Despite recent reports that Netflix is in talks with cable providers on some form of partnership, Comcast has gone on record to say it has no interest in such a deal. It won't add the service to its Xfinity subscribers as an on-demand offering or part of its billing service on any device, claims a New York Times report. Netflix believes it could be offered by major cable providers as a premium offering.
The manager of the Blockbuster name in Australia, Franchise Entertainment Group chief Paul Uniacke, stated Monday that Samsung had scored a key deal to get Blockbuster On Demand across virtually all its devices. The pact outlined to Smarthouse would see Blockbuster arrive both on TVs and Blu-ray players as well as on mobile devices like smartphones, tablets, and ultrabook. Unofficially, the US, UK, and mainland Europe would get access in the first half of 2012, with Australia not expected before September.
Eolas' attempt to patent the "interactive web" may have been dealt a permanent blow after a jury in the normally patent lawsuit-friendly town of Tyler, Texas ruled that the patent was invalid. The decision negated both any attempts at claiming damages and also negated three future trials. The rejection came in part after testimony from the spiritual creator of the web, Tim Berners-Lee, as well as individual creators whose work predated that of Eolas owner Michael Doyle.
Redbox finished Monday by acquiring NCR's entertainment division. The $100 million move would see it buy NCR's 35,000 disc kiosks, usually attached to Blockbuster Express, as well as retailer deals and discs themselves. As part of the swap, Redbox's parent company Coinstar will get software and services that will ultimately make a $25 million profit for NCR.
Dish Network had an unusually strong presence at CES this year and gave us time to try its new Hopper DVR system. The three-tuner box is one of the more aggressive recorders we've seen and can record as many as six shows at once through a unique trick: it loads the four major US TV networks (ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC) on one tuner during prime time hours. It's hard to tell if there's any compression artifacts from the recorded shows on those networks, but it looked good in the controlled conditions of the CES floor.
Corroborating earlier reports, Warner Brothers is said to be set to extend the delay time for movie availability through streaming providers or DVD rental outlets. Customers will now have to wait 56 days from the start of DVD sales before titles will arrive through streaming channels or disc rentals, essentially doubling the window from the current period of 28 days.
Dish is contemplating a TV streaming service that could be an end-run around costs for traditional TV, according to possible new leaks. The strategy as explained to the Wall Street Journal would see channels from "several" studios licensed for paid streaming online to help make it cheaper to adopt Dish's TV service. Some of the cost would come from excising sports channels it's normally required to carry from the cheapest Internet pricing plans, as they often cost disproportionately much more than other stations.
Warner Brothers has reportedly imposed a 28-day delay for DVDs headed to Blockbuster's rental locations. The studio appears to be following the same strategy with Blockbuster rentals as it has maintained with other players such as Redbox and Netflix, which also face the same month-long window between DVD sales and rental availability.
TiVo is now shipping its Premiere Elite set-top box, which was officially introduced at the start of September. The premium offering has four digital tuners and a built-in 2TB hard drive. Meant for home theater enthusiasts, it's also THX-certified for picture and sound output.
Western Digital on Tuesday brought out its next-generation WD TV Live media box and companion WD TV Live Hub. The new version has a revamped, tray-based interface and now has Spotify music. Listeners with a Spotify Premium account can stream at the full 320Kbps with support for making playlists, sharing, and getting access to others' content through profiles and the song inbox.
Sources say that Dish Network is the frontrunner in the bid to buy Hulu, beating out Google, Amazon, and Yahoo. Its offer is reportedly in the range $1.9 billion. Other bidders may have been put off by Hulu's plans to move away from its free, ad-supported model or the lack of certainty about the availability of content. For instance Google's bid was in the $4 billion range according to sources, but came with the demand that the networks continue to provide programming after their current contracts expire in a few years.
Dish Network made a bet on Internet video Friday with Blockbuster Movie Pass. The service bundles satellite TV with mailed movie, TV, and game rentals as well as Internet streaming. Pitched as a rival to Netflix and Qwikster, it takes advantage of the Blockbuster rights and TV streaming to give a wider catalog of Internet video; 10,000 movies in total will stream to TVs and computers, including from Starz and others who have held out on Netflix to shelter their TV business.
