Back in 2006, Netflix launched a contest to improve its movie recommendation algorithm. To win the Netflix Prize, a team has to improve the accuracy of the Netflix movie recommendations by 10% or more. The prize is a million dollars. Now it looks like one team may have won the contest, with a score of 10.05%. Although several teams had come close, nobody was able to hit the 10% mark until members of four top teams joined forces. It's not over yet, though. Other teams now have 30 days to best the 10,05% result, with the prize going to the best overall score.

BellKor's Pragmatic Chaos, the first team to top 10%, includes researchers from Yahoo and AT&T, and many of the team members have collected Netflix's Yearly Progress Prize for their attempts in previous years. The rules of the contest require that the winning team explain how their algorithm works, and allow Netflix to use their work. This victory may have come sooner than Netflix expected: the contest was scheduled to run until 2011 if no one could come up with a suitable solution before then.

Three movie studios have banded together to launch a new premium movie channel called Epix. The project was first announced in January. Eventually the network will be available from cable and satellite providers, but today Epix launched in private beta as a web site. Which makes sense, because the idea behind Epix has always been to offer HD video content both through the TV channel and over the web, Hulu-style.

Epix is a partnership between Paramount, Lionsgate, and MGM. The goal is to offer the network for a low fee to cable and satellite providers so that Epix can be included in your basic programming package at no extra charge. Subscribers will then also have access to the movies online. In 720 resolution. Ad-free.

NewTeeVee reports that there are about 100 films available to private beta users today, including Iron Man. The video player is based on Flash and streams content at up to 3Mbps. There's also a social element to the video player that lets you schedule simultaneous viewings with up to four friends over the internet.

Incidentally, Epix never got around to purchasing the Epix.com domain name from its current owners. Instead, the site is hosted at EpixHD.com.

Over the last few years YouTube has successfully demonstrated that people will spend countless hours watching short user generated videos. But you know what else people like to watch? Professionally produced dramas, comedies, documentaries, cartoons, and news programs. Rival video site Hulu may not have anywhere near the audience that YouTube has, but it's choc full of professional video content (that you can only see in the US for the most part), which is much easier to monetize.

Now YouTube is stepping up its game, by offering content from TV and movie studios in a new section labeled "Shows." According to the New York Times, Google has signed agreements to distribute content from Sony, Lions Gate, CBS, MGM, and other studios.

The move will allow YouTube to place pre-roll, post-roll, and interstitial ads in video content, something it doesn't do with user generated videos.

Right now, the selection of TV shows and movies on YouTube is rather sad. Most of the content consists of old programs that you probably forgot existed, plus one new show from CBS: Harper's Island. Since Fox and NBC are the driving forces behind Hulu, it's not likely that we'll see their content on YouTube anytime soon. And there's talk that ABC could joing Hulu in the not too distant future.

If you've got a huge movie collection, whether it's physical DVDs and Blu-Rays or just movies ripped to a hard drive, Multiplex can help you keep track of all of them on your Mac. Its Leopard-like interface uses Apple's latest Core Animation improvements and looks like an even more epic version of Cover Flow. Instead of a pile of CDs, like in iTunes, you're looking at a wall of DVDs.

Multiplex is pretty sweet, but it's not at version 1.0 yet, and there are areas where it could get sweeter. It will recognize DVDs when you insert them, up to a point. Although the search box is auto-populated with the name of the DVD, you still have to search by name or UPC for the right movie. Delicious Library creator Wil Shipley solved this problem by turning the built-in iSight into a barcode scanner. It will be interesting to see what Multiplex comes up with for quicker entry of DVDs.

Also, all the visual effects can be a drawback if your Mac isn't top-of-the-line. My last-year's-model Macbook choked a little bit once I got my library up to larger sizes. For serious movie fans with serious machines, though, the visual appeal alone makes Multiplex worth a look. The metadata search also works rather well, and it returned the movie I was looking for as the first result every time. Bottom line: if you're a DVD collector, you can trust Multiplex to get the cataloguing job done.

The last time Download Squad took a look at MyMediaPlayer, Christina praised the concept of an Adobe AIR-based Hulu viewer, and the ability to watch shows and search for new ones at the same time. She also knocked MyMediaPlayer because it only showed the embedded versions of Hulu videos, which meant a serious restriction on viewing quality.

MyMediaPlayer 2 fixes that issue, adds Linux support, and is visually more appealing than the previous version.

Some of the new features in MyMediaPlayer 2 include a guide page for quick browsing of shows and movies, a full-screen TV listing mode, and, most importantly, full-screen video.

Since MyMediaPlayer shows Hulu content uncut and with all the ads, the main incentive to use it over your browser is the addition of nice little UI touches like these. It also only shows only full-length movies and shows, so you don't have to browse Hulu's endless clips for full episodes they don't carry.

