This is going to be very cool. For those who get Netflix today, you may not know that you can stream movies to your home PC already, this is going to make that awesome. It will allow you to hook up a setup top box, made my LG, to your TV and stream movies from Netflix using the Internet.

I watch movies on my TV today but it is not as slick as this would be. I first have to hookup a PC to the TV. This is not a big deal for me cause I am such a computer geek. Then I just use my wireless keyboard and go to Netflix and click on “Watch Now” and am off and running.

This works but just using the remote control would be nice too!

The company wants to strike deals with electronics companies that will let it send movies straight to TV screens over the Internet. Its first partnership, announced Wednesday night, is with the South Korean manufacturer LG Electronics to stream movies and other programming to LG’s high-definition televisions.

Reed Hastings, chief executive of Netflix, said he hoped to strike other such deals and that Netflix would soon be viewed as a movie channel that might appear on myriad devices.

“We want to be integrated on every Internet-connected device, game system, high-definition DVD player and dedicated Internet set-top box,” he said. “Eventually, as TVs have wireless connectivity built into them, we’ll integrate right into the television.”

The move could help transform Netflix from a successful company with a cumbersome dependence on physical media and the Postal Service into an important player in a rapidly emerging digital media landscape.

Mr. Hastings said the new service would combine the benefits of an Internet browser with the luxury of watching movies and TV shows on large, high-definition TV screens. He said subscribers would be able to go to the Netflix Web site to create lists of movies they wanted to see. The Netflix service on the TV would offer a simple way to watch those movies.

“We think we have solved the real fundamental problem, which has been that choosing movies on a television has been extremely challenging,” Mr. Hastings said. “Video-on-demand companies worked at it for a long time, but choosing movies on the TV just doesn’t have the power of the Web.”

Netflix Partners With LG to Bring Movies Straight to TV

Does this refine what a TV dinner is? Perhaps.

Why pay $20,000 for a commercial link to run your television station when a $10 kitchen wok from the Warehouse is just as effective?

This is exactly how North Otago’s newest television station 45 South is transmitting its signal from its studio to the top of Cape Wanbrow, in a bid to keep costs down.

45 South volunteer Ken Jones designed the wok transmitter in his spare time last year when he wanted to provide wireless broadband to his Ardgowan home.
“The $20,000 for a commercial link was just money we didn’t have, so we bought several woks from The Warehouse instead which was convenient and cheap,” he said.

Pre-recorded clips at the studio are fed through a computer and beamed to Cape Wanbrow where they are relayed off to television sets around North Otago.

The classic case of Kiwi ingenuity has made its way onto the internet and the technique has been posted by an American website, Mr Jones said.

$10 wok keeps TV station on air

So you have a high speed interent connection and you have TiVo, but you do NOT have the show you want to watch, what do you do? Easy goto amazon.com and head off to the amazon unbox and download what you want and kick back and watch it on not on your PC but on your big screen.

Amazon.com, the online retail giant, and TiVo, pioneer of the digital video recorder, are teaming up to help downloaded movies and TV shows make the leap to television screens.

In a deal expected to be announced Wednesday, Amazon and TiVo will allow TiVo owners who shop on Amazon’s digital download store, called Amazon Unbox, to send films and TV shows to their broadband-connected TiVo machines, and pause and fast-forward through them as they do a regular TV program.

There is no additional charge for the service, which is called Amazon Unbox on TiVo. The service will not work for satellite or cable TV subscribers whose set-top boxes run TiVo software.

Executives at Amazon and TiVo said bypassing the PC would open the digital download market to a more mainstream audience.

Amazon, TiVo partner to put downloaded videos on TV

Are you ready? Could you “cut” the cable or knock down your dish and rely on the Internet for all of your watching?

It was the ultimate challenge for any lifelong TV watcher. Wired News asked me to cut the coax cable snaking into my HD-ready television, and for 30 days rely solely on legally available internet content to satisfy the video entertainment needs of my family of five.

We posed the question: Is the internet finally ready to kill old-school television?

The rules were simple: Anything I could download was fair game, but there’d be no TV signal via cable, satellite or the airwaves. We decided that watching television that had been cached on the family’s TiVo box was also cheating, so that went into the closet. At my editor’s insistence, I physically severed the cable between the wall and my television with wire clippers. And on a blustery November day, my cable company came and took my set-top box away.

Wired News: Goodbye TV, Hello Broadband

Is there such a thing, TV for all? I mean most people are regulated to having only the TV channels that their local cable company has to offer. If you choose satellite, well it is what ever Dish Network and DirecTV has in the form of a programming package.

What if I want to watch the BBC from the U.K to catch the latest Doctor Who rerun that is not even in the U.S or watch the latest Blue Peter and East Enders on BBC1? What can I do, will nothing really I mean BBC America tries but is not the same.

But not is all lost, there is the next new thing out there called TVUPlayer from TVUNetworks. The question is how long this last will; we all know what happened to Napster.

The thing is that “those people” who all hung up on copyright violations, do not realize that this is an untapped distribution market that the content creators do have to “wheel and deal” to get.

There biggest issues are money or the lack of revenue from this new thing. They should work a deal for revenue share for advertising inside the playing application. Or leverage short commercial segments that are 10 to 15 seconds long rather than the traditional 30 seconds.

There are many ways to make money but the “old school” methods do not work as well in the digital age. What do you think makes Apple and iTunes so successful? They created a new revenue model in the music business that fits with technology.

TVUPlayer transmits TV shows, including pay-for-view broadcasts, from U.S. and international broadcasters such as ABC, HBO, the Disney Channel, The Comedy Channel, Al Jazeera and Telecapri Sports of Italy.

It’s easy to see why it’s becoming popular: In addition to a big selection, the TVUPlayer’s pictures are usually clearer than the choppy and grainy images that often mark streaming video. Viewers can’t upload their own videos.

The TVUPlayer appears to have gained attention in the United States following the 2006 FIFA World Cup tournament in Germany. Thousands of soccer fans downloaded the software in order to watch matches not available on U.S. stations.

More importantly, TVU Networks has made watching online programming as easy watching a TV. After downloading the TVUPlayer, a menu appears with anywhere from 40 to 50 channels. Among the available channels available on Friday were Comedy Central, Animal Planet and the CNBC broadcast in India.

“Consumers will be able to watch free live channels from around the globe, as well as subscribe to pay channels and pay-per-view events,” said a statement on TYUNetworks.com, the company’s Web site. “TVU Networks brings you programs from around the world that you can’t get from your local cable and satellite providers.”

TVUPlayer: Another Napster?

You are just like the rest. Admit it, like most movie fiends, gamer junkies, music hounds your once favorite game, DVD or CD was likely gathering dust a few weeks after you bought them. It is not bad, you have just moved on.

Sure, you could sell them for less than half what you paid. And then there is all the trouble of the selling. Sure eBAY makes it easy but it too can be sometimes a pain.

But now you can now trade them for fresh content with other movie/game/music fans using LendMonkey. And what does it cost you might ask, well just a buck. That is it $1.

Brush off the dust of the old, and let LendMonkey get you the new!

A media trading community for all media. You add your stuff and send it to people who want it. Each item you give earns a media credit. Use credits to get media from the community for a $1 fee. In addition to mailing, join lendmonkey Places and trade with local people. A place could be your neighborhood, a cafe, coffee house, work place(password protected), or anywhere! Offer 10 things from your library for a free media credit to get you started.

Ok .. This is my new project. A little nook on the net for what I think about television, video and movies. Since I like Sci-Fi and Fantasy ironically that what will be posted. It is all good.

Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Adventure — Film\Movies\Video\TV