Dish's ambitions for a major Internet movie service were confirmed late Monday after the company sent invitations to a special event for Friday, September 23. The "stream come true" gathering in San Francisco will be broadcast online from 1PM Eastern that day. Little is known about the exact details, but the satellite TV provider was confident it would have the "most comprehensive home entertainment package ever."
Korean phone giant SK Telecom quickly dismissed rumors that it would bid on Hulu. Being unusually direct, a spokeswoman said her company was aware of Hulu's self sale but that its managers "do not plan to participate" in the bidding process. A rumor earlier claimed SK Telecom was looking once more at a US company as a way of reducing its dependence on cellphones and its native country.
South Korean wireless provider SK Telecom is expected to join the Hulu bidding with its own offer later this week, a source told SAI. It will be one of a few, though the others haven't been named. Hulu sent out a letter to all interested parties, asking them to send a non-binding expression of interest that includes what their bid range is once they do their due diligence of the company's finances, the source said.
Rovi on Friday sued Hulu over claims the Internet streaming site copied its technology. The complaint alleges that Hulu's interface for navigating shows copies multiple patents Rovi has for electronic program guides like those seen on a cable or satellite set-top box. The complaint wants tripled damages that would include back pay for the earlier violations.
A US Bankruptcy Court in NY has approved Dish Network's proposed purchase of TerreStar. The deal has been valued at $1.38 billion. The main asset that Dish will be getting is the bankrupt satellite communications provider's 20MHz of wireless spectrum.
Sprint on Tuesday confirmed plans for the HTC Evo 3D to ship with 3D content both on and ready for the phone. The dual-core Android hardware will come with the recently hinted 3D version of Green Hornet and tap into 3D movie services as well. Both Blockbuster and HTC's own Watch will be onboard with 3D movies as an option to buy or rent from either store.
Blockbuster, which recently sold to Dish, has now revealed that it has lowered retail, in-store rental prices of DVDs as of May 27. Old titles will cost 99 cents per day, new releases have dropped to $1.99 for the first day, and just-released films now cost $2.99. Each additional day costs 99 cents.
Blockbuster's app for the Droid Charge uses DRM software from Widevine and has the ability to detect a rooted handset, Droid-Life reported. It will then inform the user of this, and not allow access to the streaming videos offered by the app. Coincidentally, Widevine is owned by Google, the maker of the Android OS the Droid Charge runs on.
Non-traditional movie rentals upstaged retail shop rentals in the first few months of 2011, DEG reported Monday. Subscription rentals, including both discs and Internet streaming from sites like Netflix, created 33 percent more spending in the March quarter. Cash from rentals at Blockbuster and other legacy stores simultaneouly dropped 36 percent, however, hinting that many had been giving up the old method in favor of new.
Dish Network, which has recently announced the purchase of Blockbuster, has now said it would take on leases for about 500 of the video-rental's stores as of Tuesday. The papers were filed this past weekend with the US Bankruptcy Court in the Southern District of New York, with a hearing planned for Thursday. After recent store closings, Blockbuster now has nearly 1,700 stores operating in the US.
The NPD Group in a new study suggested that Internet video had done little to dislodge Blu-ray and DVD as the dominant forms for movies. About 78 percent of the money spent on watching at home in the US was spent on one of the two disc formats exclusively while 15 percent were spending it on a hybrid service with both Internet and physical rentals, like Netflix. The remaining seven-plus percent accounted for every other digital and pay-per-view service combined, including iTunes, Amazon Instant Video, and cable or satellite watching.
Major movie theater chains AMC and Regal this week warned that they would punish the major movie studios for trying to offer movies on demand after 60 days. Both said they would not only refuse to run trailers for any movie available to stream under the $30 per title plan but would decline the movies themselves. The two also maintained a likely unfulfillable hope that the studios would say which movies are 60-day VOD titles to ban them in advance.
A bankruptcy court judge on Thursday gave approval to Dish's buyout of Blockbuster. The clearance for the $320 million deal was needed before the two could complete the deal, which has now been narrowed down from spring to April 25. Blockbuster CEO Jim Keyes said he was happy with the deal, in part since Dish would keep business mostly intact and take over many leases and the on-the-spot DVD rental kiosks.
Dish said Wednesday that it had won an auction to buy Blockbuster. The satellite TV provider said it had offered $320 million, about $228 million of which was in cash, to beat out competitors like investor Carl Icahn and SK Telecom. Bids had gotten as high as $310.6 million, from Icahn, before Dish landed the final price.
