of the year.

    It is expected that Netflix members who watch content instantly on their computers will enjoy a faster, easier connection and a more robust viewing experience with Silverlight.

    Among the viewing enhancements with the new player is a breakthrough in timeline navigation that vastly improves the use of fast-forwarding and rewinding.

    The new Netflix player takes advantage of PlayReady DRM, which is built into Silverlight, for the playback of protected content on both Windows-based PCs and on Macs.

    That had not been possible with previous generation technologies.

  • HD Option A Big Hit For MyToons

    MyToons only launched its high definition channel a few months ago but already it’s attracting attention from several major TV and film studios.
    Paul Ford, president of the animation website, spoke to HDTV.biz-news.com about the burgeoning HD animation community and the challenges of offering high def cartoons on the internet.

    It’s one thing to stick a home-movie onto YouTube, quite another to create animation in high definition.

    Yet just a few months after launching its HD channel the cutting-edge animation site MyToons has become the leading showcase for high def cartoons.

    Paul Ford, MyToons’ president, said the number of HD uploads was growing rapidly and he expected that to continue as increasing numbers of animators presented their work.

    He described the quality and detail of the HD creations as mind-blowing.

    "People are taking to HD like mad," he said. "It’s been very well-received by both the animators and the fans. In fact, we’ve had calls from several major TV and film studios looking to licence the technology."

    Making animations in HD presents its own challenges

    Ford said there was a big difference between making online user-created video and animated content.

    He said creating YouTube-style content – with a handy cam or camcorder – was not really that difficult to do.

    "You think up a story or a bit, run around and shoot some stuff, maybe edit it in a consumer editor like Movie Maker or iMovie, and you’re done," he said.

    But Ford believed creating animated content, on any level, was much more difficult.

    "To create animation – and I mean any kind of animation, generally – there is far more thought, and far more preparation and planning involved," he said.

    "Usually the story comes first, and that takes time to develop. Next are the dialogue and music tracks, story boards and possibly animatics (animated storyboards).
    "Finally, after a lot more work creating the final piece, you are done."

    Ford said in between was many hours of tedious work drawing in 2D, modelling in 3D, creating backgrounds and props and crafting each frame of each scene.

    "This art does take a good amount of time to create. Much longer than user-created video, for sure," he said. "Creating animation in HD really takes things up yet another notch.

    "Not only does the animator need to think about and do all of the stuff I’ve already discussed, they need computers with the horse power to do it at HD resolution. This means long render times and huge files."

    Technology Delivers Online Cartoons

    Ford described the MyToons HD player technology as "second to none", adding that it wasn’t necessary to download a proprietary player as was the case with some of the non-animation HD video sites.

    But to get to the stage of being able to stream HD via the internet MyToons first had to do some "very, very tricky things".

    "Our HD is not progressive. In other words, a person is not downloading the file first, or a portion of it, and then able to view the file," he said.

    "MyToons HD is more like real television. You hit play, and it starts right up. Our player is able to read the HD data in realtime, giving the viewer that ‘instant-on’ experience they are used to."

    Based in San Antonio, Texas, MyToons was established in 2006 as an online resource and entertainment destination for professional animators, students, artists and animation fans.

    The attraction for animators or creators of having their work on MyToons is that it offers them a robust and reliable distribution platform at the quality level they expect, according to Ford.

    "Animators are finicky when it comes to quality," he said. "That’s why many, many animators I talk to regularly simply won’t put their stuff up on places like YouTube.

    "That work is usually so personal and so carefully crafted-to-perfection – it’s really seen by the creator as a direct reflection, of sorts, of themselves – and usually a labor of love.

    "Giving animators everywhere the ability to have their work experienced as they intended and envisioned is very powerful stuff."

    HD Audience Growing

    In August, MyToons announced a global partnership to bring its animated content to Vuze’s 30 million member worldwide audience.

    Setting up such partner channels was a means of giving independent animators even greater reach and more exposure.

    "We will continue with these partnerships because they are good for our members, and we always put the animator first – what’s good for them, is good for MyToons," said Ford.

    "We think that these channels add to MyToons, and don’t take away from it. We find many people coming directly from those channels to MyToons-proper to get more of the good stuff."

  • First US Cities Get Tru2way Digital Cable Service


    Consumers in Chicago and Denver will be the first in the US to experience Comcast’s video-on-demand without a set-top box.

    Panasonic and Comcast today unveiled a tru2way digital cable service for the two cities with additional cities expected to go live in the coming months.

    To coincide with the platform launch, Panasonic’s new tru2way VIERA HDTVs will be available in certain retails stores in Chicago and Denver.

    The Panasonic HDTVs are built with tru2way technology inside, enabling consumers to access two-way digital cable programming, such as video-on-demand, without a cable operator-supplied set-top box.

    Mark Hess, Comcast’s senior vice president of Video Product Development, said tru2way technology was a gateway for customers to experience the next generation of interactive television.

