Starz announced yesterday that it was joining Comcast’s OnDemand Online trial, making content from its pay TV channels available for viewing online — if you’re a Starz subscriber.

Starz joins Time Warner, which announced last month that its TNT and Turner networks would be part of the 5,000-person national trial of the authentication service starting this July. Other networks like Scripps (Food Network), Rainbow Media (AMC) and A&E Television are expected to join as well. As part of the deal, Starz will provide 300 movie and original TV titles including Wall-E, Hancock and Party Down, some of which will be offered in HD, an online first for the network.

Comcast’s OnDemand Online and similar authentication services like Time Warner’s TV Everywhere will put premium content online, but require a cable subscription to access it.

We wonder how the ongoing evolution of online authentication will impact not just the cable operator landscape but also Netflix’s stream dreams.

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Best Buy and TiVo Hook Up; retailer to heavily promote the DVR maker and bring TiVo tech to Best Buy’s Insignia line of devices; TiVo to develop version of its box that lets Best Buy advertise its products directly to the TV. (The New York Times)

Qik Gets $5.5 Million; round led by Quest Venture Partners and Camp Ventures. (VentureBeat)

FCC Steps into Verizon’s Spat with Cablevision; Verizon asks the feds for help since Cablevision won’t sell the Madison Square Garden network in HD to FiOS TV. (The Hollywood Reporter)

GoAnimate Launches Software as a Service Model; will allow any company to deploy GoAnimate’s animation tools, Cartoon Network using the platform for its Toon Creator. (emailed release)

Ad Buyers Flex Their Power Over TV Networks; the upfront negotiations haven’t even started yet as the recession, multi-platform deals and even Jay Leno complicate the ad buying process. (The Wrap)

ESPN Rolls Out Fancy New Home Run Tracking TV Technology; “Ball Track” uses Doppler radar to create a graphic that shows real-time distance the ball travels from the crack of the bat to where it stops. (Broadcasting & Cable)

Study: DTV Switch to Boost Pay TV Subscriptions; analysis from Wells Fargo Securities says cable will get 475,000 new subs, satellite will get 137,000 and telcos will get 41,000. (MediaWeek)

Thomson Reuters Acquires Streamlogics; terms of the deal not disclosed; Streamlogics provides webcasting-based services to enterprise, government and pharmaceutical organizations. (The Business of Online Video)

OWLE Mount Augments iPhone Video; snap-on device provides better grip to reduce camera shake, a bigger lens and an outward-facing microphone. (CrunchGear)

“mememolly” Takes Over Rocketboom News Desk; the “right-handed vegetarian Scorpio” has the tenth most-subscribed YouTube channel in the UK. (Tubefilter)

VH-1 Takes Great Debate to the Masses; show that pits pop culture icons against each other will use out-of-home screens and social media sites to let viewers join in. (MediaWeek)

Roughly 10% of HD TV Owners Don’t Have HD Service; 46.3 percent of homes have HD sets, and 35.9 percent get HD programming. (TV by the Numbers)

If I was the Count from Sesame Street I would say something like, “Three! Three of the four major broadcast networks now have their content on Hulu!” (with accent, of course). ABC, which had long been a Hulu holdout, refusing to run its full-length content anywhere but on its own web site, kicked off its Hulu presence today with episodes of Grey’s Anatomy.

Grey’s is the only ABC content currently up on Hulu, and there isn’t even a whole lot of it up right now. There are just five episodes from the last season, and no clips (the show doesn’t even have clips up at YouTube, where ABC/Disney has a short-form content deal). According to a Hulu press release, over the next two weeks, more ABC shows will appear on the site including: I Survived a Japanese Game Show, The Superstars, Desperate Housewives, Ugly Betty and Scrubs.

In April, Disney became an equal partner in Hulu, joining fellow broadcasters FOX and NBC in the endeavor. As part of that deal, Hulu will get exclusive access to full-length programming from ABC, ABC Family and the Disney Channel, as well as popular library TV shows and films.

With ABC now up and running on Hulu, only CBS remains as the lone broadcaster not playing along. That’s one! One major broadcaster left!

You’d think before you announce a sale that alienates many of your most passionate users you’d figure out what your next steps were first. But no, that wouldn’t be The Pirate Bay way. Swedish software company Global Gaming Factory X (GGF) said yesterday it’s in the process of acquiring The Pirate Bay, the world’s largest BitTorrent tracker, for 60 million Swedish kronor ($7.8 million).