The bidding to buy out Blockbuster now includes Dish Network and well-known activist investor Carl Icahn, insiders claimed Friday. The two are both supposedly making just the minimum bid, around $290 million, to qualify for the auction before it starts in earnest on Monday. The WSJ in scraping information was warned that new bidders could come into play or make unions with each other.
Korean cell carrier SK Telecom said Thursday that it was contemplating making a bid for the struggling video chain Blockbuster. An official didn't explain the motivations, but it's suspected the deal would be an attempt to diversify away from its Korea-only network, where it leads but has a tough fight with KT and LG Telecom. Daewoo Securities analyst Byun Sung-jae told the WSJ that SK Telecom might feel oversaturated but could thrive in Internet video, where Blockbuster's content rights would be advantages.
Sprint's other major introduction on Tuesday was the HTC Evo View 4G, its adaptation of the Flyer. The new version gets a speed boost through WiMAX and uses it for Blockbuster video downloads, YouTube HD, and two-way video chat from the front camera. It has the same slim, aluminum unibody design but with an all-gray back and the signature red trim from other Evos, down to the inside components.
Blockbuster said on Monday that it planned to auction itself off post-bankruptcy with an uncommon trick to guarantee a minimum price. The company is using a "stalking horse" bid from an investment fund coalition, Cobalt Video Holdco, to set a minimum bid of $290 million. The deal would see companies already investing in Blockbuster buy it out if there were no takers but would get a better deal from a third party.
Blockbuster plans to close another 182 stores in the next few months according to a report. The move is part of a restructure designed to return the company to profitability under the protection of Chapter 11 bankruptcy, which it filed for in September. The latest closures come after the once dominant DVD rental giant also shuttered more than 2,000 stores over the past two years.
Blockbuster on Friday said that its Express kiosks would have to wait 28 days before getting new movies from Warner Bros. to rent. Despite having trialed same-day launches as recently as the past few weeks, such as Fox's Knight and Day, the company has agreed to stall the $1 DVDs in return for closer contact with Warner Bros. as well as a lower distribution cost and healthier supply. It already had similar deals with Fox and Universal.
Time Warner chief Jeff Bewkes in an interview published Sunday tried to downplay the significance of Netflix. He insisted the streaming video provider was far less than it was made out to be in the media. Netflix was much smaller than Time Warner, he argued, and had no chance of disrupting the larger company, likening it for the New York Times to the Albanian military's relative insignificance.
Netflix landed another major content deal today as it reached a new deal with Disney and ABC. In exchange for a minimum 15-day delay between a first TV appearance and the online version, Netflix will get a much deeper catalog that includes prior-season access to current shows like Grey's Anatomy and full seasons of past shows like Lost and Scrubs. Disney's TV content is expanding, and ABC Family is reaching the Internet for the first time.
Cloud game service OnLive and TV maker Vizio are discussing separate deals for subscription movie services of their own, sources both official and unofficial said Sunday night. OnLive is publicly committed to expanding to movies through both subscriptions and other business models, but Vizio is unofficially believed to be in early talks for content. The details weren't known to the Wall Street Journal contacts.
Netflix has been pressing hard to get current TV shows on Watch Instantly, according to rumors surrounding negotiations. The company reportedly said it was willing to pay between $70,000 and $100,000 per episode if it meant getting access to a given season while still on the air. Most of the "friction" in the discussions, the New York Post's sources said, has been TV broadcast owners arguing that they have rights over current-season TV that even the show producers themselves would lack.
Western Digital on Tuesday announced it has added new online services to its lineup of WD TV media players. The WD TV Live Plus media player will have access to rent or buy new movie releases at the same time as they are launched on Blu-ray or DVD through Blockbuster On Demand in the US. Both the WD TV Lice Plus and the Live will also get newfound Facebook access, letting users upload photos and videos, update their status, view their wall and get News Feed info.
Oppo Digital has announced its latest Blu-ray player, the BDP-93. It will succeed the BDP-83 that was sent out to a select few back in 2009, and get all of its features as well as support for Blu-ray 3D specification including dual HDMI 1.4a outputs, Netflix Watch Instantly functionality and Blockbuster on Demand. Wi-Fi and an eSATA port are also part of the features.
