The Inlet Blog

A Movie on Your TV at Home, Before You Can Rent It
In an industry first, Sony Pictures’ “Hancock” will be available over the Internet before release on DVD, if the viewer owns a Sony Bravia TV with a Web connection.

Disney.com Breaks Records With “Camp Rock” Online Streaming Event
The online event attracted 863,000 video plays and increased traffic to Disney.com by 37% (6/23/08 vs. 6/22/08).

Google and Creator of ‘Family Guy’ Strike a Deal
In September, Seth MacFarlane will unveil a carefully guarded project called “Seth MacFarlane’s Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy,” an animation series exclusively for the Internet.

Technicolor, NBC ink deal
NBC Universal has flipped the Denver-based broadcast distribution center it bought last year, striking a deal with Technicolor, which is taking over international distribution of many of Uni’s channels.

Bayreuth festival offers opera online
Germany’s annual Bayreuth opera festival will be streamed live over the Internet, but the catch is the price - $77.

by Neal Page

Online sports applications are really paving the way for enhanced user-controlled experiences that can surpass that of a standard television experience. Major League Baseball online (MLBAM) is one of the leaders, for sure, but another customer of ours, Cross Media Ventures in the Netherlands, is also taking a swing at it. They are broadcasting Wimbledon online, and as you can see by the snapshot, they have a nice user interface with the consumer in-control of what they would like to watch. (Please don’t ask me to translate the Dutch!)

by Neal Page

I just wanted to let you know that I’m back in the blogging game after a hiatus for a couple of weeks while I battled what seemed like the bubonic plague. The flu sucks, and this one kicked my butt. When I started getting better, I jumped on a plane to do something I love… working with customers and partners, and that kept me quite busy. Now, I’ve got some time again to opine on various topics in the digital media space.

At a meeting in NY this week with some executives of Hauppauge Digital, we discussed some interesting trends with consumer electronics. Ken Plotkin, CEO of Hauppauge, is a really smart guy and knows a ton about building and selling consumer video products. He has long observed that there are key price points that MUST be hit to be successful. The holy grail is $99. The recent launch of Netflix’s special purpose box built by Roku that was sold for $99 to provide a IP download capability apparently sold out the initial batch of 100,000 units in no time. Here’s a review.

This gets back to a topic discussed earlier on this blog and by others in the industry wondering if a) a special purpose STB can succeed, and b) what’s the price have to be to earn a spot on the stack by the home TV. This data from Ken suggests that perhaps the brand of Netflix combined with the right pricepoint is in fact a winning combination. I’m still on the fence, with the belief that standard game consoles or STBs with a tweak/twist of their software could do the same thing, without the extra box and cabling.

What do you think? Leave a comment!!

Digital Media Rocked Q1
During 1Q08, the Internet and Digital Media sectors raised more than $1.8 billion in new venture capital investment, between 216 companies.

AT&T Enables Two HD Streams for U-verse
The U-verse IPTV service will support concurrent HD video streams to homes, previously its key shortcoming.

Disney-ABC to make shows available at Veoh
ABC and ESPN said they’ve forged a deal with Veoh Networks to make full episodes and clips available from popular programs like “Lost.”

Sony Outlines Strategy for Growth in TV, Videogame Businesses
Sony has set a new growth strategy centered around video-downloading services and electronics products that can be connected to each other and to the Internet.

TEST DRIVE: Roku Set-Top Box
The Roku Internet STB is very, very easy to set up and use, but Roku is not a serious threat to traditional TV distribution models.

Cisco Projects Growth to Swell for Online Video
Cisco is projecting a sixfold jump in Internet traffic between 2007 and 2012, as online video becomes the biggest driver of global data communications.

Baseball rides online wave
MLB Advanced Media has driven the league’s sites to new levels of economic success and set the online standard for professional sports.

Viewers Who Preview New Shows Online Are Loyal, So Engage Them: Yahoo Survey
The takeaway is that TV studios should use the Internet early on to build loyalty to new shows.

Disney/ABC’s Cheng is Confident About Broadband Video Advertising
Albert Cheng, Disney/ABC’s EVP of Digital Media said that he’s confident that online revenue will eventually catch up and surpass revenue for on-air programming.

‘Washington Post’ aggressively moves to video
Chet Rhodes from the “Washington Post,” said it has trained 185 people to shoot video news for its Website and expects 300 or more within three years.