Real-time entertainment traffic

The last report by Sandvine says that -in North America- Netflix accounts for 30% of traffic during prime time, and 22.2% of daily internet traffic. Sandvine gets the data from ISPs using its broadband technology and now foresees "Real-Time Entertainment" (which includes Netflix) shooting up over 55% of peak internet traffic by the end of this year.

Sandive also reported that in Europe, Real-Time Entertainment continues a steady climb, rising to 33.2% of peak aggregate traffic, up from 31.9% last fall. BitTorrent, a peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing protocol, is the largest single component of both upstream (59.7%) and downstream (21.6%) Internet traffic during peak periods. In the UK, BBC's iPlayer is 6.6% of peak downstream traffic, reflecting the demand for localized content in many markets. Overall, individual subscribers in Europe consume twice the amount of data as North Americans. 

Source: Engadget.

Warner to offer movies via Facebook

Warner Bros. Entertainment said it will start renting movies via Facebook, the latest effort by movie studios to find new revenue sources as consumers buy fewer DVDs and spend more time online. The first movie on offer is "The Dark Knight" the 2008 hit Batman movie. Warner's president of digital distribution, Thomas Gewecke, said the studio chose "The Dark Knight" as its launch title largely because it has already been "liked" by 3.9 million Facebook users.

The Wall Street Journal tells that studios can no longer count on DVD sales and are experimenting with new ways of earning revenue online. Last year, U.S. sales of DVDs totaled $7.8 billion, down 43% from their 2006 peak of $13.7 billion, according to media-tracking firm IHS Screen Digest. From 2009 to 2010 alone sales of the discs plunged roughly 20%.

See "The Dark Kinght" on Facebook.

Google TV this autumn

Google Inc. will launch its Android-based Google TV service to bring the Web to TV screens in the United States this autumn and worldwide next year, its chief executive said, as it extends its reach from the desktop to the living room. CEO Eric Schmidt said the service, which will allow full Internet browsing via the television, would be free, and Google would work with a variety of programme makers and electronics manufacturers to bring it to consumers.

Sony said last week it had agreed to have Google TV on its television sets, and Samsung has said it was looking into using the service.

H.264/AVC: forever free

On August 26, MPEG LA announced that its AVC Patent Portfolio License will continue not to charge royalties for Internet Video that is free to end users (known as “Internet Broadcast AVC Video”) during the entire life of this License.

MPEG LA previously announced it would not charge royalties for such video through December 31, 2015, and today’s announcement makes clear that royalties will continue not to be charged for such video beyond that time. Products and services other than Internet Broadcast AVC Video continue to be royalty-bearing.

The move is arguably aimed at contrasting Google's royalty-free WebM format, especially in view of the forthcoming HTML5 standard.

iPad TV everywhere

Verizon Communications is prepping a new live TV streaming app for tablet PCs like the Apple iPad, a move that could eventually eliminate the need for a home set-top box and set the stage for true "TV everywhere" viewing.

The new app allows Fios TV subscribers to stream live TV from their service onto an iPad over a home Wi-Fi connection.

Initially, the service will work only in the home, but Verizon CIO Shaygan Kheradpir said that eventually the service could be offered as part of Verizon's TV-anywhere strategy, allowing people to access live TV anywhere they are using a username and password to authenticate the service.

Source: cnet news.

IETV vs. 3DTV

"Despite aggressive promotions from the industry and intense consumer interest generated by the blockbuster Avatar and other titles, the 3-D TV market in 2010 will be limited to a small pool of enthusiastic early adopters,” said Riddhi Patel, director and principal analyst for television systems at iSuppli. “In contrast, Internet-Enabled TVs (IETV) is entering the mainstream in 2010. This is because 3-D is still dealing with a number of barriers, including cost, content availability and interoperability, while IETV provides immediate benefits by allowing TV viewers to access a range of content readily available on the Internet.”

