Comcast, Blockbuster and Samsung continue blurring tech barriers
By John Lister
Once upon a time, tech devices knew their place: you got TV shows through cable, rental movies on DVDs, and the Internet was for Web sites. Today those lines are increasingly blurred, a situation exacerbated by two announcements this week.
Comcast has unveiled the first results of a tie-up with Time Warner to carry programming online for subscribers to the relevant channels. The partnership will start with 750 hours of programming each month from HBO and Cinemax. The initial line-up will mainly be TV shows and movies from up to a couple of years ago, though there are plans to start adding new shows immediately after their TV broadcast. The shows will initially be streaming only, though downloads may follow.
The project will initially be limited to a test panel of 5,000 customers before a full-scale rollout. The initial trial is mainly designed to test an authentication system for making sure customers are indeed subscribers to HBO or Cinemax.
Given that the online programming is only available to existing TV subscribers, there doesn’t really seem any reason why the programming couldn’t just be put on Comcast’s on-demand service instead. It could be designed to deter subscribers from downloading programming from unofficial sources, though that shouldn’t make much difference to a commercial-free station like HBO.
Meanwhile Blockbuster has taken another step in the ongoing shift of movie rental firms away from physical media. It’s signed a deal with Samsung to build its OnDemand service directly into new models of TV sets, home theater systems and Blu-ray players. Some existing Samsung TVs can be converted to run the service through a firmware upgrade.
Given the crowded market, it doesn’t seem likely this will directly boost Samsung sales. There are plenty of other options for virtual movie rentals (through cable TV, computers, games consoles and set-top boxes), and it’s not a feature that’s going to make much difference to purchases of TV sets. However, it’s a good market for Blockbuster as Samsung owners who might not have bothered setting up special equipment for movie rentals may be tempted by the convenience and the $2-$4 price range for ‘rentals’.
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July 15th, 2009
I’d guess that HBO and Comcrap are looking beyond the HBO/Comcast subscriber base. If their system works out, they could offer streams/downloads to subscribers for free and to non-subscribers for a price or with ads.
In essense, HBO gets a Hulu-ish outlet for non-subscribers and Comcast hosts the infrastructure for a cut. This might work for me as I don’t subscribe to any movie channels but might be interested in the occasional bit of original HBO programming.
My Samsung BD player already streams Netflix & Pandora. I’m curious if Ballbuster would be an additional option or would replace Netflix.