Pirates to outfox movie studios

"Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it," a famous person once said, though I forget who. Or from whom he probably stole the phrase. But it's a maxim Hollywood might do well to bear in mind as, to a karmic backdrop of Thomas Edison's hollow laughter echoing from beyond the grave, it continues to grapple with the seemingly intractable conundrum of movie piracy, and how to capitalise on the public's burgeoning demand for movie downloads.

But what specific history did I have in mind at the beginning of that paragraph, you might be asking? Well, let's go back to the early 1890s and things should become clearer. Not least, that piracy in the movie industry is hardly something new. In fact, it's something the studios have been profiting from for over a century.

Back in the 1890s, founded on Prohibitionist values, ironically enough, Hollywood was no more than a recently developed residential community. It boasted 320 days a year of sun, and by 1903 enough prosperity to become incorporated. However, thanks to all that sun, it couldn't boast nearly enough water, prompting it's annexation to Los Angeles in 1910. It certainly wasn't yet known for movies.

In fact, the origins of Hollywood as we know it today are actually to be found in the East of America: in New Jersey. It was there that, in Thomas Edison's labs, William Dickson invented the Kinetoscope; and where, in 1893, Edison set up Black Maria, the world's first film studio.

Now, all-round bright spark and seasoned inventor that he was, Edison of course patented his assistant's new moving-picture making device, and set about profiting from it by distributing short films to penny arcades, vaudeville theatres, and fairgrounds. But it was only after the Lumiere brothers' 1895 invention of the Cinematographe system, in France, that movies came to be projected on screens and viewable by more than one person at a time.

Realising the Cinamatographe's potential, Edison and others quickly came up with their own versions, and by 1908, the movie business was booming; mass-produced 15-minute shorts being shown in thousands of movie theatres all across America.

Edison, though, was having trouble enforcing his patents. Even as early as 1898, fearing that other people were profiting from "his" invention, he had begun issuing lawsuits to rival movie producers.

Following a series of fruitless legal battles against, among others, American Mutoscope and Biograph, actually co-founded by William Dickson, and by then a more successful company than Edison's own, Edison changed tactics. In late 1908, banding together with Biograph, and a selection of other patent holders and producers, Edison formed the Motion Picture Patents Company (MPPC), a Trust issuing licenses for use of its members' technology, enforcing its members' patents, and generally attempting to regulate the still nascent motion picture industry. It worked well; at first. But there was still much resistance. Enter William Fox (of what would become 20th Century-Fox).

Hollywood's history has featured many a famous pirate: from Jack Sparrow, to the swashbuckling Errol Flynn, to, erm, whoever it was Geena Davis played in that film that killed her career. So it could perhaps be seen as fitting that Hollywood as we know it today was founded by pirates; independent filmmakers, operating outside the licenses of, and profiting from technology owned by the MPPC.

One of the best methods the independents found of escaping Edison's reaches was to relocate to the other side of the country, where, thanks to California's relaxed laws, and what was then still the necessity of shooting in daylight, Hollywood and its 320 days of sunshine proved the ideal movie-making location. Within two decades, Louis B Mayer, the Warner Family, Samuel Goldwyn, and William Fox had all arrived there.

In 1911, in an attempt to finally break the MPPC's hold over the industry, Fox took the Trust to court. While Fox, in fact, lost his lawsuit, the judge nonetheless found that the MPPC constituted an illegal monopoly in restraint of trade. Various cases and six years later, the MPPC was finally disbanded by order of the American Supreme Court. One band of innovators had given way to another.

Nearly a century later we come to today's pirates: they too may be determining the future of Hollywood; or at the very least forcing it to adapt to the 21st Century.

Granted, there is little doubt that offering copyrighted movies for download is illegal; but, in doing so, quite so successfully, today's movie pirates have pointed out an inefficiency in the market, a desire that is not being met. Undoubtedly some people will always want something for nothing, and will always find ways to get it, but what the public has responded to, primarily, is the convenience offered by pirate movie downloads. While Hollywood's moguls have been snoozing complacently, the market has been changing. The pirates have been responding to its customers' dissatisfactions.

Cinema-goers are fed up of over-inflated ticket prices. People hate waiting months to rent or buy the next big film, or to see it outside of America. Rental shops often don't have what you want, and aren't open 24-hours. Many people balk at spending £15 on a DVD that might not be that great (and let's face it, much that Hollywood has produced lately hasn't been). And what about all those brilliant obscure and back-catalogue films that are so hard to get your hands on? All these deficiencies in Hollywood's current distribution methods, the pirates have responded to: pretty much whatever you want, there's a stream or a torrent for it somewhere. Plus, you can watch it in your own home, at your own convenience.

On the other hand:

You never know for sure whether you'll get a good quality picture, or something grainy recorded from the middle row of a multiplex with people's heads in the way. Downloads can take forever, or never complete. Watching on a computer isn't always that great. And there's always the slight unease that goes hand-in-hand with illegality.

All of which, and more, is where Hollywood should be sensing opportunity. Provide a legal, practical, reliable, convenient alternative to what the pirates are offering - essentially just no-frills movie downloads, film downloads, video downloads, call them what you will - and the majority of people would be more than happy to use the service.

