Milan-based e.Biscom is already funneling feature films and television shows — in addition to conventional Web and phone services to PCs and TVs in Milan, Rome, Florence, Naples, Bologna and Turin.

Babelgum, the latest attempt to profit from the boom in online video, promises to combine “the lean-back experience of traditional TV with the interactive and social power of the internet”.

The advertising-supported service will offer a free, personalised, full-screen video service to PC users.

The test launch, expected in March, will see Mr Scaglia in direct competition against the founders of Skype, who are developing an internet protocol television service which recently launched as “Joost” after being codenamed the “Venice Project”.

“When I started work on this a year and a half ago I was afraid we’d end up with five [competing IPTV services],” Mr Scaglia says. “The fact it’s still two probably gives us a good lead.”

NewTeeVee argues in its preliminary review of the service that while the Babelgum feels a lot like watching TV, and has a slick and straightfoward interface:

“What Babelgum lacks right now is a compelling differentiator — it needs to offer better content, better features or better technology than Joost and any other upstarts if it wants to win.”

The winners in this space may be those services best able to sign a significant amount of content partners, perhaps by affording them some sort of copyright protection, in order to offer a compelling service to a captive community.

In Babelgum’s case, content protection is accomplished through unspecified DRM and due to the fact that the content is free. Babelgum makes its pitch to content providers based upon security, distribution, and the ability to monetize content on behalf of the producer.

Babelgum seeks to provide a new venue for producers of high-quality professional content to reach the truly global audience of potential viewers.

With more than 300 million broadband users worldwide, even niche content – especially if it’s good – can find an audience that rivals or exceeds the mainstream TV audience in any local market.

“Babelgum’s breakthrough technology means the content is easy for users to see in high-quality video streaming and there is usually no distribution cost to the content owner. So it is really an ideal platform for content owners to serve directly the Long Tail of viewers’ interests not addressed by today’s broadcasting television networks.”

Source: FT

Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis have been talking about the idea behind Joost™ for a long time – even before their last venture, Skype, was born. But to make it work, they needed the right combination of factors – widespread broadband and powerful computers in particular. In early 2006, the time was right. Gathering the world’s best engineers, web gurus and media visionaries, they started work under the code name of The Venice Project™ – and now, after much fretting and polishing, that work is ready for public viewing.

Source: Joost

Co-founded by Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis, Joost fills a critical gap in the online video entertainment arena. Joost is powered by a secure, efficient, piracy-proof Internet platform that enables premium interactive video experiences while guaranteeing copyright protection for content owners and creators.

“People are looking for increased choice and flexibility in their TV experience, while the entertainment industry needs to retain control over their content,” said Fredrik de Wahl, chief executive officer of Joost. “With Joost, we’ve married that consumer desire with theindustry’s interests.”

Joost is the first global TV distribution platform, bringing together advertisers, content owners and viewers in an interactive, community-driven environment. Joost can be accessed with a broadband Internet connection and offers broadcast-quality content to viewers for free.

“We’ve received positive and constructive feedback from our early beta-testers and are now at a stage where we’re ready to reveal our true brand,” said de Wahl. “The Joost name has global appeal, embodies fun and energy, and will come to define the ‘best of TV and the best of the Internet’”.

Joost™ provides a new way of watching TV that combines the best of full-screen television entertainment with online interactive and community benefits to bring an unprecedented selection of video content to viewers anytime, anywhere. Joost is based on a state-of-the-art, secure, peer-to-peer streaming technology.

Source: Joost Press Release

Amid iPhone madness, many may have missed the invention that could kill cable. Last week, Apple released AppleTV, a tiny white box that connects the shows and movies you’ve downloaded from the computer, and wirelessly transmits them to your TV screen.

No longer will you have to pay a monthly fee to your cable company to watch your favourite show. Apple’s iTunes has made it possible to download an episode of a TV show for about $2, keep it stored on your computer and watch it whenever you want. It’s a blow to the cable networks, which offer services that are often expensive and bloated – hundreds of channels, thousands of shows and nothing to watch.

Source:  TheStar.com

BitTorrent considers itself to be a major player in the emerging video download market, right alongside Apple. Though its software is known more for Napster-style illegal-file swapping, the company has scored major deals with movie studios like Paramount and Warner Bros. and plans to launch a legal movie download store on its Web site in February.

The new Netgear product, developed with BitTorrent, will find any media that is sitting on your PC (high-def movies, music, photos, etc) and send it over to your TV, over a speedy wireless standard that the techies call 802.11G.

Debuting this week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the Digital Entertainer HD is a sleek set-top media receiver that connects to a home-theater system to stream digital media from computers, network storage and USB media players. The receiver automatically discovers, organizes and plays high-definition movies, TV shows, music files and personal photos — as well as Internet-based video, news feeds, weather reports and radio programs. The receiver’s high-definition multimedia interface (HDMI) port displays video resolution up to 1080p on big-screen TVs and optical digital audio output (TOSLINK) transmits full digital surround sound to a digital audio receiver.

Source: New York Times