MGM will post full-length content on YouTube
Metro-Goldwyn Mayer (MGM) Studios will reportedly provide full-length feature files and TV content on Google’s YouTube video sharing service. It was reported early last week that YouTube was preparing to add this type of content after spending months mending its relationship with Hollywood studios. On Sunday, news circulated that MGM will be the first studio (and most likely not the last) to add full-length content to the popular video site.
YouTube currently has a deal with Lionsgate, but it only stretches to short clips from films and TV shows. The deal, if the reports are accurate, signals a turning point for YouTube since it has largely been a headache for Hollywood studios since it first launched. After Google acquired YouTube, it refused to take responsibility for copyright infringing content posted by its users, citing the DMCA itself as protection.
Since then, it has made moves to remove pirated video content from its site at the convenience of the content owner. The reason for the change of heart is suspected to be Hulu, a video service already loaded with premium content that reportedly makes as much ad revenue as YouTube with only a fraction of the users. YouTube might have the numbers of users and reputation to compete, but it had to smooth over its relationship with the content companies first.
Another problematic area for YouTube was its image as a site offing web browser-locked low quality video content. YouTube has moved to provide higher quality video content and is developing video playing software that will provide clearer images. According to sources, the typical split of revenue will be 70% to the content owner and the rest of Google.
China hijacks popular BitTorrent sites
Chinese Internet censorship is hardly something new, but lately it seems the country has targeted BitTorrent sites. Last week, users in China reported that popular BitTorrent sites such as Mininova, Pirate Bay and isoHunt were redirecting to Chinese search site Baidu.com. China recently started to ban 10 video sharing sites for “regulations violations” and the eDonkey indexing site VeryCD received warnings shortly before being re-directed to Baidu.com.
The domain hijacks continued for a few days until they were seemingly lifted. Official explanation for the outage is a “DNS error”, yet that is very improbable as it seemed to affect the P2P sites exclusively which are hosted all across the world. DNS errors wouldn’t explain why they were all linked to another (the same) site either.
Of course, its far more likely that the block was intentional. The only question is whether it was because of piracy or because of some content that could be gotten from any of the sites was specifically targeted by the government.
MP3 player headphones might interfere with cardiac equipment
U.S. Researchers informed an American Heart Association meeting in New Orleans about the possible interference that MP3 player headphones might post to cardiac equipment. Pacemakers and implantable defibrillators’ normal operation can be changed when in close proximity to headphones used with MP3 player equipment. Previously it has been found that MP3 players themselves don’t interfere with cardiac equipment.
The reason the headphones have been found to cause disturbance with the equipment is the strong little magnets inside. When placed within 1.2 inches of the cardiac equipment, it was found to cause interference in about a quarter of tested patents. Fourteen out of sixty experienced problems when tested, with interference being twice as likely with defibrillators than pacemakers.
A pacemaker changes the speed of cardiac rhythm using electric impulses. The headphones in close proximity however could make it deliver a signal no matter what the heart rate is, possibly leading to palpitations or arrhythmia. An implantable cardioverter defibrillator signals the heart to normalize a rhythm whenever it gets fast or slow. The magnetic disturbance could make it ignore an abnormal heart rhythm.
“The main message here is: it’s fine for patients to use their headphones normally, meaning they can listen to music and keep the headphones in their ears. But what they should not do is put the headphones near their device,” Dr. William Maisel, who led the research, said. So in other words, keep the headphones away from your shirt or coat pocket, don’t let them hang over your chest when not in use and don’t let anyone else listening to an MP3 player lie against your chest - if you have the heart equipment that is.
Koch adds content to iTunes
Koch Entertainment Distribution, one of the fastest-growing independent music companies in the U.S, has announced that it will make over 2,600 hours of video available through Apple’s iTunes platform.
The content will include fitness, foreign, horror, documentary, TV, special interest, classics, children’s, anime and independent film genres.
There will be programming available from Koch, Koch Vision, Koch Lorber Films labels, Passport Entertainment, Cinema Epoch, Lifesize Entertainment and more.
VB says the titles now available for download are the music video Hatebreed: Live Dominance, Chop Shop, High Times Presents: The Cannabis Cup, Les Paul: Chasing Sound, Monster Camp, Secrets of Mary Magdalene, the Sundance Channel’s Terminal City and Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers: The Collection Vol. 1.
“Making key titles from our home video library available on iTunes helps position Koch as the premier independent aggregator in the digital distribution space with the broadest distribution network of any independent,” noted Michael Rosenberg, president of Koch Entertainment Distribution.
BitTorrent cuts staff, replaces CEO again
BitTorrent Inc. has had a rough year. The company looking to make revenue from Bram Cohen’s file sharing software is just another company struggling in today’s turbulent economic climate. The company announced on Firday that it cut about half of its staff, and replaced its CEO Doug Walker. The company already experienced a 22% layoff back in August this year.
Eric Klinker, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) has been named as Walker’s replacement. He has “two decades of networking, content delivery, and management experience.” Walker had left Alias Systems just last year to take up the CEO position at BitTorrent.
“Klinker has…been instrumental to the continued development of the BitTorrent client, BitTorrent’s Delivery Network Accelerator (DNA) content delivery service, BitTorrent’s Software Development Kit (SDK) and BitTorrent’s proprietary advanced congestion control technology. The latter has been at the center of BitTorrent’s influential discussions and well-publicized collaboration with Comcast Corporation, as it seeks to deploy a protocol-agnostic network management solution.” A BitTorrent statement read.