For the most part, of course, Hollywood has instead responded to piracy with all lawyers blazing. There are promising signs emerging, though, that it is at least beginning to adapt to the new competition: studio-backed film download sites, such as Vizumi, NetFlix, and Amazon Unbox, are on the increase. Heck, even BitTorrent offers legal movie downloads these days. The recent news of Apple’s plans for movie downloads will send shock waves across the industry. Can they repeat the same success of iTunes with iMovies only time will tell?

Now, if the studios could just sort out some Digital Rights Management technologies that don't treat it's download customers like criminals, they might actually be on to a winner.

HBO enters movie download war

Time Warner is planning to launch HBO on Broadband that will allow consumers to download movies and its pay-TV shows on the Web it has been report for free.

So another company jumps on the movie download bandwagon but what will it offer that other websites such as Vizumi, Jaman, Cinema Now currently do not?

HBO are a new entry in the 'what you want, when you want it' movie download race. The new service is called HBO on Broadband and while Comcast CEO Brian Roberts mesmerized a recent Consumer Electronics Show audience (BusinessWeek.com, 1/11/08) with visions of TV shows and movies capable of streaming lickety-split across his cable TV wires, the guys from Time Warner are offering what is clearly a work in progress.


First, the basics: You can watch the live HBO feed online, choose from more than 350 movies, and download and store such TV shows as Sex & the City, The Sopranos, and Entourage. It will set reminders for you when things are on, allow you to preset to record movies and TV shows when they air on the cable network, and suggest new stuff that maybe you would like to watch.

HBO describes HBO on Broadband as free. But to get the service, a cable subscriber will need to have already paid not only the $12 or so a month to get the pay channel, but also the $30 or $40 a month to get a cable operator's broadband service. That's right. The free HBO actually costs subscribers $52 or more per month because consumers will first have to dip into their pockets to buy HBO from their cable or satellite provider, and then add broadband service from the same provider. By contrast, a rival pay-TV network, Starz, offers a similar download service for $9.99 a month that doesn't require you to have a video subscription. (Starz says it will soon start offering an HBO on Broadband-like service called Starz Play that will be "free" if you already have a video and data subscription.)
Service Makes Debut in Wisconsin

Sounds great, doesn't it? And technologically, it is first-rate: Downloads are near instantaneous, thanks to buffer technology that allows you to start watching even while the show is being downloaded. Pictures are ultrasharp, even when they're blown up to a full screen from their three-inch by three-inch display box.

So when Time Warner starts to roll out the new service on Jan. 21, why are they only doing it in a single system in two areas—Green Bay, Wis., and Milwaukee—when Time Warner owns 23 systems from Hawaii to Portland, Me.? No, it's not a test, says HBO Co-President Eric Kessler, although he expects some fine-tuning. "We're involved with discussions with other service providers, and we expect to have some to announce down the road," he says.

In fact, Time Warner has been dabbling with HBO on Broadband for more than two years. According to sources, HBO had all but locked up the giant cable operator Comcast, which had been expected to have Roberts announce their agreement during his Jan. 9 speech to the crowds at CES. The deal, according to those sources, collapsed over how much of the operating costs—roughly 50¢ a subscriber—that Comcast was willing to absorb. Comcast was also being asked to front some of the costs to market the service. Comcast didn't respond to requests for comment. HBO declined to comment.

79% of Americans download movies illegally

79% of Americans who are downloading movies do so illegally despite access to subscription based services.

US consumers are still downloading movies illegally despite the growing availability of subscription based movie download services according to a study conducted by Advanis Inc. Subscription based movie downloads have grown in prevalence with companies like Apple Inc., CinemaNow, MovieLink and most recently Wal-Mart offering movie downloads for a fee.

Yet 79% of those downloading movies are still doing so illegally, according to the study and is estimated to be costing the industry $598 million.

"The industry can respond to this stubborn core of piracy in one of two ways," said Phil Dwyer, Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Advanis. "It can spend its time and resources pursuing the pirates, and attempting to get them to change their ways, or it can put those same resources into accelerating the adoption of these services by the early mainstream consumers, who are more inclined to behave legally."

"The experience of the music industry, and the evidence of our research suggests there is a hardcore of illegal downloaders who are unlikely to change their behavior. The industry would be better advised to focus resources on migrating new, and legally inclined consumers on to these services."

Downloaders Look For Deals

Despite the convenience of the movie download services, consumers are unwilling to pay a premium for them. In fact, online movie addicts, on average, value downloads at $2.59, while they value a movie bought in a store at more than double that - $5.98.

About this study

Findings are based on a survey of 506 online Americans, fielded between February 5th and 6th, 2007. Estimates are accurate to within +/- 4.6%, 19 times out of 20.

Movie downloads – an interesting debate

Apple CEO Steve Jobs dropped a bombshell on HD DVD, Blu-ray, Blockbuster, Arts Alliance Media (Love Film and Vizumi movie downloads) any everybody else in the movie download business this week.

Steve Jobs announced at Macworld that iTunes will now rent out movies. Users will be able to download movies and watch them on iPods, iPhones, Apple TV or home computers. Inevitably, Apple has the support from all the major movie studios.

So will history repeat itself and Apple repeat what they did to the music industry with iTunes and change the way we watch movies with iMovies?

An interesting battle to come out of this news will be the battle of HD. Movie lovers will have more options than ever on how they prefer to enjoy their movies and no doubts that digital downloads are the future but not overnight. Average Joe isn’t going to immediately throw out DVD player tomorrow to buy an Apple TV.

In the same instance, Blu-ray may never reach mass usage before digital downloads become mainstream. However, physical media will not vanish because many consumers like to own something they can touch and feel so DVDs will still be in demand for the short term. Another thing to support this is that the market is full of DVD players and only in recent year has seen the VHS video disappear from the shelves. And, when up-scaled, many regular DVDs look surprisingly impressive on HD TVs.

One thing against DVD collections is they take up so much room and that is where digital downloads has an advantage. Conversely, you will need a device big enough to store all these downloads and also Broadband that allows you unlimited downloads.

Before Apple announced their movie download plans, many digital movie rental services already have existed. Websites such as Netflix, Cinema Now and Vizumi Movie Downloads allow movie streaming for its users, offering legal movie downloads to own and rent, and importantly backed by film studios.

HD video-on-demand is available from certain cable TV providers. You can download HD movies from Xbox Live but the choice of movies is limited. Downloads can take forever. Quality can be poor and this is frustrating having taken so long to download and although iTunes presence will help movie download rentals forward, home-theater geeks will complain that Apple's HD video quality is only 720p and audio is only Dolby Digital 5.1 which is good enough for the general user.

So what are Apple charging for movie downloads? This is where the battle for movie downloads could we won or lost. Apple is currently offering $4.99 to download a HD movie. Users then have 30 days to watch it and 24 hours after you start watching to finish it. It will be very interesting to see what Microsoft does which already has 18 million Xbox 360s in homes worldwide and also Sony with the recent success of Playstation 3 and also PSP.

Subscription plans are not yet available and users will demand watching HD movies as often as they like with no restrictions.

As for the electronic market, there will be big demand for a combo HD DVR/HD-movie-library downloading unit. One solution would be to merge HD channels, regular TV channels and HD movie-rental services into one subscription package for a monthly fee.

The writing's on the walls of video rental stores such as Blockbuster and I expect they will jump on the band wagon of movie downloads also. Why waste petrol driving to Blockbuster if you can download it from the comfort of your home? Even Netflix seems like a hassle in comparison because who exactly wants to wait hours upon hours for a Blu-ray movie to show up in the mailbox?

One thing is for sure, the movie download market is going to get very competitive which is great for us the consumer as it will bring the best products and lower prices.

Jaman stikes deal with TiVo

Jaman, the P2P Web movie service, has stuck a deal whereby TiVo subscribers will be able to access Jaman’s catalogue of American independent (think Sundance Film Festival) and international film titles directly from their TiVo DVR.

Viewers will be able to rent and buy films starting at $1.99, with a number of shorts and full-length films available to download for free. Jaman uses its own proprietary DRM.

Interestingly Jaman developed an unofficial plug-in for the first version of the AppleTV device which syncs content downloaded via the Jaman player. We’ll have to see if it works on AppleTV II.

Babelgum is closest to Jaman’s model, with it’s emphasis on independent professionally produced video content, but Jaman is about downloading high quality HD film to rent or keep, rather than P2P streaming. Jaman has a lot of competition in the movie downloading market, but most competitors focus on Hollywood movies, rather than the ‘fat belly’ of the Long Tail.

Since 99% of films made do not get theatrical distribution, there is a lot of content out there. Jaman has been quietly building its catalogue of movies and is available on PCs, Macs, SanDisk’s TakeTV and DivX. Founder and CEO Gaurav Dhillon previously co-founded Informatica in 1992, which IPO’d in 1999. Jaman backers include the Hearst Corporation.

Apple maps its assault on movie downloads

The eagerly anticipated MacWorld happened a few days ago and Steve Jobs delivered what Apple plan to do with its movie download business. Movie download services across the board has started to take off in the same way downloading music did with iTunes. Can iMovies emulate what iTunes did to the music industry?

During the 90's, Time Warner spent $10,000 a customer in Florida to show downloading movies over cable lines was technologically feasible. Now in 2008, as more companies jump on the band wagon, movie download services will be widely available from many sources, some legal and some unfortunately not so legal, but movie downloads are sure to part of everyday life before the end of this year experts predict.

Apple's plans at MacWorld will have undoubtedly shaken a few feathers, not because Apple is offering a fundamentally new twist on VOD but because it's Apple.

The movie download market today is very similar to where online music was in wake of the first Apple iPod. Back then, MP3 players were already on the market but were largely niche products and most music that played on them was illegal pirated copies. Apple created the first cool digital music player.

Steve Jobs was also the first technology executive with the heft in Hollywood to actually cut deals with studio executives to allow enough legal content online to create a marketplace and demonstrate that making money from digital music was at least possible.

In 2008, most consumers still aren't all that interested in cable companies' movie download offerings, largely because the studios are so worried about piracy and cannibalizing their existing TV syndication and DVD businesses that they haven't supplied enough product to interest subscribers.

Movie downloads from services like Vizumi , Netlflix and CinemaNow are still largely a curiosity for hobbyists and people who don't know how to download the pirated stuff or using file sharing sites such as Limewire.

Until now, Apple hasn't fared that much better and sold approximately 7 million movies compared to about 4 billion songs and 125 million TV shows.

Once again, Steve Jobs has persuaded the film studios to make vastly greater stores of content available to consumers in exchange for the tacit promise that he can create enough of a market to offset the inevitable increase in piracy that will occur when millions of new consumers realize how easy it is to download and share movies on their computers, iPods and TV sets. You only have to look at the movie piracy rate in Korea, which has the world's most ubiquitous broadband.

