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Joss Whedon Answers My Prayer!

Mari Silbey — July 14, 2008 — 2 Comments

One year ago I wrote about MGM’s trial release of the movie A Dog’s Breakfast on iTunes and put in a prayer that Joss Whedon would follow the straight-to-download distribution model. Apparently someone heard me over in Whedonverse.

If you’re a fan (Buffy, Angel, Firefly…), you’ve likely already heard about Dr. Horrible‘s Sing-Along Blog, the first installment of which appears tomorrow. It’s not exactly straight-to-download. Instead, Whedon is premiering his new creation in three streaming parts. The three segments will appear in sequence on July 15th, 17th and 19th. And then on July 20th, they will all disappear. Soon after July 20th, Dr. Horrible will be available for download for a “nominal” fee, and eventually the video will come out on DVD. Read all about in Whedon’s master plan.

Now a plug for the video itself. Go watch it! Seriously. Even if you know nothing about Joss Whedon, this show’s got Neil Patrick Harris and Nathan Fillion. Doing comedic villainy things. And it’s a musical! Could you ask for anything more?

In Movies, TV Shows, Video

Library Trumps Swaptree

Mari Silbey — July 5, 2008 — 4 Comments

We’ve been seriously low on good television in my household, so yesterday I thought I’d come up with a brilliant idea when I remembered my Swaptree account. I’ve been holding on to box sets of the first seasons of Lost and The Office, and I figure I’ll be able to do a nice trade on Swaptree for something else worthwhile. I was about to see if the first season of Entourage was available when my better half had a better idea. The library. Sure enough, Entourage is there.

In the library’s favor: It’s free. There’s no shipping. It’s within walking distance.

In Swaptree’s favor: No grumpy librarians. It’s got social networking features. (Yes, I’m being sarcastic.)

Of course there are plenty of other scenarios where Swaptree comes out on top. New DVDs not available in the library yet, books you want to take notes in, games you don’t want to have to return, etc. But in this case, the library wins out. Grumpy librarians and all.

In Home, TV Shows, Video

Screens Everywhere, Ads Too

Mari Silbey — July 2, 2008 — 2 Comments

I’m beginning to think that soon I won’t be able to turn my head without seeing a TV screen. My local Wi-Fi cafe haunt has added a display above the registers with local advertising, and I just heard via Shiny Shiny that London is getting movie trailers piped in on screens at select Underground stops. Add on TV commercials at my local gas pump, and I fear that soon I won’t be able to go anywhere without a video screen in my face.

In Advertising, Industry, Video

Olympics Web Video & The Long Tail

Dave Zatz — July 1, 2008 — 2 Comments

Rafat’s (paidContent) disappointed with the upcoming Olympics web video, labeling NBC “totalitarian” and heavy handed – his major beefs seem to be that televised content will only be available online post TV broadcast and only viewable at NBCOlympics.com. As I commented Sunday, I’m pleased with any/all online viewing options – especially being able to catch the “long tail” sports and qualifying rounds:

Live doesn’t matter to me – I don’t even know what the time difference is and I don’t want to worry about remembering the schedules. However, I’m looking forward to being able to access lower profile sports (that interest me) like judo and freestyle wrestling that get very little or random, hard to find air-time.

In taking the screengrab above, I tried out the (Mac-compatible!) Silverlight player… and had better luck streaming via Safari than with Firefox 3 (which served up blank screens and stuttering video). Yet to be seen is if NBC can handle the traffic and how their site will organize and present video.

Random factoid: One of my first online purchases was an Olympics wrestling t-shirt during the ’96 Atlanta games.

In Media, Video iptv, olympics, streaming

TV for the ADD Generation

Mari Silbey — June 30, 2008 — 4 Comments

Being a glutton for punishment, I recorded a few of the demos and screenshots shown during Paul Kagan’s “Getting Personal” conference last week in conjunction with the SCTE Cable-Tec Expo. (I’ve gotten in trouble for posting “confidential” video demos shown at conferences before.) This one comes from Ensequence, showing off some interactive TV apps used in a trial with DirecTV and Dish during the Video Game Awards. In case watching TV by itself is not enough, Ensequence demonstrates some of the promise (or distraction) of interactive television: immediate access to relevant information, the ability to collect points for rewards from sponsors, and, my favorite, access to old arcade games on a split screen. Check out the 45-second mark in the video above.

A few things have changed since the first scramble for interactive television circa the late 1990s. Cable systems have gone digital, tru2way/OCAP is a reality, and the cable and consumer electronics industries are at least attempting to play nice with each other. iTV may still be a few years out, but the pieces are falling into place.

In Gaming, Industry, Video