Tag Archives: internet video

TV Guide Mobile relaunches for iOS with a new look, links to streaming video and social networks

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TV Guide Mobile relaunches for iOS with a new look, links to streaming video and social networks

We've already seen many companion apps on mobile, but now TV Guide is diving in wholeheartedly with the next generation of its app for iOS devices. While the previous versions of TV Guide Mobile on iOS and Android let users create watchlists and get reminders, version 3.0 for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch is completely redesigned to make TV watching simpler with filtering for HD-only and favorite channels, links to streaming videos from sources like Hulu Plus, HBO Go, Crackle and iTunes -- Netflix and Amazon are not on the list, although additional video sources are promised in the coming weeks. Like any good companion app in 2012 it also brings social networking features with check-ins and Twitter / Facebook integration and a trending social hot list based on what other users search for.

The downside compared to many of the apps from cable providers like Comcast or Time Warner, hardware manufacturers like TiVo or even other third parties like Dijit is the inability to use it to directly change the channel, but perhaps that's in the next version. There's more details in the press release after the break, and screens in the gallery below, if you're willing to give another contender a shot at assisting your TV watching habits, the free app is available in iTunes at the source link.

Gallery: TV Guide Mobile 3.0 for iOS

Continue reading TV Guide Mobile relaunches for iOS with a new look, links to streaming video and social networks

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TV Guide Mobile relaunches for iOS with a new look, links to streaming video and social networks originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 23 Aug 2012 07:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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YouTube heralds arrival of in-stream ads, built-in annoyance for mobile devices

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YouTube heralds arrival of instream ads, builtin annoyance for mobile devices

If you've made it a habit of viewing YouTube videos on your mobile device in an effort to flout the site's pre-roll ads, your days of bliss are quickly drawing to a close. Today, the site implemented TrueView in-stream ads for the mobile platform, and like you've become accustomed to on the desktop, you'll begin to notice these commercials on your smartphone and tablet. Now, we get the need for content producers to make some coin, but the move certainly represents the end of an era. Fortunately, just like on the desktop, you'll have the ability to skip these ads after five seconds. Maybe now, you can take pride in making an independent producer rich beyond imagination -- or, at least helping them buy some lunch.

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YouTube heralds arrival of in-stream ads, built-in annoyance for mobile devices originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 22 Aug 2012 19:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Hulu launches redesigned site with bigger artwork, ‘tray-style format’ of suggested shows

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Hulu launches redesigned site with bigger artwork, 'traystyle format' of suggested shows

Hulu has been pushing tweaks to its UI on mobile devices and the web for several months, and now it's unleashed a complete redesign of its website. Designed with a focus on making it easier to find preferred content, it features bigger artwork that highlights new programming and a "tray-style" UI that lets you flip through queues of similar content curated by its team of editors. Navigation has been tweaked with a browse function to jump from category to category including what's popular, what's new, or any other filter and an upgraded search bar that lets you immediately play matching content. Finally, the show pages themselves have been refreshed, making it easier to jump directly into the most recently watched episode of a series. There's a few screen grabs of the new experience in the gallery below, plus a video preview embedded after the break, but it's probably easiest to hit the source link and check out the new site for yourself.

Gallery: Hulu.com redesign

Continue reading Hulu launches redesigned site with bigger artwork, 'tray-style format' of suggested shows

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Hulu launches redesigned site with bigger artwork, 'tray-style format' of suggested shows originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 22 Aug 2012 01:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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YouTube’s new app for the PlayStation 3 rolling out, allows remote control from smartphones

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YouTube's new app for the PlayStation 3 rolling out, brings remote control from smartphones

While YouTube has always enjoyed support on Sony's PlayStation 3 thanks to the console's Flash-enabled browser and even offered a YouTube XL layout for connected devices, now it's rolling out a new app to make the video experience even better (and, no doubt, compete with the experience unveiled late last year on the Xbox 360). The app has an improved search with suggestions and instant results while users type, the ability to pull in a user's subscribed channels and it allows for remote control from the YouTube app on your smartphone after a simple pairing process (shown in a screenshot after the break.) According to the official blog it should be arriving in North America now, check under the My Channels section in the PS3 store to download the free app and give it a shot.