Apple's movie rental service could be exactly the spark Hollywood needs to jump start its online cinema business. Or the spark could become a conflagration that devours industry profits. Or it could flop once again, just as so many for-profit video-on-demand ventures have since Time Warner first dipped its toes in Orlando.

The only certainty is the movie downloads, legal or not, are here to stay.

Apple offers £3 movie downloads - Will this spark other movie downloads to drop their prices?

Apple has continued its assault on the movie downloads market with a movie rental service for iPhones and iPods.

Competition in the movie downloads industry is now really hotting up with 20th Century Fox and Disney among the 11 major film studios who have signed up with Apple to provide rental titles.

It will be very interesting to see what Vizumi movie downloads and other players such as Jaman, AOL and Netflix will do in wake of this news. One thing is for sure, it is great news for movie downloaders with an increase in competition leading to reduced prices and better services.

More than 1,000 films, including Pirates of the Caribbean, Harry Potter and older releases such as The Matrix, will be available to download online through Apple Movie Rentals.

Movie downloads take less than 30 seconds and users have 24 hours to watch rented movies. They can also download them to iPods or iPhones to watch in this period.

The service is available immediately in America, and will be launched in Britain later this year.

Older films cost $2.99 --around £1.50 - while new releases will be $3.99 to rent - around £2.

"I think it is a revolution," Apple chief Steve Jobs told the Mac World conference in San Francisco. "Most of us watch movies once, maybe twice, and renting is a great way to do this.

"People can watch these anywhere - on Macs, PCs, all current generation iPods and iPhones.

Other studios that have signed up include New Line Cinema, Warner Bros, Paramount, Universal, and Sony Pictures.

Digital downloads of movies and TV shows will also come free with DVDs to enable users to view them on their iPods and iPhones.

Jim Gianopulos, chairman and CEO of 20th Century Fox, said: "People will still want to buy DVDs, and we don't want to deny them the benefits of this."

Be careful when downloading movies

Movie downloads online is catching on fast across Europe with the total European movie download market estimated to be worth 350 million euros ($516 million) by 2012, up from 17 million euros ($25 million) in 2007.

The youth of today are very tech savvy and are familiar with downloading media files online. By the term 'Youth', I mean anyone below 35 years of age. So that is quite a large population of people who get movie downloads online. Do a search in the Internet on terms like ‘movie downloads’, ‘film downloads’, 'download movies’ and it is quite likely that you will find many related sites. With so many options available, we really need to know what are the factors to consider when we want to get movie downloads.

in this day and age, watching movies is so easy and can be done comfortably within our own homes. I am not talking about buying or renting a movie but downloading a movie from the comfort of our own home without having to queue or drive through stressful traffic.

We all know how popular downloading music has become and revolutionised the music industry in the last decade but now is it the turn of movie downloads? Google results for popular search terms such as movie downloads indicate that 59, 600, 000 people search for this term.

Statistics show that many people now download full DVD movies online. This explains why there are many online movie shops and even the larger studios are putting their movies online for download and purchase. Either you buy each movie piece-meal or subscribe for memberships with the online movie stores.

So if you want to use a movie download website, what should you look out for?

1. Be sure to always check the format of the movie files. Are they compatible with your DVD player or your computer media player? It is always safer to use sites that offer movies in DivX format. This is because it saves you a lot of time to download movies online in this format, and secondly, it is a widely accepted format.

2. Can you burn the full length DVD movie onto a CD or it must be copied onto a DVD after you download movies online? You need to have options since blank DVDs are normally more expensive and you need a special DVD burner rather than the CD burner your computer comes with. But then again, it really depends on what you want. DVDs provide better picture and audio quality so if you are willing to pay more, by all means, burn the movies onto DVDs.

3. Can the site guarantee excellent picture quality? I guess this matter to everyone who is downloading movies online. You obviously would not want a movie download of poor quality which is so bad that you cannot even make out what you are watching. Using 100% safe and legal sites that are backed by film studios will make sure you get excellent quality whilst staying on the right side of the law.

4. Do they provide round-the-clock customer support service? Not every site can provide such service. But if you find one that promises to deliver this level of service, it is worthwhile to give it a try and download movies online there.

So other than leaving your home to rent a DVD or purchase it off the shelf from your local movie store, there is a great choice online but be careful who you chose to download from. Here are a selection of excellent movie download sites:

Vizumi Movie Downloads










Tiscali Movies Now









Empire Movie Downloads









AOL Film Downloads









Net Movie Downloads









Cinema Now









Movie Flix









EZTakes










Jaman








Downloads Super Site

Netflix to offer unlimited online movie streaming

Netflix will begin offering unlimited online movie streaming from a library of over 6,000 movies to customers on their $16.99 plan starting Monday.

The move is said to be in response to the expected announcement by Apple CEO Steve Jobs at the Macworld Expo Tuesday that iTunes will offer movie rentals from most major studios. The expected price of the iTunes rented movies is $3.99 each, putting Netflix is a competitive position for high value regular movie watchers.

Netflix has previously offered limited movie streaming to its 7 million + customers, but capped the streaming access at 17 hours a month.

According to AP, the offer will not be available to Netflix customers currently on the $4.99/ mth 2 DVD plan.

