News Round-Up

Because the [itvt] editorial team is busy working on The TV of Tomorrow Show (March 3rd-4th in San Francisco), we are covering a number of stories in this issue in summary form:

• Ceton Corporation has announced the launch of the Ceton Digital Cable Quad-Tuner card, which it bills as the word's first four-tuner digital cable solution for Windows 7 PC's with Windows Media Center. The solution was demo'd by Microsoft CEO, Steve Ballmer, during his CES keynote last week. "'PC's running Windows Media Center, included with most versions of Windows 7, with a Ceton Digital Cable Quad-Tuner card installed will natively support high-definition pay TV, including premium cable TV channels, without the need for a separate cable set-top box," Ceton explains in its press materials. "In addition to standard- and high-definition channels, the Ceton solution will also support channels delivered using Switched Digital Video (SDV) via a Tuning Adapter. A single Ceton Digital Cable Quad-Tuner card with a single multi-stream CableCARD (M-Card) and single cable RF connection will support playing and/or recording of up to four live channels of high-definition digital cable TV simultaneously."
• Hallmark Cards has announced the release of "Webcam Greetings" cards that use augmented reality technology to generate 3D animations. "The person receiving the card can visit http://www.hallmark.com/extra and follow the directions to be able to view a 3D animated feature by holding the greeting card up to the Web camera," the company explains in a press release. "The technology breathes a digital life into the card. The animation tracks with the movement of the card, so no matter which way the card is moved, the animation will rotate along in full 3D. In many cards, various scenes appear as the card is turned in different angles in front of the Webcam for a range of digital experiences."
• HDNet chairman, Mark Cuban, has just published a blog post that attempts to pour cold water on the OTT phenomenon: "There are many that think that video over the Internet will 'set them free' from having to deal with a small number of big companies (think cable, telco)," Cuban writes. "If that is what you think, you better think again. There are maybe 3 companies that can stream to 1mm or more simultaneous users. Google, Limelight and Akamai. And that 1mm simultaneous users isn't just for your content. That is for EVERYONE's content and they can't get much beyond 2mm without big problems. More importantly, if you want to stream your content to millions of users at once, it's going to cost you an incredible amount of money. Which leads me to a lesson for all you netizens who are jazzed up about over-the-top video. If you really believe the demand is there and your content will command 1mm simultaneous users, it's probably cheaper to pay DirecTV, Dish Network and Comcast to create a channel for you and let your viewers watch it on TV. Let that sink in. It's going to be cheaper to have the big traditional cable distributors offer your content to viewers than it will be to reach a large audience on the net. That's for a one-time offering. If you plan on doing it more than once or on a regularly scheduled basic, there is no question it's cheaper to do it this way. And the picture quality will be dramatically better."
• Kaltura, a company that offers what it bills as the first open source broadband video platform, has announced that it has integrated its video solution with Mzinga's OmniSocial social software platform. According to the companies, "with Kaltura's video solution, Mzinga OmniSocial users can more easily import and share rich media content across their community and within social applications, including blogs, discussions and idea share."
• Broadband video platform provider, Ooyala, has announced a deal with the New York Daily News that will see the newspaper using its platform to provide news-related video across the Web. "Ooyala's online video platform enables The Daily News to scale its online video initiatives and further its reputation as a cutting-edge, innovative publication," Ooyala says in a press release announcing the deal. "Videos of ground-breaking news, recent headlines and highlights can be instantly published through simple ingest and management systems. The Daily News monetizes its content by using Ooyala's native ad-server along with leading third-party ad servers and networks. Ooyala's recently announced new syndication tools enable The Daily News to further extend the reach of premium content while targeting new audiences."
• Video-sharing company, Vimeo, has announced a mobile version of its service. "The Vimeo developers have been hard at work, making it possible for anyone who owns a smartphone to easily watch, like, and comment on your videos," the company says in a blog post. "Plus users who own an iPhone, iPod Touch, Android, or Palm Pre can now go to our mobile site, vimeo.com/m, and make mobile versions of their videos. After logging in, click 'My Videos' then the Generate Mobile Videos' button...For Plus users who don't have a smartphone, no worries! You can make mobile versions of your videos by going to any of your videos' setting page and clicking the 'Videos' tab. Then check the 'Generate mobile versions of all my videos' box. Once you choose to make mobile versions of your videos, every new video you upload will get a mobile version and all of your existing videos will be queued up to be converted."
• Xerox has filed a patent, entitled "Apparatus and Method for Embedding Commercials," that describes a technology for altering the audio or video of a TV program in order to embed advertising that corresponds with the tastes of the individual viewer, according to a report by GoRumors. "As shown in FIG. 4, there is a display 400 which may be displayed at an end-user's home and a display 410 which may be displayed at another end-user's home," the patent application explains. "The two end-users may be next-door neighbors, live on different streets, in different cities, different states, or countries. Both display 400 and display 410 depict the same television program. However, the broadcasted program is altered so that it is customized for the individual user. For instance, the end-user watching display 400 may be into sports. Therefore, the audio data would be altered so that when the character says the name of the store, the character would say Modell's.RTM.. In addition the video of the broadcasted program would be replaced so the sign 402 on the storefront shows Modell's.RTM. and lips 401 of the character would also be altered so that it seems as if he/she is saying Modell's.RTM.. On the other hand, the end-user watching display 410 may be into clothing. Therefore, the audio data would be altered so that when the character says the name of the store, the character would say Macys.RTM.. In addition the video of the broadcasted program would be replaced so the sign 412 on the storefront shows Macys.RTM. and lips 411 of the character would also be altered so that it seems as if he/she is saying Macys.RTM.."
• YouTube has announced that it plans to make a number of improvements to its service's user experience over the coming months, and is inviting users to contribute suggestions. NewTeeVee's Janko Roettgers has more. Meanwhile, NewTeeVee's Ryan Lawler reports that Vevo, the music video joint venture between YouTube, Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, and Abu Dhabi Media, that went live last month, is proving popular, despite the technical problems that plagued its launch.