Update: The new app should be available in the PlayStation store now (if you're in the US.) There's no word on when it will arrive in other regions, however Canadians can enjoy the Crackle app that popped up today and everyone can give Madden 2013 a shot.

Continue reading YouTube's new app for the PlayStation 3 rolling out, allows remote control from smartphones

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YouTube's new app for the PlayStation 3 rolling out, allows remote control from smartphones originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 14 Aug 2012 09:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Netflix testing ‘Max’ assistant on some PS3 users to improve movie recommendations

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Netflix testing 'Max' assistant on some PS3 users to improve movie recommendations

It's not available to all, but if you're running the latest version (2.08) of the Netflix app on your PlayStation 3 you may see a prompt for a new item called Netflix Max, spotted by one of our readers. Described by a PR rep we contacted as a "new user experience" the company is testing, the assistant talks to users directly and asks them to rate a few movies on the spot before providing new suggestions. The Noisecast was among the first to try out the new experience and even has a few tips on how to get it for yourself, although it didn't work on our PS3, even after uninstalling and reinstalling the app to get the latest version. The blog mentioned it does more than simply rating movies also, as it sometimes asked users to select movies based on specific criteria, like the starring actors. It can be brought up by pressing the square button on your PS3 controller, although how much you enjoy the gameified experience may vary.

Pulling gems out of a catalog filled with older and lower profile movies is a complaint of many Netflix subscribers though, so any attempt to help is welcome, but we're not immediately sure this is the way. According to Netflix, it's waiting to see if the tool leads to "increased interaction" (read: more viewing hours / less likely to cancel, on average) before deciding whether or not to roll the tool out widely, so if you have it and like it, vote with your remotes.

[Thanks, Sean aka Prophet Beal]

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Netflix testing 'Max' assistant on some PS3 users to improve movie recommendations originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Aug 2012 18:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Amazon Instant Video iPad app now available, iPhone and iPod Touch still left wanting

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Amazon Instant Video iPad app now available, iPhone and iPod Touch are left wanting

A day after upgrading its cloud music player, Amazon has delivered a native Amazon Instant Video app for iPad (not iPhone or iPod Touch, yet) to the App Store. It has access to streaming Prime Instant Video for subscribers, as well as downloaded or streamed video on-demand. Other key features include access to the Watchlist / queue, and automatic access to any shows subscribed to with a Season Pass the day after they air on TV. The free app is available in the iTunes store right now, however like the sudden appearance of Hulu Plus on Apple TV yesterday we don't have any official PR to share just yet.

We've had a chance to play around with it and we must say, Amazon is really coming after Netflix with this one. The app runs smoothly, and while the video player itself gets just the bare bones iOS treatment, every other part of the app seems polished, including the Watchlist. Add in the fact that you can watch things via subscription and seamlessly jump to fresher / premium content available for purchase or individual rental (with the notable caveat that you can't actually browse the VOD content, or purchase or buy it from within the app itself) and there's a serious competition going on.

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Amazon Instant Video iPad app now available, iPhone and iPod Touch still left wanting originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Aug 2012 08:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Roku picks up financing from BSkyB, News Corp and more, keeps eye on the premium streaming crown

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The little media streamer company that could, Roku, has gained some powerful friends in its latest round of financing, with $45 million in funds coming from the likes of BSkyB, News Corp and another partner who would prefer to remain nameless at this time, as well as previous investors Menlo Ventures and Globespan Capital Partners. While we leave you to ponder which company might be that unidentified source, Roku is simply continuing on, earmarking the money for use in building brand awareness, expanding internationally and much, much more. Also, that MHL-connected Roku Streaming Stick introduced at CES? It hasn't gone away and is still on track for launch later this year, with an eye towards providing a "Roku Inside" bundled experience for otherwise dumb flat-panel HDTVs.

Roku's alignment with BSkyB (which reported a $10m stake in its earnings this morning, as well as the option to distribute its own branded Roku hardware) makes sense after the pay-TV giant launched Now TV recently with the hockey puck as one of its supported platforms, while CEO Anthony Wood tells us the fruitful partnership with News Corp had its root in the Fox News, Wall Street Journal Live and X-Factor channels it launched last year. Wood cites plans to make Roku "the TV distribution platform of the future", and this fifth round of financing -- larger than all previous rounds combined -- may help push it in this direction, check out a few more details in the press release after the break.

