NAB: Adobe has announced Adobe Media Player, a desktop application that delivers more engaging video experiences to viewers while offering content publishers new abilities to distribute, track and build businesses around their media assets.

Delivered as a lightweight download, Adobe Media Player delivers innovation for both viewers and content owners. For viewers, Adobe Media Player enables higher quality Flash format playback, the ability to download and view videos offline, ways to discover interesting new shows, full screen playback, one-click viewer ratings, and a powerful Favorites feature that automatically downloads new episodes of favorite TV shows or video podcasts. The player is cross-platform, based on open standards – including RSS and SMIL – and brings viewers the highly desired ability to play the Web’s most popular video format outside of their browser.

For content publishers, Adobe Media Player enables better ways to deliver, monetize, brand, track and protect video content. It provides an array of video delivery options for high-quality online and offline playback, including on-demand streaming, live streaming, progressive download, and protected download-and-play. The Adobe Media Player enables a wider selection of monetization and branding options including viewer-centric dynamic advertising and the ability to customize the look and feel of the player on the fly to match the brand or theme of the currently playing content. (more…)

Sony has introduced seven high-definition televisions that will be compatible with the company’s recently announced BRAVIA Internet Video Link module.

The Internet Video Link module allows for direct television access to Internet video content, including high-definition programming, from providers like AOL, Yahoo! and Grouper, as well as Sony Pictures Entertainment and Sony BMG Music.

The module mounts on the back of the compatible Sony televisions announced today, and connects to the Internet via an existing broadband Ethernet connection without the use of a computer. It provides access to such content as Internet video programs, music videos, movie trailers, user generated videos and RSS feeds – all without any additional charges.

“The new BRAVIA models will soon expand the world of home entertainment with the touch of a button,” said Randy Waynick, senior vice president of the Home Products Division at Sony Electronics. “We are going to be opening a whole new avenue of programming to American consumers, which has been by and large constrained to the PC.”

The HD 1080p (progressive) V-series models include 46- and 40-inch screen sizes, while 720p models include the S-series 26-, 40-, 46-inch models (all measured diagonally) and 32-inch class (31.5 inches measured diagonally). Also new is the 32-inch class (31.5 inches measured diagonally) KDL-32XBR4 set.

According to the New York Times live Internet sex videos could soon be coming to hotel rooms. And tawdry blog-style headlines could soon be coming to mainstream news sites.

At Internext, an annual trade show for sex entertainment industry producers, Gregory Clayman, the owner of the live-action company Video Secrets, predicted that the industry would soon be selling not just videos on demand in mainstream hotels, but images of people having sex live over the hotels’ entertainment systems.

“We feel that live, right now, is coming of age,” Mr. Clayman said. “We are planning to make the jump to hotel rooms.”

(more…)

Failed Internet video site Intertainer has filed a lawsuit asserting that Apple, Google and Napster are infringing on a 2005 patent that covers the commercial distribution of audio and video over the Internet.

Founded by Jonathan T. Taplin and two other Hollywood entertainment executives in 1996, Intertainer developed technology to distribute movies on demand through cable and phone lines for viewing on televisions and personal computers. It gained investors including Intel, Microsoft, Sony, NBC and Comcast.

“Intertainer was the leader of the idea of entertainment on demand over Internet platforms before Google was even thought up,” said Mr. Taplin, now an adjunct professor at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California. He and a secretary constitute the entire remaining staff of Intertainer.

According to Theodore Stevenson, Intertainer’s lawyer, the company filed suit against Apple, Google and Napster because they were perceived as leaders in the market for digital downloads. He declined to specify the damages that Intertainer was seeking.

Apple, Google and Napster have declined to comment on the lawsuit.

via New York Times

The Netherlands ended transmission of “free to air” analog television Monday, becoming the first nation to switch completely to digital signals.

Few Dutch consumers noticed, because the overwhelming majority get TV via cable. Only around 74,000 households relied primarily on the old-fashioned TV antennas in this country of 16 million, although 220,000 people had an “occasional use” set somewhere such as in a vacation house, camper or boat, according to government figures.

The bandwidth formerly used by analog has been licensed through 2017 by Dutch former telecommunications monopoly Royal KPN NV, which will use it to broadcast digital television.

via ABC News