We parsed through the salient points, but were still left quite confused about what exactly GGF would do with The Pirate Bay. What’s become obvious is that the folks behind TPB are selling its main asset — its user base — so they can stop being a legal target and abdicate responsibility for the site’s upkeep and liabilities. That 25 million-strong user base, however, which expects to use The Pirate Bay to freely track any and every sort of file on BitTorrent, is far from pleased. So what exactly is next for TPB? Here are some further (if contradictory) clues:

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As we previously reported, Yahoo is discontinuing its Maven Networks white-label video service, which powered video for sites like Fox News, the company confirmed this morning. The service will be unavailable after the end of this year, according to a TechCrunch report, though Yahoo has not given us an end date. (Update: Official Yahoo response “each client has a different timeline.”)

Yahoo had only just bought Maven — for a whopping $160 million — in February 2008.

Yahoo has laid off much of its video staff, seen many video executives leave, and shut video properties such as Yahoo Live and Jumpcut. While its actions might indicate otherwise, spokeswoman Terrell Karlsten said via email “[V]ideo initiatives remain a priority for Yahoo!, both for its consumer and advertising experiences.”

Karlsten also maintained, “Many Maven employees have leadership positions across Yahoo!’s video initiatives,” though we know that CEO Hilmi Ozguc is long gone. She said Yahoo continues to leverage Maven technology in its video player and for video advertising both on and off its network. However, the company is “focusing our resources on the improvement of our core video offerings, such as enhancing the consumer video experience.”

Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz indicated interest in buying new video startups at a recent conference. If you’re looking for a get-rich-quick scheme with no obligation to see your product through, she might be your gal. Of course, Yahoo could change its ways…but that’s its current track record.

Joost announced today that it is shifting business strategies and it “will focus on providing white label online video platforms for media companies, including cable and satellite providers, broadcasters and video aggregators.” As part of this transition, Mike Volpi will step down as CEO and Matt Zelesko, who is currently the senior VP of engineering, will take over while still leading the engineering team. Volpi will remain chairman of the board.

What makes this move seem all the more doomed is that Joost is already enlisting another white-label video provider, Ooyala, to manage its ingesting, transcoding and metadata management. How exactly will Joost pitch itself as a competitor to Ooyala (where Volpi is also on the board) when it uses Ooyala itself?

Joost said it will maintain a core team in New York and London to work on the new white-label biz, as well as operating Joost.com. The company will “wind down” operations in its Leiden development center. According to a statement attributed to Volpi, Joost “will say goodbye to many of our colleagues and friends,” which seems like it could not mean anything other than layoffs, but Joost wouldn’t elaborate further or provide specific numbers.

In April, it was rumored that Joost was looking to sell itself and had even talked with Time Warner Cable.

We used to joke here at NTV that becoming a white-label video provider was what a business did when all other strategies failed. And it looks like Joost is no exception. After starting off as a P2P-based app, the company found that requiring a download hampered its ability to gain traction. It then moved to a plug-in and eventually moved completely to a Flash based method for watching web TV.

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Cablevision can do a victory lap today as the Supreme Court decided to not hear the appeal over the cableco’s remote storage (or “network”) DVR. The decision paves the way for DVR functionality and storage to move from a set-top box in a user’s home to Cablevision’s facilities, where users would access and control recorded content remotely through their TV sets.

The case against Cablevision was brought on by a group of Hollywood studios and networks who claimed that the technology violated their copyrights. After years of working its way through the legal system, the Supreme Court asked the Justice Department to weigh in on the topic in January. In May, the Solicitor General recommended the Supremes not take up the case, and it looks like that advice was heeded.

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Hulu No Longer Accessible on PS3 Browsers; trying to reach the site via the game platform results in the message, “Unfortunately, this video is not available on your platform. We apologize for any inconvenience.” (Engadget)

Google Invites News Sources to Become YouTube Partners; company says the 25,000+ sources already found in Google News are invited to share (and monetize) news video as official YouTube Partners. (Google News Blog)

YooStar Wants to Be the “Guitar Hero” of Movies; game lets users digitally insert a performance into a scene and upload it to the web. (Variety)

Dish to Launch Addressable Ad Service; satellite TV service partners with GroupM, will use Invidi to store targeted ads on set-top boxes, similar to the set up DirecTV announced recently. (MediaWeek)

Advertisers Experiment with Video Approaches; among them, TV.com testing a method where viewers earn credits to earn a commercial-free experience. (Ad Age)

Akamai and KIT Digital Enter into Strategic Alliance; marketing and sales agreement will have the two companies packaging and selling each others services. (release)