Web TV Wire
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- EpixHD Ups Content But Hollywood Needs Integrated Online Movie Store To Deter Piracy
- Macally IceCam2 WebCam Review | USB Camera & Microphone for Video Conferencing (Mac or PC)
- DeliTV Personal Video Channel on PC | Create TV RSS Feeds for Boxee Using Delicious & Yahoo Pipes
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Posted: 21 Sep 2009 10:18 PM PDT
EpixWhen Epix was first announced back in June, I described it as a ‘Hulu for movies’ and an indication that Hollywood and the movie industry was finally waking up to the need for free or cheap, easily-accessible Web destinations to consume content legally. After all, the music industry failed to do this for years and it lead to the situation we are in now where despite Apple iTunes and a wealth of other places to stream or buy music (my favorite being Spotify), piracy is still a huge problem. Half-BakedWhile piracy is also obviously also a problem for Hollywood, I don’t feel it’s too late for the movie studios to stop the rot. And ventures like EpixHD are the way to go about this. However, a TechCrunch article by MG Siegler got me thinking. He argues that while EpixHD is looking great, it’s still just another half-baked service offering a small sampling of the thousands of movies available. Integrated Online Movie StoreWhat Hollywood really needs is an integrated online movie store with content from all the major studios and a range of the smaller or independent ones. Even if it cost slightly more to consume the content, a one-stop shop coupled with a user-friendly interface could make it a winning strategy. Options GaloreAs Siegler makes clear, most of us have at least one option for streaming movies already in our houses, be it a computer, a games console, or a set-top box such as Apple TV or Roku. But the problem is they all offer a segmented service, with some studios aligned to some, some aligned to others. For as long as I can remember, we’ve been able to rent a new movie on the day of release from a Blockbuster or other video store. But online it’s a different story, with the movie studios putting restrictions in place to prevent that level of user-friendliness. Promoting PiracyHollywood is scared of piracy and scared of a wholehearted move to the Internet for fear of curtailing its other revenue streams. But taking this path is only going to have one effect – make piracy the big winner. And with piracy, the studios don’t see a cent of revenue. Related Ad Purchase Movies from the iTunes Movie Store |
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Posted: 21 Sep 2009 02:48 PM PDT
The Macally IceCam2 USB 2.0 Video Web Camera with Built-in Microphone offers a convenient and affordable video conferencing option with an easy plug and play option. Webcam Features & OptionsThe Macally IceMan2 offers an affordable option for capturing video and audio for video conferencing. The webcam offers up to 30 frames per second with a VGA 640 x 480 Resolution. What is noteworthy about this particular webcam is that it offers an adjustable and flexible goose-neck for the camera mount, giving the user fully-adjustable pointing angles (360 degrees of horizontal rotation and 135 degree tilt back and forth). The camera can be mounted on top of a LCD screen, a laptop, or just be set on the desktop. Mac & Windows CompatibilityThe Macally IceCam2, being windows compatible, is immediately recognized by your computer and doesn’t require any additional software. The Macally IceCam2 will work with Yahoo! Messenger, aMSN (for the Mac) and Live Messenger (for Windows). Video Review of the Macally IceCam2Opinions From the BlogospherePocket-Lint gave a good review of the video quality, but wasn’t as positive about the sound. MacUser more or less agreed, citing that the video was reasonable while the audio was less than impressive (while also observing that the IceCam 2 bears a slight resemblance Pixar’s “Wall-E” character, a fair comparison). Macally IceCam2 Webcam – Prices, Deals & Discounts:On Amazon: On eBay:
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Posted: 21 Sep 2009 12:36 PM PDT  DeliTV is a Yahoo Pipe created by Tony Hirst, a lecturer at The Open University in the UK. This pipe allows anyone to program their own online TV channel from Boxee by bookmarking pages on Delicious with the tag “delitv”.
DeliTV supports:
Setting UpAfter running the pipe, you can subscribe to the RSS feed that Yahoo Pipes creates in Boxee as a video feed. Using Delicious as a curation tool offers flexibility: users can generate multiple playlists, users can subscribe to other people’s playlists and created nested feeds. To subscribe to other users’ playlists, search for the delitv tag on Delicious to see who has been bookmarking content. You can also subscribe to other users playlists by rewriting a URL: Use the name of the user whose Deli TV channel you want to subscribe to in the following URL:
So for example, Tony Hirst’s feed is at:
You then just copy and paste this RSS URL into Boxee and it will then add new video for you to watch every time you tag a page with deli User ExperienceAccording to the comments on Hirst’s blog, OUseful.info, (where he writes about “things that I think may be useful in an higher education context, one day”) the setup is working well. It does take some time for Delicious to propagate links to its RSS feeds, but that seems to be the only delay. Also, users outside of the UK will not be able to use BBC iPlayer links. Boxee has a few bugs of its own, including occasional hang-ups, but for the most part, my experience has been very good. I’ve been using Boxee to watch TV on my laptop for a few months now, and Deli TV is a great way to add personalized content. I can get all my videos and podcasts in one place, rather than visiting multiple websites each day for updates. It’s sort of like an RSS reader for multimedia. Although popular RSS readers like Google Reader support multimedia, the experience is not as polished. If you don’t already have a Delicious account, this might be a good enough reason to get one. Useful LinksYou may also be interested in:
Books about Yahoo Pipes on eBay
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Epix has upped its commitment to online content by promising 3,000 movies available to subscribers through its Epix Megaplex and EpixHD option. But while this is cause for celebration, is it enough to deter piracy?
