Microsoft and Paramount team up for digital downloads
Microsoft and Paramount have announced a new partnership in which the movie studio will offer films via the Live Video Store beginning on February 19th.
The first Title to hit the service will be the blockbuster “Transformers” and new and existing titles will continue to trickle in. New titles from Warner Bros. will also be hitting the service including Beowulf, and The Assassination of Jesse James.
“We’re very excited to announce this new relationship,” Paramount’s Alex Carlos added. “We have lots of great content that fits this demographic. We’re excited about digital distribution, especially being on a platform as elegant as Xbox 360.”
And Robin Burrowes, Xbox Live UK marketing manager, continued, “This announcement gives our Video Store customers in the UK an even greater choice of entertainment, with a great level of HD movie quality, as always.”
The store launched in the UK in December and allows users to purchase digital downloads of Standard Definition or High Definition movies. You have two weeks to watch the content or 24 hours to finish it after you’ve begun watching.
Each title will cost 250 Microsoft Points for SD and 380 Microsoft Points for HD.
The full list of titles are as follows:
Transformers (SD and HD)
Goodbye Bafana (SD and HD)
Intersection (SD only)
Primal Fear (SD only)
Clear and Present Danger (SD only)
[More]>>
iTunes in UK adds BBC programming
BBC Worldwide has announced it has struck a deal with Apple that will allow users in the UK to download a few top BBC shows from the popular iTunes platform.
Each show will cost 1.89 pounds (about $3.70 USD) and will include such popular shows as “Torchwood,” “Life on Mars” and “Spooks”. Users can then watch the show on their computers, on TV via the Apple TV device or on Apple handhelds.
The new deal follows in the BBC’s strategy to make its shows available for download after they have aired and the deal marks the first for a British broadcaster.
The downloads are available for free on BBC’s own iPlayer for 30 days after they air and then will be available for purchase on iTunes.
“We want to give audiences a wide variety of options on how and where to view their favorite BBC shows,” said Simon Danker, director of digital media at BBC Worldwide.
“With more people now choosing to watch TV shows on their iPods, fans of series such as ‘The Mighty Boosh’ and ‘The Catherine Tate Show’ can now enjoy those shows wherever they are.”
Apple VP Eddy Cue added that he believes the shows will be popular. “Television programming has been incredibly popular with iTunes customers in the U.K.,” said Cue. “We’re thrilled to add hit programming from the BBC with favorites including the latest ratings winner, ‘Ashes to Ashes.’”
Apple drops price on Shuffle and shows off new model
Apple has announced that they have dropped the price of their popular iPod Shuffle model after growth drastically slowed for the last quarter.
The 1GB 2nd Generation Shuffle will now cost a reasonable $49 USD. The company also introduced a 2GB version that will cost $69 USD.
A company statement showed that the player saw slowed growth to 5 percent last quarter, compared to 15 percent for the year and a half preceding it.
“This makes the Shuffle more competitive in terms of a price-capacity ratio,” NPD Group’s Ross Rubin said in an interview from New York. “While Apple had a good holiday season, the market has been slowing down somewhat.”
To date Apple has sold over 140 million iPods, including Shuffles, “classic” iPods, and the new Touch model.
Demonoid tracker is finally back
Three months ago the immensely popular torrent tracker Demonoid was taken offline but it seems that many hopeful have something to cheer about as the tracker is responding for the first time since the take down.
Curiously, the the new tracker is hosted in Malaysia while the actual frontend of Demonoid and its subforums are still hosted in the US.
There has been no official word from the Demonoid admin team so for now this could purely be coincedence, but there is the possibility that the site has found a new Malaysian host and is preparing a comeback.
A few months back, Deimos, the lead admin for the site said there was a possibility for return but hope has been fading as the months past. “Money is an issue, but the real problem at the moment is finding a suitable place to host the website. There has been no luck there. And there’s some personal stuff I need to take care of that takes most of my time at the moment, and that does not help,” Deimos said at the time.
We will keep you updated.
Mininova hits 4 billionth download
Just 4 months after reaching 3 billion downloads the popular torrent site Mininova has announced that they have hit another milestone; 4 billion torrent downloads by its users.
