The list of Netflix competitors keeps growing, this time with Google reportedly looking to step up YouTube's video streaming service.
According to the New York Post, the Internet giant will give more prominence to its movie streaming service, which it launched in May, on YouTube, and may also be looking to add its service to Android devices.
YouTube's video streaming service boasts 6,000 titles, Once they purchase the rental, customers have 30 days to begin viewing, but once they do, have just 24 hours to watch it. Currently, Universal, Sony and Warner have partnered with YouTube to provide content.
This comes as Wal-Mart, Amazon and Blockbuster have also been ramping up and aggressively promoting their video streaming services.
In the past two weeks, Amazon has struck streaming content deals with CBS and NBCUniversal, bringing its library to about 9,000 titles, which compares to Netflix's approximately 20,000.
(Msnbc.com is a joint venture of Micrsoft and NBC Universal.)
Wal-Mart announced last week that it will make many new movies available on its Vudu.com the day they come to DVD. It will also advertise Vudu.com more prominently on its Web site and in stores.
Blockbuster, which was bought out of bankruptcy by Dish Network in April, is also looking to woo back customers it previously lost to Netflix. The company sent out an e-mail to consumers last week promoting its Total Access program and lower prices.
Tuesday, 2 August 2011
Monday, 1 August 2011
DVD Releases
Eight minutes and counting, and counting, and …
If there’s one new DVD release that’s going to give you your money’s worth this summer, not just as satisfying entertainment but also for the number of viewings you’ll get from it, it’s “Source Code’’ (2011). Directed by Duncan Jones (“Moon’’), the time-fracturing mind-bender stars Jake Gyllenhaal as Colter Stevens, a soldier drafted for a mission to identify a terrorist who bombed a Chicago commuter train and who’s poised to strike again. A top-secret program dubbed Source Code enables Colter to cross over into the body of a doomed passenger - and a parallel reality - for eight minutes leading up to the blast. And he’ll keep doing it all again until he completes his mission, or real time runs out. But, oh, the twisty questions enticing you to press “play’’ one more time. Once Colter leaps into an alternate timeline, does that world continue to exist alongside our own? What happens to Sean Fentress, the man whose identity Colter assumes? Watching again, you’ll also keep finding more to like about Gyllenhaal’s performance. His crazed-and-confused inappropriateness is as much a nod to Hitchcock - think Jimmy Stewart’s kooky obsessiveness - as are the film’s macabre segues, mystery-train setting, and Herrmannesque score. Extras: In smart commentary, Jones, Gyllenhaal, and writer Ben Ripley give their definitive take on the story’s paradoxes. Pop-up Blu-ray snippets jumble cast interviews, scientists’ time-travel speculations, and thematically related trivia - with nearly as much ooh-my-head overload as the concept of Source Code itself. (Summit Entertainment, $26.99; Blu-ray, $30.49)
If there’s one new DVD release that’s going to give you your money’s worth this summer, not just as satisfying entertainment but also for the number of viewings you’ll get from it, it’s “Source Code’’ (2011). Directed by Duncan Jones (“Moon’’), the time-fracturing mind-bender stars Jake Gyllenhaal as Colter Stevens, a soldier drafted for a mission to identify a terrorist who bombed a Chicago commuter train and who’s poised to strike again. A top-secret program dubbed Source Code enables Colter to cross over into the body of a doomed passenger - and a parallel reality - for eight minutes leading up to the blast. And he’ll keep doing it all again until he completes his mission, or real time runs out. But, oh, the twisty questions enticing you to press “play’’ one more time. Once Colter leaps into an alternate timeline, does that world continue to exist alongside our own? What happens to Sean Fentress, the man whose identity Colter assumes? Watching again, you’ll also keep finding more to like about Gyllenhaal’s performance. His crazed-and-confused inappropriateness is as much a nod to Hitchcock - think Jimmy Stewart’s kooky obsessiveness - as are the film’s macabre segues, mystery-train setting, and Herrmannesque score. Extras: In smart commentary, Jones, Gyllenhaal, and writer Ben Ripley give their definitive take on the story’s paradoxes. Pop-up Blu-ray snippets jumble cast interviews, scientists’ time-travel speculations, and thematically related trivia - with nearly as much ooh-my-head overload as the concept of Source Code itself. (Summit Entertainment, $26.99; Blu-ray, $30.49)
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