Continue reading Roku picks up financing from BSkyB, News Corp and more, keeps eye on the premium streaming crown

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Roku picks up financing from BSkyB, News Corp and more, keeps eye on the premium streaming crown originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 26 Jul 2012 02:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Netflix Q2 2012 earnings: 530,000 more US subscribers and a return to profitability

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Netflix recently let it drop that its users clocked in more than one billion hours of content-viewing in the month of June alone, although the big question for CEO Reed Hastings is how that relates to the company's subscriber base. The results are in from its Q2 2012 earnings report, and it's claiming 27.56 million streaming subscribers worldwide, up from 26 million last quarter. In the US alone that includes 23.94 million customers, after it reported 23.4 million in Q1, while DVD customers dropped by 850k to 9.24 million. While the number of new subscribers wasn't as high as some had hoped, the good news is the company is finally back in the black, with $889 million in revenue providing $6 million in net income. On the flip side, a plan to launch service in an "additional attractive European market" in Q4 is expected to result in temporary losses, but we'll find out more about those plans later in Q3.

One other issue that has been resolved is the search for a new Chief Marketing Officer resulting in the hiring of Kelly Bennett, formerly a marketing executive with Warner Bros. This morning Verizon and Redbox began to carefully pull back the cover on their competing offering, and Amazon has also been making significant waves in the space. However in response, Netflix says Amazon and Hulu Plus have yet to gain meaningful traction in relation to its viewing hours, and it expects Redbox Instant to face a "big challenge" to break into the existing top 3. Its current content deal with Epix will lose online exclusivity "shortly" although it will still offer those titles, we'll see if any of the competition joins in. Their biggest competition however, is expected to come from efforts like Comcast's new X1 and Sky's Now TV, while for HBO, the possibility of cooperation is actually raised (again). We'll see if that happens or if there are any more juicy details revealed on the investor call in a few minutes.

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Netflix Q2 2012 earnings: 530,000 more US subscribers and a return to profitability originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Jul 2012 16:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Hulu rolls out a simplified player UI for the web, takes a few cues from mobile

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Hulu rolls out a simplified player UI for the web, takes a few cues from mobile

The web player for Hulu added some more acreage just a few months ago, and now the company has updated it with a new "chromeless" look that's stripped down for less complexity than the old one seen here. Similar to the changes Netflix recently made to its web player UI (and looking particularly reminiscent of the iOS video player), Hulu has concentrated all the transport controls into a single bar including options like a 10-second rewind and bringing up the time left in a video when it's paused. As seen in the screenshot above, closed captions, face match, quality and buffering options have their own submenu now, while the toggles, pop-out and lower lights have been moved into a box below the player. Once the show is over, there's a new screen before the player either automatically picks another video, lets you replay what you just watched or browse through other recommended selections. You should be able to see it on the site now, give it a quick spin and let us know if the changes are for the better.

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Hulu rolls out a simplified player UI for the web, takes a few cues from mobile originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 21 Jul 2012 20:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Amazon, Warner deal brings Fringe, The West Wing to Prime Instant Video exclusively

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Amazon deal brings Warner TV shows including Fringe, The West Wing to Prime Instant Video exclusively

The battle between Amazon's Prime Instant Video and Netflix Watch Instantly continues to heat up, with Amazon following up a slew of rollouts on new devices like the Xbox 360 and the addition of a queue by locking up some exclusive TV content from Warner Bros. According to the press release (included after the break) Amazon's agreement means episodes of Fringe and The West Wing will be "On Prime Instant Video First" and not on other streaming services for the summer. Stats show and Netflix has repeatedly indicated that subscribers view more TV content than movies on these types of services so content exclusives may become even more important differentiators. Other shows specifically named include Dark Blue, Alcatraz and The Whole Truth, hit up the Prime site to see any other less prominent names that may have escaped mention.

Continue reading Amazon, Warner deal brings Fringe, The West Wing to Prime Instant Video exclusively

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Amazon, Warner deal brings Fringe, The West Wing to Prime Instant Video exclusively originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 20 Jul 2012 09:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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