HungryFlix Pushes HD Movies to Apple and iTunes

HungryFlix, the Internet’s first distributor of premium, independent video content specifically formatted for portable devices, is continuing to drive innovation in the movie download space by announcing that content providers can now upload movies of up to 1GB in size. This increased storage capacity will allow for high quality movies to be delivered to Macs, PCs and especially Apple TV.

HungryFlix was the pioneer in providing indie films for portable media players such as the Apple iPod, iPhone and Sony PSP. The web startup is also offering support for the new class of home media servers such as Apple TV and slingmedia’s slingbox. In order to support growing demands for high definition video, HungryFlix has deployed Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), a component of Amazon Web Services.

Amazon S3 provides a web services interface that can be used to store and retrieve any amount of data from anywhere on the web. S3 provides the same highly scalable, reliable, fast, inexpensive data storage infrastructure that Amazon uses to run its own global network of web sites. This infrastructure will provide HungryFlix with greater capacity while reducing costs.

“We are seeing more and more independent productions adopting HD,” says HungryFlix.com CEO Brian Andrews. “In the portable device space, HD hasn’t been a concern due to the obvious issues of small lower resolutions screens and limited storage space. But, when we look at continuing to expand to Apple TV users, where we see great growth is in the ability to deliver HD or near HD quality video. The demand is coming from both the producers and consumers.”

HungryFlix content is delivered as MPEG4 files that look and sound great on PCs, handhelds and now large screen TVs. All files are DRM-free so that users can also view movies on their computer, iPod or any other compatible device, provided that the film was encoded to support each device.

The web startup is drawing video content providers from across a wide range of genres. The site accepts feature films, short films, documentaries, animation, how-to videos, sports video, music video and more. The goal of HungryFlix is to become another means of distribution for the vast amount of incredible indie content being produced today.

“One of our main goals is to help independent filmmakers and video producers get their content out to the world,” continued Andrews.

“When you look at the movie watching experience, especially for feature length films, many people still want to watch movies in the family room. By supporting Apple TV, we can push video from the web down to the home computer and then the last 100 feet to the family room. When we reach the family room we want be able to provide a higher quality experience. Increasing our file sizes will enable providers to deliver much higher quality video than was previously possible.”

From the movie fan’s perspective, HungryFlix’s goal is to give the people what they want - the widest array of compatible video content free from restrictions so that consumers can watch when and where they wish. The site offers paid movie downloads which means users will own the rights to view movies as often as they would like, on as many devices as possible. Membership is free and downloads start at just $0.99.

Article published on Techmedia on 6th March 2008

Criminal Movies. Criminal Records

I'm a criminal. There. I've said it. In fact, I may even be a terrorist. Perhaps that has you intrigued? Does it make you eager to read on? Are you wondering whether I feel remorse? How about whether I can justify my actions? Or would you like me to, for God's sake, just stop asking these annoying and presumptuous questions, and tell us how many people you've killed, already? I haven't killed anyone. Sorry. I haven't injured anyone either. Not even a paper-cut. In this broadband-enabled age, though, terrorism doesn't have to be nearly as hands-on an occupation as it used to be. Thankfully. Because as well as being someone who sits on his increasingly fat arse typing all day, and consequently wouldn't graduate from even the Cornish Liberation Army's boot camp, I'm actually a bit of a pacifist. Yep, I abhor violence. Except, perhaps, against Michael Flatley. There are always acceptable exceptions. And Celine Dion. She really should be stopped before it's too late. But besides them, yep, I'm pacifist. Sorry to let you down.

Still, pacifist or not, I am a terrorist. Quite definitely.

No, really. There's no getting around the fact. I've even committed a terrorist act - Hollywood says so: I downloaded a movie. For free. Just the once; but piracy funds terrorism, remember? I'm the terrorist equivalent of a passive smoker.

Bit of an anticlimax that, wasn't it? But if you're a regular visitor of the multiplex you're probably used to them. Piracy funds terrorism. Hollywood funds mediocrity. Not morally equivalent, but as statements, equally true?

I don't know, but I'd be more inclined to argue with the first one. And argue I shall.

ME: Oi, statement! You're not true.
STATEMENT: Oh yeah?
ME: Well you're not. Not entirely.
STATEMENT: I am! (PAUSE) Are you starting?

