It’s no doubt that creating good content can be a pricey proposition, but if you requisition your own content, you get the bonus of exclusive availability, with the content only being available to Netflix customers. This situation, in effect, puts Netflix head to head with other entities seeking content, such as the cable TV networks. Netflix is even outbidding some of these networks on acquiring the rights to this new exclusive content.

I was intrigued and curious about the new exclusive content, so I checked out Netflix’s first offering, the show “Lilyhammer”.

Lilyhammer stars ‘Steven Van Zandt’, well known for his wise guy roles, as the character Frank Tagliano, a New York City Mafia “fixer”. Frank is quite happy with his place in the Big Apple organization until his boss bites the dust and a “bean counter” becomes the new head honcho. After Frank narrowly survives an assassination attempt, he decides to roll over on his new hefe, testifying for the Feds in exchange for a relocation to the sleepy, snow-covered town of Lilyhammer in Norway.

Frank brings his big city ways and Mafia attitude with him to Lilyhammer and it’s not long before he establishes himself as an important figure in town who can make things happen (mostly for his own benefit).

My wife and I thoroughly enjoyed the Lilyhammer series. It had me laughing a LOT more than I expected it would. We’re now hoping for a season 2!

More Netflix exclusive content is on the way!

Netflix will be continuing this exclusive content trend, bringing some compelling new shows to its subscribers in the near future, including House of Cards (a political drama starring Kevin Spacey), Orange is the New Black (a comedy from Jenji Kohan, the creator of Weeds), Hemlock Grove (a horror series directed and produced by Eli Roth) and a brand new season of the show Arrested Development, which will only be found on Netflix.

All of this exclusive content has rekindled my interest in Netflix, but the question is, how will the Hollywood movie and TV studios react? Netflix is now analogous to a premium pay TV channel. Will this new angle of competition make it tougher (or more expensive) for Netflix to acquire the rights to stream Hollywood’s content? At this time it’s not clear, but this is certainly causing quite the battle on the “pay TV” and content access front. It will be interesting to see how Netflix, the pay TV providers and the Hollywood studios duke it out in the coming years.

You can check out a trailer for the Lilyhammer series in the YouTube video embedded below.

Kaleidescape has been under the gun on the legal front lately, and they’ve also been beaten up by online streaming services too. The former problem is up to the court system of California, but Kaleidescape is tackling the latter by getting in on their own online retail store. The store will be accessed at store.kaleidescape.com.

The details are not in yet. All I know so far is that the storefront is being tested for release soon. But based on my knowledge of Kaleidescape Systems, I think I can make some safe predictions.

Kaleidescape is a very emphatic supporter of owning content. I can assume with great certainty that the store will provide purchases of movie titles which will be stored on the local hard drive of the Kaleidescape System.

The service will probably have the same limitations Amazon and Vudu has as it relates to obtaining titles. A few new titles will be available, but most of them will be lesser-known catalog titles.

The video quality will be high-def, and the cost will be slightly more than a similar purchase from Vudu.

I’ll have more information on this online storefront soon.

With all this talk about cutting the cable subscription out of our lives for good, the cable conglomerates seem to be trying to claw back some of that business. The New York Post has reported that Hulu may require users to authenticate their accounts to prove they’re a paying TV subscriber of cable or satellite.

This change would follow a larger trend asking for consumers to authenticate their subscriptions. Recently, NCAA March Madness was available online only to cable subscribers. Cable operators have also been pushing a new model that would provide “TV Everywhere” (as Comcast calls it) as long as you pay for your cable subscription on top of your internet package. Comcast is expected to use this model with the upcoming Olympic Games, and they’re in talks with media providers such as Fox to bring more content to TV Everywhere.

The cable operators are very powerful forces holding natural monopolies in many markets. They’ve been lobbying Congress to allow them to throttle certain web content to the end user, or sell these channels as an add on deal to the internet. Over the past decade, cable operators have been quickly turning into internet service providers while the cable subscriptions have been fading. Instead of adapting to the new reality, they’re trying to hold onto their cable profits and also take internet profits.

