Apple Movie Service Launches In Oz Users can now purchase or rent movies online and watch it instantly as Apple now offers over 700 movies on its iTunes Store.
Video Downloads Bomb On Mobile Phones While the iPhone is hot video downloads are not. A recent research report by Park & Associates reveals that nearly one-third of households have a video-capable mobile phone howver phone carriers such as Telstra, Optus and Vodaphone are struggling to find an audience for their mobile video services according to a recent Mobile phone report.
Compact Media Player Offers Wireless Downloads A new credit-card sized digital media player from Creative Technologies is not only available in 16 and 32-GB configurations, but also offers wireless technology for downloading and streaming music and videos.
Music Giants Swansong Has Sony Set For World Domination According to Reuters, the time is fast approaching which will see German media giant Bertelsmann sell its 50 per cent stake in Sony BMG Music Entertainment to joint-venture partner Sony Corp.
Seven Network Hits A Six With Management Changes The Seven Network has announced six senior management appointments in a number of its divisions, including a new chairman of channel 7 in Melbourne and has also created a new sales digital media position underlining the networks commitment to its online portal.
Digital Music Painfully Growing On the eve of World Music Day, business information analyst IbisWorld predicts Australians will spend about $100 million on digital downloads this year. Four years ago they spent about $100,000.
iTunes Expands Local TV Downloads Apple has announced that television programming from Australia’s top networks including the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Seven Network and Nine Network, along with US-produced programs from The Walt Disney Company’s ABC Studios, Disney Channel and MTV Networks, is now available on the iTunes Store in Australia.
Television Programmes Available From iTunes Apple has expanded its iTunes options for consumers by making television programming from most of Australia’s free-to-air channels available. Networks involved include the ABC, Channels Seven and Nine, as well as US-produced programs from The Walt Disney Company’s ABC Studios, Disney Channel and MTV Networks.
Are You A Music Criminal? Following a recent UK survey, it seems that iPod users are breaking the law- copyright law that is and on a grand scale by illegally downloading songs, according to a story in gizmodo.
Apple Croons Music Labels For More iPhones Tunes According to toptechnews.com, Apple has approached a number of major music labels to try to expand the variety of ringtones and other musical features available on the iPhone.
ACCC Slams Video Ezy And Forces Customer Refunds Video Ezy will offer partial refunds to consumers for a number of DVD titles after the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) found the movie rental company engaged in misleading advertising .
DAB Looking At Bright Future According to the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union, Globalisation has made international broadcasting more relevant than ever before.
Sony Turns To Cinema Distribution According to the Los Angeles Times, Sony Pictures will become the first major studio with a dedicated division for distributing digital programming such as concerts, plays and sporting events to theater chains.
Illegal Web Links Cost Movie Site $3M If you are thinking of creating a link to pirated movies or music I would think again as it could end up costing you millions. A federal judge in Los Angeles this week ordered a website that posts links to pirated films on third-party sites to pay $2.7 million in damages to studio members of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA).
Motorola Rolls Out Music Website Motorola has launched Motomusic, a music website that will offer consumers exclusive content, prizes, access to artists, blogs, and podcasts.
Paramount Reveals First Blu-ray Movies Paramount, which previously supported the HD DVD format exclusively, has now announced its first Blu-ray releases in Australia: Spiderwick Chronicles, No Country For Old Men, Cloverfield and Shooter.
Google Wants YouTube To Make Money Google says it will launch new products for its YouTube Web video service in the next few months, giving it reason for closer cooperation with Yahoo.
Lionsgate Opens Office In Australia Lionsgate, a leading independent filmed entertainment studio, has opened an office in Australia and entered into distribution alliances with three of the top blue-chip partners in the Australian market - Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, Hoyts and The Movie Network.
EXCLUSIVE: New Microsoft Sanity Music Site Set To Go Live EXCLUSIVE: Microsoft and online content partner Sanity Music are only weeks away from rolling out a brand new music and video content site that was suppose to go live 12 months ago.
Telstra Free Live Music Webcasts Telstra will be broadcasting online and to Next G mobiles 10 live gigs by various Australia artists when the BigPond Monday Night Live Series 2 launches later this month.
Music Group Wants iPod Tax Now here is an idea that is sure to go down like a lead balloon. In another salvo in the increasingly complex and bitter music copyright war, the UK-based Music Business Group (MBG) wants the UK government to tax media players such as iPods.
YouTube Wants To Give Away Money YouTube has launched its Partner Programme, designed to reward the most popular and prolific original content creators within the YouTube Australia community by allowing them to earn money from their videos.
Nokia Music Store To Take On Apple Nokia is set to challenge Apple in the music download space with the upcoming launch of its new Music Store. The online Music Store offers a similar music download service to that offered by Apple iTunes, however it delivers the songs direct to Nokia mobile phones.
Sony Get Ready For Content War Sony who aim to be a major force online, selling music, video and gaming software are set to take on Apple with news that Sony BMG is developing an online music subscription service that will offer unlimited access to songs, according to comments made by CEO Rolf Schmidt-Holtz in an interview with Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the Associated Press reported.
