US electronics retailer Best Buy is preparing to enter the digital video distribution business in a big way. The company is partnering with CinemaNow, an online video download service that lets users rent and purchase movies and TV shows.

Best Buy will load up CinemaNow software on internet-connected consumer electronics sold at the company's retail stores. That includes computers, portable media players, Blu-Ray players, set-top boxes, mobile phones, and internet-connected television sets.

Customers that purchase one of these items will be able to rent or buy videos from a catalog with about 22,000 titles. Movie purchases typically run between $10 and $20, while TV shows are $1.99 per episode. Movie rentals typically go for $2.99 to $3.99.

The move should give Best Buy and CinemaNow a much stronger foothold in the digital media space. CinemaNow already offers a pretty compelling user experience, allowing you to download a video and watch it on up to three devices. But the fact that virtually every consumer electronics device that Best Buy sells that can run the software soon will, means that CinemaNow is about to become a much bigger name in digital media, and that could help the companies take on Apple's iTunes and Amazon's video on demand services.

Best Buy is expected to roll out the new service early next year.

Online video site Blinkx is branching out into music with the launch of Blinkx Music Beta, a search engine for online music videos. The front page is simple enough. You're greeted with a search box, a list of top artists, and the ability to click a letter to see results starting with A through Z. You can search for artists, albums, or songs.

Unfortunately, the search index is pretty sparse. There are a number of songs, artists, and albums that return no results. And the search engine's not that intelligent. While a search for Coldplay returns a fair number of results, searching for Cold Play or Caldplay results in a "no results matching your query" message. So you'd better not include a typo or not know the proper phrasing of your favorite band name. Heck, on a whim, I tried searching for Hootie and the Blowfish and got zero results, which normally wouldn't upset me in the least. But Hootie & The Blowfish actually did return results.

Blinkx doesn't host the videos on its own site. Instead, when you click on a song you'll be taken to the page where the video rests, whether it be on YouTube, Last.fm, or another site. A Blinkx toolbar hangs out at the top of the screen to take you back to where you started or let you begin another search.

A fairly large number of videos I did find were cellphone recordings shot at concerts rather than professional music videos.

That's the bad news. Here's the good news: the Blinkbox online video service keeps getting better. I got an email today letting me know that Blinkbox had added a number of BBC TV shows which are now available to watch for free including episodes from the first two seasons of the original (William Hartnell) Doctor Who as well as episodes of The Young Ones, Hustle, and The League of Gentlemen. Update: It's just been pointed out to me that Blinkbox (which I mistakenly referred to as Blinkxbox at first) is not actually related to Blinkx. I'm still excited about the BBC content though.

[via VentureBeat]

Hulu is quite simply one of the best ways to watch TV on the internet. In fact, in some ways, Hulu offers a better viewing experience than old fashioned TV. For example, you tend to have just 2-3 minutes of commercials to put up with when watching a one hour (or rather, 42 minute) program on Hulu, instead of 18 minutes of advertisements.

But partly for that reason, FOX, NBC, ABC, and the other content networks that are supplying Hulu with a steady stream of TV shows and movies aren't making as much money from the site as they do when that content is viewed on TV. And according to FOX News Corp deputy chairman Chase Carey, one way to address that issue is to start charging for Hulu content. '

Now, before you freak out, it's not entirely clear at the moment exactly what content would be moved behind a paid firewall. It's unlikely that Hulu would require users to pay to watch everything on the site. But it is possible that some exclusive content could be available only to paying subscribers or one-time viewers.

Of course, it's possible that the forces behind Hulu could go all out and treat itself like a cable network, requiring users to pay to view anything on the site -- at which point Hulu's audience would sharply decline while internet piracy would shoot up.

What do you think? Is there some content you would pay to see on Hulu? Or are you already paying for that content from iTunes, Amazon, or other internet video distributors?

[via TV Squad]

Just in case you had any doubt that Google had a heck of a lot of server space, the company has increased the file size limit for uploads to Google Video. A few days ago, the max was 1GB. Today, it's a whopping 16GB.

In order to take advantage, you'll need a few things:

• A Google Apps Premier or Education Edition account
  
• Google Gears
• A fairly speedy internet connection (unless you're cool with your videos taking a year or two to upload)

The change only affects Google Video, not Google's other video site. YouTube uploads are still limited to 2GB. Google also killed uploads to Google Video for the general public a while back, limiting the feature to Google Apps users. So it's doubtful that the company really expects to buckle under the pressure of all those 16GB file uploads.

[via AppScout]

Epix is a new premium TV channel that's a partnership between Viacom, Paramount, MGM, and Lionsgate. Today the company is announcing that Verizon is the first distributor to sign the channel, which means that Verizon customers will be able to watch thousands of movies in the channel's library. Now here's where it gets interesting: Epix isn't just a TV channel. As part of its offering, the group is also beta testing a web-based video service where users can stream thousands of titles. And today Epix announced it would be adding 3,000 HD videos to the lineup.

