YouTube Working with Major Hollywood Studios
September 2009
YouTube is reportedly working with major Hollywood studios to allow visitors to pay and watch full-length movies. This would be a big change for YouTube since it mostly hosts user-generated video clips. This move to a professional, pay market also is a new business model for YouTube, which previously only had video advertising, and no videos available for pay. This new service would also compete directly with Blockbuster, Amazon, iTunes, and Netflix’s online movie services. YouTube already offers some free, full-length movies from Hollywood studios. Among the issues still to be resolved were pricing and the timing of movie releases through YouTube. Note: MRG speculates that Google’s purchase of On2 will (eventually) enable YouTube to deliver the necessary video quality for premium content like recent movies.
Source: MRG, Inc., September 2009 IPTV Bulletin
ARRIS Acquired Digeo, Inc.
September 2009
ARRIS acquired the assets and intellectual property portfolio of Digeo, Inc. for about US$20 million. Digeo manufactures a line of set-tops and stand-alone DVRs. Apparently, ARRIS is looking to get more involved in DVRs, and other on-demand solutions. ARRIS recently acquired EG Technology as well. ARRIS will continue to develop and market Digeo’s line of DVR products, including Digeo’s “Moxi Cable DVR” and its consumer HD DVR. Through the acquisition, about 75 employees located in Digeo’s Kirkland, Washington offices will join ARRIS.
Source: MRG, Inc., September 2009 IPTV Bulletin
Whole-Home DVR Taking Hold in North America
September 2009
While DVRs are gaining in popularity in IPTV deployments around the world, offering customers Whole-Home DVRs (WHDVR) is not as popular. Whole-Home DVR means allowing customers to watch their DVRs from TV sets all around the house, not just the living room. So viewers can pause a show from the TV in the living room, and then unpause the program in the bedroom and continue watching the show. Features vary by Operator, but generally speaking they allow subscribers to record from any room, and watch it from any networked STB in other room.
WHDVR is ideal for families that fight over the remote control or have lots of TV sets in the home. Rather than huddling around one DVR in the living room, every TV now can access DVR programs. Overall, the largest market for Whole-Home DVR is in the U.S., perhaps because of customer demand. Consumers in the U.S. have more TV sets than other countries, so they have a greater need for managing their home DVRs and expanding them around the home.
Both AT&T and Verizon have WHDVR although they work a little differently. AT&T U-verse TV customers have had WHDVR since September 2008 at no extra charge. Users can record up to 4 programs from any STB in the home, although simultaneous playback is limited to 4 recorded shows, and 3 in Hi-Def. AT&T rolled out WHDVR to its customers in stages, and first was delivered to those using Motorola’s STBs first, then Cisco users. For networking, AT&T is using HomePNA 3.0 (and testing Ruckus Wireless’ Wi-Fi solution).
Source: MRG, Inc., September 2009 IPTV Bulletin
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