Summaries

(in no particular order)

is an online DVD rental and download service. It is Europe's leading online home entertainment company, delivering to UK, Denmark, Sweden, Germany and France. It also provides the website and delivery infrastructure for an array of branded services (e.g. WHSmith Movies Direct, Tesco DVD rental, FIVE Movie Club). LOVEFiLM has grown through merger and acquisition of other online rental companies such as Webflix and DVDsOnTap. It officially launched in March 2004, and had 100,000 subscribers by March 2005, a month in which it shipped almost 700,000 rentals. Currently it has over 120,000 members and over 62,000 titles. In April 2006 LOVEFiLM merged with Video Island, trading under the brand name of ScreenSelect, which is now renamed under the LOVEFiLM banner. Its download facility also powers the movie download services of AOL, Vizumi, and Empire Online. Through various mergers and acquisitions LOVEFiLM now owns and runs BraFilm.com the service for Norway and Denmark and Digitarian - Denmark's largest DVD rental company. Arts Alliance Media is the major investor in LOVEFiLM.

Founded in 1999, CinemaNow is at the forefront of the convergence of entertainment and technology. CinemaNow legally distributes content from a library of more than 7,500 new and classic movies, television programs, music concerts and music videos from 20th Century Fox, A&E, Biography, Disney, The History Channel, Lionsgate, MGM, Miramax, NBC, New Line, Paramount, Showtime, Sony, Universal, VH1, Warner Bros., Warner Music, and more than 250 independent licensors. CinemaNow has developed technologies which securely deliver video in numerous ways, including VOD, Electronic Sell Through, and the first-ever major studio approved Downloadable DVD.

Is a peer-to-peer file distribution platform, and a free software implementation of that protocol. It is designed to distribute large amounts of data widely without incurring costly server and bandwidth resources. Cable Labs, the research organization of the North American cable industry, believes that BitTorrent represents 55% of the upstream traffic on the cable company's access network. CacheLogic puts that number at roughly 35% of all traffic on the Internet. BitTorrent has content partnerships with several major studios including 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros., Lionsgate, MTV. BitTorrent has venture capital backing from Dell Capital Management and Accel Partners.

Australia and New Zealand's leading ISP independent broadband TV operator of movie downloads, with an extensive range of feature length movie and television entertainment. It is an Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) listed company. It will launch ReelBox in the coming months, allowing users in Australia and New Zealand to access the content via their television sets.

First worldwide P2PTV conduit. Applying the same peer-to-peer technology that forms the backbone of Skype and Kazaa. Allows users to switch channels with the click of a link. TiVo-like control of the content and access to any show offered regardless of time of day, either on a computer or on a regular TV. Consumers can create their own channels to interact with other users. Advertising-backed model, the user pays nothing. The advertiser pays per viewing of their advert and this revenue is split between the service, the distributor and the producer. Adverts are placed at the start of a production and then at 15 to 20 minute intervals. An advert is specifically associated with the content in which it plays, and, more importantly, targeted at the viewer. Through a user's activity within Joost the service learns about that individual's viewing habits and the demographics within which they fall, then plays adverts targeted at those groups. Thus creating much more targeted advertising than TV has ever been able to achieve. Done deal with Viacom (Paramount and MTV content) and Ministry of Sound.

MercuryMedia’s joint venture with Aggregator TV. Joiningthedots.tv is a new broadband documentary channel designed for documentary lovers by documentary professionals. An alternative to the ‘human interest’ factual offerings of the major terrestrial, cable and satellite channels, joiningthedots.tv offers its viewers solid, contemporary documentaries they can no longer find on TV. Bypassing the gatekeepers of television, it aims to deliver the best documentary programming through broadband, IPTV, mobile and in-flight. It will be offered globally to the public from February 2007, on both a subscription and pay-as-you-go basis.

Venture of Silvio Scaglia (founder of Fastweb in Italy), uses peer-to-peer TV technology to distribute content. It will provide TV content free to end users, supported by advertising. The major rival to Joost.

Azureus provides the P2P network used by Vuze for the transfer of large media files. With more than three years of technology innovation, proven robustness, and more than 140 million downloads of its Vuze (formerly Zudeo), Azureus users connect with one another from more than 100 countries and 40 languages. Today, Azureus operates a leading global video aggregation and distribution platform driven by the exchange of long-form, High Definition or DVD quality videos, as well as niche, licensed digital content from leading media companies. The company has recently announced content partnerships with BBC Worldwide, Bennett Media Worldwide, G4, A&E Networks (including A&E, History, and Biography channels), National Geographic, and Starz Media. The new commercial-grade platform is supported by powerful peer-sharing technology, enabling its vast global community the ability to browse, share, search and discover unique multimedia entertainment in a high-resolution format.

