Netflix highlights ‘family’ programming

Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX) is courting families with a new page meant to promote its family-friendly content to existing and prospective subscribers. “We've used our proprietary algorithm to create lists with think families will love,” Ted Sarandos, Netflix's chief content officer, told Bloomberg.

Viacom producing short-form Web series at MTVOther.com

Viacom's (Nasdaq: VIA) MTV has set up a new studio to make short online video clips for MTVOther.com and its TV Everywhere apps. The original online content includes such shows as “Rock Stories,” “Late Night Munchies” and “Inside Joke,” with episodes running less than five minutes. MTV is not the only network producing short-form content specifically for the Web and mobile devices. Last month, Discovery (Nasdaq: DISCA) and its Revision3 unit introduced TestTube.com, where it posts short clips from a variety of Web-only series

Comcast, Chernin Group, WPP fund Fullscreen

YouTube partner Fullscreen said it has raised money from The Chernin Group, Comcast (Nasdaq: CMCSA) and WPP. The company didn't say how much money it rounded up or how much ownership it sold in the process. But Fullscreen did say it will use the money to expand its technology, audience development and sales operations along with creating new content. The company says it was the top independent YouTube channel partner based on comScore data from the past six months. Fullscreen's software–designed to make it easier for brands and independent video producers to build online video audiences–was part of what drew Comcast's venture capital arm to the deal, said Sam Landman, a principal at Comcast Ventures

Netflix gets rights to new DreamWorks Animation shows

Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX) will get about 300 hours of original programming from DreamWorks Animation under a new agreement the two companies announced Monday. The new original series will feature characters from some of DreamWorks' hit movies such as “Shrek” and “Kung Fu Panda” and older animated characters to which DreamWorks owns the rights. “This deal represents a major expansion of what's already a phenomenal relationship,” Ted Sarandos, Netflix's chief content officer said in a press release.

New White Paper From Frost & Sullivan on Next-Generation Content Protection Strategies

Frost & Sullivan recently released a new white paper that discusses the security challenges operators face as they embrace multi-network, or hybrid, architectures to implement next-generation TV Everywhere content services. Entitled, “Cardless Content Security: The Smarter choice for Hybrid Networks,” we examine how challenges like fragmentation of devices and networks and the need to deliver consistent user experiences across all screens can be more effectively overcome. We discuss industry-proven best practices in architecting security solutions for the next-generation ecosystem of multiple transmission networks and devices in a way that minimizes head-end complexity and ensures a future-proof investment. The paper outlines: Key challenges of extending a branded, compelling pay-TV experience to every subscriber on every device and screen in a revenue-enhancing manner How the power of the Internet can be harnessed to facilitate content protection and secure revenue Advantages of cardless security over smart cards, including overcoming a weakness in DVB standards and its unique ability to leverage two-way networks Why content security solutions are moving away from managing silos for digital rights management (DRM), CA systems and watermarking to a complete revenue security platform Scenarios on how a unified multi-network security architecture if preferable over managing separate cardless and smart card-based systems Monetization of video is a particularly interesting challenge, since business models in the OTT and TV Everywhere space remain experimental and online revenues have yet to become significant contributors to MVPD businesses.

Cable’s threats to online video include co-opting audience

At The Cable Show this week, device makers and service providers seemed increasingly open to integrating online video and over-the-top TV services with their own video products. That's a big change of pace for an industry notorious for seeking control over the user experience associated with TV viewing. The thinking has typically gone something like this: If cable operators make it easier for their customers to watch online video, they won't be able to sell as much of their own pay-per-view and other premium products

Telcos build fiber to wireless towers to meet video demand

The major phone companies are increasingly pulling fiber networks to cell towers, to provide backhaul services to the wireless carriers. As carriers offer faster wireless broadband access they need to move more bits–much of it video–around the broader network. FierceTelecom takes a deeper look.

Amazon Gets More Competitive With Announcement Of Custom SSL Support For Static & Dynamic Content Delivery

Late in the day on Tuesday, Amazon announced that custom SSL domain names and root domain hosting support features have now been enabled for content owners who want to deliver static and dynamic content via Amazon’s CloudFront delivery service. These two new features are something a lot of content owners have been waiting on and many I have spoken with have been wanting to move to or use Amazon, but couldn’t until Amazon supported these features, especially SSL domain support. While Amazon still has more work to do before they have most of the same functionality as Akamai’s dynamic site acceleration (DSA) product, this new announcement by Amazon opens up a much larger portion of the market to them and puts more pressure on other CDNs. Not to mention, the pricing they just announced with this, not surprisingly, is really cheap. Here’s more details on what Amazon now supports: Custom SSL Domain Names Custom SSL Certificate support lets content owners deliver content over HTTPS using their own domain name and SSL certificate

Streaming Media East Conference Videos Now Online

Thanks to a lot of really great speakers and presenters who covered content, business and technical topics around online video, we had a great Streaming Media East conference last month. Almost all of the videos from the event are now available online, for free at www.streamingmedia.com/videos and most of the slides from the presentations can be downloaded from the Streaming Media East agenda page . We have about half a dozen videos to still post and some slide decks are still missing that I will upload as soon as the presenters send them to me. The 2014 Streaming Media East conference will take place May 12-14, at the same venue, so mark your calendars now

Cable set-top boxes from Rovi, Pace integrate online video

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Cable technology vendors are increasingly touting their ability to integrate online video services such as YouTube with traditional pay-TV programming. Companies such as Rovi and Pace are displaying devices at the Cable Show here this week that allow cable subscribers to easily toggle between programming coming from the Internet, their cable provider and their DVR. Such integrations could make it easier for online video content owners to reach cable subscribers.

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