» Posts Tagged ‘streaming’
Oscar-Winning Roger Corman's Drive-In YouTube Channel Offers 400 B-Movie Essentials for $4 a Month
Of all the filmmakers of all time, few can claim the sheer volume of titles to their name as Roger Corman — never mind his other accomplishments. The 87-year-old director, producer, writer, and occasional actor is still active in his 60 year film career, during which he has coached countless high-profile auteurs, fostered the careers of several notable actors, and earned a 2009 Honorary Academy Award. He has also already denied services such as Hulu streaming rights to his extensive ~400 film canon even for an offered $5-6,000 per film (to be paid to him) — but has agreed to launch “Corman’s Drive-In” as a $4/mo paid YouTube channel in the summer. Read on for more details. More »
Netflix Streaming Loses 2000 Titles as Universal & MGM Licenses Expire
While the phenomenon of title evaporation is nothing new to Netflix, one of the service’s most significant catalog losses will come with the expiration of licensing agreements with Warner Bros., Universal, and MGM. Starting today and continuing over the course of May, InstantWatcher tracks 1,794 previously available films that will no longer be streamed on Netflix. This news piggy-backs that of Warner Archive Instant, an offering that — very literal title notwithstanding — should be quite familiar to Netflix viewers. Click below for details on what perennial picks will be removed from the Netflix catalog, some additional info on Warner’s Archive Instant, plus what Netflix itself has to say about all this as well. More »
After Three Years of Distribution Pioneering, Online VOD Platform Dynamo Shuts Its Doors
DynamoPlayer, one of the first the to market in terms of the ‘direct-to-consumer‘ paradigm, has officially bit the dust. They will spend the next few months closing out accounts and letting users collect their remaining balances before they shut down existing video players in mid-June. By the end of June, the platform will be shut down completely. Read on for the press release from Dynamo. More »
Reelhouse Paves the Way for the Future of Self-Distribution
Each new day that passes it seems the world of distribution for filmmakers is being turned on its head. With so many new content destinations popping up all the time, it’s hard to know what’s what. Reelhouse is a company who seems to be breaking through the mold, as a recent partnership with Sundance would suggest. Reelhouse is planning a big launch on April 22nd — read on for our interview with Bill Mainguy, CEO and Founder of Reelhouse and get to know the platform: More »
The Teradek Cube has been a popular choice for filmmakers to stream their content. For those who dream about using their iPad as a production monitor, it’s been possible, but expensive and a little counter-intuitive. Now Teradek has Vidiu, priced for the consumer market, to stream H.264 and AAC audio up to 5Mbps to the web, or to iPad and iPhone. Hit the jump for the full details on VidiU and Teradek’s other new offerings, including the Bond Pro for ENG shooters. More »
Portuguese director Manoel de Oliveira, at age 104, is still making films. He is noted as being the only filmmaker whose career has spanned from the silent era through to the digital revolution. He’s come a long way since his directorial debut in 1931, and now as part of MUBI’s rotating repertoire of films, his 64-minute feature film from 2009, Eccentricities of a Blonde-Haired Girl, is available to stream online until April 19th. Hit the jump for more info, below: More »
Consumer viewing habits are changing, and companies like Netflix are at the forefront of the streaming revolution. So it comes as no surprise that they also plan to be at the bleeding edge when it comes to 4K. Netflix‘s Chief Product Officer, Neil Hunt, recently stated in an interview that they expect to have 4K streaming within a year or two, with their original series House of Cards (shot on the RED EPIC) eventually getting 4K encodings. While it’s good news for anyone selling a 4K TV, is there a way independent filmmakers could benefit from all of this? More »
Internet video streaming as we know it is about to change. Delivering video online is a terribly inefficient process, and Bram Cohen, the creator of the BitTorrent protocol, has figured out a way to do it better. While BitTorrent often gets a bad rap thanks to its links to piracy, it’s still one of the least bandwidth intensive ways to share files with other people. Now the company is introducing what they are calling BitTorrent Live, which works in a similar way to the original BitTorrent protocol, but is instead focused on delivering streaming video. By using the bandwidth of the users, BitTorrent is able to take the load off of the original broadcaster, making it efficient for anyone to host a streaming video. More »
It’s a safe bet Sony will not be left behind in the 4K home media arms race, but that’s about the only thing clear regarding the topic at this point, because Sony does not yet seem to have a clear strategy for 4K home delivery. Do you need Sony’s 4K TV to access it, or don’t you? It’s now looking like either will be answered “yes.” This is because another platform for a 4K delivery service will be the upcoming Playstation 4 video game console (which was strangely left out of their PS4 announcement, probably because 4K is only planned for video, not games, at the moment). While we don’t know too much about their 4K home delivery service yet, there’s talk about downloads up to 100 gigabytes or greater. But will this really happen, and more to the point, are 100GB downloads the only option for 4K? More »
The annual Writers Guild Awards are upon us once again, and the Los Angeles show is streaming live tonight at 9PM Eastern and 6PM Pacific (a simultaneous show is also happening at WGA East). A number of the movie screenplays that are nominated for awards have been made available by the studios, so if you want to read some, be sure to check them out while they’re still online. Click through to watch the show. More »
