There we were, happily channel surfing at home last night, and suddenly it appeared out of nowhere: the NFL Network. We have the Comcast digital classic plan and have never, ever had access to the NFL Network before. Surely a mistake, right? Not at all. Somehow back in May I missed the earth-shattering news that Comcast and the NFL Network had finally come to a peaceful resolution in a years-long standoff. After much “friendly” haggling, Comcast finally agreed to carry the network by August 1st with no additional fee required from digital subscribers. As with the dispute over the the Big Ten Network, it was all a matter of finding the right price. In the end, the NFL didn’t have to hand over any channel equity, but it did reduce the cost per subscriber from 70 cents to just over 50 cents on average.

In combination with the NFL Network, I also now get ESPN360 as a Comcast broadband subscriber, and I should be getting ESPNU before the start of college football season. Unlike Dave, I’m not much of a college football fan, but the ESPN360 access will certainly come in handy for those out-of-market Redskins games. Yes, I’m a Redskins fan. And I’m ready for some football!

Netflix is on a roll. In addition to the fact that the movie rental service may be launching an iPhone/iPod app in the future, Netflix announced a deal with Disney today to add ABC shows to its list of Watch Now content. As NewTeeVee reports, the first five seasons of Lost, seasons four and five of Desperate Housewives, season five of Grey’s Anatomy, and seasons one and two of The Legend of the Seeker will all be available. That’s on top of TV shows from NBC and CBS.

The concept of “Start Over” for a TV series (minus the commercials) is something Netflix virtually pioneered. Instead of going out and buying or renting a season of a television show you want to try out, Netflix has made it easy for years now to let you sample a series with DVDs that arrive in your mailbox. Not only great for consumers and for Netflix, it’s a move that has been good for major content owners as well. Why not convert new viewers by catching them up on an entire series? The Watch Now feature only makes it easier.

It’s interesting to me that cable and telco operators haven’t followed the Netflix trend more closely with their VOD offerings. There have been occasional exceptions, like offering season one of Mad Men before season two began, but for the most part, the VOD libraries consist of recent TV episodes rather than archived content. I believe this is an issue with licensing agreements more than anything else, but it would be nice to see it rectified.

After all the buzz surrounding Verizon’s launch of FiOS Facebook and Twitter apps last week, I was surprised to see such limited coverage of the video features also released. Luckily, a well-timed trip to my parents’ house gave me the opportunity to test out the new video-sharing functionality that’s now part of Verizon’s Home Media Manager software.

Home Media Manager is only available to subscribers who purchase Verizon’s Home Media DVR service. It allows users to network media from the Internet and the PC to the main FiOS DVR hub. Until now, that’s only included pics and music, but last week Verizon added long-awaited video support. (Dave first saw this demoed almost exactly one year ago.) Over the weekend I installed the necessary FiOS software on my dad’s computer, and then played around with the new TV features.

Video support in Home Media Manager includes the ability to watch both select Internet video clips, and your own home movies. As you can see in the footage above, the  Internet video clips are currently limited to Dailymotion, Veoh, and Blip.tv – no YouTube yet. Entertaining, but since I don’t spend time browsing those sites, not particularly interesting to me. What is interesting is contemplating where Verizon could take this feature in the future. Since we’re talking IP video, there are a lot of opportunities, both in terms of content and advanced features. At the same time, Verizon has to use a different portion of its network bandwidth to deliver video this way (versus its QAM video delivery), and that could ultimately cause network strain. Hmm…

On the home movie front, the FiOS software scans your PC automatically to make compatible videos available to your FiOS set-top. Once that’s done, it’s a simple process to select those videos on the TV menu for playing on the big screen. In my experience, the Home Media Manager software crashed a few times in this process, but once everything ran smoothly, it was a pretty compelling feature. Consumer interest may be mitigated by the fact that more and more camcorders (and PCs) now plug directly into a TV USB port, but the ability to access even old videos with the TV remote control has definite uses, especially because the connection is wireless. You must have your PC running and connected to the Internet, but no wires are required.  I also wonder if Verizon will make it possible in the future to transfer some of your personal video files for storage on the set-top. That would make the process even easier.

If you’re not up for watching the demo video above, I’ve also included some still pics below. The new features are available now across the entire FiOS footprint.

Click to enlarge:

In keeping with the growing trend of publishing archives online, the American Film Institute (AFI) has launched its own video portal with material collected over the last 42 years. The launch takes place just as the Institute is honoring Michael Douglas today with a Life Achievement Award. Tribute coverage of Michael Douglas is featured along with selections from other award tributes, celebrity interviews (James Earl Jones on Darth Vader, Rob Reiner on When Harry Met Sally, etc.), AFI short films, and footage from the AFI Fest red carpet.