Well, that's not getting us very far, and as a pacifist, no, I'm not starting. So let's try another approach: anecdotal evidence. But first a quick critique of the above scene: At first the plot seems slight, but the statement's unnecessary aggression is the key point. The statement is pure overreaction. Still, the dialogue's a bit lame.
Now, on with the anecdotal evidence.

For the time being, let's switch tracks to music piracy and the days of home taping: back in the 80's and early 90's it was killing music, apparently. Not that that seemed very difficult to believe in an era that contained solo records by Phil Collins. Or entirely unwelcome.

It must have been about 1989 or 1990 that I discovered the music section of the library near my secondary school. It was a revelation: suddenly a world of possibilities was right in front of me. Well, musical possibilities; but better a world of musical possibilities than a single oyster, which seems to be the usual alternative. I gathered up as many likely looking cassettes as my meagre pocket money would stretch to, and was soon at home, happily lost in music.

New music. Sounds I hadn't heard before, and would want to hear again. And again. And again. Certainly more often than a month's loan would allow. But how? Thankfully, I had a new ghetto-blaster (as we embarrassingly called the things), with two cassette decks and high-speed dubbing. And a pile of TDK-90s: some blank, some containing music I'd recorded off the radio and no longer wanted. If I wasn't a pirate already (and I guess I was), then I certainly was by the time that month had ended. Not that I knew.

By the end of my teens, I must have had a few hundred copied albums, had probably borrowed half as many again, and I might even have copied the odd copy for someone else. I was also well aware, by that time, that my frequent copyings had not been strictly legal. But the thing was, who had they hurt?

Certainly not TDK, my favourite brand of cassettes, nor Duracell, whose products powered my walkman, nor JVC who'd made it, and the one before that. Not the artists whose albums I couldn't, anyway, have afforded to buy, and who at least got a small lending royalty from the library. Not the ones whose music I liked so much that I had to have the real thing - photos, artwork, lyrics. And definitely not the many artists who, since I have had money of my own, have benefited and will benefit from the music obsession that all that taping helped to nurture - I now have hundreds of CDs, and as for all the gigs I've attended…

Of course, things could have been a bit different.

These days, I would probably have been one of those kids sued by the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) for file-sharing. Would I have gone on to pour thousands of pounds into the music industry? No. I doubt it. And I probably wouldn't be listening to music while writing this either. And what does that say about current anti-piracy methods?

To be fair, the music industry does seem to be starting to catch on to the idea of the Long Tail. Slowly. But what of the movie industry?

The movie I downloaded was a film called Ariel, by the Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki. It's not widely available on DVD in England; at least not without paying way over the odds or learning enough Finnish to navigate cheaper stockists. Believe me, I've googled it. In fact, google it and you'll find torrent listings before you'll find an IMDb entry. (These terrorists are getting very brazen, aren't they? Not to mention clever, funding their operations through free downloads and adverts that barely cover their operating costs).

As for the film: thoroughly recommended if you like deadpan laconic gloom. In fact, I told a Finnish friend how much I liked it and now have five more Kaurismäki films - all on DVD, and all actually paid for. So wouldn't you say that my downloading actually made money for the film industry?

Perhaps, genuine piracy does fund terrorism, - I don't know, I'm not an investigative reporter - but not all piracy. In fact, free movie downloads, like home-taping, might be helping keep an industry afloat. A movie download isn't necessarily a lost sale: most of the time it just lets someone see something they never would have done. And where does that lead? To a love of a certain director, a certain actor, sometimes even a writer. To future DVD purchases, future ticket sales, and, if the movie was any good, to internet buzz. Hollywood runs on hype. And what better hype-generator is there than the internet?

Actually, maybe that's what Hollywood's really worried about: if we have advance warning of its expensive turkeys, it'll have to start making better films. And about time too.

Comparing 6 Movie Download Websites

Here's some useful information for all of those considering ditching your Netflix account or the weekly trip to Blockbuster and downloading movies instead. One of the following methods for watching movies might be right up your street:

If you are on a PC you can try any of the services below, which include:

Vizumi Movie Downloads
CinemaNow
Movielink
Guba
Amazon Unbox
iTunes

If you are a Mac user, the choice is easy. Only iTunes will work on your platform.