Time Warner Cable and Comcast have asked to sell tiers of service where basic internet is one price, but accessing unlimited streams of video from Hulu or Netflix would be premium services much like HBO, Starz and Showtime are for cable television. There has been immense consumer push back on that idea, not to mention from Silicon Valley who sees it as a way to squash innovation and kill upstart companies. This new move to require authentication seems like a backdoor approach, requiring their subscribers to pay for a cable service they otherwise wouldn’t get in order to receive the content over the internet that is also available on cable television.

I don’t want to seem alarmist. All of the inside sources indicate this migration for Hulu would take years to implement, and then may only provide different levels of service – perhaps providing TV shows just after air date for authenticated subscribers, and a longer wait time for unauthenticated subscribers.

Hulu is a joint partnership between NBCUniversal (owned by Comcast), News Corporation (parent of Fox), The Walt Disney Company (parent of ABC), and Providence Equity Partners. Providence Equity Partners has asked the other partners to purchase their shares for $200 million recently. While the buyout of NBC by Comcast came with restrictions concerning Hulu, the negotiating between content providers and cable operators has grown increasingly tense in the previous several years as subscriber fees have fallen and content owners ask for greater retransmission payments while ad revenue is also falling.

Business requires risk, and these companies are simply looking to minimize risk. Of course they could just put pilot seasons on Kickstarter and fund new show development off of niche audiences (seriously, if that happens I hope I get my royalties).

We have previously talked about replacing cable or satellite television with internet streaming on-access video. While the majority of households aren’t ready to replace their traditional television service, new research from the Leightman Research Group has found that 38% of households are now streaming video to their TV via the internet. This is up from 24% just two years ago.

The most commonly used device for video streaming is a video game system, totaling 28% of households. (That’s how I deliver internet video to my TV.) Only 1% of households use Roku or Apple TV, while 4% use internet-capable TVs.

Netflix is far-and-away the leader in streaming video, with 35% of Netflix subscribers streaming video from the Internet weekly – totaling 16% of all adults, compared to 5% weekly use among all non-Netflix subscribers. Two year ago, only 4% of adults used Netflix’s Watch Instantly.

So is America ready to cut their cable? Not quite. Only 13% of Netflix subscribers would consider cancelling their TV provider, which is down from 21% last year.

Have you cancelled your television provider?

I have cancelled my provider. The reasons are varied, but came mainly through life changes in the form of three preschool-aged children. I don’t have time to watch very much television anymore, so it was a waste of money to continue paying for a service I don’t use. And the shows I enjoy watching the most are available on Hulu, Amazon or Netflix, so I can watch on my computer or through my PlayStation 3.

I haven’t felt like I’ve missed out on current TV programs at all. I’ve kept up with all the new episodes of the shows I love: House, White Collar, Fringe, and 30 Rock are all on Hulu. Mad Men and The Walking Dead are available on Amazon for a charge, but combined are much less than a cable subscription. Netflix provides me with past shows I’ve missed further out, and more movies than I can shake a stick at so I can’t really complain about the lack of choices. Generally, new releases are something I want to see in the theater anyway, and if they’re not I don’t need to watch them right away.

But the biggest advantage I’ve had using Netflix instead of cable is for the children. Netflix has a children’s menu that allows my kids to pick which shows they want to watch, and there are no commercials and they don’t have to tune in on the top of the hour. They’re so spoiled in this regard that when watching normal broadcast TV they get upset when a commercial breaks in, and they start asking to watch their show.

As far as live events, I’m not much of a sports guy, but I do watch the occasional football or soccer game over-the-air with rabbit ears.

My experience this past weekend is a typical example of how Google TV just doesn’t have its act quite together.

While using my smartphone, I often see an interesting video posted on Facebook or Twitter. If the video sounds interesting enough for me to watch, I’ll typically send the video link to my Google TV using the “Share with Google TV Remote” option on my Android device. This works great for “beaming” video content to the big screen in our living room.

I tried this twice this weekend, and both times, I got a big fail from Google TV.

You can’t load QuickTime on Google TV

The first occurrence happened when I saw a tweet stating that the full trailer for the new Total Recall movie (remake) had been exclusively posted to Apple.com. I’m a big fan of SciFi flicks, so I wanted to check out the trailer from my Google TV. Unfortunately, loading the URL on my Google TV resulted in an ugly error message that I need to install Quicktime for Chrome in order to view the video. The problem is, it’s not possible to install QuickTime for Chrome on Google TV. Usability fail #1 of the weekend for Google TV.