Niek van der Maas, the founder of MiniNova had this to say about the latest milestone. “When we launched back in January 2005, we were the first BitTorrent site to offer a sophisticated search engine, sorting of search results, categorization, etc..We try to keep our lead by innovating and extending our website with new features. Many things changed in the past years, but one thing will always be the same: we try to offer the #1 P2P directory and search engine.”
The milestones just keep racking up for Mininova, and at an exponential rate as well. In May 2006 the site reached 400 million torrent downloads, and only 8 months later they hit the 1 billion plateau. By November of 2007 it was 3 billion.
“This is very good news, it means our site is growing exponential: the amount of total torrent downloads roughly doubles every half year,” Niek added. “And more downloads means more exposure, so more content available on our website.”
Xbox 360 sees price drop in Canada
Microsoft Canada has announced price drops across the line for all of its Xbox 360 models and it seems Canadian buyers will finally see prices more equivalent to their southern neighbors in the US.
The Xbox 360 Pro pack will drop to $349 CAD and the Elite Pack will drop to $449 CAD. The base-level Arcade model will see the smallest cut, from $299 CAD to $279 CAD.
Its US counterparts reached their current pricing model in late August 2007, and so far Canadian gamers have been forced to pay a large premium for the consoles, higher than even the discrepancy in the US and Canadian dollar which is now less than a couple cents per dollar.
Sony BMG inks new mobile media deal
Sony BMG has announced that it had signed a deal with Thumplay that will add another 7000 pieces of content to the growing mobile media service.
Currently the service offers 80000 ringtones, games, music videos, and wallpapers among its other content. The new content will be from artists and will be in many of the before mentioned categories.
“This deal reinforces Thumbplay’s position as the leading U.S. provider of mobile content to consumers who are looking to discover and manage their personalized mobile entertainment experience,” CEOI Are Traasdahl said in a statement.
Thumbplay is distributed through sites such as Qloud, MSN Mobile, and AOL and there are about 2000 different devices compatible with the service.
The service already has deals with EMI, Universal Pictures, Sony Pictures, Walt Disney, and Universal Music Group accounting for most of its 80000 pieces of content.
Sony paid Warner Bros. $400 million USD to go Blu-ray exclusive
A new article by the GlobeandMail is saying that Sony paid Warner Bros. in excess of $400 million USD to drop HD DVD and move exclusively to Blu-ray.
Warner’s decision, a week before this year’s CES started a downhill trend for HD DVD until finally the format died this week, with Toshiba confirming they will be dropping production of HD DVD players.
If the article proves to be true, then Sony may have paid a hefty price to win the format war, but being the proprietor of the format, the company could stand to make billions in the next decade; that is however if Blu-ray and physical media are even the medium of choice in the next few years.
Paramount becomes final studio to move to Blu-ray
Paramount has announced that it has become the final major studio to move to Blu-ray, after it had been HD DVD exclusive since last August.
“We are pleased that the industry is moving to a single high-definition format, as we believe it is in the best interest of the consumer,” the studio said in a statement.
“As we look to (begin) releasing our titles on Blu-ray, we will monitor consumer adoption and determine our release plans accordingly.”
There was no other details issued as to when the transition would begin nor was there word on what titles would be first released on Blu-ray. There was also no word on whether Dreamworks would be moving with its parent company but that announcement is expected soon.
LG staying format neutral for the time being
Contrary to other decisions by major companies, the manufacturer LG has announced it will not be dropping HD DVD and will instead remain format neutral.
“LG believes that at this present moment in time, it is necessary to provide a player which supports both formats and therefore create simplicity and convenience for the existing HD DVD consumer,” read a press statement.
LG is one of only two companies to offer a dual-format player, the somewhat popular LG BH100.
Daniel Aziz, marketing manager for LG Electronics added, “With the recent announcement from Toshiba, Blu-ray will now be the format that will pave the way for High Definition movies, however this does not rule out HD DVD immediately as there are still a number of consumers who have chosen HD DVD and begun to build a HD DVD collection.”
“The previous confusion in the high definition market [HD DVD vs. Blu-ray] is now clearer and LG welcomes this as it will provide confidence for the end user, to the retailers and overall the home entertainment market.”
“Overall LG is still excited about the future of this market, LG has always set out to lead high definition players and will continue to do so with more technology evolutions and hybrids which will launch in due course.”
For those that have HD DVD films but want to move onto Blu-ray, LG is the company for you.