Yamaha has introduced the BD-A1000, a "universal Blu-ray player" that pairs an optical drive with streaming capabilities. The device allows users to play Blu-ray discs, DVDs, SACDs, DVD Audio discs or web-based media such as Netflix, YouTube and Blockbuster. Dual USB ports can also be used to attach an external hard drive or thumb drive.
The upcoming Galaxy Tab that's due at Verizon on November 11 will not ship with the Skype, V Cast Video or NFL Mobile apps pre-installed, according to leaked web training documents posted by Engadget on Tuesday. The plan would come despite despite the NFL's wishes to bring video onto Verizon's tablets and that the carrier's V Cast Video service is available on all of its other Android devices. The three apps are eventually expected to come to the device, though exactly when isn't being revealed.
Western Digital has quickly followed up on recent leaks by launching the WD TV Live Hub. Unlike the company's earlier media streamers, it's designed to be fully self-contained and has a full 1TB of space that can hold large amounts of 1080p video and is enough to become a media server for the home. While built to play media directly to a TV, it can share its content to other devices on the local network over DLNA or UPnP and even to Android and iOS hardware.
Blockbuster this morning followed through on expectations and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy as part of its shift into online video. The move gives it an opportunity to reorganize and would exchange the company's 11.75 percent in senior notes for equity stakes. Refinancing, cost cutting and other measures would reduce the movie rental store's debt from $1 billion to $100 million or less.
Toshiba brought its promised BDX3000 Blu-ray player to the US on Wednesday. Nearly identical to the BDX3100 introduced in Europe recently, it can access online content from providers such as Netflix, Blockbuster On Demand, Pandora radio and Vudu content thanks to its Wi-Fi or Ethernet connections. Like other Toshiba Blu-ray players, it will upconvert standard DVDs and plays back videos, photos and music from a USB drive or SDHC memory card.
An inside news tip this evening has hinted that Google plans to significantly expand its YouTube movie rentals to a full-fledged, worldwide service. Several contacts told the Financial Times that talks are underway for a service that would stream major movie releases and which would be tied into both Google's search engine and YouTube. Movies would cost $5 to rent and would be available at the same time as on Blu-ray, DVD and Internet services.
Blockbuster is on the verge of declaring bankruptcy under the weight of competition from Internet services, sources said late Thursday. Attendees of a top-level meeting told the LA Times that Blockbuster was warning major movie studios of a "pre-planned" Chapter 11 bankruptcy likely for mid-September. The move would give it a chance to reorganize, offloading at least some of its $920 million in debt and letting it out of lease requirements for at least 500 failing stores.
Samsung brought out 3D in full-force today with a new set of Blu-ray players that include the first portable 3D model. The BD-C8000 can show 3D movies from its drive when attached through HDMI out. It only displays movies in 2D on its 10.3-inch display but has many of the networked components of full-size Samsung TVs, such as DLNA media sharing and Internet widgets.
Blockbuster has been dealt a major blow as it has been told it will likely be delisted from the New York Stock Exchange. The company had tried to keep its share price over the minimum $1 by combining its Class A and B shares through a reverse stock split but wasn't able to get enough votes. It had been warned of the problem in November but lost a vote at the meeting that was blamed on "low vote turnout."
Blockbuster's OnDemand debuting for the T-Mobile HTC HD2 smartphone will expand to other platforms, the company said. The service, which lets customers download and watch new release movies in addition to checking store stock, will also be made for certain Android-powered handsets from Motorola, though a timeline has not been revealed. Unlike competitors such as Netflix, Blockbuster's approach will see users permanently download tracks as they're more efficient than live streams.
Quickly following up a late leak, T-Mobile tonight confirmed the launch details of its version of the HTC HD2. The extra-large Windows Mobile smartphone will arrive in stores on March 24th and will cost $200 when subsidized by a two-year contract. Even More Plus plan subscribers can also pay the $450 unsubsidized price up front in return for lower rates.
As announced last fall, TiVo will return to the UK market after a seven-year absence. TiVo will partner with the UK's Virgin Media, which will develop the cable firm's next-generation set-top box. While details on the hardware are thin on the ground, TiVo chief executive Tom Rogers said it will be heavily based on the TiVo Premiere slated for other markets and confirmed for the US.
