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Walmart unveils disc-to-digital program

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.

Google Music is now Google Play

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.

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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Netflix, Weinstein announce streaming deal

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.

Disney ready to implement DVD rental window

During a recent quarterly conference call with investors, Disney CEO Bob Iger mentioned a potential strategy of imposing a 28 day window for DVD and Blu-ray Disc releases at retail before making them available for rental.

While I’m sure the movie studios do their own market research, I’m not sure what these windows actually accomplish. The stated goal is to hold up retail sales of newly released DVDs and BDs, but I just don’t know how this strategy works. If I’ve waited 6-9 months to watch a movie instead of seeing it in the cinema, why do I care if I have to wait another 28 days to rent it? Are there enough people so excited to watch the movie that they’d rather purchase it instead of renting it?

Furthermore, rental agencies don’t even have to abide by these agreements if they purchase the movies through retail instead of through wholesale. Unless the studio is looking to boost their retail sales by forcing rental agencies to buy their movies at Target, this seems like a nonstarter. The studios probably even make more on their wholesale business than at retail!

Iger admitted the strategy wasn’t a panacea during the same call, noting the other studios who have implemented the policy were “not seeing any effect from these dollar-rentals on their sell-through business.” But in spite of the reality that this doesn’t do anything to help retail sales, Iger still justifies the position citing industry-wide declines in disc sales.

Other studios to implement the window include Warner Bros., Universal and Fox.

Source: LA Times

Music Labels caught in hypocrisy

VEVO, the music video website owned by Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, and the Abu Dhabi Media Group, has been caught in the act of online video piracy during a recent Sundance event the site hosted. What makes this most juicy is these companies are the main force behind the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which has taken a very hard line stance against online media sharing, and suing children for over $22,000 for downloading songs illegally.

Tech Crunch journalists Jason Kincaid discovered this hypocrisy while attending the event sponsored by VEVO. The video screens at this event were all tuned into a pirated video stream of an NFL playoff game between the Baltimore Ravens and the New England Patriots.

The video Mr. Kincaid recorded for this story tells it all, and it should definitely warm your heart.

Best Buy asks: Would you buy an Apple TV?

Electronics retail behemoth Best Buy has sent a survey to some customers asking if they would potentially buy a 42-inch Apple-brand HDTV that would use your iPad or iPhone as a remote control for $1,499.

More than just speculation, the survey goes into detail telling the customer, “Be one of the first to get the all new 42″ Apple HDTV at Best Buy for $1,499. Apple finally reinvents what a TV can do.”

Features included are:

• 42″ 1080p LED flat panel display
• Incorporates Apple’s operating system (iOS) found in its current Apple TV set top box which allows you to purchase and stream movies and other entertainment from the internet
• Download and use apps from the App Store. Can you imagine playing Angry Birds on a big screen in your living room?
• Supports Apple’s new iCloud service for storing your movies, TV shows, and music content that you’ve purchased from iTunes and mean them to your Apple HDTV.
• Use your iPad or iPhone as a remote control, and do everything from controlling your TV, to purchasing new shows and swapping content between your Apple devices and the iCloud service.
• Built-in convenience with built in iSight camera and microphone for Skype.
• In addition to iTunes, stream content from popular sites such as Netflix, YouTube, and flickr.
• Available for $1499

While this is just Best Buy speculating on what future sales they might pursue, Best Buy is large enough that they have been known to ask companies for specific products. Of course Apple is considerably larger than Best Buy at this time.

A few clues as to how this can’t be a real product is the iSight isn’t something Apple has used in a long time, and they would most definitely opt for Apple’s own FaceTime over the competing Skype.

What do you think? Would you buy an Apple HDTV as specified?

Amazon finalizes deal with Viacom

Amazon.com announced a new deal with Viacom to bring thousands of new titles to Prime Instant Video. Amazon already had deals with CBS, Fox, Disney-ABC, PBS, NBC, Sony and Warner Bros. Their new library now consists of over 15,000 titles.

Viacom is the parent company of MTV, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, TV Land and VH1. These cable television channels provide popular programming such as Dora the Explorer, Yo Gabba Gabba, iCarly, Chappelle’s Show, Jersey Shore, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report.

Prime Instant Video is included with the $79 per year Amazon Prime membership, which also provides free two-day shipping on Prime items, and free access to books on Kindle.

Amazon is one of the leading video streaming services, with access from select TVs, set-top boxes (like Roku), Blu-ray Disc players, Kindle Fire, Mac and PC.