The venerable BBC has announced plans to offer hundreds of episodes of its programs on a file-sharing network for the first time, Azureus’ Zudeo. Until now, most BBC programmes found on peer-to-peer file-sharing networks have been illegal copies. Azureus is best known for developing a BitTorrent client, or program, that allows large media files to […]

Online sales of TV shows, movies and other prerecorded video will become a billion-dollar business in 2007, according to a new report from technology research firm Strategy Analytics. The report predicts that, by the end of 2007, the market will grow to $1.5 billion. By 2010, global revenue from online video sales, rentals and subscriptions […]

Rocketboom founder Andrew Baron has a few choice words about ABC’s new video blog featuring former Rocketboom host Amanda Congdon. He’s also got some interesting points to make about mainstream media’s attempts to clone the success of indie vlogs: “I’m going to set aside all of the technical problems everyone has already mentioned with the […]

Geeks over a certain age will remember Microsoft Bob, Microsoft’s attempt to create a personal, easy-to-use computer interface. Microsoft Bob was universally panned, because it was designed for the lowest common denominator, and just set the lowest common denominator a little bit too low. Ten years later, Microsoft has quietly introduced Ms. Dewey, a sassy […]

The technology for getting TiVo content onto Macs and iPods is evolving quickly.TiVoDecode Manager (TDM) is a free Applescript Studio front-end (i.e. “wrapper”) that automates the process of downloading of TiVo Series 2 files to your computer and decoding them into MPEG-2 files. Features include: Bonjour discovery of local TiVos (or enter an IP manually) […]

Mac Geekery has a detailed how to on how to save TiVo recordings so that they can be viewed on a Mac or an iPod. Unfortunately, you need to: Install and set-up Galleon Build an application called TiVo decode Set up a conversion script Set up launchd Transcode the video to a compatible format Sync […]

A new analysis of the state of film distribution over the Web reports that the biggest stumbling block to the adoption of digital video downloads is Hollywood. “The single biggest factor holding back Internet movie sales is Hollywood’s reluctance to allow films to be sold over the Web so that they can ultimately be viewed […]

Michael Starkweather, a patent lawyer in Salt Lake City that recently negotiated an out-of-court settlement between Apple and the owner of a patent covering the downloading of media files, thinks Apple will now use it to control billions of dollars in digital media downloads.”I believe that, with this patent in hand, Apple will eventually be […]

According to an article in the Wall Street Journal (subscription), Blockbuster is introducing a holiday promotion that will let Netflix subscribers rent Blockbuster movies for free. Netflix members can exchange the tear-off flaps from red Netflix envelopes for free rentals at any Blockbuster store. Blockbuster is using the promotion to boost exposure of its Total […]

Apple is reported to be hiring video game designers, suggesting that better gaming will be coming to the iPod and Mac platforms, and even a possible Apple-branded gaming system. “We think the video game market represents a distinct possibility for Apple, especially considering that it recently announced the availability of video games for its iPod […]