Time Warner to put 4800 episodes of old TV show on the net

[spectroelectro]

(from behind the nytimes registration wall)

Internet Service to Put Classic TV on Home Computer

By SAUL HANSELL
Published: November 14, 2005

Looking for "The Fugitive?" Didn't get enough "Eight Is Enough?" Would you like to "Welcome Back, Kotter" one more time?

Warner Brothers is preparing a major new Internet service that will let fans watch full episodes from more than 100 old television series. The service, called In2TV, will be free, supported by advertising, and will start early next year. More than 4,800 episodes will be made available online in the first year.

The move will give Warner a way to reap new advertising revenue from a huge trove of old programming that is not widely syndicated.

Programs on In2TV will have one to two minutes of commercials for each half-hour episode, compared with eight minutes in a standard broadcast. The Internet commercials cannot be skipped.

America Online, which is making a broad push into Internet video, will distribute the service on its Web portal. Both it and Warner Brothers are Time Warner units. An enhanced version of the service will use peer-to-peer file-sharing technology to get the video data to viewers.

Warner, with 800 television programs in its library, says it is the largest TV syndicator. It wants to use the Internet to reach viewers rather than depend on the whims of cable networks and local TV stations, said Eric Frankel, the president of Warner Brothers' domestic cable distribution division.

"We looked at the rise of broadband on Internet and said, 'Let's try to be the first to create a network that opens a new window of distribution for us rather than having to go hat in hand to a USA or a Nick at Night or a TBS,' " Mr. Frankel said.

Warner's offering comes at a time when television producers and networks are exploring new ways to use digital technology to distribute programs.

Many of the recent moves include charging viewers for current programs. ABC has started selling episodes of some programs to download to Apple iPods for $1.99. And NBC and CBS announced last week that they would sell reruns of their top new shows for 99 cents an episode through video-on-demand services. CBS is working with Comcast and NBC with DirecTV.

(The CBS programs to be sold on Comcast include commercials, but viewers can skip them. The NBC programs on DirecTV and the ABC programs from Apple have no commercials.)

Of the media companies' new experiments, Peter Storck, president of the Points North Group, a research firm, remarked, "They are saying let's take the plunge, put the content out there, and figure out how to monetize it." Programs on In2TV will range from recently canceled series like "La Femme Nikita" to vintage shows like "Maverick" from the early 1960's . Other series that will be available include "Chico and the Man," "Wonder Woman" and "Babylon 5."

The company will offer a changing selection of several hundred episodes each month, rather than providing continuous access to all the episodes in a series, Mr. Frankel said, so as not to cannibalize potential DVD sales of old TV shows.

And in the future, when Warner negotiates with cable networks to syndicate popular programs, Mr. Frankel said, the price will be higher if the network wants it kept off the Internet.

For AOL, the In2TV deal is part of a broad strategy to create a range of video offerings to attract people to its free AOL.com portal. It already offers some video news and sports programs from CBS News, ABC and CNN.

At the same time, it is creating programming aimed at women and young people, including an online reality series called "The Biz," giving contestants the chance to become a music producer, in conjunction with the Warner Music Group (which is no longer owned by Time Warner).

Next month AOL will introduce TMZ, an entertainment news service, in a joint venture with another Warner Brothers division, Telepictures Productions. TMZ, named for the 30-mile zone around Hollywood that is mentioned in some film-union contracts, will mix breaking entertainment news and gossip with a database of information and video about celebrities. It will be run by Harvey Levin, former executive producer of " Celebrity Justice," a syndicated program about the legal woes of entertainment figures, which Telepictures canceled last spring.

TMZ and most of AOL's programming effort, so far, have been built largely around short video segments, reflecting the conventional view that Internet users are less likely to want to watch full-length programs on a computer screen.

Yet a recent survey by the Points North Group of 1,098 Internet users found that 28 percent said they wanted to watch regular television shows on their PC's or laptops, Mr. Storck said.

Full-length TV shows on the In2TV service responds to that demand, particularly as more people hook their computers up to their television sets.

AOL will offer a version of the service meant to be watched on a television set connected to a Windows Media Center PC, and it is exploring a similar arrangement to link the Internet programming to television through TiVo video recorders.

For those who want to watch on a big screen, AOL is introducing optional technology that it says will produce a DVD-quality picture. Even with a broadband connection, most Internet video looks grainy at full width on a computer monitor, let alone a big TV set. The new option, called AOL Hi-Q, will require the downloading once of special software, and the program may not start for several minutes, depending on the speed of the users' connection.