Not only has much of the AFI collection never been seen before, but the Institute is allowing online visitors to embed clips in their own sites. This is the kind of free sharing that could make film buffs out of even casual site surfers. Quentin Tarantino, Dustin Hoffman, Warren Beatty, Carrie Fisher, and many, many more show up on the AFI portal. Check it out.

Ryan Lawler over at Contentinople has put two and two together and come to the conclusion that Best Buy is taking aim at the digital media space. The clue trail actually started last fall with Best Buy’s acquisition of Napster for music, but then last week Lawler noted that Best Buy’s partnership with TiVo and Sonic makes it possible for the retailer to sell video titles from CinemaNow directly to consumers on their HDTV screens. And here’s the kicker. Today Lawler reports that both LG and Samsung will be launching HD sets “and other devices” with an embedded Best Buy digital storefront by year’s end. (Note: Samsung also has a deal in place to embed Blockbuster OnDemand)

It’s interesting to watch a retailer trying to expand its business model in the digital world. Beyond that, however, it’s fascinating to see how the digital living room is evolving. Lots of companies are gunning for consumer attention on their TVs. Best Buy is throwing itself into the ring with the likes of Blockbuster, Amazon, and Netflix, but also with cable, telco, and satellite operators. On the side of independent providers, like Best Buy, is the ability (potentially) to bring an innovative and intuitive interface to consumers, and the ability (again, potentially) to negotiate for a broad selection of video titles.  On the side of the operators, however, is the ability to weave premium content in with the rest of the TV experience, and eventually take their offerings across multiple platforms they already own – broadband, TV, and wireless. Both sides have a serious shot at being successful, but of course, it’s all in the execution. If wishes were ponies…

We have a continuing argument in my household about whether the iPod Touch or my Asus Eee netbook is a more useful device. I find the netbook falls right in my sweet spot. I’m happily willing to carry it around everywhere, and in return it gives me all the functionality I need to work, play, or check the Web for info. (Minus the embedded mobile broadband, but that’s another story) The iPod Touch, on the other hand, can literally fit in a pocket, but is much more limited in functionality. Check email? Yes. Write a blog post? No.

While I love my netbook, however, other folks have reasonable complaints. And it appears that several companies are working hard to address them. First comes the price drop. Kevin Tofel reported yesterday that Sprint is now subsidizing the Compaq 1040DX netbook with a two-year contract commitment. Price? 99 cents. If you’re planning on paying for mobile broadband anyway, why not pick up a netbook to go with it? You could fill it with widgets and dedicate it as a media player, hand it over to your kid, or keep it in the car. Who cares if it doesn’t do everything you want it to do? It’s hard to argue with the under-a-buck price tag.

Second comes the feature tweaks. Several outlets have reported the news today that Sony is ready to enter the netbook market with the 10″ Vaio W due out next month. Its big differentiator? A resolution of 1,366-x-768 pixels instead of the more common 1,024-x-600 pixels. Screen real estate on most netbooks can be a serious issue, so the higher resolution is a nice improvement. Unfortunately it also comes with a (slightly) higher price. MSRP for the Vaio W is $499, whereas many netbooks today slide in somewhere between $250 and $400.

Whether a cheaper price or an improved feature set will increase the popularity of netbooks remains to be seen. What’s clear, though, is that we’ll witness a lot more experimentation in the space in the near future.

Ready to plug in that tru2way TV set you’ve got sitting in your living room? Yeah, probably not.

Today is the day that many of the large cable operators agreed to be ready to support tru2way-enabled CE devices. In a memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed last year with major CE companies, the cablecos agreed to support tru2way so that retail devices could be plugged in to a cable network and receive two-way services – not just downstream video delivery, but also upstream services like VOD. Unfortunately, operators haven’t quite met the deadline. Support is improving, but it’s not nearly at 100%.

The fallout from missing the deadline isn’t as bad as you might expect. The consumer electronics industry grudgingly admits that cable has been making a good-faith effort, and everything I hear suggests that cable companies really are making progress. Further network support is delayed, but only by a matter of months in many cases.

There’s also the little fact that there aren’t many tru2way devices available at retail anyway.  In a classic chicken-and-egg dilemma, the CE industry has waited for network readiness to bring new products to market. Meanwhile with few products out, there was little incentive (before the MOU) to prep cable networks to support them.

In short, today’s deadline – missed or not – isn’t a huge deal. But look for a big retail tru2way push at CES 2010.