Blockbuster plans to turn to Digital

Despite popular opinion forecasting an upcoming bankruptcy, Blockbuster is determined to move ahead in the world of movie rentals and is revamping their business model to eventually morph into a digital download giant.

Blockbuster CEO Jim Keyes outlined the plan at the Citigroup 2008 Global Entertainment, Media and Telecommunications Conference on Tuesday, stating that in the first two quarters of this year we'll beginning seeing kiosks in Blockbuster stores that will allow movie downloads. The will be the first step in Keyes' plan to turn Blockbuster into "an entertainment convenience store." The kiosks will likely be a stepping stone on Blockbuster's way to offering a digital movie download service on the web.

Interestingly, when responding to a question about the potential of flash drives in movie download distribution, Keyes said "we are working on a flash drive ourselves...a micro SD chip for side-load capabilities into portable devices, and we’re working on direct download to a device itself.” We'll have to keep our eyes out for the Blockbuster flash drive in the future.

Keyes was bullish about Blockbuster's financial potential this year, citing high gas prices, the turning of the tides in the HD DVD/Blu-ray format war, the downfall of competitor Movie Gallery, and the lack of fresh television content thanks to the Hollywood Writer's Strike.

CinemaNow stike deal with Macrovision

Online movie download site CinemaNow Inc. has struck a deal with software maker Macrovision Corp. aimed at making it easier for manufacturers of media players and other devices to make their products compatible with CinemaNow's on-demand movie service.

Terms of the agreement, which was being officially announced Thursday, were not made public.

CinemaNow has been pushing to make its movie service available beyond users' personal computers, with the goal of enabling users to easily transfer movie downloads for viewing on TV sets.

CinemaNow users can currently download movies and videos from the service for viewing on televisions via several devices, including Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360, certain portable media players from Archos and Samsung Electronics Co., and on Hewlett-Packard Co.'s Media Smart LCD TVs.

The Macrovision deal should eventually lead to many more compatible devices coming to market in the second half of this year, said Curt Marvis, CinemaNow's chief executive officer.

"This year we'll see CinemaNow start to become available across a very, very broad spectrum of products," Marvis said.

The agreement called for both companies to integrate their technology. Consumer electronics manufacturers, many of which already incorporate Macrovision's anti-piracy or digital distribution technologies in their products, will have to update their Macrovision technology for their new devices.

Devices equipped with the technology will be able to download movies, music videos and other CinemaNow programming directly to digital TV sets, set-top boxes and network-attached storage devices. The devices will also be able to find, stream and play other content stored on a home network, CinemaNow said.

The Macrovision-CinemaNow technology alone won't make devices automatically compatible with CinemaNow's service, but it should make it far easier for manufacturers to adapt them, Marvis said.

CinemaNow is privately held and has about 1.5 million monthly users.

Among its investors are Lionsgate Entertainment Corp., Microsoft Corp., Cisco Systems Inc. and Blockbuster Inc.

Comcast plans to offers huge selection of films

Comcast, the nation’s largest cable television company, will outline an ambitious plan Tuesday to set up two new paradigms for how people will watch movies and television shows in their homes or on the road.

The plan, which Brian Roberts, the chairman and chief executive of the Comcast Corporation, will describe in a keynote speech at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, is aimed at making a nearly limitless supply of movies and television shows available on television, where Comcast subscribers could view them on demand, and through the Internet, where anyone with Web access could watch them.

Although the television component is still at a nascent stage — Comcast’s existing video-on-demand service has about 300 titles, compared with the 6,000 it eventually hopes to offer — the Web portion is further along.

Comcast has set up a site called Fancast.com where viewers can watch more than 3,000 hours of television shows from NBC, Fox, CBS and MTV and where they will soon be able to remotely program the digital video recorders in their homes. The shows on Fancast are available free. Comcast has yet to say how it will price the rest of the content as its plan moves forward.

Also on Tuesday, Comcast will show off a technology called wideband that significantly reduces the amount of time it takes to download a movie from the Internet

Mr. Roberts will take the stage with Ryan Seacrest, the television and radio host, to download the two-and-a-half-hour film “Batman Begins” in less than four minutes, rather than the six hours it would take using a standard broadband connection. Comcast plans to introduce wideband to millions of homes in select markets in 2008 before making it available in all of its areas.

Given the patchwork of systems now used to watch shows at home — from driving to a store to rent a video, to mailing DVDs back and forth, to video-on-demand and Internet downloads — Comcast seems to be trying to impose some order and suggest a direction for the future. So far, standard video-on-demand services on television have failed to take off, primarily because of the limited number of titles they offer. On the Internet side, movie downloads are also at a nascent stage, because of copyright issues, long download times and other complications.

Netflix, which has been trying to offer alternatives to its United States mail delivery system, seems to have a similar vision. Netflix permits some movie downloads on its Web site and is trying to make deals with electronics companies to send movies directly over the Internet to television sets. Last week it announced the first such deal, with LG Electronics, the South Korean manufacturer.

On the television side, Comcast has been working for months on a plan code-named Project Infinity, which at the moment is largely aspirational.

Comcast is already the world’s largest buyer of content, and it is spending about $4.5 billion a year to assemble content from around the world to offer on demand. Neither the television networks nor the movie studios have been approached yet about Project Infinity.

