Amazon, which recently won its first Oscars for “Manchester by the Sea” and “The Salesman,” is taking on pay-TV providers and game developers as it expands beyond e-commerce into various media initiatives. Now, the company suggests it would be open to discussing deals that would enable it to stream content through the set-top boxes of cable operators, similar to Netflix’s approach. “Amazon is definitely open to those partnerships,” explained Amazon Video managing director Alex Green at Cable Congress 2017 in Brussels. Continue reading Amazon Is Open to Streaming Content Through Cable STBs

Online service Plex Cloud, which has been in private beta since September, is now open to all paying Plex users. The new service “eliminates the need for an always-on PC or other network-attached piece of hardware in order to use the Plex media player software for watching your saved TV shows and movies, viewing photos or streaming from your music collection,” explains TechCrunch. Plex Cloud, which initially used Amazon Cloud Drive to host files, experienced a number of technical challenges that Plex says have been resolved. Plex supports Google Drive, OneDrive and Dropbox. Plex Cloud is now “an option for anyone who subscribes to Plex Pass, the company’s $5 per month, subscription-based service offering a variety of premium features.” Continue reading Media Player Software Company Plex Debuts Online Service

Time Warner properties Turner and Warner Bros. are planning the spring launch of a new subscription streaming service. Boomerang, which will run $5 per month or $40 per year, “will offer more than 5,000 animated titles from Hanna-Barbera, Looney Tunes and MGM,” notes The Hollywood Reporter. Franchises will “include Scooby-Doo, Tom & Jerry, The Jetsons and The Flintstones.” The streaming service will also serve as the exclusive outlet for new animated series and new episodes of iconic franchises. Boomerang will be powered by DramaFever tech, and “will be available online and on iOS and Android devices at launch,” explains THR. “It expects to add support for additional platforms, including set-top boxes, after the service starts running.” Continue reading Boomerang: Turner and Warner to Offer Streaming Animation

Sony’s Xperia series smartphones — the flagship XZ Premium, the smaller XZ, and the large XA1 Ultra — now feature impressive imaging capabilities, including an option to shoot video at 960 frames per second to enhance the phones’ slow motion capture feature. The lens improvements adjust the lighting to better illuminate nighttime scenes and all images are displayed in ultra-high definition 4K. Beyond the camera, Sony struck a deal to stream Amazon content on Xperia phones without the need for clunky third-party apps. Continue reading Sony Smartphones Tout Premium Cameras and 4K Displays

According to Leichtman Research Group’s latest on-demand study, more TV households in the U.S. now have Netflix (54 percent) than a digital video recorder (53 percent), marking a first for the streaming service. The study also found that 64 percent of households presently use SVOD services from Netflix, Amazon and/or Hulu. “In 2011, according to the research firm, 44 percent of TV households had a DVR and 28 percent had Netflix,” reports Variety. “About 23 percent of all adults in TV homes stream Netflix daily … compared with 6 percent who did in 2011. LRG president Bruce Leichtman noted that Netflix’s penetration is boosted by password sharing.” Continue reading Milestone: Netflix Service Surpasses DVR in U.S. Households

Amazon’s game-themed streaming site Twitch is launching a Twitter competitor called Pulse — “a place where streamers can post and engage with all of their followers and the greater Twitch community right from the Twitch front page,” according to the platform’s blog. “It’s an always-on way to share clips, stream highlights, schedules, photos, and more so followers are more informed, engaged, and connected.” This will help broadcasters promote news streams and share content with those who missed earlier streams. “If Twitter were ever going to be disrupted,” writes Casey Newton for The Verge, “this is exactly what I’d imagine it would look like at the beginning.” Continue reading Twitch Introduces its Twitter Competitor Designed for Gamers

Consumers interested in recording over-the-air TV shows without the need for a cable or satellite subscription can turn to recorders compatible with HDTV antennas such as TiVo’s Roamio OTA 1TB DVR. The $400 recorder (currently $370 on Amazon for a limited time) receives channels over an antenna rather than using a CableCARD. The device provides “access to streaming services and the TiVo interface,” notes Digital Trends, and “allows you to record four shows at once and up to 150 hours of HD programming.” You can beef up recording capacity with a TiVo-ready Netgear ReadyNAS or external hard drive. SkipMode allows for bypassing commercials, while QuickMode speeds through slow-moving recorded and buffered shows without audio distortion. Continue reading Cord Cutters Have Recording Options with TiVo Roamio OTA

