The move by many television networks to get their content on to the Web, in some format, usually for free, means that cable companies now have a quandary: do they pay the same price for the privilege of broadcasting shows that are also being broadcast free elsewhere for all to see?

The cable arm of Time Warner is about to split from it’s media giant parent to become a separate company chasing telephone and broadband customers as well as TV subscribers.

The man in charge of this is Glenn Britt, who gave an interview to The Wall Street Journal about the challenges ahead, the biggest of which he claims is the emergence of the Internet as a viable platform for television viewing.

(more…)

Video transcoding is fine so long as the technology and profiles used stay the same long enough for companies utilising them to keep on top of their needs.

However, a lot of companies want to be able to encode their back catalogue to support new profiles, which can be a tiresome and long-winded task.

Encoding Profiles

I’ve talked to a lot of companies recently about their video transcoding needs and most are eager to support an increased number of encoding profiles.

But as their video library grows, they foresee challenges in encoding their back catalogue to support new profiles while keeping up with transcoding their daily ingest.

(more…)

Back in April, it was announced that TheWB, the TV network from Warner Brothers which merged with UPN to form The CW, was coming back in a new format with TheWB.com being a website hosting archived content.

The site, which will also become the home for shows produced purely for the Web, and will be partnered by KidsWB.com focussing on the entertainment of children, has now launched in beta mode.

(more…)

Web television is growing at a fast pace, but that incredible growth means that television networks and cable providers will have to move fast to keep up.

Many of the big networks such as ABC, NBC, Fox, etc. have already started uploading television content directly to the Internet for users who don’t mind watching programming on their computers.

Of course, that puts cable providers in a bit of a pickle; if users can go directly to the source on the internet and cut out the middle men, what good will cable providers be?

(more…)