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IFC Dips Its Cinematic Toe Into Subscription Streaming
While it won’t move the needle much on its content library, IFC Entertainment announced yesterday that it will offer 53 films through Netflix’s Watch Instantly streaming service, reports Variety.
True, that’s not a very large number, but it marks the first time IFC is providing its content to a subscription streaming service. Up until now, the company has placed films from its 300-title library on EST destinations like Amazon, iTunes and Blockbuster.
IFC titles heading to Netflix’s streaming service include Errol Morris’ The Thin Blue Line and John Sayles’ Return of the Secaucus Seven.
As we’ve written before, Netflix’s Achilles’ heel is its streaming content library. Though it has over 17,000 titles, it needs to make sure that service is robust enough so that the number of subscribers using the service keeps growing. Check out Om’s recent talk with Netflix CEO Reed Hastings at our recent NewTeeVee Live Conference for more on his company’s streaming efforts.
Separately, though we didn’t see anything official announced, it looks like Netflix also just got a whole boatload of Saturday Night Live content in this week, including seasons 1 – 5.
To learn more about streaming directly to TVs, check out the report on The Evolution of Over-the-Top Video over at our subscription research service, GigaOM Pro.
PLYmedia to Provide Live Captions to Online Vid Partners
For once, everyone getting on board with an online video trend is a good thing. Following on the heels of Google’s announcement yesterday that it will add automatic captioning to YouTube videos, PLYmedia today said that it will be providing live captioning to video platforms Ooyala, Ustream, Livestream, Brightcove, Kaltura, KIT digital and Kyte.
Unlike Google’s captioning system, which automatically creates captions using speech recognition technology, PLYmedia’s SubPLY offering does live captioning with national court reporter-certified transcribers. Using this human approach, PLYmedia says it can deliver more accurate results (Google even admitted that its system can make mistakes and is rolling the service out slowly.)
PLYmedia’s SubPLY also offers automatic translation into “multiple” languages, transcript generation, real-time keyword tag generation as well as Twitter and Facebook integration. The social media hooks allow Twitter and Facebook users to follow a live event through text updates to their news feeds.
In addition to making live video more accessible to the deaf and hard of hearing, the addition of captions will help make video more searchable.
Microsoft and Nielsen Partner for 1 vs. 100 Measurement
We’re big fans of the way the Microsoft Xbox LIVE game show 1 vs. 100 blurs the lines between TV and gaming. As the second season of 1 vs. 100 starts today (at 5 p.m. PT! Rush home and get in the mob!), it will have an added twist that makes this endeavor even more unique — measurement.
The folks in Redmond are teaming up with Nielsen to track how many people are playing (and checking out the ads). From a post on the Microsoft Advertising Community blog post:
The Xbox LIVE advertising group has teamed up with the Nielsen Company to launch a pilot test, beginning with Season 2 of 1 vs. 100, to obtain content, channel and ad specific metrics and identify who was playing the game and saw a particular advertisement. This is the first time content delivered through a video game console network will be capable of being measured by Nielsen’s television, online and video game metering technologies, such as the Nielsen people meter. Our goal is to ultimately provide advertisers with concrete Gross Rating Points (GRPs) and Targeted Rating Points (TRPs) to maximize their media spend.
Given that Microsoft said that it got up to 200,000 players each of the two nights the show aired per week during season one, it’ll be interesting how that number a.) does in season two and b.) compares with what a third-party research firm like Nielsen says. Of course, if Nielsen reports big numbers, Microsoft can charge more for in-game ads.
For more on why we think 1 vs. 100 is a good indicator of where hybrid media is heading, check out Liz’s Long View article on the topic over at our subscription research service, GigaOM Pro.
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Google Adding Automatic Captions to YouTube Vids
Google is making it easier for deaf, hard-of-hearing and global audiences to enjoy YouTube today, by announcing features that make adding captions to videos much easier.
The first feature uses the same voice-recognition algorithms found in Google Voice along with the YouTube caption system to create auto-captions for videos. A Google blog post announcing the feature warns, “The captions will not always be perfect,” but it’s definitely a good first step.
Additionally, you can automatically translate captions into one of 51 languages, making videos more accessible to a global audience.
The second caption feature is automatic caption timing. This is a slightly more manual process for adding captions to videos, but it’s still very cool. Creators just upload a text file with all the words in a video, and Google figures out when the words are spoken to create the appropriate captions.
An example of both in action is embedded in the video above.
Google says both features will be available in English by the end of this week. Automatic captions will only be visible on select partner channels to start as the company works out the kinks. The auto-timing feature will roll out globally for all English-language vids on YouTube.
