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.

UPDATED: Babelgum is closing down its Dublin headquarters and an office in Nice, according to a report in paidContent, moves that could signal the end is near for the online video site.

Babelgum says the cuts will allow it to streamline its business to “ensure continued growth.” The company told paidContent that it will continue to develop applications from other locations, spreading the operations from its shuttered offices across those in London, Milan and New York. But there are questions as to whether Babelgum will continue to develop technology or keep focusing on content investment.

Babelgum is backed by deep-pocketed billionaire investor Silvio Scaglia; he invested €50 million ($73 milllion) in the company in 2008, and has said he plans to spend €40- €60 million annually on the company over the next 2-3 years. But the recent cuts could mean he’s losing patience while waiting for a return on that initial investment.

Read more of this story

BBC Gives Technical Details of Its New iPlayer On the Wii; the U.K. broadcaster has encoded streams using H.264 at a 700 kbps bit rate, compared to 1.5 Mbps for regular TV or even 3.2 Mbps for HD. (BBC) Speaking of British TV, the U.K. version of YouTube debuted its new site section that hosts roughly 4,000 full-length programs. (Variety)

Silverlight 4 Beta Launches for Developers; new features include out-of-browser capabilities, advanced business application development, and native multicast and offline DRM support for video. (Ars Technica)

Sony Announces Plans for Digital Media Store; new Sony Online Service will sell music, movies, books, and other downloadable applications for mobile devices. (BusinessWeek)

Disney Launches Its First Branded Entertainment Channel; “The Possibility Shop” will be exclusively sponsored by Clorox and promote Clorox products. (Ad Age)

Blu-ray, DVD Sales Expected to Stabilize in 2010; high-definition Blu-ray DVD sales have yet to make up for the decline in standard def DVD sales in 2009. (Video Business)

Digiboo Does Partnership with Movie Gallery; deal will put 100 Digiboo movie kiosks (see previous coverage) in retail locations. (Video Business)

Grey’s Anatomy Gets a Web Spin-Off; Seattle Grace: On Call will be a six episode run that’s on immediately after Grey’s is aired. (The Hollywood Reporter)

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)

Online video platform providers, CDNs and other media infrastructure companies have gathered in San Jose., Calif., this week for the Streaming Media West conference. Here are some highlights from vendors releasing news on Day One of the show:

Internap Updates Its CDN Offering

After a lengthy silence, Internap is announcing new features to its content delivery network that it believes will help make it competitive again. The features are primarily focused around improved ease of use for its enterprise customers, including new “set and forget” capabilities such as single-upload transcoding and continuous bitrate adjustment. The CDN has also been tweaked to leverage Internap’s Managed Internet Route Optimizer technology, which it claims delivers better performance by making sure that content is delivered from the right point of presence. Finally, the company updated its reporting features to provide more granular analytics.

While Internap has struggled to compete in the CDN market ever since it acquired the assets of Vitalstream two years ago, the company’s VP of marketing, Peter Evans, says the latest update may finally make the company competitive in CDN. “Now we have a product that we’re comfortable standing behind,” Evans said. “Do I think we’re going to go head to head with Akamai or Limelight? No. But I do think we can compete with them in an RFP, and I think we can go up against Nos. 3 through 50 in the CDN market.” Read more of this story

NBC Launches Social ‘Communicator’ Tool; new ad-supported application allows users to watch full-length episodes of NBC programming, with built-in texting and unlimited VOIP calls. (paidContent)

CBS High School Sports Site Inks Deal With Comcast; MaxPreps.com will produce hundreds of short-form video features on local high school sports teams for Comcast’s Houston affiliate. (MediaPost)

Fliqz Launches Video SEO Product; new SearchSuccess tools will be sold as an add-on to the company’s Gold Edition hosting solution. (FierceOnlineVideo)

ABC News Partners With Ustream for Nightline Twittercast; anchors and correspondents from the show will participate in a half-hour web program once a week streamed by Ustream. (emailed release)

Cox Tests Dynamic VOD Ads With NBCU; the companies will dynamically insert ads against episodes of The Office and Monk that are viewed on Cox’s MyPrimetime video-on-demand service. (Multichannel News)

Tinychat Launches Ustream Competitor; the new Tinychat.tv service will allow users to share their live video conversations with anyone on the web. (TechCrunch)

Pirate Bay Tracker Really Shutting Down Now; founders want to encourage other BitTorrent sites to move away from torrents. (TorrentFreak)

As we’ve written before, a big problem facing the newteevee world is finding what you want to watch. As millions of video choices become available, the up-down-left-right grid view on-screen guide just won’t cut it. Search will be key to navigating viewing option, and today Cablevision rolled out a new enhancement for its subscribers to do just that.