MGM, Paramount, and Lionsgate are banding together to form a new TV channel called epix that will show films from each studio as soon as 9 months after the theatrical release. There's just one catch: No cable or satellite companies have agreed to carry the channel just yet.

But here's where things get interesting. The three studios, which are working together under the name Studio 3 Networks, plan to launch a subscription based web site that will stream on-demand movies starting in May. At launch, movies including The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Iron Man, Pink Panther 2, The Spiderwick Chronicles, and Tyler Perry's Madea Goes to Jail will be available.

In other words, the new epix web site will be a lot like Hulu, except the films will be more current and viewers will have to pay to watch them. So umm, it won't be that much like Hulu at all. But it does raise an interesting question - if Studio 3 Networks doesn't manage to sign a broadcast carriage, could the group still make money on a subscription based web site? Sure, people are used to getting online video for free, but personally I'd rather pay a nominal monthly fee to watch on-demand movies from a site like epix than pay an arm and a leg to subscribe to a cable channel on top of a monthly cable bill. Or at least, I would if epix had films from more than three studios.

In related news, while looking for any sort of publicity photos of epix, I discovered that epix.com, epix.net, and epix.tv among other web domains are already registered. So it's not clear exactly what the URL of the new page will be.

Jinni is a new web service that helps you find movies using a number of different tools. You can just enter the name of a movie if you want some information about it. Or you can browser for movies by looking through categories like mood, plot, genre, time/period, or place.

There are two things that make Jinni really stand out from other movie search tools though. First, once you find a movie you like, you can click a button to discover "more like it." While the engine which determines that if you like Iron Man you might also like X-Men isn't perfect, it is pretty good.

Second, instead of just typing a movie title in the search bar, you can also start entering search queries like "sci fi distopia," or "romantic tragedy." Thumbnail results are sized according to relevenace to your search terms. You can also click the Story Tuners button to adjust your search using criteria like little or well known; light or serious.

Jinni doesn't currently let you watch, buy, or download movies directly from its page. But the service does provide links to rent or buy the movie from Netflix, Blockbuster, Amazon, Movielink or other sites, including Hulu.

Jinni is currently in private beta testing, but I received an email with an invite just a few seconds after entering requesting one.

[via ReadWriteWeb]

If you're looking to either make your Pirate Bay downloading a little more like traditional shopping or a way to avoid spending money at Amazon.com, a new Greasemonkey script is ready to answer the call.

Pirates of the Amazon works by inserting a direct download link below the title of the product you're currently viewing. Of course it works with movies and albums, but it also does an admirable job finding software and books.

The download link points directly to the .torrent file, so you won't even have to view the Pirate Bay page for a particular item. Their crew doesn't mind a bit.

"We love scripts like that. Sharing is good, [and we] don't really care if people end up on our download page or take the torrent itself directly. It's easier for the people to get it directly, but they miss the meta data that is surrounding the torrent file (comments and so on can be helpful)."

This isn't the first script of this kind, obviously. Others exist that perform the same function with IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes, and a quick tag search at Userscripts.org for 'torrent" reveals several others.

It's an interesting script, but I'll keep searching NowTorrents for now.

It seems like the days of the family computer have come and gone already, and more and more people have their own individual computer to use. In my house, everyone over the age of 3 has one (plus a couple of extras), and keeping data synchronized amongst them all is a bit of a nightmare.

Our main two machines are the Macs that my wife and I use. In our family, I'm the techie one, so over the years I've spent a lot of time ripping our CD collections into MP3 files. Though she certainly enjoys listening to music, she's never bothered to do the same on her machine. The other day she decided that she should have access to all of the music that I've been dutifully ripping from our CD collection, and since 1/2 of the CDs were hers in the first place, she's right.

So, what's the fastest way to get my iTunes library over to her machine, while maintaining the song ratings and playlists that we've come up with together? I found an application called Syncopation that fits the bill perfectly.

Syncopation does exactly what I've described - it allows you to grab an entire music library from another machine over your local network. It even supports synchronizing podcasts, movies and TV shows! The process is very straightforward:

1. Install Syncopation on both the machine you want to synchronize from, and the machine you are moving the music to
2. Set your preferences; do you want to transfer videos and podcasts, or no?
3. Subscribe to the other machine that should be showing up in Syncopation's browser
4. Press the Sync button, and wait.
   
5. And wait, and wait, and wait.

Depending on how big your library is and how fast your network is, it could take a number of hours to transfer everything across. On our 802.11g network, it is taking about an hour per gigabyte transferred.

You'll have to keep Syncopation running on all machines that are actively synchronizing while they perform the transfer. Syncopation supports up to five Macs, though the trial verison only supports two, and the trial is good for 30 days. I see myself purchasing this tool when my trial period is up, because it makes keeping our iTunes libraries in sync a snap.