In an interview last week at Comcast’s Philadelphia headquarters, Mr. Roberts said his goal was “to give consumers the ability to watch any movie, television show, user-generated content or other video that a producer wants to make available on demand.”

At the same time, Mr. Roberts hopes the project gives a jolt to the cable industry, which has suffered as subscribers defect to services offered by satellite or telephone companies.

High-definition programming will be a big part of Project Infinity. Mr. Roberts says that Comcast will offer subscribers more than 1,000 high- definition choices this year, a combination of both movies and high-definition channels. Comcast currently offers 300 high-definition options, far more than most cable systems.

“We want to make it crystal clear that Comcast has the best TV product,” Mr. Roberts said. “Project Infinity is a real competitive edge for Comcast. We will deliver more HD content than our competitors with thousands of choices and, ultimately, 3,000 HD movies.”

On the Internet side, Fancast.com, which has been operating in beta mode, will also be unveiled on Tuesday. The site is available to anyone, not just Comcast subscribers. It offers free episodes of shows like “The Practice” and “CSI,” and also helps viewers manage their entertainment choices, showing them what is on and letting them personalize their viewing.

For people who are traveling and forget to set their device to record “Grey’s Anatomy,” for example, Fancast will help them take care of it. The site also wants to take on IMDB,, the popular database of Hollywood personalities, with its trove of information about actors and writers.

“In this age of interactive media, the number of entertainment choices can be overwhelming,” Mr. Roberts said. “In one place, Fancast helps consumers figure out where the content is, all the information they want about entertainment, and then watch it wherever and whenever they want, including on the Internet.”

All of this is a way for Comcast, which has 25 million video subscribers, to try to regain Wall Street’s confidence, showing that it can be innovative and offer products that are superior to its rivals in the satellite and telephone industries. Other cable companies, like Time Warner and Cablevision, whose stocks tend to move in tandem with Comcast, will be watching Mr. Roberts’s presentation closely.

Last year, cable fell out of favor on Wall Street for many reasons — mainly subscriber defections, but also the slowing housing market, which correlated to fewer cable sign-ups. In December, Comcast shares fell after the company said it would sign up 6 million new customers in 2007, rather than the 6.5 million projected earlier. Comcast shares, which closed Monday at $17, are near their 52-week low of $16.69.

Comcast became a giant in 2002 when it completed its acquisition of AT & T's cable systems, but now it might not be able to grow, so it is looking to increase revenue by means other than acquisitions. A rule proposed in November by the Federal Communications Commission would cap the market share for cable operators, and Comcast is bumping up against the limit.

Craig E. Moffett, a cable analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Company, said the wideband announcement would be the most significant part of the plan. Right now, because of technical limitations that the cable industry is working to solve, the typical cable system can offer only about 40 HD channels, he said; DirecTV, a satellite service, offers about 100 HD channels. Unlike many on Wall Street, Mr. Moffett is bullish on cable and has a buy rating on Comcast stock.

Some analysts do not accept the explanation that Comcast’s troubles are related to the economy. “Cable is fighting an all-out war on multiple fronts, putting operators in a position they have never faced before,” Richard Greenfield, an analyst at Pali Research, wrote in a note after Comcast reported earnings in December. “Comcast needs to go on the offensive, and soon.”

Technology to ramp up download speeds

Imagine being able to download a movie in four minutes. That's what's possible with new technology unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Tuesday - technology that makes so-called high-speed Internet 10 times faster than today.

Comcast Corp., the largest U.S. cable company, plans to roll out the new service to Americans this year that will hit top speeds of 160 megabits per second.

The company's chief executive Brian Roberts was on stage with Ryan Seacrest, the host ofz TV's American Idol, who was asked to help demonstrate recent upgrades to Comcast's high-speed Internet network.

The upgrades use a technology called DOCsis 3.0. Today's high-speed connections are capable of providing connection speeds of around 10 megabits per second. With the improvements, Comcast will be providing customers with speeds in excess of 100 megabits per second when the service launches this summer.

"People of my generation want it all and we want it all now," said Seacrest.

Using the service, he then downloaded a high-definition copy of the movie Batman Begins in less than four minutes. To tackle the same feat with a dial-up connection would take more than a week. With today's high-speed Internet networks, it would take about six hours.

Comcast did not announce pricing for the new high-speed Internet services. Its cable Internet technologies are similar to those used by Rogers Cable in Canada.

Comcast merged with AT&T Broadband in a $31-billion US deal in 2002. The company offers service to more than 24.2 million TV subscribers (the largest in the U.S.) and 3.3 million high-speed Internet customers. It is also the fourth-largest phone company in the U.S., attracting more than four million customers to its voice-over-Internet-protocol (VoIP) phone service in less than two years.

The company, which employs 90,000 people, reported close to $25 billion US in sales last year.

Demand for faster and easier-to-use Internet service has been growing in the U.S. and in Canada.

"Consumers will continue to use up band width as a much as possible," said Tony Olvet, of technology research and analysis group IDC Canada.

The faster speed also could improve home security services and computer gaming applications, he said.

Realizing the dangers and opportunities emerging online services offer to consumers, Roberts has been one of the most vocal proponents of the need for high-speed Internet services in every home.

With new offerings such as Joost and Hulu providing people with high-quality TV content online for free, cable companies have been forced to examine how to keep their customer base in the ever-changing digital world.

