Video

Peacock-a-thon: Eureka! NBC shows found in UK iTunes Store

Posted on May. 6, ’08, 9:36 AM PT by Dan Moren

Category | iTunes Store

In our continuing coverage of all matters related to Pavo cristatus, we bring you this interesting fact. In light of NBC’s Faustian bargain from this morning, it seems that they also have made come to some sort of understanding with Apple—at least in the UK. As Italian blog setteB.it points out, NBC’s parent company Universal has made five shows available for download in the UK iTunes Store, including Heroes, which has been MIA from the American iTunes store since NBC’s unceremonious departure.

Also on offer are Eureka (shown in the US on NBC’s Sci Fi network), classic shows The Incredible Hulk and Hercules: The Legendary Journeys (Sorbo FTW!), and Hugh Laurie vehicle House. As if that’s not weird enough, the shows are priced at two different price points, with the “vintage” series going for £1.19 an episode (~US$2.32) and the current shows costing £1.89 (US$3.79). The higher £1.89 price point is standard for TV shows in the UK store (or was when Apple first announced their availability).

Is this harbinger of NBC’s return to the American store as well? My guess is that has something to do with individual country licensing deals, but it seems nothing is certain anymore. Up is down! Left is right! Zune is iPod! Gah! Gahhhh!

Apple is still totally committed to video apps

Posted on May. 5, ’08, 1:00 PM PT by David Dahlquist

Category | Video

Fear not, video editors, Apple still loves you and has no plans to abandon its video products. Nasty little rumors abounded when Apple confirmed in February that it would not have an exhibit at April’s National Association of Broadcasters Show. This announcement, combined with the delay of Final Cut Server, left a lot of film makers scratching their heads. And then the whispers began, that Apple might be planning to sell off its pro video applications.

Richard Townhill, Apple’s director of marketing for professional video applications has cleared the air by dismissing the rumors as false.

“I can categorically state, on the record, that is not the case,” he told TVB Europe, adding that the company recently sold its millionth Final Cut Pro license.

Apple took 49 percent of the US professional editing market last year, so they have plenty of reason to keep with it. And so Final Cut will live on, and all will be good.

[Via Macworld UK]

Adobe drops restrictions on Flash, AIR

Posted on May. 1, ’08, 10:44 AM PT by Dan Moren

Category | Video

The battle for Internet video continues. Not satisfied with the dominating presence of Flash, Adobe is making moves to spread their influence even further. Their latest thrust in the constant lunge/riposte is the Open Screen Project, which hopes to help extend the presence of Flash and Adobe’s AIR framework to all the devices you use to get on the Internet: your computer, your set-top box, your microwave, etc.

Among the partners Adobe has lined up are device makers like Samsung, Motorola, Sony Ericsson; hardware component makers like Marvell, Intel, and ARM; content producers like BBC, MTV Networks, and NBC; and networks like NTT DoCoMo, Chunghwa Telecom, and Verizon Wireless. Sure, that’s a lot of names, but come on: companies will put their name on pretty much any initiative or alliance that gets bandied about. Where’s the beef?

What’s really important here is that Adobe plans to remove restrictions on the use of Shockwave and Flash formats, publish the device porting layer API and the Adobe Flash Cast protocol, and remove licensing fees for Flash Player and AIR. While Adobe will still be holding back some proprietary info, such as their own implementation of Flash, these developments will significantly lower the barrier of entry for those looking to support Flash video on other devices.

We notice Apple is absent from the list of companies, which is little surprise, since they’re still intent upon pushing MPEG-4/H.264 as the future. Still, in theory, there would be nothing to stop them from creating their own Flash player for the likes of the iPhone and iPod touch, or any other devices they happen to have—you know, if they wanted to.

[via Macworld]

Studios cue up simultaneous releases for DVDs, downloads

Posted on May. 1, ’08, 8:25 AM PT by Dan Moren

Category | iTunes Store

Yesterday afternoon, our own Mr. Dahlquist reported that Warner Bros. announced their intentions to make new releases available on the iTunes Store on the very same day as they were released on DVD. But that’s not the whole story: this morning, Apple announced that the same would be true for films from 20th Century Fox, The Walt Disney Studios, Paramount Pictures, Universal Studios Home Entertainment, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Lionsgate, Image Entertainment and First Look Studios. For those of you playing along at home, that’s all the other major studios and a few others thrown in for good measure.

“We’re thrilled to bring iTunes Store customers new films for purchase day-and-date with the DVD release,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice president of iTunes. “We think movie fans will love being able to buy their favorites from major and independent studios.”

Of course, the devil is in the details here: note that Apple’s press release very clearly says this applies to movies for purchase. Nothing is said particularly about rentals, leaving us to wonder if they’re still subject to the sort-of 30 day lag time. I’d certainly hope not: I think rentals are the real potential here, especially as new releases remain priced at $15.

I did a quick check of the titles touted in Apple’s press release: while The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is available only for purchase, American Gangster can be bought or rented. Of the handful of other titles featured in the rotating banners at the top of the Movies page, most were only available for purchase, not for rental.

So while this might be good news, it’s still not quite the news that I would hope for. I wonder how close they are to meeting their 1000 titles for rental goal now.

The truth revealed: Bill Gates is made of felt

Posted on Apr. 30, ’08, 9:39 AM PT by Dan Moren

Category | Video

And now a touch of surreality for your day. Have you ever sat there thinking to yourself: “Gee, Bill Gates sounds a lot like a muppet.” No? Okay, take a minute to really toss that one over; I’ll wait.