Note, however, that you’ll be forced to use Internet Explorer to download these movies unless you use iTunes or Amazon Unbox.

Digital Rights Management (DRM) is a big part of all of these products. Make sure you read the terms and conditions carefully before agreeing. At least for Amazon Unbox, the terms are somewhat draconian. DRM will keep many users away who’d like the ability to burn movies to DVD, transfer to other computers, etc. These users will simply purchase and rip DVDs directly (removing DRM), or use bittorent to acquire movies.

Vizumi are backed by media giants Arts Alliance Media and studios are constantly being signed up as partners from Warner Brothers and 20th Century Fox to Paramount and Sony. They offer 100% safe, legal and official movies. Vizumi software is easy to use and becoming a member (for free) allows you to download films to own or to rent, on a pay per view basis. They also offer free downloads every day.

Since branching out from their Usenet product through a deal to sell Waner Bros. movies in June and Sony movies in July, GUBA has mainly been competing on price and referral fees for recommending more users to the site. GUBA also features user-generated and usenet videos for free alongside premium movies users can buy or rent. Usenet movies can be downloaded in iPod and PSP formats as well.

CinemaNow’s most recent claim to fame has been their release of “Too Fast Too Furious” online at the same time as the DVD release, an industry first. They also have a Burn-to-DVD feature that allows you to burn a DVD playable on almost any DVD player for select titles. CinemaNow provides movies from Disney, Fox, Lionsgate, NBC Universal, Sony, and Warner Bros. Like most of the others, CinemaNow requires users to have a Windows PC and use Internet Explorer.

Formed out of a joint venture between major movie studios, Movielink has by far the largest catalog of new release and library titles. Their major partners include MGM, Paramount, Sony, Universal, Warner Brothers, Disney, Sundance Channel, BBC, and National Geographic. While not as consistently low priced as GUBA, if you look closely enough you can find various discounts for military personnel, college students, and mystery rentals.

After its initial launch, Ubox received wide criticism, most notably from BoinBoing about its user-unfriendly license agreements. Unbox has by far the best meta-data on movies and TV shows, incorporating plot summaries, release information, production stills, and consumer ratings. Unbox sells from 20th Century Fox, Fox Searchlight, Lionsgate, Paramount, Sony, Universal, and Warner Bros.

View video review of Amazon Unbox here:


As expected, iTunes launched their movie download service back in September. It features Disney movies and managed over one million dollars in sales during its first week. iTunes 7 has been criticized for the buggy 7.0 release corrected with 7.0.1, but nothing seems to be stopping the iTunes juggernaut.

View iTunes Movies review here:



Recommendations:
For all you Apple Mac users the choice is easy with iTunes. For PC Windows users, Vizumi and Movielink have the deepest catalogues with Guba having the most competitive pricing.

CinemaNow has an outrageously priced burn-to-DVD product that may be attractive to some users (although simply buying the DVD seems to make a lot more sense).

The options in the UK are somewhat more limited for Movie Downloads with Vizumi the best choice. Alternatively, try Love Film where you can buy a new release for £20, download it and they also send you the DVD.

What they all do seem to have in common is they are all (except Guba) quite expensive for such low quality content. The more people who use these services however, the more chance these prices will be slashed in coming months.

Vizumi has a few HD Downloads and this is where the future is as Blu-Ray has seemingly won the battle over HD, can it win the battle against digital downloads?

How to download legally

Essentially, there are just two options available to you if you want a movie download. You can either download legally or illegally and this obviously depends on which website you download a movie from.

Legal sites will offer the best software designed and tested to work on your computer so you can trust it will not harm your pride and joy.

If you are not sure after reading on their website what exactly they are offering or are confused and unsure then contact them and ask the following:

Question: “Is a movie download from your site legal?”
Question their legality of the service you are signing up to. Simply ask is a movie download from your site legal? You obviously do not want the strong arm of the law coming down on you as a result of an illegal movie download.

Question: “Will I be using peer to peer software?”
Another important question to ask is when you download a movie IS “does it involve using peer to peer software”? Sites such as Kazaa, WinMX, Limewire, TorrentSpy, YouTorrent all use peer to peer software or file sharing.