There is a catch. To use the technology, viewers will have to agree to participate in a special file-sharing network. This approach helps AOL reduce the cost of distributing-high quality video files by passing portions of the video files from one user's computer to another. AOL says that since it will control the network, it can protect users from the sorts of viruses and spyware that infect other peer-to-peer systems.

AOL is using file-sharing technology from Kontiki, a Silicon Valley company providing a similar system to the ambitious Internet video program of the BBC.

Warner is also adding shorter segments and interactive features for users who do not want to watch entire episodes. Each month, there will be a series of one- or two-minute excerpts drawn from the full-length episodes, featuring funny scenes or segments showing famous actors when they played bit parts on TV. (Brad Pitt, for one, had a small role on "Growing Pains" in 1987.) These excerpts can be sent to friends by e-mail or instant message, and will eventually be offered on mobile phones.

Other programs will be accompanied by interactive features that can be displayed side by side with the video, like trivia quizzes and video games related to the shows. One feature, to accompany "Welcome Back, Kotter," will allow users to upload a picture of themselves (or a friend) and superimpose 1970's hair styles and fashion, and send the pictures by e-mail to friends or use as icons on AOL's instant-message system.

"This is great goofy stuff that fans are going to love," Mr. Storck of the Points North Group said.

[edDV]

Excellent !

Richard Parsons of Time Warner was recently on the PBS Charlie Rose show asking us to watch the AOL public portal for some exciting content and this looks about as good as could be expected.

Instead of sitting on this TV show goldmine, they will be able to generate ad revenue from aging boomers.

Using "peer-to-peer file-sharing technology" is a huge departure. If this is what it looks like, TW is taking a 'if you can't beat them, join them' strategy and hopefully they will execute this well.

[TBoneit]

Strange I though Kontiki was identified as spyware by spyware cleaning programs?

Or it could be that their are two different kontiki's?

If it wasn't peer to peer I'd be interested.

Cheers

[thecoalman]

Strange I though Kontiki was identified as spyware by spyware cleaning programs?

I don't know but a quick search brings up this about Gamespot using Kontiki :

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,365073,00.asp

The "Download Express" service, which Gamespot calls a "thin client", is actually a rebranded version of a download manager supplied by Kontiki Inc., Sunnyvale, Calif. Executives at Kontiki said that the software allows the use of the Windows Rights Manager software developed by Microsoft or other DRM software, which can place limits on the use of downloaded software and can supply Gamespot with information about the users that download it and the associated game demos. Kontiki does not actually supply DRM software to its customers, according to the company.

Taken in that context it's not the software from Kontiki but however the site implements it.

[gll99]

I like that free with advertising concept. I pay for the broadband and have to watch some ads to see a show. The model is similar to cable tv. I pay for cable service, watch some ads and see a show.

I don't like the NBC, CBS model to pay .99c for one time shift. My cable company offers across Canada timeshift of multiple stations for 1.99 a month. For that I get tv stations from Newfoundland Labarador to B.C. timeshifted due to the different timezones. Many stations automatically repeat shows during the wee hours of the night. On top of that independent networks in Canada purchase many of the popular shows and replay them on different nights than the original broadcast. With summer reruns, pvr's and syndication it's hard to justify paying .99c again just for one episode. I don't see that concept catching on enough to justify the setup costs and any required equipment purchase.
It's good to see that some are finally starting to think outside the box and recognize that the internet, pc and other storage devices are not their enemies.

[GullyFoyle]

It's a start.
Until it is all free except for ads they will not dent the p2p crowd.
At least someone is catching on that they seriously need to change the business model and the legal agenda isn't working.

[jntaylor63]

I really hope this starts the movement of a pay per channel system over the net. I'm sure I'm not alone is asking why do I pay some much and only want to watch so little.

TV over the internet has to be the cheapest way to distribute shows. A studio would not have to worry about cable lines or Sat dishes. Granted people can lose their broadband line, but its small and local. And they have the world to show to, not just the US, UK, ect 1st. I don't think that 3 bucks a month is hard to ask. After all, if you have one of those Big C-Band dishes, you can get a pay per channel and that's what the price goes for. I know none of the studios are happy over the thought of mixing TV and PC's, but its time for a change. They aren't going to stop all theft, but maybe if the price was a little better, would be pirates might penny-up and pay for service

(Love the fact that I might get a plug-in for Windows Media Center)

[Wile_E]

If it were at least 720x480 MPEG2/4 DVD quality, then I would bite. Otherwise it's no good to me. These studios are having to make digital masters in the first place. So why not allow people to buy higher quality downloads? I am also interested in watching old TV specials and rare old footage that stations would air, years ago. Don't just make the so-called "popular" shows available. Make everything available. I have a collection of VHS tapes with old TV specials, such as Star Wars interviews/specials, Thanksgiving/Christmas Day parades, 1920's/30's/40's rare footage, etc... These old programs were aired once, but have to be sitting in a vault somewhere collecting dust. They need to make these available to the public. Otherwise they are essentially gone forever. They need to archive all this stuff digitally ASAP, to preserve it for the future.