The cable company’s new iO Search lets its TV viewers type in search terms based on a show’s title, genre, performers, network or other attributes using an on-screen virtual keyboard. iO Search then brings back results from both the linear and VOD options. From there a user can either launch the program if its available on demand, or set the DVR to record it.

Read more of this story

In a non-exclusive content deal YouTube is heralding as one of its most comprehensive, Univision will provide both short-form and long-form content to the video site starting early next year. The most popular U.S. Spanish-language network is to offer both new and catalog programs including Nuestra Belleza Latina, Cristina and Don Francisco Presenta; will participate in YouTube’s Content ID program for user uploads; and will make use of the site’s pre-roll and overlay advertising.

YouTube has seen 80 percent growth in Spanish language visitors in the past year, up now to 6.5 million per month, said Chris Maxcy, YouTube’s new head of content partnerships, on a conference call announcing the deal. Kevin Conroy, president of Univision Interactive Media described the U.S. Hispanic online community as fast growing but under-served audience in terms of web video. In part due to a recent court decision regarding streaming rights, the deal does not include Televisa content, Conroy noted.

Color us surprised. Not only is would-be cable killer Sezmi not dead, the company announced today that it has received $25 million in new funding from existing investors and it has launched a pilot program in Los Angeles.

Sezmi’s two-part set-top box solution consists of a receiver that receives over-the-air transmissions (Sezmi leases spectrum to broadcast content) and a 1TB DVR that stores shows and aggregates broadband content.

To get Sezmi, customers will either rent the equipment for an undisclosed amount, or purchase the equipment outright for $299. Ongoing service fees are $5 a month for broadcast-only channels or $25 a month for a broadcast/cable combo. As the service expands, it is supposed to be available through retail channels and through small and medium telcos and ISPs.

Read more of this story

Shortly after we learned some more details about Comcast’s TV Everywhere trial yesterday at NewTeeVee Live, Disney CEO Bob Iger said on his company’s earnings call that he believes TV Everywhere solutions should not be offered to consumers for free. Broadcasting & Cable reported on the call yesterday, and here’s a transcript of what Iger said (emphasis ours):

Look, TV Everywhere is maybe an example of what we have talked about often, and that is digital technology providing us with more opportunities to reach consumers and consumers more opportunities to consume our product. And to the extent that TV Everywhere serves consumers better, we are in favor of it. However, when you serve consumers better, when you provide more convenience or more utility, you should be able to charge for that and charge an appropriate amount. And some of what we have heard about TV Everywhere suggests that interest in charging the consumer for greater access is not necessarily a priority and we believe it should be.

We also believe that we should still have the ability if we go to a world where there is authentication and TV everywhere for the multi-channel subscriber, we should not be precluded from offering our product directly to consumers who may not be subscribers to multi-channel services, because we believe that would — and even though there aren’t many of them, that wouldn’t necessarily be good for consumers and while we realize we are trying to serve many masters, the master that is most important to serve for us is the consumer.

We’ve been skeptical that MSOs would offer TV Everywhere for free for very long — operators never pass up the opportunity to add a charge. In this case, we wonder if Iger should be so quick to want people to pay. Yes, there are monetization issues surrounding TV Everywhere plans, but as Comcast Interactive president Amy Banse told us yesterday, we’re in the first inning of this new online video world, there’s a lot about how the service will work and how consumers will use it that’s left to be determined. Prioritizing a fee out of the gate would most likely dissuade people from giving the service a fair shot. Besides, every good pusher knows the first hit’s always free.