If the site does use peer to peer then it is more than likely illegal. This type of setup can easily lead you to download movies that are copyrighted and not legal for you to possess without paying a fee.

What you need is a service that provides you with direct links to sites where free authorized downloads can take place and that are perfectly legal.

Question: “Can I copy the movie once downloaded?”
Along with asking about the download method, you will also want to know if you can make a copy of the movie after the download. If the answer is yes, then you should take it as another warning sign that something is not right. Free official downloads are for viewing only and are not set up for saving or caching on your hard drive. A service that offer access to no charge movie downloads knows this and will make it very clear to their customers that this is so. If you get any other kind of answer, you should move on immediately.

Question: “How many movies do you have?”
Sites that claim to give you an unlikely number of choices when it comes to movies, music videos, television shows, and other types of shows should be another sign that it is not legal. While ethical services offer you a wide range of choices, they will not give you access to every film ever made. When you see that kind of incentive it can often indicate conditions that are too good to be true. You should get away from this type of site immediately.

Question: “What is your software compatible with?”
Check the compatibility issues with your ISP, the type of operating system you have, and your connection speed. Genuine providers will have clear answers to these types of questions and will often have a good support team that can help you with more technical issues if needed. Don't just buy into the idea of one service meeting all the needs of every single customer; it just isn't realistic.

A legal service provide of no charge movie downloads will provide you precise answers to the questions highlighted above.

In contrast, free bootleg movie download sites will use smoke and mirrors to sidetrack you so the question is never ever directly answered. When you get that type of response, you should look elsewhere.

Asking these simple questions will make it possible for you to pick a company that provides you access to approved and lawful no charge movie downloads. With a little patience and asking the right questions, you can easily identify a service that really does it all it says.

A good example of a legal and safe site is Vizumi Movie Downloads which offers 100% legal, safe and official movie downloads. Vizumi is backed by media giants Arts Alliance Media (AAM) who is Europe’s leading provider of digital film distribution services owning sites such as LOVEFiLM.

If you would like to find out more about Vizumi, here is a review of their website:

maVen priate movie downloader in jail

Anyone who is aware of the illegal movie download or 'pirate' movie download trade over the past few years likely knows that the label ‘maVen’ on a video release was usually a mark of a high quality ‘cammed’ movie. After dozens of major releases and investigations by the FBI and Canadian police, ‘maVen’ now faces 6 months in jail.

During 2004 and 2006, not many movie release groups could keep up with the mighty ‘maVen’ when it came to releasing quality ‘Telesync‘ versions of pirated movies onto the internet.

From great versions of the ‘Bourne Supremacy’, ‘Collateral’ and ‘Spongebob Squarepants’ in 2004, through to their 2005 releases ‘Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire’ and ‘Chronicles of Narnia’ to name just a few, maVen consistently delivered the goods. 2006 saw ‘maVen’ releases of serious heavyweight movies including ‘Underworld Evolution’, ‘Mission Impossible 3′, ‘X-Men: The Last Stand’, ‘Cars’ and ‘Superman Returns’.

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Comparing picture quality

Just read an interesting article from iLounge which shows the difference in quality between the fives types of pictures quality offered by Blu-Ray disc, HD Apple TV, HD Cable VOD, DVD and SD Apple TV.

Here is an image to compare picture quality of the 5 different formats. My impression here is that Blu-Ray disc offers by far the best picture quality:


Read full article here

Blu-Ray's place in a movie download world

So Toshiba have announced they are going to terminate manufacture of HD DVD players. So the HD format war is pretty much over with Blu-Ray left standing. The future for digital downloads looks even more brighter and could even kill Blu-Ray, but not yet.

Our generation is now pretty much accustomed to downloading at the click of a mouse button.
This generation has nearly already abandoned CD’s, and physical media like DVDs and Blu-ray is inevitably next.

However, there are many people who buy DVDs by the millions and will likely buy Blu-Ray now that HD wars are over as generations before bought VHS. Substantial generations have grown up with physical media, and this isn’t about to change tomorrow.