Speaking Tuesday, Roberts unwrapped the company's new Fancast service that will be a free online offering to Comcast customers which allows them to watch all of their favourite TV shows on demand over the Internet. This is the first time a cable company has offered TV programs over the web.

Until now, only broadcasters have offered online viewing of the content. NBC Universal's hit show Heroes is available on its website, while ABC Corp., offers shows such as Lost and Desperate Housewives.

With Fancast, customers will be able to watch all of their favourite TV shows over the Internet, regardless of the broadcaster, wherever they may be.

"There have been moments in time when the cable industry has been at a major inflection point. This is one of those times," said Roberts. "In today's converged world, we must give customers what they want and how they want it."

The online service also can help customers set their digital video recorders at home for future broadcasts of their favourite shows.

In addition, Roberts announced Comcast will be increasing its video-on-demand offering of movies and old hard-to-find TV shows by more than 10,000 titles. The extra offerings will be free of charge to existing customers.

King of movie downloads

Today, the web is crawling with all kinds of sites that offer unlimited movie downloads. The question is, which are the best websites to get a movie download legally?

Having looked at many movie download websites, I found that worryingly, many are not legal. Be very wary of websites that offer file sharing networks. These sites will have amazing graphics and appear to be legal but unfortunately these peer to peer networks are not able to guarantee a legal movie download. Make sure the site is backed by major movie studios, such as MGM or 20th Century Fox.

There are many excellent legal download websites out there including:

Vizumi movie downloads

Tiscali movie downloads

Apple downloads

Cinemanow downloads

Movieflix downloads

EZTakes downloads

Divxmovies downloads

For those of you who are still not sure why you should use a legal site to download your movies then here are 6 reasons for doing so:

1. Film quality will be massively better than a bootleg movie

2. There is nothing worse than watching an illegal bootleg movie where someone sneaked in their video recorder. Imagine the thrill of squinting your eyes and trying to figure out what the fuzzy dark figures are doing.

3. If you get caught illegally downloading then you can face imprisonment

4. A good movie download site will have cutting edge technology. The viewing will be very close to watching a DVD on your TV. Again this is where major movie studios, backing the site will ensure good quality.

5. Downloading legally will keep you safe from the law. Many people think that they can get away with an illegal movie download. Maybe for a while they can get away with it, but remember that a person can be tracked right back to their internet service provider address. Imagine getting caught and being charged a stiff penalty. Is it really worth taking the chance?

6. Piracy raises the cost of legal downloads. If you support legal movie downloading then you will be a part of the solution and not the problem. Would you want to see legal movie downloads go up in price?

Many believe that Vizumi movie downloads are going to be the market leaders in movie download services. They are backed by Arts Alliance Media (AAM), based in London, and are Europe's leading provider of digital film distribution services, dedicated to building a European digital network to deliver film to the cinema, to the home and between industry players.

Providing both movie downloads to rent and movie downloads to own, AAM provides ISPs, media companies and e-tailers with turn key solutions for acquiring rights and securely distributing digital video content over the internet to their audiences, powered by the Vizumi Network. Arts Alliance Media has digital distribution deals with Fox, Sony, Universal, Warner Bros., Momentum, Icon, Fremantle, Tartan, Discovery Networks, and Revolver Entertainment, amongst others, and powers downloads on partner sites including Empire movie downloads and Tiscali movie downloads.

Apple and Cinema Now will also be hot on Vizumi's heels and with Wal-Mart movie downloads abruptly closing down its services earlier this month. 2008 will see inevitably see the battle turn to war to lead the market in movie downloads. The total European movie download market is estimated to be worth $516 million by 2012, up from $25 million in 2007 so it is becoming big business. The Wal-Mart video download store died in its sleep eariler this month after Hewlett Packard pulled the plug on the technology that powered the store opening the doors for more competition.

However, the price of a movie download needs to be reduced slightly in order to attract those users who use illegal movie downloads at no cost. At the same time, the more people who use legal download websites, the more competition will increase leading to download prices dropping. Using websites such as Vizumi, AOL, Empire etc is protecting the consumer. These sites are 100% legal and safe.

If you get caught downloading via an illegal file sharing website such as Limewire then you could face imprisonment. Personally, I wont take this risk for the sake of saving a few £££ and now use legal movie download websites.

The more of us who do this, the more chance of price reductions and putting a stop to illegal downloads.

Movie download website Vizumi.com are offering 2 free move downloads to try them out with no credit card details required.

Disney ABC adds TV shows to Xbox

Disney-ABC will make hit programmes including Lost and Desperate Housewives available via Microsoft's Xbox Live Marketplace this month, with MGM adding its library of movies as well.

The Disney-ABC deal is significant for Microsoft since the Mouse initially resisted joining the company's TV and movie download service, which launched just over a year ago.

Tied to its Xbox 360 games console, Xbox Live Marketplace has quickly become the second most popular legitimate TV download service in the US after Apple's iTunes. In download-to-rent movies it is market leader.

Aside from flagship dramas Lost, Desperate Housewives and Grey's Anatomy, Disney-ABC will bring kids series such as Hannah Montana and The Suite Life of Zack & Cody to the Xbox. ABC News archive content dating back to 1963 will also be available.

The Mouse's initial frostiness towards Xbox thawed late last year when it began offering select movies via the console. But the latest deal brings an extra 500-plus hours of content in both standard and high definition.