Glue is a browser add-on for people who consume movies, books and music online. It keeps track of what you're browsing on sites like Amazon and IMDB, and lets you enter your comments about each item you're browsing, and see what your friends thought about it. The name "Glue" makes a lot of sense, because it sticks together info from multiple sites for each product. If a friend reviewed a movie on Amazon, and you're looking at it on Rotten Tomatoes, you'll still be able to see their comments.

Glue also integrates with other social networking sites in interesting ways. You can link your Twitter page to Glue, and your profile will show up in the Glue Topbar when other users visit it. The Glue Topbar would be sort of annoying if it were always on, so it's fortunate that you can click to hide or show it when you're not on a Glue-enabled site. Even if a site doesn't have special Glue features, though, you can still mark it as a favorite or leave a review of it.

So far, I think Glue is on the right track. The number of sites we use to keep track of the stuff we like is getting to be unmanageable, and a browser plugin is a smart way to aggregate all that information. As long as Glue doesn't go overboard with the potential to inject advertising into the system -- there's none right now -- it could catch on quickly.

RealNetworks, makers of RealPlayer and the company that brought you the Rhapsody subscription music service are expected to announced a new product called RealDVD today. What's RealDVD? It's a DVD ripper. But unlike most DVD rippers available today, RealDVD makes a complete copy of a disc right down to the menus, alternate audio tracks, and special features. Oh yeah, and the software only lets you play that copy on a single computer thanks to some heavy-handed DRM.

There is a way around this restriction. You can transfer the file to up to 5 additional Windows PCs by purchasing up to 5 additional software licenses at $20 a pop. The first license will cost you around $30.

Of course, there are plenty of other applications that let you rip movies for free. And they don't add DRM. A few of my favorites are:

• Fair Use Wizard
• RatDVD
• Handbrake
• DVD Catalyst Free

Technically it's illegal to use the aforementioned apps to rip commercial DVDs. But if you plan to make a backup of your movie collection for viewing on your PC and don't plan to distribute those movies on the internet, odds are nobody will come banging down your door. And you don't need to pay $20 if you buy a new computer and want to move your collection from one PC to the next.

We all have a ton of DVDs laying around, and have no way to really keep track of them all digitally. Sure, there are services out there who have come and gone that promised to store your precious information once you've taken days and days to enter them.

Here comes another, called IHeartMovies.org. We want to preface this by saying that you should always look into the background of web apps and feel free to contact the company to see if you feel like they're in it for the long haul. Nobody likes putting info up, only for the company to dissapear in a week or month.

Having said that, IHeartMovies aims to be a social network for you and your friends (and people all over the world) to share your likes as far as movies go. Great idea, let's jump right into the features.

• Rate Titles
• Break your collections down into lists (TV or Film)
• Check out your collections in multiple views (full description and icon view, or quick list)
• Full search of your lists, others lists, and sitewide information
• Share movie likes and dislikes on Facebook, StumbleUpon, Delicious, Google

Pretty standard stuff, right?

But it's all in the presentation here. When you log in, you're presented with a pretty neat dashboard that will show you whatever you want to see based on your interests. Things like what your friends have added and quick surveys.

With this type of format, we really hope that IHeartMovies Hearts us and stays up with things, and that means adding more functionality and more widgets. It's an ajaxified and friendlier IMDB.

Post your lists in the comments so we can see what kind of wacky movies you like.

Netflix users are in an uproar, and rightfully so.

If you're not familiar with what Netflix is, then sorry...please move along.

Kidding...you can rent movies online, and you can create a queue of what you want to see, and they'll mail them to your house as they're available. It's like an autopilot feature and it frakkin rocks.

A few months ago the company put out an even cooler feature that let Netflix account holders create multiple queues under one account. So basically your baby daughter, mom, uncle Steve, and your parrot Whiskers could have their own queue of movies that they want to see.

Such a time saver, such a great function that really reminds you why you use and love (and pay for) Netflix.

Don't go and try to sign up just for that feature though, because Netflix just announced that they're taking it away.

Want to know if a movie's worth checking out? You could read reviews written by people you've never met. Or you could ask a friend or two who has already seen the movie. or you could ask a few thousand Twitter users. FlixPulse takes the latter approach.

FlixPulse is sort of like Rotten Tomatoes. But instead of compiling average ratings from dozens of professional movie reviews, FlixPulse scans Twitter for mentions of current movies. Then real live human beings look at each tweet and decide whether the comment was good, bad, or indifferent. The result shows up as a percentage on the main page, and if you click on a movie title you can read the actual messages left by Twitter users.

The concept is kind of cool. But since most people probably don't realize that their remarks are being aggregated, it's not clear that random Twitter users are providing accurate reviews. Every movie on the front page of FlixPulse has a score well above 50%, which means that either every movie in theaters right now is awesome, or people are more likely to comment on films they liked.

[via Data Mining and The Net Savvy Executive]