Another aspect of why buying Blue-Ray won't disspear quickly is that many people do not want to watch movies on their computer and prefer to watch movies on their TV sets. I'm also in this way of thinking as my HD TV is a better experience that on my 17 inch Macbook Pro, although the TV set can't easily come to bed with me!

There are ways of brining digital downloads to TV sets, but none have anywhere near the penetration yet to offer a serious alternative to DVD and Blu-Ray. Apple is now offering HD movie downloads via their Apple TV box, but try and find more than a handful of people who own an Apple TV. Others offer a similar service such as Vudu, and there’s even Microsoft Media Center, and yet none are mainstream. Until such time net or network enabled devices become mainstream, TV and physical media will retain the upper hand.

There are also current Broadband limitations with many providers considering capping downloads on internet plans. The problem going forward is the days of cheap unlimited internet access may well be coming to an end as more and more download video and use P2P services.
The low cost of bandwidth itself was a historical quirk that came about due to the first dot com bubble. That extra remnant capacity is being used now, and the costs of increasing capacity will likely be passed on to consumers. If this means more capped internet plans that immediately puts a constraint on the amount of video that can be downloaded.

Outside of the United States this is already the case with capped plans in many countries, restraining potential growth in downloads (simply users will only be able to download so much content.)

Combine this with the need for high speed internet access that isn’t universally available.
Digital video will not become dominant where it takes hours, sometimes days to download, when users can simply rent or buy the title on physical media.

I’m all for the supremacy of digital downloads allowing streaming content from any computer in the house or NAS drive to main TV set or Apple TV. But people who have these gadgets in their home are in the vast minority. Blu-Ray will likely be the last big mainstream physical media technology ever and it will have a strong future. The various factors needed for mainstream digital downloading and viewing will eventually combine to finally kill Blu-Ray (and the domination of all physical media) sometime between 2010 and 2020.

Illegal downloaders 'face UK ban'

People in the UK who go online and illegally download music and films may have their internet access cut under plans the government is considering.

A draft consultation suggests internet service providers would be required to take action over users who access pirated material via their accounts.

But the government is stressing that plans are at an early stage and it is still working on final proposals.

Six million people a year are estimated to download files illegally in the UK.

Music and film companies say that the illegal downloads cost them millions of pounds in lost revenues.

The government proposals were first reported by the Times newspaper.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport said that early drafts of the document had been circulated among stakeholders.

"The content and proposals for the strategy have been significantly developed since then and a comprehensive plan to bolster the UK's creative industries will be published shortly," it added.

"We will not comment on the content of the leaked document."

Voluntary scheme

The Times suggested that broadband firms which failed to enforce the rules could be prosecuted, and the details of customers suspected of making illegal downloads made available to the courts.

According to the Times, the draft paper states: "We will move to legislate to require internet service providers to take action on illegal file sharing."

Some of the UK's biggest internet providers, such as BT, Virgin and Tiscali have been in talks with the entertainment industry over introducing a voluntary scheme for policing pirate activity, but no agreement has been reached.

So far, they have failed to resolve how disputed allegations would be arbitrated - for example, when customers claim other people have been "piggybacking" on their internet service.

'No liability'

Technology that allows internet providers to monitor what content is being downloaded is becoming more effective, said James Bates, media director at consultants Deloitte.

"This is also likely to help accelerate the process of identifying pirates, and may lead to swifter disconnection, or prosecution," Mr Bates said.

However, the Internet Service Providers Association said data protection laws would prevent providers from looking at the content of information sent over their networks.

"ISPs are no more able to inspect and filter every single packet passing across their network than the Post Office is able to open every envelope," the association said.

"ISPs bear no liability for illegal file sharing as the content is not hosted on their servers," it added.

The BPI, the trade body that represents the UK record industry, said internet providers had "done little or nothing to address illegal downloading via their networks".

"This is the number one issue for the creative industries in the digital age, and the government's willingness to tackle it should be applauded," said BPI chief executive Geoff Taylor.

"Now is not the time for ISPs to hide behind bogus privacy arguments, or claim the problem is too complicated or difficult to tackle."

Sourced from BBC

Blu-Ray wins Netflix vote

Netflix has announced today that it will exclusively stock Blu-ray high-definition DVDs after a decision by some the world's biggest movie studios in favour of the Sony developed format.