"This new agreement will not only provide incremental viewing opportunities, but also provides a wealth of promotional opportunities to further awareness of our shows and brands," said Anne Sweeney, co-chair of Disney Media Networks and president of Disney-ABC Television Group, in a statement.

MGM, meanwhile, will add titles such as Rocky, Terminator and Silence of the Lambs to this category on Xbox Live, joining the likes of CBS, MTV, Paramount Turner and Warner Bros. The move takes Xbox to over 3,500 hours of video.

"Xbox Live, when we're done integrating this content, will offer more than twice as many hours of on-demand HD content as any cable or satellite provider," said Microsoft entertainment and devices division president Robbie Bach yesterday at CES.

"Over 35 studios and networks are supporting us now and it's quite clear that online distribution is going to be a powerful force in the future of video," he added, revealing that Microsoft has now passed 10 million Xbox Live members – a milestone the company didn't expect to reach for another six months.

Apple TV with Blu Ray?

Rumors are flying fast and furious over what Steve Jobs will pull out of his blue-jean pocket a week from Tuesday at his annual speech at the Macworld Expo in San Francisco. These include a movie rental service for iTunes, a super small notebook computer perhaps with a solid-state hard drive, a notebook docking station, and new features for the iPhone. Shaw Wu, an analyst with American Technology Research, suggested that Apple will start shipping some computers with Blu-ray high-definition DVD drives.

By itself, adding Blu-ray to Macs is nothing more than continuing to add features to justify the Mac price premium. But there is another move that Apple could make that could well be a game changer: introducing a new version of Apple TV with a built in Blu-ray player.

Separately, neither Apple TV nor Blu-ray players have excited consumers. People have been wary of the fight between Blu-ray and rival HD DVD players, worrying that they will end up owning the disk equivalent of a useless Betamax player. And Apple TV just didn’t seem to have all that many useful things you could do with it.

For that matter, online video rentals have been around for several years, by way of Movielink, and also have attracted very few users. The hottest movie download service in fact may be Xbox Live, which makes sense because the game machines are already hooked up to televisions.

Imagine, however, if Apple introduced this product, say for $399: It plays Blu-ray disks. It lets you buy or rent movies and TV programs from the Internet. It automatically downloads and plays free video (and audio) podcasts. And it brings your iTunes music collection to your living room.

This combination of features may be enough of a package that consumers will feel they aren’t taking too much risk buying one. And Apple’s brand may also reassure them. The company is not only the sexiest name in consumer electronics right now, but it also has a respectable track record of being able to negotiate with Hollywood to bring content to its devices. (The first version of Apple TV was a bit of an exception).

Apple’s clout might also help tip the now-tied race between Blu-ray and HD DVD. (Apple has been on the sidelines, but is a Blu-ray sympathizer. It serves on the Blu-ray advisory committee. And Disney, of which Mr. Jobs is the largest shareholder, backs Blu-ray.)

There are two other features of this product I’m imagining I’d like to see, but I think are less likely: streaming video and a commitment to advertiser-supported free video. Apple has focused on video downloads, in part because the quality is better than streaming and they fit into its iTunes model. But the first Apple TV does have streaming for movie trailers. Adding a broader streaming capability would expand programming choices and make the device useful for live and very recent content, like news and sports.

Apple has also not been serious about exploring ad-supported video, but this too is inevitable. For everyone who wants to watch “Heroes” without commercials for $1.99 an episode, there have to be 10 or 100 who will put up with commercials to see it free.

Such a device could also have a TV tuner, a CableCard slot and act as a digital video recorder. But my guess is that Mr. Jobs would find that this makes it far too complex and he will leave these functions to the cable set top boxes.

I don’t know what Mr. Jobs will pull out of his pocket. But I do know that he has a three-decade track record of picking when a technology is ready to enter the mainstream. Blu-ray and Internet video combined may be at just such a moment.

Warner Bros dumps HD DVD for Blu-ray

Warner Bros., the only major movie studio to release titles on both of the rival high-definition video disc formats, has decided to drop HD DVD and exclusively back Blu-ray Disc, it said Friday.

The move could prove decisive in determining which of the two formats becomes the de facto DVD replacement for high-definition content. Currently, both formats are battling to secure a lead but neither has managed to obtain a meaningful market share due to consumer indifference as a consequence of the battle. As a result, the market for high-definition movies has seen its growth stunted and companies like Warner have lost potential sales.

Warner said the decision was made in part as a response to this situation.

“A two-format landscape has led to consumer confusion and indifference toward high definition, which has kept the technology from reaching mass adoption and becoming the important revenue stream that it can be for the industry,” said Kevin Tsujihara, president of Warner’s home entertainment group in a statement.

The move comes on the eve of the Consumer Electronics Show, which kicks off on Monday in Las Vegas, and is sure to light a fire under the HD DVD camp, which is chiefly backed by Toshiba and also includes Paramount, Universal, HBO Video, Microsoft and Intel. The HD DVD Promotion Group has a previously scheduled news conference on Sunday and the rival Blu-ray Disc group is scheduled to speak the following day.

Companies from both sides of the format battle are expected to show their latest players and talk-up their own formats during CES.

Last year’s CES saw the unveiling by Warner of a hybrid disc called Total HD. The disc attempted to break the format deadlock by offering one side compatible with HD DVD and the other side compatible with Blu-ray Disc. However, the disc never made it to market and Warner gave up on the hybrid format later in 2007.