Azureus, has today unveiled news that Vuze, their high
definition online video service will be opened up to independent video
and film producers.
Azureus are the guys behind the very popular
BitTorrent client of the same
name, and launched Vuze in January. Since inception it’s been
downloaded and installed 10 million times.
You can read a fascinating interview between Brad Linder and
Azureus CEO Gilles BianRosa over at Download Squad, which covers Vuze
and his general thoughts about online video distribution.
Differences With The Competition
The main difference between Vuze and some of the existing
competition (Joost, Babelgum, VeohTV)
is that this one is based on the BitTorrent protocol, which can be bad
news or good news because download speeds depend on how many users are
sharing and downloading the content that you wish to view…
the more,
the better (in most cases).
With Vuze users are presented with near-DVD and HD quality
videos,
which can be searched through. The primary target for content now seems
to be independent video producers who are looking for a no-cost way to
reach a wider audience.
Producer Options Galore
With the Vuze Open Entertainment Platform,
producers have the ability to choose between free or ad-supported
streaming and downloads, rental or download-to-own, and whether to
implement Windows
Media DRM or not.
There have already been existing licensing deals with some
major networks, such as A&E,
BBC, and Showtime, with
most of this being paying content which users can rent or purchase.
Back in June, Steve O’Hear at Last100
forecasted this news by mentioning that “upcoming version[s] of the
software will enable all content creators to set their own prices,
select a business model (rental, to-own or ad supported), manage
territories, and choose whether to use DRM or not.”
Huge Potential
Vuze definitely has the potential to become much more popular,
given
the fact that it is probably the only video service that is offering to
show video content from independent producers at no cost.
I believe
that if Vuze can attract a large enough following of producers who
provide content, their fans will follow and become Vuze viewers.
Michael Garrett is a contributing author discussing the social networking world, his work can be found on Profy.com