Shipments of IETVs in 2010 will rise by a remarkable 124.9 percent from 12.3 million units last year. Significant growth will continue during the following years. All told, IETV shipments will expand at rates north of 50 percent for the next two years, and then continue to increase at solid double-digit rates until the end of 2014. By then, global IETV shipments are anticipated to reach 148.3 million units, accounting for 54 percent of the total flat-panel TV market.

Source: iSuppli.

SeaWell Networks

SeaWell Networks Inc. is a provider of Internet video delivery products designed for use by content producers and their content delivery partner organizations. SeaWell leverages video compression standard, H.264 scalable video coding (SVC), to uniquely create and deliver a high-quality viewing experience online while significantly reducing the cost of delivery.

“SeaWell’s technology is a game-changing innovation that allows video providers to create Internet-ready video content and deliver it to any screen or device in HD quality full-screen resolution or in lower resolutions for low bandwidth mobile devices,” said Northwater Vice President and current SeaWell director, Andrew Harrison. “SeaWell will create a superior experience for the viewer on a platform that is more flexible and infinitely more scalable.”

For more information see www.seawellnetworks.com.

Internet video to remain free

MPEG LA recently announced that its AVC Patent Portfolio License will continue not to charge royalties for Internet Video that is free to end users (known as Internet Broadcast AVC Video) during the next License term from January 1, 2011 to December 31, 2015. Products and services other than Internet Broadcast AVC Video continue to be royalty-bearing, and royalties to apply during the next term will be announced before the end of 2010.

Full news release here.

IDF 2009 (2): the CE4100 SoC

At IDF 2009 Intel Corporation unveiled the Atom CE4100, the newest System-on-Chip (SoC) in a family of media processors designed to bring Internet content and services to digital TVs, DVD players and advanced set-top boxes.

The CE4100 processor, formerly codenamed "Sodaville," is the first 45nm-manufactured consumer electronics (CE) SoC based on Intel architecture. It supports Internet and broadcast applications on one chip, and has the processing power and audio/video components necessary to run rich media applications such as 3-D graphics.

"The architecture of Intel media processors provides a powerful and innovative platform to showcase Flash-based applications in a vivid way," said David Wadhwani, general manager and vice president, Platform Business Unit at Adobe. "Flash Player 10 combined with the performance of the Intel media processor and its support for standards such as OpenGL ES 2.0 offers a compelling environment for Flash-based games, videos and other rich Web content and applications." The companies expect Adobe Flash Player 10 to be available in the first half of 2010 for Intel media processor-based CE devices.

Intel CE media processors provide a full-featured software framework called Widget Channel for the development of Internet applications, or TV widgets. Broadcast networks such as CBS are expanding the gallery of TV widgets to help their viewers find and connect to premium content in a more personalized manner.

See the full press release.

Major studios sign deals for online videos

Warner Bros., Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures and Lionsgate will begin offering the first movie downloads that can be burned to disc using virtually any DVD or Blu-ray Disc burner for playback on a broad range of devices already in millions of consumer homes.

The four studios will offer the downloads through under-the-radar online movie service Film Fresh, which inked the first U.S. movie delivery deal with DivX, maker of a popular video format supported by millions of DVD players, Blu-ray players, TVs, mobile phones, the PlayStation 3 and other devices from the biggest consumer electronics brands, including LG, Samsung and Sony.

DivX has its own built-in copy protection so films can only be played back on certified DivX devices that a consumer registers for their downloads. Film Fresh will allow consumers to make an unlimited number of copies of movies in the Divx format for playback on registered devices.

Read the full story on Video Business and the press release on DivX website.

DVB Internet TV questionnaire

The DVB Project recently initiated a study mission on Internet TV Content Delivery to investigate technology options to deliver DVB-type content over the Internet to a large number of CE devices (including game consoles), PCs or mobile devices. The study mission focuses on content delivery, but other functions such as codecs, security, or metadata are also considered.