Flash video incompatibilities surface often on Google TV

The second occurrence happened when I attempted to watch a live stream of the Phx AM skateboarding contest. The stream was available at PHXAM.com and was embedded in a Flash video player. I thought, great, Google TV should be able to play the video fine since it’s Flash. Wrong. It showed up as a black box on my Google TV and would never load. I’ve seen this happen with other Flash videos in the past as well. I don’t know what the specific incompatibility is or what is tripping up Google TV, but yet again, the end result is another video that you can’t watch on your Google TV.

Google claims that Google TV has the web as it was intended to be

If we take a look at the features page on the official Google TV website, the very top listed feature is:

“Google Chrome browser
The web as it was intended to be. Watch online video, update your status, watch what’s viral in real-time, and even check your fantasy scores.”

Really Google? The web as it was intended to be? I’d say web video was intended to be viewed and since I can’t do that often using my Google TV, it’s not as it was intended to be.

And don’t forget, many TV networks block Google TV from accessing their online video content, as well as Hulu.

All of this leads to a very poor user experience for the Google TV user. You’ve got this supposed fully featured browser on your HDTV, yet you still can’t access the video content that you want to.

Google should install the QuickTime plugin for Chrome on Google TVs

Google really should preload the Chrome Quicktime plugin on all Google TV’s to resolve the first issue I brought up above. There are many videos around the web that use QuickTime and Apple.com routinely hosts exclusive movie trailers that aren’t found anywhere else. I’ve got to wonder if the exclusion of the QuickTime Chrome plugin on Google TV is a conscious decision by Google due to a pissing match between the 2 companies. After all, they are now fierce competitors in the mobile phone arena and on the home theater front, Apple has their rival Apple TV platform. There’s also no way that Apple is ever going to release a Quicktime app for Android.

I’m hoping that Google TV can improve further to provide a better end user experience, but I’m not sure if it will ever get to where it should really be. I’ll be anxiously awaiting the next major Google TV update. Until then, I’ll continue to get frustrated when videos won’t play on my Internet TV.

If you’re an Amazon Prime member, you probably know all about unlimited Prime Instant videos. If not, here’s your wake-up call: you’re missing out on tons of awesome movie, television & documentary film content that’s available to you for free as part of a paid Amazon Prime membership.

When Prime Instant videos first launched, it essentially fell into my lap as I was already an Amazon Prime subscriber for the 2 day shipping benefits. More recently, I’ve found that I don’t really need Amazon Prime for the shipping benefits, as they have a warehouse here in Phoenix and I get deliveries from them very quickly, with or without Prime 2 day shipping. With that in mind, the Prime membership is really only valuable to me now for the additional benefits; unlimited Prime Instant videos, Kindle book loans and other such perks.

The Amazon Prime benefit earned through Amazon Mom doesn’t allow access to Prime Instant Videos

Unfortunately, I’ve recently run into a bit of a snag with my Amazon Prime membership. I’m a member of the Amazon Mom program (it should really be named Amazon Parent), which is a free program that gives you discounts on baby supplies and other benefits, such as free Prime 2 day shipping. The more you spend on baby products, the more months of free Prime 2 day shipping you get. Thanks to all of my infant paraphernalia purchasing (I have twin baby boys), I have maxed out that benefit and have earned 12 months of free Prime 2 day shipping.

Before I joined the Amazon Mom program, I linked my account to my wife’s Amazon Prime membership, as she had paid the $79 annual fee. The Prime program allows multiple members of the same household to utilize the benefits. At the time, I was able to access Amazon Prime Instant Videos using my Amazon account and everything was just fine and dandy. After joining Amazon Mom, however, all was no longer well in Prime Instant Video land.

Amazon Prime Instant Videos require a paid Prime membership

You see, access to Prime Instant Videos requires a paid Amazon Prime membership. The problem is, now that I’m an Amazon Mom member, I apparently have “non-paid” Amazon Prime shipping benefits. When I try to watch a Prime Instant Video now using my Amazon account, Amazon tells me I need to “upgrade” to a paid subscription before I can view the content.

Amazon: lose the free Prime shipping months you’ve earned or no Prime Instant Video access for you!