The problem is that Epix Megaplex (the web component) won't be open to the general public. It'll only be available to payng subscribers of the TV channel. And in fact Verizon hasn't even committed to making Megaplex available to FiOS TV customers yet, which means that not a single TV distributor is currently promising to make use of the Epix web video offering.

There are two problems with Epix Megaplex as a I see it. First, the company is using old paradigm thinking and making the web component available as a value added feature for TV subscribers when Epix could probably convince a fair number of domestic and international users to sign up as web-only subscribers or pay-per-view users.

Second, as TechCrunch's MG Siegler points out, why is it that you can walk into a video store and grab virtually any new release the day it's available, but you might have to visit a dozen web sites to find the same content available for download or streaming online -- if it's available at all? Wouldn't it be nice if Viacom, Paramount, MGM, Lionsgate, Hulu, Netflix, Amazon, and all the other companies offering online video would come to some sort of agreement that would let you find all of the videos you want in one place while making sure that the appropriate rights holders get paid?

Over the past year or so Hulu has quickly become one of the most popular online video sites even though it's only open to US viewers. Hulu's success likely comes from a number of factors including a focus on high quality professionally produced content including network TV shows and movies, a simple user interface, and relatively unobtrusive advertisements that are much easier to put up with than the 18 minutes of ads in every hour of US broadcast television.

But Hulu's focus on advertising supported content has likely prevented some premium content owners like HBO and Showtime from making full length content available. Now it looks like Hulu is testing out a subscription-based service.

I really hope any subscription service would offer content that's not currently available to Hulu customers. I'd hate to see some of the content that's currently available for free disappear behind a paywall. But at this point it's too early to say exactly what the service will look like, or even it will ever appear.

[via Business Insider]

Adobe Flash may be the dominant platform for hosting streaming video on web sites including YouTube, Hulu, Vimeo, and DailyMotion, but Adobe's fairly late to the game when it comes to launching it's own video hosting and sharing service. Yesterday Adobe started to play catchup by adding the ability to upload videos to Photoshop.com, the company's web-based image editing and sharing service.

Adobe isn't the first company to add video to a site that was primarily designed for images. But while Flickr limits videos to 90 seconds, Adobe is allowing users to upload videos up to 200MB through a web browser, or up to 2GB through an Adobe AIR uploader. Users can upload files in "most major file formats" and you can view them from Photoshop.com or share them with other users.

Photoshop.com users will get 2GB of free video storage.

Adobe has also rolled out the ability to create Group Albums that let you collaborate on photo albums with other users.

Mobile web browser Skyfire is one of the only browsers around that lets users watch movies from online video site Hulu. Or rather, it was. WMExperts reports that Hulu has begun blocking Skyfire users.

This development comes on a long, protracted battle between Hulu and Boxee, a media center application for OS X, Windows, and Ubuntu Linux that provides access to web video from dozens of sources.

After killing Boxee support, Hulu eventually launched its own desktop application, cleverly called Hulu Desktop. Does this mean that Hulu might be working on a mobile viewing device? I wouldn't be surprised if the company simply wanted more control over how users can interact with the media on its web site. On the other hand, since Boxee, Skyfire, and most other applications that allow users to watch Hulu video leave the advertising intact, I can't see how it should make much difference to Hulu and the company's content partners how you watch the videos.

[via AppScout]

Online video site Hulu has launched a desktop application for Windows and OS X that allows you to find and watch Hulu videos without firing up a web browser.

Hulu has been fighting a battle with media center application Boxee for months. Boxee is a desktop application that lets people interact with media on their hard drives or the web using a big screen interface that makes a good case for sticking your computer next to your TV. But Hulu's content partners like Fox and NBC make a lot more money when you watch TV shows through old fashioned TV broadcasts instead of on the internet, so I wasn't surprised to see Hulu disable Boxee support. But I was rather surprised to see Hulu launch its own desktop client today.

Hulu Desktop beta is designed to let you navigate Hulu from your couch, and it works either with a mouse and keyboard or a Windows Media Center or Apple remote control. You can use the desktop client to search for videos or browse through media by category. Videos can be viewed in full screen mode, and when you use the navigation tools to find additional programming the video will continue playing in a small window.

If you link Hulu Desktop to your Hulu account you can access your personal information including your Hulu queue from the desktop client.

Hulu Desktop is one of the first tools launched as part of a new Hulu Labs, a new experimental section of Hulu. Other Labs tools include the ability to browser for programs by original air date, video recommendations based on your viewing history, and video panel widgets.

Update: Oh yeah, before you ask... Hulu Desktop won't work outside of the US any better than the web version of Hulu does.

Pretty much every time we publish an article about Hulu or other web sites that let visitors watch full length streaming television episodes, someone leaves a comment pointing out that the service only works in the US. That's generally because these web sites don't have the distribution rights (and advertising deals) needed to stream these programs in other countries -- even countries that are as geographically close to the US as Canada.