Done? Great. One YouTube user took it a step further when he combined audio of Bill Gates discussing the Mac back in 1984 with a video of everybody’s favorite verdant muppet. The eerie result? The video below. Prepare to be disturbed.

Seriously, I am never letting my kids watch Sesame Street.

[via Macenstein]

The British are coming, the British are coming…to iTunes

Posted on Apr. 29, ’08, 8:08 AM PT by Dan Moren

Category | iTunes Store

Last night, I vowed to start using more Anglicisms even if meant holding up under the disparaging looks of my colleagues: it’s worth the sacrifice just to be able to refer to someone as a complete muppet. What fuels this passion of mine? Well, much as I’d like to merely chalk it up to those months that I lived in the UK back in the early part of the decade, I have to admit it’s mainly a function of the excessive amounts of British TV that I watch.

That’s just gotten even easier, as Apple’s added shows from BBC America to the iTunes Store (iTunes link). You can now pick up episodes from three series: Torchwood, Little Britain, and Robin Hood. I’ve watched both the first and last of those shows, and enjoyed both. The store, unfortunately, only has the second seasons of both shows Robin Hood (as Sean points out below, Torchwood Series 1 is there), so if you’re looking for completeness, you’ll have to go elsewhere.

Honestly, though, I was hoping more for the likes of Doctor Who, Hustle, and Spooks, all of which are shown on networks other than BBC America in the US. Why must you continue to thwart me, silly international borders?

YouTube video now on the QT

Posted on Apr. 24, ’08, 9:58 AM PT by Dan Moren

Category | Video

YouTube may be among the best productivity sinks known to mankind, but that doesn’t mean that it can’t be improved. When the iPhone was announced to have YouTube capability, it came out that the YT (as the kids call it) would be transcoding its videos into QuickTime for easy digestion on the mobile platform. But, as has become apparent recently, that higher-quality video is available to those on old-fashioned computers as well.

Going through the process of downloading a higher-quality version was still a little annoying, though, so blogger Joey Hagedorn came up with a simple bookmarklet that lets you switch the Flash video to a QuickTime video with just the press of a button. The only downside is that not all videos are transcoded, so you may find some old favorites just give you a QuickTime logo with a question mark.

At some point, I’d imagine that YouTube will make this functionality more transparent, but until then, the bookmark is a pretty convenient little workaround for watching time-wasting videos in all of their high-quality glory.

[via Mac OS X Hints]

Judge opines rap lawsuit has no rhyme, reason

Posted on Apr. 21, ’08, 8:04 AM PT by Dan Moren

Category | Legal

That was a close one. It seemed perhaps that Apple was on the brink of an all-out war with rap mogul J Prince who, if you remember, named the company in a defamation suit last December, along with BET and parent company Viacom. The assertion? An episode of BET’s American Gangster labeled Prince and his employee Thomas Randle as “murderers.”

Prince wanted to prevent the episode from being shown on air or downloaded via iTunes, but U.S. District Judge Lynn Hughes (pictured) tossed the case out on its ear, calling the photo in question—which depicted Prince and Randle with jailed gang leader Larry Hoover—“a broadcast of accurate pictures of their social choices.”

Man, that is street. Personally, I know pretty much nothing about Prince and Randle, and while I imagine that being called a murderer when you aren’t one is craptastic, suing Apple for having the episode online is a bit tangential to say the least.

BET, for its part, has been rebroadcasting the episode with Prince and Randle’s faces obscured. I’m just glad we’ve avoided open hostilities: it’s what Tupac and Biggie would have wanted.

[via Macworld UK]

Feiss film featured for free

Posted on Apr. 17, ’08, 9:20 AM PT by Dan Moren

Category | Video

It’s hard to believe that it was almost two years ago that we first discussed Apple icon Ellen Feiss’s foray into the realm of commercial film. Feiss is of course best remembered for her appearance in one of Apple’s 2002 Switch ads, for which she has long had to endure entirely spurious suggestions that she was under the influence of certain substances. I repeat: You have no proof, sir!

Anyway, Feiss played the role of Laura in a 2006 film called Bed & Breakfast, and for those Feiss-natics who haven’t already scoured the web and your local video store for a copy, you can snag a one-time chance to see it over on The Digital Lifestyle this coming Monday, April 21, at 9:30PM Eastern, at which point you’ll even be able to chat with your fellow Feiss followers. Shudder. Anyway, you should bookmark that. Now.

Personally, I’m not a fan of Feiss; I was always more of a Janie Porche kind of guy. She can save my Christmas any day.

[via The Mac Observer]

Peacock-a-thon: NBC wants to be on iTunes, really. There’s just a few little things…

Posted on Apr. 17, ’08, 8:39 AM PT by Dan Moren

Category | iTunes Store

It’s been a while since we’ve had NBC and Apple sniping at each other—I know I’ve missed my recommended daily allowance—so let’s have at it. NBC’s Chief Digital Officer (that is a great title) George Kliavkoff was speaking at the Ad:Tech conference in San Francisco and took the time to discuss the network’s relationship with Apple.

“We’d love to be on iTunes. It has a great customer experience. We’d love to figure out a way to distribute our content on iTunes,” he said, but wouldn’t comment on any negotiations.

You know, George, I’m not a Chief Digital Officer or anything, but I’m pretty sure that you had your content distributed on iTunes. It’s not like trying to find the Ark of the Covenant or anything.

Yes, we know—you disagreed with Apple over pricing. You wanted variable pricing and bundling, and Apple wanted to keep the flat rate.

“The music industry guys would have something to say about how the pricing has affected their product over the last few years,” he added.

Frankly, I’ve got something to say about how the music industry guys have affected their product over the last few years. I’m not sure you want to take cues from guys who sue their own customers.