This poses multiple problems for me (as well as other Amazon customers in a similar situation). The first being that I have many months of “free” Prime shipping benefits earned through the Amazon Mom program, which Amazon says I would lose if I “upgraded” to a paid Prime membership. The second is that my household ALREADY has a paid prime membership, so why is Amazon trying to charge me? I verified that my account is still linked to my wife’s paid Prime membership, but apparently my Amazon Mom membership status confuses their system.

So what should Amazon do? Amazon Mom “earned” Prime shipping benefits should be tacked on or banked on an account so that they can be used after a paid Amazon Prime membership period is over. This would allow the Amazon Mom customers to continue earning their benefits as well as utilize paid Prime membership benefits. Amazon also needs to fix their system to recognize that accounts that are part of Amazon Mom can also be part of a paid household Prime membership so that Prime Instant Videos and the other benefits are available to the account. There’s no way Amazon is getting another $79 a year out of us for a paid prime membership when we already subscribe. I also don’t want to quit the Amazon Mom program and lose the baby product discounts, so I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place it seems.

Please fix your stuff Amazon!

Retail juggernaut Walmart will soon become the leading driver of consumer awareness of the UltraViolet digital movie locker service with a new initiative. Announced this week with five of the largest Hollywood studios, in-store kiosks will allow consumers to bring in DVDs and purchase a digital version for their personal UltraViolet account.

The program is called Disc-to-Digital By Vudu, and will cost $2 for a standard definition digital copy, and $5 for a high definition digital copy. The content will be available on Vudu-enabled devices such as smartphones, set-top boxes, HDTVs, and online.

Walmart vice president John Aden said the service will be guided by a Walmart employee to provide the service with customer awareness and participation. Of course a big part of this has got to be that each DVD will be marked at the store to prevent other parties from using the same disc to make a digital purchase.

Walmart will have exclusive in-store disc-to-digital sales using UltraViolet technology. Recently, Samsung announced similar plans to add UltraViolet authentication within Blu-ray Disc players and home-theater-in-a-box systems for use with Flixster.

The availability of digital copies is still reliant on the studio’s releasing digital versions. The studios did claim that thousands of DVD titles will be available at launch on April 16. Blu-ray Disc authentication will be added in the future at some point.

While I still think UltraViolet is the most promising solution to the digital problem the studios are facing, I am beginning to see some things consumers aren’t going to be keen on. To begin with, the UltraViolet model is intended on promoting physical disc sales. Instead of diving into the digital world the way the music industry did with iTunes, they’re still insisting consumers buy a hard copy and only then receive the digital copy with it. With this program, they’re asking consumers to repurchase the content in digital form.

There’s also the matter of library accessibility. When the studios first announced UltraViolet, it seemed like users would have a singular library they could access at any time. But now it seems like different studios and services will segment your library. Warner will obviously use Flixster. Walmart is using Vudu. It would be a major pain to have to remember which service to use to find content you own, especially when they’re all supposed to be stored in the same rights locker.

Last May, Google launched Google Music in beta. Since then, the cloud-based media delivery marketplace has seen a lot of competition, mainly in the forms of Amazon Cloud Drive, Apple iCloud and Spotify.

As a personal anecdote, I’m quite happy I loaded my entire music collection onto Google Music at the time. A couple months ago, my MacBook’s hard drive crashed, so my music collection was saved in the cloud.

And now, Google has added much more to the service and has taken it out of beta. It’s now called Google Play, and provides movies, music, apps, games and books all in one place – and that place is anywhere you are, because Google Play will be available on smartphones, tablets, computers, and more than likely on the newest iteration of Google TV.

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And now, instead of just uploading content, Google is now providing content. Movies, Music, Games, Apps and Books.

And keeping with the trends, the content you’re consuming may be shared with friends via social media.

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The Weinstein Company and Netflix announced a new multi-year licensing agreement that will bring certain foreign-language, documentary and select other movies exclusively to Netflix streaming service in the US. The titles will become available for streaming for a time exclusive to Netflix before premium cable gets the chance.

While anyone familiar with Netflix streaming knows foreign films, documentaries and second-tier films are the stock and trade of their streaming service, this year does provide Oscar-nominated films such as The Artist, and Undefeated.

It’s not very often a foreign film is nominated for Best Picture, so I wouldn’t expect this arraignment is going to have much long-lasting effect.

Other films which will premiere on Netflix include Sarah’s Key, The Intouchables, W.E., and Coriolanus.