I believe we are seeing a start of an era. I would like to think, that in the future, anything and everything ever recorded on film/tape, will be instantly accessible to everyone to watch. Sort of like Star Trek's holodeck and computer system. All man-kind's history archived in a huge searchable database, for instant access to anyone(for free).

[Faustus]

I applaud this decision. Way to go TW. Now if they just put something watchable up there.

[beric3236]

The only thing better for Time Warner is to also offer them on DVD as Season sets,as I do not have an Ipod, nor do I want to be connected to TIVO, so the only other choice is a DVD player. And yes, I do remember "The Fuigitive" as well as others.

[mbellot]

(from behind the nytimes registration wall)


Programs on In2TV will have one to two minutes of commercials for each half-hour episode, compared with eight minutes in a standard broadcast. The Internet commercials cannot be skipped.

That "feature" will last about three days before someone figures out how to bypass it.

The more interesting question that I didn't see answered was if its streaming video or an honest to goodness file download.

[whitejremiah]

i'd like it to be a download, in all honesty because then you dont have to wait for loading if you decide to start watching a show again from the begining...im all for it...watching a tv show on the net with less advertising than it would have on a regular tv....my only REAL question is how good the picture quality will be on this stuff.....if they go at or very near dvd quality...they are likely to have themselves one heck of an audiance...i think its a great idea for them...they will likely make a killing on advertising revenue at the same time attract a ton of people who may eventually end up buying dvd boxsets of the series...its one GIANT step in the right direction.......i bet illegal downloading of whatever tv shows they will over will at least slow down a bit because of this.....i just hope that if they do make them outright downloads, they dont go and disallow playback of old episodes when they put new ones up...if someone is hard up enough to sit and download each individual episode as they are shown...then in my opionion, they should have the rights to play them back whenever.......but then again, this is yet to be seen...the way it sounded though, its probably gonna end up being streaming since it said you wont be able to skip ads...

[TBoneit]

I'm betting some kind of WMV or less likely Xvid/Divx....

There is already a couple of legal video services that rent video over th e internet in WMV format using DRM. Videonow is one such that I tried
www.cinemanow.com
Some were PPV some were dfownload to own, some had varying lengths of time to view.

Quality was fair, that was the main reason I dropped it, albeit they had some interesting content.
With the DRM I had to watch it on the TV via TVout, The service seemed like it was somewhzat overloaded too as sometime of an evening it would stall and I'd have to restart.

Anyway some studios seem to trust the MS DRM enough to release through them so I'm betting they'll look at the track record and go WMV. At the time I tried it it would record on my Cyberhome Recorder, I didn't try it since I got the Pioneer.

[ROF]

(from behind the nytimes registration wall)


Programs on In2TV will have one to two minutes of commercials for each half-hour episode, compared with eight minutes in a standard broadcast. The Internet commercials cannot be skipped.

That "feature" will last about three days before someone figures out how to bypass it.

The more interesting question that I didn't see answered was if its streaming video or an honest to goodness file download.

It's streaming video similiar to your television set. You never receive the file but must install a small application in order to view.

[mbellot]

(from behind the nytimes registration wall)


Programs on In2TV will have one to two minutes of commercials for each half-hour episode, compared with eight minutes in a standard broadcast. The Internet commercials cannot be skipped.

That "feature" will last about three days before someone figures out how to bypass it.

The more interesting question that I didn't see answered was if its streaming video or an honest to goodness file download.

It's streaming video similiar to your television set. You never receive the file but must install a small application in order to view.

So then its just a matter of creating a "VCR" that intercepts the stream and offloads it to disk. Its been done before.


If the quality is good enough it might even be worthwhile, although I'd probably set it up on a dedicated PC. No telling what information the viewing software might try to collect and send home to momma.

[ROF]

So then its just a matter of creating a "VCR" that intercepts the stream and offloads it to disk. Its been done before.


If the quality is good enough it might even be worthwhile, although I'd probably set it up on a dedicated PC. No telling what information the viewing software might try to collect and send home to momma.

If it's anything like the current AOL Music Videos and assorted news reels the quality is fine unless you want to view full screen. I hope only a few people try to take advantage of the stream otherwise it will be necessary for them to bog it down with more DRM protections and probably an associated cost passed on to the consumer similiar to what has happened with the price of CDs.