Peer to peer internet protocol applications that provide communications and media services for consumers and for business, bringing together communications, information and entertainment into one service, to remove the complexities of how people communicate with one another, make a system that is contact centric, and to make it fun and easy to use. Raketu’s communications features include dialout calling (rakOut) to landline/mobile phones, Instant Messaging (supporting Raketu, Yahoo, MSN, AOL, ICQ, Google and Skype), SMS-text messaging, and file transfers/sharing. Particularly strong in Brazil, UK, France, Germany, Czech Republic, Australia, China, Japan.

Need we say more?

Empire magazine, one of the cornerstone magazines about film launced it’s online film download service last year. If you know which film you’re after, then use our search tool to track it down. You can search for movies based on title, actor, director or genre. Alternatively you can browse through the entire catalogue by clicking on the collections listed on the left hand side of the home page (genre, studio, new releases etc). If you’re completely at a loss then a good place to start would be the Empire Recommends collection, which lists a bunch of Empire’s very favorite titles and ones that should be in any self-respecting film fan’s collection.

Films can be available for rent or purchase. Titles available ‘To Own’ have a license that enables you to watch these films as bundles because they comprise multiple digital files and sometimes a DVD. Two digital files are delivered, one for your computer and a smaller file that can be synchronised to your portable video player.

Founded by entrepreneur Gaurav Dhillon, who has put $3.5m of his own money into Jaman. It is a global online community, where viewers can watch and discuss world cinema. Uses Cascade, Jaman's own global peer to peer network, delivers films in better-than-DVD quality to Macs, PCs or home entertainment systems. Focus on Latino communities and those from Greater China and Indian subcontinent. Provide lots of Bollywood product.

Lycos Cinema, the web's first "watch and chat" video experience ( see http://cinema.lycos.com).  Lycos is first to market with its proprietary Cinechat, a patent-pending video platform which allows users to view and chat in synchronous real-time.  Cinechat platform provides truly interactive, real-time, user-driven video viewing.  Lycos uses an ad-based revenue model, so consumers pay nothing. Lycos averages 25-30 million monthly unique visitors in the US and 91 million unique visitors globally, making Lycos the 12th most popular online destination worldwide. Angelfire is a No. 1 destination on the web for teens and 'tweens with more than 7 million members in the US and more than 20 million worldwide. Tripod is the 3rd most popular community destination online with nearly 15 million unique visitors per month in the US and 47+ million unique visitors per month worldwide.

ShortBrain.TV capitalizes on the strong demand for well-produced, fully licensed short content in the emerging mobile, broadband and cable - video on demand markets. The LA-based company secure sprogramming that focuses on well-written, fastpaced and cutting edge content with the majority of films under 3 minutes. ShortBrain.TV delivers content to mobile phones and other outlets in US and Europe through its partners:- Sprint, MobiTV, ROK TV, Cellfish, and Alltel. ShortBrain TV is also available on AT&T (formerly Cingular), Time Warner/Comcast/Coxnow.

DivX powered service with millions of users. Currently free, but revenue model goes live in April 2007.

Sole focus on Download to Own content, no VOD (Video On Demand) or near-VOD services are planned. However, it does use an advertising-bid system in which the user can reduce the cost of a content item by selecting an advert to play with it. A selection of advertisers are offered to the user with a discount price for the content attached. Users will generally select the advertiser that offers the largest discount on a piece of content.

Sprint/Nextel, one of the US’s largest telecom companies has opened its Digital Lounge service. The service allows Sprint customers to strem audio-visual short and long content directly to their mobile phone. The high quality service has a wide range of content from top US television series, like 24,  to high quality independent short and long films.

US based service specialising in content that can be burned to DVD. EZTakes enables consumers in almost any country to purchase, download and burn movies to recordable DVDs that will play in standard DVD players, offering the same quality and all of the extra features of the original DVD. With a growing catalogue of over 1,500 feature-length films of all genres and supports both Windows and Macintosh users.

The US’s première DVD rental service now allows users to download versions of its DVD for viewing on computers. Once you rent a DVD for delivery in the post, Netflix allows users to download the films instantly for immediate viewing on their computer. The DVD still arrives i the post a day alter allowing the User to enjoy the extra features and have all the benefits of a DVD, having already been able to view the feature without waiting.

An Arts Alliance Media company, Vizumi is really another face of Lovefilm downloads. All films are made available for download to own and download to rent. Rental model offers a 7 day window for watching the film once download is completed. Once the movie starts playing,  the user has a 24 or 48 hour window in which to watch it. After this time the film can no longer be played but you can play, stop, rewind or fast-forward the film as many times as you like within the viewing period. All this information is clearly displayed in the Basket before you complete your purchase.

Titles which you purchase ‘To Own’ have a different license that enables you to watch them as many times as you like. These titles are known as bundles because they comprise multiple digital files and sometimes a DVD. Two digital files are delivered, one for your computer and a smaller file that can be synchronised to your portable video player.