    "This common platform also will let us develop an exciting array of interactive services and applications that we can deliver on our advanced fiber network to a variety of consumer electronics devices," he said.

    Panasonic had announced at the May 2008 Cable Show that the first tru2way HDTVs would be available for consumer purchase at retail by fall 2008.

    Dr Paul Liao, Chief Technology Officer, Panasonic Corporation of North America, said the arrival of the first tru2way HDTVs at retail, combined with Comcast’s activation of its first tru2way head ends, were among the most significant milestones in the cable industry.

  • LifeSize Launches Full-HD Telepresence System


    LifeSize Communications has unveiled what it describes as the next generation in video communications – a full HD telepresence solution.

    The system provides life-size images and HD audio for as many as six participants at one time.

    Equipped with multiple camera inputs and dual monitors, it offers standards-based 1080p at 30 frames per second and 720p at 60 frames per second.

    LifeSize Room 200 also supports 720p30 dual streams enabling full-motion, high definition data sharing.

    The company claims that with twice the frame rate and half the latency of other HD systems, its new system delivers a communications experience rivaled only by being there in person.

    Craig Malloy, CEO and founder, LifeSize Communications, said Room 200 unlocked the power of telepresence for knowledge workers everywhere.

    The system is already being used by companies such as Reliance Industries Limited and The Blackstone Group.

    “Now more than ever in today’s economic climate customers are viewing high definition video as a critical lever to help them stay competitive, bridge their globally dispersed work groups, and reduce expenses, “ he said.

    Roopam Jain, principal analyst at Frost & Sullivan, said LifeSize Room 200 was the industry’s first shipping 1080p30/720p60 Full HD offering.

    LifeSize Room 200 is now available for order with volume availability in early November 2008.

    Prices are expected to be around USD $17,000.

    For companies looking to cut their travel expenses, the idea of HD teleconferencing must look increasingly attractive.

  • No Blu-ray For Macs – For Now


    Steve Jobs quashed suggestions that Apple would upgrade its Mac OS X Leopard to allow Blu-ray because of the cost of licensing and drives.

    Speaking at today’s notebook keynote, Jobs said: "Blu-ray is just a bag of hurt. I don’t mean from the consumer point of view.

    “It’s great to watch the movies, but the licensing of the tech is so complex, we’re waiting till things settle down and Blu-ray takes off in the marketplace before we burden our customers with the cost of the licensing and the cost of the drives."

    Apple was an early backer of Blu-ray, but has been silent about adding Blu-ray drives to its notebooks or desktop computers.

    Other manufactuers, such as Acer and HP , have already been shipping Blu-ray drives with their systems.

    Responding to a question about HDMI, Jobs said the connector interface was "limited in resolution".

    Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president, went on to say that "for typical computer use, DisplayPort is the connector of the future".

    Among the announcements at the special event were a redesigned MacBook Pro built using a new construction process similar to the one for the MacBook Air.

  • HDTV Has Become Simply TV


    HDTV penetration in US households is climbing so steadily that it’s apparently no longer deemed necessary to mention the high-def part.

    According to Paul Gagnon, director of North America TV Market Research for DisplaySearch, “HDTV has simply become TV, with nearly every consumer either owning or understanding the benefits of HDTV and desiring to become an owner”.

    He went on to say: “As HDTVs becomes mainstream, the TV supply continues to benefit and prosper. The outlook for growth is still very positive, but it is critical that the industry continues to focus on refinement.”

    Speaking after DisplaySearch’s recent HDTV Conference, Gagnon noted that the transition to HDTV was well underway and many households were now watching their favorite programs in HD.

    Content and distribution were expanding the selection of HD programming, further encouraging the adoption of HDTVs.

    However, before anyone gets complacent, Gagnon pointed out that there was still a substantial number of homes without HDTVs – or other rooms in the homes of HDTV owners that could be upgraded – leaving a substantial market opportunity.

    HD downloads were among other topics covered at the two-day conference.

    Delegates were told the dreams of the industry about HD via broadband for connected TVs would remain dreams, until the infrastructure is improved.

    It was pointed out, though, that there were increasing demands from consumers for new connected applications and these were evolving rapidly.

    The overall adoption of digital downloads is also growing but remains fairly low in comparison to other methods of consuming video, the conference heard.

    The number of devices that can play back digital downloads is increasing, with game consoles, standalone set-tops, and BD players now part of the mix.

    However, DisplaySearch’s Paul Erickson said that a primary limitation to HD downloads was broadband – both penetration and speed.

    He said it would be some time before digital downloads catch on as mainstream consumers shift their disc-based consumption behavior gradually.

  • Flood Of Content Predicted For Real-time HDTV Video Streaming

    While more operators are beginning to offer HD video-on-demand services, live streaming video continues to pose infrastructure and bandwidth problems.

