blu-ray

OTT video infrastructure provider, Sonic Solutions, said Tuesday that Haier, a Chinese manufacturer of home appliances and consumer electronics, has chosen its RoxioNow platform to enable delivery of a library of Hollywood movies and TV shows over the Web to a new line of Haier-branded Blu-ray players and HDTV sets. "Digital movie services powered by the RoxioNow platform will play an important role in our next-generation connected devices and help make it easy for consumers to browse, purchase and enjoy the best in digital entertainment from the comfort of their living rooms," Doug Lane, president of Haier Digital Products Group for the Americas, said in a prepared statement.

Struggling video rental chain, Blockbuster, said Tuesday that the latest Philips Blu-ray players, the 5320 and 7320 (note: the devices are built by Funai Electric-subsidiary, P&F, which is the exclusive licensee for Philips consumer television sets and home theater systems in North America), feature its transactional VOD service, Blockbuster On Demand. "Blockbuster On Demand gives customers instant access to the very latest new releases on the same day as DVD and Blu-ray," Bruce Anderson, Blockbuster On Demand's SVP and general manager, said in a prepared statement. "These new Philips Blu-ray players are a great way for you to enjoy the latest hit movies or cinema classics and we are excited to enhance that experience." 

Inwindow Outdoor, a New York City-based company that specializes in digital storefront and mall advertising, has launched an interactive augmented reality display at The Grove mall in Los Angeles, in order to promote the Blu-ray release of the movie, "Avatar." According to the company, the display--a free-standing structure made up of multiple digital screens--uses custom technology, developed in house, in order to morph faces of shoppers into Na'vis (the wide-eyed blue creatures from the movie) as they watch. "This is by far the most technologically ambitious project we've ever done, and the first by our internal digital team," Inwindow Outdoor managing director, Jeff Cohen, said in a prepared statement.

Due to the volume of news generated by last week's Consumer Electronics Show, and 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:

A number of pieces of connected TV news came across [itvt]'s desk, Tuesday. Here is a brief--and by no means exhaustive--round-up (note: also see "Vudu Unveils Vudu Apps OTT Service," "ActiveVideo Networks in Deal to Provide Blockbuster with Cloud-Based User Interface," and "Showtime Networks, Betfair Launch Interactive TV Widgets"):

At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week (Booth 10045), Burbank, Calif.-based Blu-ray technology provider, Dreamer, plans to demo an Internet connectivity solution which it says transforms Blu-ray players (and other CE devices) into HD set-top boxes for delivering unlimited content and interactive services to the TV.

Sonic Solutions, the digital media company that in 2008 acquired the pioneering broadband VOD service/platform, CinemaNow (it subsequently added "Roxio" to the service's name in order to make its branding consistent with its other products), announced Monday that it is launching version 2.0 of Roxio CinemaNow at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week. According to the company, the new version, which it will be demo'ing by invitation in the Renaissance Hotel's Chairman Room, offers new HD and 3D capabilities and various interactive capabilities.

Here is a round-up of some other interactive TV-related stories we didn't have room for in this issue:

Video rental company, Netflix, announced Tuesday that subscribers to its service can now instantly watch its streaming movie and TV show offerings on Sony Bravia connected HDTV's, on earlier Bravia models that are compatible with the company's Bravia Internet video link module, and on the Sony Network Blu-ray Disc Player.

[itvt] has just published an interview with Peter Low, president and CEO of interactive TV authoring solutions provider, Ensequence. Low, whose appointment as CEO was announced in September, discusses his new role at Ensequence, outlines the strategic trajectory of the company's flagship iTVManager platform, provides statistics and other information on the company's various deployments around the world, explains how the company is responding to the emergence of connected TV, and shares his thoughts on the implications for the company of the US cable industry's plans for template-driven interactive TV.

Korean MHP, tru2way and Blu-ray specialist, Alticast, will later this week announce that it has opened an engineering center in Wroclaw, Poland. The company says that the expansion is in response to "the steady growth of the European MHP/GEM interactive middleware and the imminent publishing of GEM 1.2 Hybrid Broadcast Broadband interactive middleware."

InteractiveTV Today [itvt], the first, best and most widely read news source on interactive and multiplatform television, is pleased to present the fourth annual

TV of Tomorrow Show,

Electronics retailer, Best Buy, and video rental company, Netflix, on Tuesday announced the availability of two new Blu-ray Disc Players, marketed under Best Buy's own Insignia brand, that allow Netflix members to instantly watch movies and TV episodes from that service over-the-top on their TV sets. The players--the Insignia Advanced Series Blu-ray Player (NS-WBRDVD) and the Insignia Connected Blu-ray Player (NS-BRDVD3)--are priced at $249.99 and $179.99 respectively and are available both in Best Buy's retail stores and on its Web site. According to Best Buy, the Advanced Series model uses built-in WiFi to connect to the Internet while the Connected model uses an Ethernet connection.

Here is a round-up of other interactive TV-related news stories we didn't have room for in this issue:

The [itvt] editorial team is currently traveling in the UK, and, because of time restraints, we are covering a number of this issue's news stories in round-up/summary form. We anticipate some additional interruption of our regular news publishing schedule in the coming days, so we apologize in advance for any inconvenience to our readers. Here is the round-up: