YouTube has spent the entirety of its existence relying on user submitted content to catch traffic, but no longer is that the case. The Google purchase is now in talks with some large movie studios in regards to scoring the licenses to host motion pictures. These studios include but aren’t limited to: Sony Pictures, Lions Gate Entertainment Corp., and Warner Bros. Studios.
Does this sound like something you’d be interested in? Not to blatantly quote Entourage, but doesn’t it seem a little to late for this type of service? Apparently YouTube has been spending some time trying to acquire a catalog of premium content. To what avail I say.
Like Hulu, some of the content will be free as long as you watch some ads and there will then be the more premium content which will cost around $4. I have a feeling that this is going to tarnish the slogan “Broadcast Yourself” as users won’t take kindly to the notion of paid content especially when it can be found for free in other places. Thinking positive, if the regular format went unchanged, what would be the harm?
We’ll see.
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Shane Kim, head of Microsoft’s game studio, wants to “open” up the Xbox 360 platform like it did with the Netflix service. Rather than focusing on quantity, their plan is to integrate high quality content such as the Hulu and Youtube streaming services.
I think this is an awesome idea since it’ll open up a host of FREE, high quality online content. Think about it: watch your favorite TV broadcasts via Hulu, peruse the latest and greatest on Youtube, or catch a favorite flick on Netflix. If this becomes a reality my cable service, along with any social life, will go on the chopping block.
[New York Times]
Verismo’s VuNow box just got a launch date of December 15th. I haven’t been following the VuNow box but from what I’m seeing I like. The box supports SD and HD TVs (there are two models to choose from), BitTorrent, Youtube (other popular video sites are supported as well), live TV channels from around the world and access your personal media stored on your home’s computer, USB flash drive, or a network storage drive. You can opt for a 16GB flash drive or 500GB hard drive, but I don’t really see the point. Unfortunately, it won’t grab media from a Mac, but it’s completely Windows compatible, and if you wanna go wireless you’ll have to purchase a compatible WiFi dongle from the company.
Price has yet to be disclosed but you can check out all the specs here
[Ehomeupgrade]