Netflix has stocked DVDs using both Blu-ray and the competing HD DVD format developed by Toshiba since they first came on the market in early 2006.

Four out of six major Hollywood studios have recently decided to publish high-definition DVDs only using Blu-ray. Netflix said that with such a clear signal from the industry, it will only buy Blu-ray discs going forward and will phase out stock of HD DVD by about the end of the year.

Can Lovefilm compete with downloads?

A British firm that rents out DVDs by post has just taken over internet giant Amazon’s service. But can it compete with downloads?

IF you have ever wondered which movies the former page three girl Melinda Messenger likes to curl up with, then Lovefilm.com is the place to find out.

She is one of several celebrities to list her favourite films on the site. The picks are there to provide a little bit of inspiration for customers of the site’s main business – film rental.

In four years Lovefilm has become the UK’s leader in the fast-growing online DVD rental market, and last week it grew by another 50% after announcing a deal to take over a similar service offered by Amazon, the internet retailer, taking the number of subscribers to 900,000. As part of the deal Amazon will take a stake, thought to be about 30%, in Lovefilm, making it the company’s biggest single investor. The deal is reported to value Lovefilm at about £200m.

The service is straightforward. Users create a list of DVDs they wish to rent from the 65,000 or so available (having recommendations on the site helps focus the mind, says the management). For a monthly charge, anywhere between £3.99 and £14.99, the company posts out the DVDs on the list, one or two at a time. Customers return them when they are finished in a prepaid envelope and the next disc on the list is sent out. There are no late fees, and its fans say it is easier and more convenient than going to a video shop. So far the group is in no more than 3% of UK households but it is confident this will grow.

Chief executive Simon Calver has been working on the Amazon deal for several months and believes it is crucial to have as big a customer base as possible because the competition comes not just from other online rental services but also other film sources – high-street stores and subscription-movie channels on satellite and cable television.

“With Amazon we have a better chance of being competitive in that market than as two independent companies,” he said, adding that Amazon’s experience of developing into an internet giant should benefit the company greatly. The US group will have a seat on the Lovefilm board, alongside representatives of the smaller company’s existing backers, who include Balder-ton Capital and Index Ventures, the tech investors.

Lovefilm, which had sales of £50m last year, has been steadily consolidating what is a relatively niche industry. The first site to launch in the UK was Video Island in 2003; Lovefilm followed about a year later and the two merged in April 2006, having between them swallowed a number of smaller rivals along the way. Before the Amazon deal, the business was estimated by Screen Digest, a consultancy, to have about 62% of the online rental market. That has now risen to almost 80%.

Despite this leading position, there is a concern in some quarters that technology could derail the business model. The prospect of internet users downloading movies directly could render the idea of an offline rental service obsolete. In the US last year DVD sales fell 4.5%, as downloading became more popular. Netflix, the US company on which Video Island and Lovefilm are modelled, has 6,000 films available for download. The British company offers just over 800 at present.

Calver believes that the threat should not be overplayed. “Because we are in this market, we can monitor it. Everyone is still learning, and most people are groping their way through digital distribution.

“We are experimenting with downloading, with different price points and business models. But there are still fundamental barriers to downloading, such as the choice of content, the time it takes to download a film, and how to get the product from the PC and onto the TV.”

He argues that there is a fundamental difference between paying to download a music track, which customers might listen to repeatedly, and a film, which may get watched just once. This is especially true in the UK.

Calver said: “People here are used to paying [for entertainment] on a subscription basis; the television licence fee, cable TV. Most digital services are pay-per-transaction. There’s inherent resistance to that in the UK. Digital downloading will be significantly smaller than DVDs for many years to come.”

Calver’s more immediate goal is to reach 1m subscribers and take the business into profitabil-ity, which should be achieved by the end of this year. Lovefilm has been paying special attention to its pricing, increasing the range of packages offered to attract wallets of all sizes.

Despite Calver’s views on subscriptions, he says a new pay-as-you-go service is beginning to attract people who watch films relatively infrequently.

If the group can extend its service further beyond movie buffs and enter the mainstream, it could provide a Hollywood-style happy ending for its backers.

Taken from Timesonline Website by Matthew Goodman