Two percent of US households (1.2 million) with Internet access paid for a video download from an online download store in Q3 2006, according to NPD VideoWatch Digital. Of those, Apple’s iTunes led the market, with nine in 10 downloads occurring on that site, followed by Vongo (5 percent), Movielink (3 percent) and less than one percent for CinemaNow.

Sixty-two percent was TV program content, 24 percent was music video content and 6 percent was mainstream movie content.

Four times as many households, though, download from P2P services. 8 percent (six million households) downloaded at least one digital video file (10MB or larger) from a P2P service for free in the third quarter of 2006. Nearly 60 percent of video files downloaded from P2P sites were adult-film content, while 20 percent was TV show content and 5 percent was mainstream movie content.

(more…)

Wal-Mart is selling an option for a digital video download when you purchase the DVD of Superman Returns. The move appears to be an experiment to test the interest in digital downloads among Wal-Mart’s customers.
40 percent of all DVDs sold in the U.S. are sold at Wal-Mart, but the company is facing future competition from digital moview services.
There are still many questions to be worked out with digital movie downloads. Wal-Mart’s pricing is confusing. Customers can pay $1.97 beyond the DVD price to play it on portable devices, $2.97 more to play it on PCs or laptops, or $3.97 more to play it on either portable devices or PCs/laptops.

There’s also the issue of digital media formats. Wal-Mart’s service doesn’t support the most popular portable media player, Apple’s iPod. According to the company’s Web site, “The Portable format is optimized for on-the-go viewing using ‘PlayForSure’ portable video players. If played on a PC, the image quality will not be as good as the higher resolution Standard format. These videos are not compatible with Apple iPods. Portable format videos are encoded at a 320 x 240 resolution with an average bit rate of 500 kbps.”

via Techcrunch

Apple’s recent addition of Dr. Eric Schmidt, chief executive officer of Google, to their board of directors has led to speculation about whether this will lead to closer collaboration between Apple and Google.

According to Newsweek’s Steven Levy, it will. He suggests that Apple is likely to deliver Google video as an option within its upcoming iTV wireless video peripheral.

“Is it possible that when iTV ships next year, you may also be able to choose a menu item called Google Video, and then zip through the best of the thousands of user-submitted videos on the search giant’s service?” asks Levy. “Google’s consumer product chief, Marissa Mayer, tells me that indeed, the two companies are engaged in talks.”

The idea of the two companies together to deliver Google content via iTV makes sense. Earlier in the year, Google demonstrated technology that allowed AdSense-like dynamic video ad insertion into television content.

Since most people would prefer to watch Internet video on their television, a Google-Apple mashup could give Apple content to move its iTV box, and could put Google in the position of competing with local broadcasters and cable companies.

Think Secret is reporting that Apple plans to introduce iTunes movie rentals at the upcoming Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference. While this news is being widely distributed, Think Secret has had a spotty record of predicting Apple announcements.
According to Think Secret:

Apple is said to have ironed out agreements with Walt Disney, Universal Studios, Paramount Pictures, and Warner Bros., and is currently in talks with other major movie studios as well. It’s unknown to what extent content will be available come the August 7 announcement, or whether Apple will announce all of its studio deals at that time.

Because the movies will be rented to consumers and not sold, people familiar with the situation report downloads will be coded with a date stamp that will restrict playback. It is not known exactly how the coding system will work, but industry experts tell Think Secret that the software would likely either limit the number of playbacks or provide unlimited viewing for a period of time, after which the movie will be “turned off” and no longer available.

MTV Networks and Apple today announced that they are renewing their vows, adding new television programming from Spike TV, Nick at Nite, TV Land, Logo, MTV and The N to the iTunes Music Store.

The new round of programming available for purchase and download includes Spike TV’s action series ”Blade: The Series,” MTV’s prank-comedy show “Viva La Bam” and TV Land’s “Sit Down Comedy with David Steinberg.”

(more…)