Nokia Connects With Local Music Industry Nokia’s Music Store just got bigger as it will now be serving local relevant music as well as content from independent labels and music aggregators as soon as it launches later this year.
Sony Thinks It Can Dance With Ten Sony Australia is partnering with Ten Network, offering a full sponsorship of the new TV program, So You Think You Can Dance Australia.
A Mighty Heart For HD DVD Paramount, the only major Hollywood studio besides Universal to continue backing the HD DVD format has announced the release of drama A Mighty Heart, starring Angelina Jolie in the next-gen format.
Microsoft Bids For Yahoo, Will NineMSN Survive? Concluding that neither company can successfully take on Google by itself, Microsoft has launched an unwelcome takeover bid for Yahoo. Microsoft has said that it will pay $44.6 billion, or $31 a share, for Yahoo. The offer represents a 62% premium over Yahoo's closing share price Jan. 31.
Free Music Site Fails To Deliver As Promised The company which promised 30 million free songs would be downloadable to the public has suspiciously postponed the launch of its website, pending the finalisation of deals with its suppliers, including Warner Music.
Porn Industry Moves To Blu-ray for Stimulation The porn industry is set to move to Blu-ray despite higher authoring costs. The industry that is reeling from a 50% down turn in DVD sales is also banking on improved quality to "stimulate" their industry.
Almost 95% Music Downloads Illegal In 2007 Illegal downloads still provide most of the movement in the online music industry with only one in 20 worldwide downloads spoken for, despite music piracy groups ramping up their marketing efforts.
Motorola To Bring Music Downloads To Phones Motorola will soon be able to offer a music download service to its customers, with the acquisition of Asia’s largest online and mobile music company, Soundbuzz.
Paramount Fights On With HD DVD Releases Hollywood Studio and HD DVD supporter Paramount Pictures is fighting on with HD DVD releases of a range of films. Its new release in January is the star-studded HD DVD version of StarDust.
Rock Band Game Gives Music A Kick Along Rock Band, the recently released video game for the Microsoft Xbox 360 and Sony PlayStation 3 systems, is driving rock music sales much to the delight of the music industry. In the 8 weeks since the game was released, rockers have downloaded roughly 2.5 million songs.
Ten, Foxtel To Broadcast Commonwealth Games In HD Network Ten and Foxtel have scored shared live broadcasting rights for the Delhi Commonwealth Games in 2010. The 2010 Commonwealth Games will also be the first to screen in high definition.
New Apple Movie Rental Service Rolled Out At Macworld Macworld in San Francisco has kicked off with Apple chief executive Steve Jobs unveiling a new online movie rental service that has the backing of all of Hollywood's major studios and threatens to change the way consumers access videos over the internet. The movies will be available to be downloaded via the iTunes web site. However it is not known when the service will be rolled out in Australia or the cost. However it is tipped that we could see the service by mid 2008.
Optus Offering Mobile Australian Tennis Open OptusZOO customers will be able to access news from the Australian Open on their mobiles through a service launched by Optus accumulating match updates and tournament information in one convenient location.
Australians Denied Access To New Warner Amazon Music Australian are being denied access to a new Warner Music service on Amazon.com despite the fact that the same site will sell Australians a book that is also copyrighted.
Free Games Weekend On Foxtel Gamesworld Foxtel today re-launches its Gamesworld service with a new look and three new content genres on channel 555, giving subscribers access to interactive games using their Foxtel remote.
Steve Irwin Video In Porn Controversy Porn site operators are the using the lure of a video that shows the Crocodile hunter Steve Irwin dying at the hands of a giant stingray to attract consumer unwittingly to porn site downloads.
YouTube Rival Goes Back In Time A British technology company called Miomi.com has launched a new file-sharing website with a view to wipe out YouTube with the first time-browsing function in the world.
Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin In Online Porn Scandal The death of Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin is being used by porn operators to attract customers to web sites, an investigation by SmartHouse has revealed. Under the guise of pretending to have exclusive video of his death on the Great Barrier Reef operators are luring customers into downloading shocking porn videos.
Shrek The Third Out On HD DVD Following the successful HD DVD release of Paramount’s Transformers, the company is now releasing Shrek The Third exclusively on HD DVD, in a bid to attract more consumers over to the format.
Spice Girls Heat Up Foxtel The Spice Girls will be baring all, so to speak, in a behind the scenes documentary about the girl band, which will premiere on Foxtel in December.
Blade Runner Remastered For HD and DVD Release Warner has revealed that the sci-fi movie classic, Blade Runner, will be available to own on DVD, HD DVD, and Blu-ray on December 19, 2007.
MySpace Users Gain Free Destra Content Destra Corporation, an Australian-based digital media and entertainment company, has partnered with social networking site, MySpace, which will see MySpace users gain access to Destra’s library of digital video content.
Apple Beefs Up DRM-Free iTunes Music Apple announced today that its iTunes Plus catalogue has now reached over two million tracks. The iTunes Plus tracks offer DRM-free, higher quality audio tracks for a slightly higher price of $1.69 per song.
Smarthouse gives you the low-down on all that HD TV has to offer - the best TVs both LCD and Plasma, plus peripherals. We also cover great ski gear and awesome in-car entertainment, as well as all the usual features…