But Canada's CTV Network has now launched its own streaming TV section. The selection of videos isn't nearly as rich as what you'll find from Hulu. But CTV does air a number of popular programs in Canada and many of them are available online including Mad Men, Fringe, The Daily Show, and The Colbert Report.

Videos are shown with limited advertisements, and you can watch in full screen. As you'd expect, the site only works if you're in Canada (or using a proxy network to make it appear as if you are). But blogger Dale Dietrech took the service for a spin and assures us that it works.

[via Zatz Not Funny]

PBS already makes some of its programs available through online video sites including Hulu. But today the public television network has rolled out a new beta web portal that acts as a central hub for most of the PBS original programming that's available online. You can find full length episodes of American Experience, Frontline, Great Performances, Masterpiece, Nature, Nova, The NewsHour and other PBS programs.

Videos can be sorted by program or topic. And you can watch videos in full screen or windowed mode. Taking a cue from Hulu, YouTube, and other online video sites, PBS has added some social tools including a share button that lets you link to the video on Facebook, Digg, StumbleUpon, and other social news and bookmarking sites. You can alsso email links to videos to your friends. But there's no simple way to embed videos on your own site.

The PBS Video player is still in beta, and I found that some videos simply didn't play. But overall, the new site makes it a lot easier to find PBS content in one central location.

[via paidContent]

Adobe Flash is the dominant platform for rich media content on the web. If you've watched an online video, viewed an interactive ad, or played music through a web site in the last few years, you've seen Flash in action. While Microsoft is trying to push Silverlight as an alternative, Flash pretty much owns this space -- on computers.

But HDTV and broadband internet are blurring the lines between web video and television. And Adobe wants to help bring the walls down by pushing Flash for TV and set top boxes including Blu-Ray players and cable boxes. Adobe has already partnered with companies including Intel, Broadcom, Comcast, Netflix, and Disney on the project.

In other words, you can imagine a future where you turn on your TV and in addition to video, on-demand programming, and a program guide, you can pull up weather, news, and other information provided through an internet connection, as well as quick and easy access to web video from any site like ABC.com or Netflix that makes content available for the platform.

Of course, if this all happens, it means you're going to need to get a new TV, set top box, or other hardware in order to enable the new features. Or you can just stick an old computer next to your TV and use Flash the old fashioned way.

[via NewTeeVee]

Yahoo! has finally decided to pull the plug on Jumpcut, a web based video editor that has been on life support since December. That's when Yahoo! stopped letting users upload videos to the service, instead suggesting that they upload short videos to Flickr.

Now TechCrunch reports that Jumpcut is sending out emails to users letting them know that the service will be closed on June 15th, 2009.

It's too bad to see Jumpcut go down. The service could have been really useful. While it may seem strange to upload a video to the web before you've editied it, the truth is many of the free video editors for Windows and Linux computers either lack features or are too complicated for casual users. Jumpcut was simple to use, but offered a limited feature set. For instance, you couldn't download finished videos and you couldn't send them to YouTube, Yahoo! Video, or other sites. Rather, you had to direct viewers to Jumpcut or embed the Jumpcut video on your page.

Yahoo! will soon release a tool allowing existing users to download videos saved on the site -- something the company probably should have done ages ago.

Online video site Hulu has become one of the most popular video portals in the internet over the past year. It showcases high quality content from major television and film studios with fewer commercials than you'd see if you watched the same programs on TV. But Hulu has faced one major hurdle: The company doesn't have deals in place to distribute that content outside of the US, which is why international users are typically met with a message telling them that videos aren't available when they visit the site.

Hulu's been planning to go global for a while now, but it looks like the company could be a bit closer. PaidContent reports that the company has hired a new vice president to oversee international operations.

It seems likely that one of the first areas outside the US that Hulu will be available will be the UK. What I'd love to see is a reciprocal relationship, where in addition to streaming US content to British viewers, Hulu could work out a deal to distribute BBC content in the US.

Online video site Hulu opened its doors to the public (in the US, anyway) a year ago today. Since then, Hulu says its video library has grown 333 percent from 12,000 videos to 40,000 videos. It'd take you 7,1000 hours to watch it all. The site now has 130 content partners, which is more than twice as many as it had a year go. And the number of advertising partners has nearly quintupled.

Of course, the site has also begun limiting the way users can access videos. When Hulu launched, the company was pretty hands-off with web sites and services that embedded Hulu videos. After all, unlike YouTube, Hulu doesn't display advertising on its web site. Instead, video ads are embedded in each video and whether you're watching videos at Hulu.com or Download Squad, you still watch the ads. But in the last few weeks Hulu's content partners have pressured the company to shut down access to third party applications like Boxee that allow users to watch easily Hulu videos on a TV set.

In other news, Hulu has begun rolling out social features that could be either pretty cool or pretty creepy. Registered users can check a box that will allow their friends and contacts to see what they're watching on Hulu. On the one hand, it could be a nice way to share ratings, compare notes on TV shows and movies, and engage in a discussion. On the other hand, do you really want all of your Facebook, MySpace, or email (Gmail, MSN, Yahoo!) contacts to know what you've been watching?