The Roku Box, which started life as the Roku Netflix player before evolving to its current form, is getting some brothers in the shape of two new boxes. Roku is also promising new channels will be coming to the service soon. Which, with Netflix now headed for the PS3, is needed more than ever.

Roku and Netflix

Roku started out relying on Netflix’ ‘Watch Instantly’ streaming service as the be all and end all of its content offering to buyers of the $99 box. But since launching in May 2008, other content channels have been added, including Amazon Video-on-Demand and MLB TV.

Netflix soon moved on to a host of other set-top boxes and devices, including the Xbox 360, Internet-enabled televisions, and hybrid Blu-ray players. And it’s now adding a new one to its line-up in the shape of the Playstation 3.

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Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog is a Web series turned short film that has turned heads by being a truly phenomenal success. Now, Joss Whedon has confirmed a Dr. Horrible 2 and talked about creating a digital studio. Web video is growing up.

Dr. Horrible Is Born

Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog was created by Joss Whedon (best known for Buffy The Vampire Slayer) during the Hollywood writers strike of 2007/2008. Unable to write for any studios, he decided to finance and produce his own series meant just for the Web.

The result was a three-part series created for around $200,000 by Joss Whedon, his brothers Zack and Jed, and Maurissa Tancharoen. The original aim was to ensure the show broke even so everyone could be paid and walk away happy. But much more than that was achieved.

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New product announcements from Apple highlight the addition of a video camera to the iPod Nano.

The new camera is capable of shooting VGA (640×480) quality footage at 30fps, which is fine for YouTube, but does not measure up to the specifications of newer portable HD video cameras like the Flip Mino HD.

The iPod Nano now sports a microphone and built-in speaker. Software updates include Cover Flow, Genius Mix, and Voice Over, which allows you to read out the names of songs as they’re played. The Nano also has a built-in pedometer and FM player.
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If Google started streaming movies on YouTube for a fee, could it make money, serious money at that? A financial analyst thinks so, and said as much this morning while urging people to buy Google shares. This may be a little premature seeing as the move hasn’t even been confirmed as yet.

YouTube Revenue Streams

YouTube is a hugely popular site, one responsible for turning millions of people on to online video. But its 400 million-plus worldwide user base so far gets the full run of the site for free, with only adverts occasionally passing in front of their eyes.

Whether a purely advertising-based business model is enough for the site has long been the subject of debate. Regardless, I’m sure Google would like to see higher returns on the $1.65 billion it paid to acquire the site a few years ago.

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YouTube’s business model is currently based entirely on advertising revenue. But what if the site started offering streaming movie rentals for a small fee in a move meant to rival iTunes, Amazon, and Netflix. How many of the 100 million-plus U.S. users would bite?

YouTube Revenue

I don’t think anyone can legitimately claim that YouTube isn’t a successful site, although Time magazine gave it a damn good go. With millions of users around the world and a brand name that would be the first mentioned by the vast majority when asked about online video, YouTube is as big a hit as some of its viral videos.

However, its current business model doesn’t seem to be bearing as much fruit as Google clearly thought it could when it paid $1.65 billion for the site. With the revenue from advertising almost wholly being consumed by bandwidth and associated costs, YouTube isn’t bringing in the big money as of yet.

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Hollywood has been very slow in cottoning on to the fact that how people consume media is changing rapidly. Thus making the same mistake the music industry has made for the past decade. But in the same way as record labels are starting to come round to the change, so are the movie studios.

Film Fresh

The DivX format has been with us for many years but has all but ignored and rejected by Hollywood. Until now. This week has seen four major Hollywood movie studios sign up to offer their movies in the format through the little-known (until now) movie retailer, Film Fresh.

Sony Pictures, Warner Bros., Paramount, and Lionsgate have all agreed to have both old and new titles sold through Film Fresh.

This signals a complete change of pace for Film Fresh, which has up to now mainly focused on independent titles. Probably not through choice though, more forced due to the majors being resistant selling their product via this method.

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Including a video camera in the new iPhone 3GS was an inspired move by Apple, and one which has increased the number of mobile uploads on YouTube. How much more inspired it would be to also include a video camera on the iPod Touch and other models. It could have a huge impact on the world of online video.

IPhone 3GS Video

The recently-released iPhone 3GS includes some fantastic video features. The device includes a 3 megapixel camera which is capable of recording video at near-HD quality with full audio and at 30 frames-per-second. What’s more, there is some excellent basic editing software included as standard which also allows captured clips to be uploaded to YouTube and the like with ease.

This inclusion of a good quality video camera in the iPhone is a worry for video camera manufacturers, because if this sort of device is available in a smartphone, where is the need to buy a product which costs more and is only capable of doing that one job? However, the iPhone is still a costly prospect for most people thanks to the monthly contract required to use one.

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