To address these objectives, the study mission starts with a questionnaire to collect information on existing technologies in the respective area. DVB members and non-DVB members alike are encouraged to respond to the questionnaire.

You can find the questionnaire at this link.

The Pirate Bay trial

The second day of a trial in Sweden in which operators of The Pirate Bay website are facing charges of copyright infringement opened with a victory for the defense. Responding to opening remarks by defense attorneys on Monday, prosecutors acknowledged that Pirate Bay had not copied any films or CDs itself. It then agreed to drop roughly half the charges.

Continue reading on the IMDb.

Browser chip for TV

Should televisions be able to get access to the Web? And if they should, how should they?

Gordon Campbell, formerly Intel's first chief corporate marketing officer, now works at Personal Web Systems, a company which is ready to ship its first product, a $150 adapter that will attach to televisions to make them fully Internet-enabled.

Read the article on the International Herald Tribune or The New York Times.

Shazzle now available

Shazzle LLC, the creator of a new privatized group file sharing program that uses P2P technology to fuse file sharing, real-time chat, internet browsing, and "unprecedented community features", announce the first release of the Shazzle application.

The authors declare: Shazzle consolidates features such as: peer-to-peer file sharing, live chat, web browsing and social networking functionality to create an unparalleled community experience. Shazzle's simple user interface and multifaceted utility can be applied to business, e-commerce, e-learning, old and new interpersonal connections, and much more. For additional information, go to http://www.shazzle.com.

By the way, the idea to combine P2P file sharing with social networking is not so new: you may be interested to have a look at Tribler, an application developed some time ago by the Delft University of Technology, which is now the core of the on-going EU funded project P2P-Next.

Wireless photocamera

The new Sony DSC-G3 Cyber-shot is the first digital camera that integrates a wireless Internet connection with 802.11b/g, allowing to upload images directly from camera to popular sharing sites.

The G3 camera has a 10 Mpixel sensor, 3.5" LCD touch screen display and it is based on the Linux operating system. The price declared is 500$.

Grid Streaming

FilmOn is a Video-On-Demand (VOD) Internet service using a cluster of net-based computers to let people watch broadcast quality movies over a basic broadband connection: the computer cluster helps shrink the films so the high-quality images can be sent through the available connection bandwidth.

Richard Crosby, Chief Scientist, declared "The FilmOn Network Operation Centre makes use of the same grid and cloud technology used by CERN and government agencies. The processing power is spread out across the globe, rather than on a single server. We start off with a few servers in select places and as demand picks up, a fresh cluster kicks in. What makes us different from a traditional grid is that the CPU's actually talk to each other across the global network. So it knows where the loads are and where projected loads will occur."

More details at BBC News.

Bender's anti-piracy warning

Enjoy this short cartoon in which Bender, the robot of the popular series Futurama, acts as testimonial of the campaign against Internet piracy. "Downloading movies is like ripping a human heart", Bender says!

Besides the funny part, it is clear that Hollywood majors (Fox, in this case) are very concerned about illegal file sharing and they are fighting it as much as they can.





By coincidence, the famous P2P site The Pirate Bay just announced it reached the incredible number of 22 millions of connected peers.

Although many people still see P2P as an "evil" technology, it must be said that P2P could provide substantial benefits to legal multimedia delivery over the Internet. You may be interested to have a look at P2P-Next, an international research project founded by the European Community within the Seventh Framework Programme and aimed at the building of a "next generation Peer-to-Peer content delivery platform".

Broadband trends

Sandvine has released its latest global broadband research, completed in October 2008. Data was collected from more than 16 million broadband subscribers in over 18 countries and the findings include several interesting facts around the popularity of online entertainment-based applications.

Reportedly, Peer-to-peer (P2P) traffic remains dominant in the upstream direction totaling 61 per cent of network traffic and is also responsible for more than 22 per cent of downstream bandwidth consumption worldwide, although subscribers are increasingly turning to alternatives such as File Hosting/Online Storage web services and SSL tunnels.

The full executive summary of the report is available on this page.