    HDTV.biz-news.com spoke to Alex Mashinsky, CEO of DigiMeld, about the challenges of streaming video – and developments that could open-up the service to millions of viewers.

    Alex Mashinsky, CEO of DigiMeld, was one of the first people to realise the internet’s great potential for voice, now he is just as excited about the possibilities it offers for video.

    He said the demand for real-time streaming of video was going to grow rapidly as high quality internet content was increasingly watched on HDTVs rather than PCs.

    “We are moving to a world where services from the internet do not look any different from cable TV,” he said. “There’s going to be a huge flood of content flowing to this environment, moving away from watching video on a laptop for five minutes at a time.”

    Alex Mashinsky, CEO DigiMeld


    Mashinsky said that while it was easy to get 16 million Americans to watch the same TV channel at the same time, it was impossible to do that with half-a-million viewers on the internet.

    “Voice was the first wave on the web. The second wave is video,” he told HDTV.biz-news.com from DigiMeld’s mid-town Manhattan headquarters. “But while everyone is focussed on it, we have not really solved the scaleability issue.

    Challenges Remain


    Video demands a lot of bandwidth and Mashinsky said traditional unicast and CDN solutions were limited in meeting the challenges on efficiency and scalability.

    He used the example of Oprah Winfrey’s attempt to stream live on her website, a move which caused the site to crash when more than 300,000 viewers logged-on.

    “We believe the only reason why we don’t have live TV on the internet is because no-one can really solve the scaleability and pricing issue,” said Mashinsky.

    “If you can address those two things, you would have linear streaming and on-demand streaming of movies and other things on a much larger scale than today.

    “Amazon, Netflix and Blockbuster have all launched streaming services but they are not launching new movies and having one million people watching at the same time. They rely on many people watching different things.”

    China Forging Ahead

    Mashinsky said China was way ahead of the US in live streaming technology, something it demonstrated during the Olympic Games when PP Live streamed live to 1.6 million concurrent online viewers.

    He said DigiMeld had used a team of former PP Live programmers to develop its grid-streaming technology that enabled massive numbers of viewers to watch content concurrently.

    It has tested the intelligent streaming solution with NASA Television, including a live internet broadcast trial of a shuttle launch to more than 100,000 live concurrent video streams.

    Essentially, the software harvests viewers’ unused uplink bandwidth to relay stream data and offload the stream traffic from the media servers. The company says this optimizes the overall load balance of the network.

    Unlike traditional CDNs or multicast network solutions, the DigiMeld solution allows each viewer in the grid-streaming network to simultaneously retrieve, view, and share streaming video data with other viewers within a safe and encrypted network.

    This approach differs from P2P file-sharing firms such as BitTorrent, which downloads an entire video file to a viewer’s hard drive.

    Mashinsky said DigiMeld only stores a portion of the streamed content in a viewer’s evanescent memory during viewing.

    This slice of video is continuously overwritten by newly-arriving streams, enhancing efficiency of network bandwidth and increasing copyright protection, including digital rights management (DRM).

    He believes grid-streaming is much more scalable because when the number of concurrent viewers explodes, the viewers will offload most data.


    Bandwidth Congestion Reduced


    Mashinsky said grid-streaming also puts less strain on media servers, while enhancing the QoS (quality of service) when the number of concurrent viewers is huge since more viewers can share data with each other.

    “Unlike BitTorrent, if you are not watching stuff, people are not using your bandwidth,” he said. “We are not over-loading the network with our requirements. It’s the opposite as we are balancing the upstream with the downstream.”

    Mashinsky said the software enabled adaptive streaming which sensed the customer’s bandwidth capacity.

    “It decides if it’s going to use HD or lower quality and links into other streams of people watching the same thing.”

    Opportunities For Content Producers

    Mashinsky stressed that DigiMeld’s grid-streaming was not a replacement for CDNs but could be leveraged within existing infrastructure to create greater benefits.

    DigiMeld was offering services ranging from those for customers that wanted to self-launch, self-publicize and self-monetize to those that relied on DigiMeld for hosting and distribution – or any mix in-between.

    The company has a self-publishing video portal, DigiMeld.tv that allows publishers to create live and on-demand video channels easily and monetize the content through subscription, paid and advertising based services.

    Mashinsky said the service was intended for clients that fell between large media companies, which typically used a CDN service such as Akamai, and peer-to-peer video typically found on YouTube.

    “We are trying to capture the middle of the tail to enable these content people to monetize their content in an easy way,” he said.

    Earlier this week, DigiMeld demonstrated grid-streaming’s worth as a video delivery platform by conducting the first feature-film broadcast over the internet simultaneously with the theatrical release of PublicScope Film’s The Third Jihad.

    Gregory Ross, of PublicScope Film, said DigiMeld TV enabled them to reach worldwide audiences with a television broadcast experience at greatly reduced costs.

    If DigiMeld can achieve that desired combination of quality and cost, there will be a lot more producers knocking on its door.