Netflix needed a way to improve video streaming quality for consumers in emerging economies watching movies and TV shows on the go. The company came up with a new method for video encoding called Dynamic Optimizer that reduces the amount of data in the video file without losing image quality. The Netflix team trained an AI to compress the video specifically based on the complexity of a given scene. The Dynamic Optimizer system expected to roll out in the coming months. Continue reading Netflix Develops AI to Help Optimize Video for Mobile Devices

Jeffrey Katzenberg, who left DreamWorks Animation last summer, is launching WndrCo, a new media and tech venture that has already raised nearly $600 million. During a Q&A in New York with Hearst Magazines president David Carey, Katzenberg said he is interested in the next wave of television, which he sees as a mobile experience. He cited the roughly $200,000 per minute that Netflix spends on content and the less than $100 a minute needed to produce most YouTube content, suggesting there’s an opportunity that falls between the two approaches. “He said a few companies have been successful at producing mobile-oriented original video for a few thousand dollars per minute — citing Vice Media, BuzzFeed and AwesomenessTV,” reports Variety. Continue reading Katzenberg Envisions Next Wave of Entertainment for Mobile

Nintendo just released Switch, a new console that combines mobile and home gaming. A tablet with wireless controllers that can be used anywhere, the Switch is aimed at enabling inventive software that will help distinguish it from its rivals. Unlike past platforms, the Switch was created without the direct participation of Super Mario and Wii veterans Shigeru Miyamoto, Genyo Takeda and their team. Shinya Takahashi, who oversaw its development, says the Switch comes loaded with capabilities allowing a variety of content. Continue reading Nintendo Releases Switch, Anticipated Hybrid Game Console

Amazon’s live streaming video platform Twitch plans to begin delivering computer games digitally. Starting this spring, the user will see a “buy” button on website broadcasts of computer games from 20 companies; players can download the game and other goods, such as expansion packs, directly from the site. According to comScore, in the U.S., Twitch is now No. 8 among the top 500 visited websites in terms of average time spent per visitor. Also this spring, Microsoft will debut subscription-based Xbox Game Pass. Continue reading Twitch Moves to Digital Delivery, Microsoft Game Site to Debut

Aiming to improve digital advertising for the OTT market, BrightLine is partnering with Nielsen Marketing Cloud, with its 60,000 audience segments, to enable advertisers to better target their messages on connected TVs and over-the-top streaming devices. Hulu, Discovery Communications and Viacom already use BrightLine technology to add interactivity and personalization to linear ads for ordinary TVs. For example, on OTT devices, a user can click on a car ad to see related video content or access dealer information. Continue reading BrightLine, Nielsen Partnership Aims to Better Target OTT Ads

At the opening of the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona yesterday, Netflix chief executive Reed Hastings gave a keynote address, indicative of the importance of his company’s many international partnerships with cellphone and cable operators. As a result of those relationships, Netflix is able to build out its subscriber base without much advertising and more readily enter new markets. Hastings’ appearance in Barcelona jibes with the company’s stated goal of focusing on subscribers outside the U.S. Continue reading Netflix Foreign Sales Catching Up to North American Revenue

Google-owned YouTube announced on Friday that it plans to phase out its 30-second, unskippable pre-roll ads by 2018. Many users reportedly find the format obtrusive, so YouTube is killing the 30-second ads but keeping 20-second clips that cannot be skipped, and its six-second bumper ad format. YouTube will also continue to offer its TrueView skippable ads, which do not come with time limits and only cost advertisers when the viewer opts not to skip them. The move is in response to the growing popularity of mobile video. “More than 50 percent of YouTube’s video views now come from mobile devices,” reports Variety. Continue reading YouTube to Phase Out its Unskippable 30-Second Ads by 2018

Apple is joining the ranks of Amazon and Netflix in creating original series specifically intended for online platforms. However, unlike its competitors, Apple does not have a devoted video platform, so it plans to create original content for its Apple Music streaming service that can be viewed on Apple TVs, iPads, iPhones and other devices. So far, Apple is developing a reality series called “Planet of the Apps” and a standalone series based on James Corden’s popular “Carpool Karaoke.” Continue reading Apple to Roll Out Original Video Programming via Apple Music