According to the Times, the company is planning to shut down its BitTorrent Entertainment Network media store.
iPhone scores well with consumer satisfaction
J.D. Power and Associates has conducted research in customer satisfaction of the most popular Smartphone models. Apple Inc. has ranked highest among the smartphone makers compared to Samsung and Research In Motion Ltd. (RIM). One in four of the smartphone users reported experiencing some kind of software problem. Seemingly, devices akin to small computers are also prone to the same problems as normal computers.
“These are mini-computers, and people do experience computer-like problems on these devices,” said Kirk Parsons, senior director of wireless services at J.D. Power and the author of the survey results. “They have entirely different problems than a traditional cell phone.”
The smartphones tested were rated out of a 1,000-point satisfaction scale. The iPhone scored 778 / 1000 primarily because users rated the smart phone highly in four of the five areas measured. “The iPhone’s claim to fame is in the physical design area,” said Parsons. “The appearance of the phone, the visual aspects, the weight and size of the phone, the size of the display screen. But it got very high scores in others areas, like ease of operation.”
The 5 factors tested of the smartphone models were operation, operating system, physical design, features and battery performance. “They ranked the iPhone pretty low on the battery life,” Parsons said. RIM took second place while Samsung took third with scores of 703 and 701 respectively. HTC, Motorola and Palm followed with scores under the smart phone industry average of 681.
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LCD component makers witness decline in sales
Suppliers of Liquid-crystal Display (LCD) components have witnessed a decline in sales during October. The decrease is what was expected with an industry-wide downturn which has forced panel makers to cut back productions. After consolidated sales of NT$3.38 billion (US$102.9 million) in September this year, backlight unit (BLU) maker Radiant Opto-Electronics reported a 10% drop in October and a 13.66% on year to NT$3.01 billion.
Radiant did report that its LED BLU shipments to the notebook/netbook segment grew sequentially in October, with LED BLU shipments to large-size notebooks reaching 463,000 units last month. The figure is up from 351,000 units in September. Shipments to medium-size netbooks grew slightly from 687,000 in September to 690,000 in October.
Wah Hong Industrial, an Optical film supplier reported an 17.26% rise in consolidated sales to NT$617 million back in September, and then suffered a decline of 15.7% in consolidated revenues to NT$520 million in October. Wellypower Optronics, a cold cathode fluorescent lamp (CCFL) maker announced that its October consolidated revenues fell 16.5% sequentially and 43.1% on year to NT$423 million.
Wellypower said shipments to the LCD TV segment accounted for 29% of total shipments for October.
LCD component makers witness decline in sales
Suppliers of Liquid-crystal Display (LCD) components have witnessed a decline in sales during October. The decrease is what was expected with an industry-wide downturn which has forced panel makers to cut back productions. After consolidated sales of NT$3.38 billion (US$102.9 million) in September this year, backlight unit (BLU) maker Radiant Opto-Electronics reported a 10% drop in October and a 13.66% on year to NT$3.01 billion.
Radiant did report that its LED BLU shipments to the notebook/netbook segment grew sequentially in October, with LED BLU shipments to large-size notebooks reaching 463,000 units last month. The figure is up from 351,000 units in September. Shipments to medium-size netbooks grew slightly from 687,000 in September to 690,000 in October.
Wah Hong Industrial, an Optical film supplier reported an 17.26% rise in consolidated sales to NT$617 million back in September, and then suffered a decline of 15.7% in consolidated revenues to NT$520 million in October. Wellypower Optronics, a cold cathode fluorescent lamp (CCFL) maker announced that its October consolidated revenues fell 16.5% sequentially and 43.1% on year to NT$423 million.
Wellypower said shipments to the LCD TV segment accounted for 29% of total shipments for October.
Gears of War 2 sells 2.1 million units on first day
In yet another example of how successful video games are becoming, the Epic title Gears of War 2 reportedly sold 2.1 million copies in its first day. VG Chartz gained early access to the sales figures of the game, which sold 1.4 million in its first day in the United States alone.
It’s November 7th release puts another blockbuster on the shelves alongside the Xbox 360 console for the holiday season. Later this month Microsoft will push out a system update for the Xbox 360 that will completely change the user-interface of the console.
As impressive as the sales may be so far, last year’s release of Halo 3 generated 3.8 millions sales in its first day. Providing key content at the right times during the year is vital to the success of Microsoft’s console.
This year’s game line-up for all three consoles is sure to generate an interesting battle between them again this year.
Sirius-XM channel merging to begin next week
The combination of Sirius Satellite Radio and XM Satellite Radio, Sirius-XM, will begin merging channels next week. The new company has 19 million paying subscribers currently, and despite an economic downturn, it is expecting growth. A drop off in car sales is somewhat threatening to its future business prospects however. While the company is being quiet about the exact details of programming change, many stations from the previous companies are expected to be merged if they provide similar content.
There will also be new subscription offerings for each system, with XM subscribers getting Sirius content like Howard Stern and the NFL for an extra $4 per month. All existing XM radios will get the Best of Sirius package, whereas only the recently-released Sirius Starmate 5 will be able to get the Best of XM package.
The Starmate 5 will get a la carte options as well, with users able to pick their 50 - 100 favorite stations for a lower monthly fee.