Vid-Biz: Satellite, Spot Runner, Vivendi
DirecTV and EchoStar Get New CEOs; Michael Dugan to come out of retirement to run EchoStar, while Michael White is leaving Pepsi to head up DirecTV. (The Hollywood Reporter)
Spot Runner Intros a Web Platform; company says the Malibu Media Platform helps to algorithmically match ad buyers and sellers. (MediaWeek)
Report: Vivendi Wants More Cash from GE; company wants a bigger portion in cash for its 20 percent stake in NBC in regards to the Comcast deal. (Bloomberg)
Lawyers Launch Class-Action Redbox Site; RedboxLateFees.com let’s people figure out if they are eligible to join the lawsuit. (Video Business)
GlideTV Intros On-Screen Keyboard App for Macs; the GlideTV OSK links the living room to popular application and web sites when used with the GlideTV Navigator. (GlideTV)
CoolIris Now on TV.com; TV portal now using the 3-D visual interface in its “Shows” section. (TechCrunch)
Which HD TV is Right for You? HDGuru provides a walk-through when picking a new set. (HDGuru)
UPDATED: Flip Cameras to Get Wi-Fi?
UPDATED: The next iteration of Flip video cameras will reportedly be WiFi-enabled, allowing users to wirelessly upload their videos. Pocket Lint first broke the news, and CrunchGear claims to have confirmed it. This next-gen Flip will also reportedly have a slide-out screen that reveals the record and menu buttons underneath — the screen will not, however, be a touchscreen. Update: We had a chance to speak with a few Cisco/Flip reps this morning who said they had not confirmed this news and would not comment on any upcoming products.
The addition of Wi-Fi will would be a nice touch for the video camera, and an appropriate marriage with parent company Cisco’s networking tech. (Perhaps the Wi-Fi will even tie into the mysterious forthcoming Flip set-top box.) But the bigger question plaguing the entire Flip line is just how much life is left in a standalone product. Decent video-recording capabilities are being embedded in phones like the Droid, iPhone and iPod Nano. As we learned earlier this year, the video quality of the Nano doesn’t quite match up to the Flip cam yet, but that’s a big yet. Will people want to carry around a dedicated video camera when their phone will do just fine for capturing spontaneous moments?
When we’ve spoken with Flip reps in the past they’ve put on a brave face and said that there is enough room for lots of players in the space, but it’s hard to believe that. With multipurpose devices getting better at shooting video and the high-end HD cameras dropping in price, the better-than-good-but-not-great Flips are getting squeezed out.
Vevo Gets a Launch Date
Vevo, the forthcoming music video site from Universal and Sony Music and powered by YouTube, announced via Twitter this afternoon that it is officially launching on Tues. Dec. 8th. Here’s a screen grab of the Tweet:
The only thing missing from Vevo’s Twitter post was a “suck it, Hulu!” (it still would have still been under 140 characters). Last night Hulu announced it was getting into the music video game in a very minimal way with a limited distribution deal with EMI, kicking off with a Norah Jones music video section.
Nielsen: Facebook Now the No. 3 Video Site
Looks like the sleeping online video giant that is Facebook may finally have awoken. According to Nielsen’s latest VideoCensus numbers, Facebook jumped to No. 3 behind established video powerhouses YouTube and Hulu in terms of total streams. That’s up from No. 10 just last month. Facebook generated more than 217 million streams in October to more than 31.5 million unique viewers, up from 110 million streams to 23 million viewers in September.
| Video Brand | Total Streams (000) | Unique Viewers (000) |
|---|---|---|
| YouTube | 6,632,964 | 105,923 |
| Hulu | 632,662 | 13,472 |
| 217,765 | 31,594 | |
| MSN/WindowsLive/Bing | 183,556 | 17,301 |
| Yahoo! | 173,482 | 24,265 |
| Fox Interactive Media | 160,698 | 13,142 |
| ABC Television | 136,348 | 5,642 |
| Turner Sports and Entertainment Digital Network | 119,850 | 5,741 |
| ESPN Digital Network | 109,799 | 8,625 |
| CBS Entertainment Network | 103,741 | 6,973 |
Source: Nielsen VideoCensus
Note: Includes progressive downloads and excludes video advertising
Facebook actually had more than double the number of unique viewers than Hulu had for October, though this isn’t too shocking given the nature of short, personal video sharing that goes on on Facebook versus the longer-form viewing that happens on Hulu. But the social network’s ascendancy should have the Hulu folks on alert. Facebook already got the early premiere of the NBC (and Hulu owner) show Community earlier this year, and Zuckerberg and Co. could flex their newfound video muscles to snatch even more premium content from the Hulu-gurus.
Overall, the number of total U.S. video watchers dipped slightly to 138.6 million unique viewers from 139.3 million in Sept., but the number of total streams was up to 11.2 billion in Oct. vs. 11.02 billion in Sept. The number of streams per person was up to 81 in Oct. vs. 79.1 in Sept., and the time spent per viewer was up to 212.5 minutes vs. 195.2 in Sept.
| Oct.-09 | |
| Unique Viewers (000) | 138,623 |
| Total Streams (000) | 11,226,935 |
| Streams per Viewer | 81.0 |
| Time per Viewer (min) | 212.5 |
Source: Nielsen VideoCensus
Note: Includes progressive downloads and excludes video advertising
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