If you’re a big fan of cinema, at some point you’ve probably heard of The Criterion Collection. They specialize in cult, foreign, and critically acclaimed films from many of the greatest filmmakers of all time. Originally available on Netflix, their entire streaming collection moved to Hulu a few years ago. Right now and through Sunday, February 17th, they are streaming over 800 films for free (only in the United States, unfortunately). Embedded below are just a few of my favorites available on the service. Click through to check them out. More »
If you thought 4K was a buzzword at last year’s NAB, it was the real deal at CES this year. All of the manufacturers were out in force, and not just camera makers — everyone who makes a screen had a 4K display at the show. There were a couple interesting developments so far that might actually mean 4K comes to your home sooner rather than later, including much cheaper 4K TVs from Westinghouse, Netflix streaming a video in 4K at the show itself, and a 4K Windows 8 tablet from Panasonic. RED was also in attendance at CES, showing off their new tech and playing videos in their new highly-compressed but high-quality .RED format. Check out all of the latest developments below. More »
If you’re tired of digging through Netflix or Hulu for harder to find films, there are some options out there for you to consider. MUBI (formerly The Auteurs), an “online cinematheque,” is a website dedicated to film culture, conversation, and criticism. They also have been doing online VOD streaming for a while now, but a new format has been rolling out in Turkey, Norway, and the UK, and now it’s about to launch in the United States. It’s quite a departure from the way most streaming sites are organized, but the site, which is partnered with The Criterion Collection and other art house distributors, already does things a little differently than everyone else. More »
Netflix is undeniably a bargain for consumers. The variety of content it features is immense, even though instant viewing choices fluctuate somewhat frustratingly — but don’t expect the average consumer to be understanding about the rather ugly licensing problems that cause this. It’s hard to argue with the price, despite Netflix‘s problems. The removal of its native social component, splitting DVD/streaming subscriptions, its sensory overload/option paralysis layout, and its lame payouts to creators are all issues to take with the service. That said, anyone who appreciates the engineering behind modern content delivery can respect Netflix’s ease of viewing — possible via multi-device integration, and, more vitally, the number of encodings each video must undergo for that famous ‘instant view’ ability. More »
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uite a few services have tried to get in on the direct-to-audience movie sale, with choices of streaming and download to a number of devices and smart TVs. Redux is an aggregator of online video, and it attempts to find videos for you based on user interests and social sharing mechanisms. The company is pushing hard into the connected TV space with their own app, and they’re trying to recreate the experience of watching regular television programming with aggregated online video. One of Redux’s newest additions, Redux for Artists, is a distribution channel where filmmakers can sell their videos directly to consumers. More »
Prescreen is Suspending Operations, but Plenty of Options Still Exist for Indie Filmmakers
It seems like only yesterday (8 months, actually) that the curated rental website Prescreen appeared as one of the many new startups competing for eyeballs in the growing digital distribution world for independent films. Prescreen (technically still in beta) sent a message to users that it would be suspending operations for the foreseeable future and would notify members of future plans with the site. Just because Prescreen is shutting down, however, does not mean all hope is lost for independent film. There are plenty of other services still going strong. More »
Prescreen and FilmDIY are New Players in the Independent Digital Distribution Space
If VOD is the future of film distribution and Netflix isn’t paying indies much, we’d all better hope for some new — and successful — players in the digital film distribution space. Dynamo Player was one of the first out of the gate, and Distrify looks great. Amazon VOD and YouTube Rentals are also players, or you could always try to build your own VOD portal. Now there are two more options; here are the video pitches from newcomers FilmDIY and Prescreen: More »
For its future as a streaming only service, Netflix is reliant on deals with content owners, a situation which has the service being described aptly as a castle on quicksand. As evidence of its constantly-changing library, Netflix recently lost Starz content but today added Dreamworks Animation films to their library. However, Amazon also doubled their Prime library today (which at $79/year — including an unlimited free two-day shipping tie-in — compares favorably to Netflix’s $96 annual fee). Competition is heating up, but I can’t help but note one other thing about Netflix: the design of their website and most of their apps is, and always has been, mediocre at best. Which is to say nothing of the connection between the service’s benefit to consumers and its detriment to content creators. More »
The Kickstarter campaign for Man-child ended successfully at 108% funded: $125,100!!! Thank you all so much — it’s been a dream come true. If you missed the deadline, you can still back the project here! According to Ustream we had over 1,300 views of our live video stream of the concluding party — the archive of the video is below. Thank you all for making this possible, from the bottom of my heart! Now the real work begins… More »
When Netflix recently raised prices and separated out their DVD-by-mail and streaming pricing, there was a minor revolt among users. So many cancelled their service, in fact, that Netflix‘s stock took a 15% hit. Still, I don’t think anyone saw this coming: from now on, Netflix will only offer streaming titles. If you still want DVDs by mail, they’re going to come from a new brand: Qwikster. Wow. Here’s the announcement: More »
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