On Demand Group disclosed that its expansion strategy has led to the creation of a TV transactional video-on-demand service offering designed for French-speaking markets. Further, the Company stated that it has already secured its first multiyear contract to provide end-to-end content management for a leading multiplatform telco video service provider.

Modern Times Group announces that Viasat Broadcasting will launch a subscription ‘video-on-demand’ service on its Viasat OnDemand internet portal in Sweden, Denmark and Norway on 2 February. The subscription service will make an unrivalled range of pay-TV content available over the internet, including live sports events, hundreds of episodes of hit TV series, and access to 200 feature films at any given time.

Jilin Cable Network has selected Espial MediaBase to power their on-demand services. Jilin Cable Network is located in the central part of northeast China and serves three million TV subscribers. Using Espial MediaBase, they already offer Video-On-Demand, TV On-Demand, Network Personal Video Recorder and Timeshift-TV services to hundreds of thousands of subscribers using more than 60 Time-Shift TV channel captures.

KIT digital is developing and adapting its forthcoming next generation “VX-one” IP video management platform to include the optimized delivery of IP video to tablet computers.

The move comes as KIT digital has seen the types of devices which its clients’ end-users are watching video on increase 95 percent, from 190 in 2008 to 370 in 2010.

du has announced the launch of its premier Video on Demand service as part of its du TV and du TV+ (premier IPTV service). The service is a fully managed video-on-demand offering with On Demand Group, the three-screen video enabler for top content and operations brands.

On Demand Group will develop and maintain an on-demand library of thousands of top-rated studio and network television titles. Selections will include transactional video-on-demand content from major Hollywood studios, and a range of subscription video-on-demand movies, series, documentaries, kids programming and music videos. The relationship will establish the leading on-demand television service in the UAE, underscored by the latest blockbuster movies and the largest video-on-demand selection.

Blockbuster and ActiveVideo announce an agreement that is designed to enhance the consumer VOD and EST experience of the BLOCKBUSTER On Demand movie service across multiple connected platforms.

This relationship is intended to leverage the core products of both companies including the extensive library of BLOCKBUSTER On Demand content by combining Blockbuster digital assets with the ability of ActiveVideo to process Web-based user interface in the network "cloud" -- the relationship creates a superior digital cinema experience in the home. Viewers will be able to search, find and view titles of interest by incorporating previews and trailers, as well as Web-based search and recommendation capabilities.

Espial announces that - through it's reseller agreement with Power & Telephone Supply - it has installed Espial MediaBase at four new US customer locations. LeRu Telephone, Granby Telephone, Seneca Telephone and McDonald County Telephone are each using the Espial MediaBase VOD platform to provide on demand TV services to their subscribers.

Akamai and iStreamPlanet announce they have been selected to work with Microsoft to provide an integrated, end-to-end solution to deliver live and on-demand video online for NBC during the network’s coverage of the Vancouver Olympic Winter Games, February 12-28. The solution will leverage Microsoft IIS Smooth Streaming to deliver an uninterrupted, high-quality streaming experience to online audiences via Microsoft Silverlight-based media players.

Roku announces the immediate availability two new models. The new Roku SD and Roku HD-XR expand the product lineup to three models. Now customers have a variety of features and price points ($79.99, $99.99, $129.99) to fit their needs. All players continue to deliver instant entertainment from Netflix, Amazon Video On Demand and MLB.TV. With today’s announcement, customers can now purchase a Roku player for as little as $79.99. For a limited time, customers purchasing through either Roku or Amazon will receive free shipping, making it even more affordable to get started with a Roku.

Espial announces improved performance and power benchmark results for its Espial MediaBase, video-on-demand products, with Intel Solid State Drives and the Intel Xeon processor 5500 series. Espial continues to extend its leadership in commercial-off-the-shelf based video-on-demand solutions. The latest results tested with next generation Intel processor and SSD technologies are captured in a new whitepaper written in collaboration with Intel. The whitepaper concludes the use of Intel Xeon Processors and Intel Solid State Drives dramatically reduces power consumption and equipment footprint for VOD applications. Espial has continued a long-standing relationship with Intel that includes close collaboration on Intel product design, testing and commercialization. This cooperation allows Espial to maintain a laser focus on optimizing its video-on-demand software while leveraging the innovation cycle of Intel and commercial-off-the-shelf servers and storage. Espial MediaBase is a carrier grade, high performance video-on-demand solution that incorporates patented high performance IO and networking technologies, optimized for COTS hardware -- ensuring power and cost effective products for its customers.

According to a report by the Wall Street Journal, YouTube is outstretching its hand to major movie studios to potentially open a movie rental service for streaming online. Lions Gate Entertainment Corp., Sony Corp., Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. and Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Bros. were among the studios that may be in talks with YouTube.

This does bring many questions to mind with the first being how much a movie rental will be and are users willing to pay for the service? Most people expect the price to stick around that of a typical rental of $3.99. What type of quality can we expect and will the price be discounted due to what will most likely be a sub-DVD resolution? Netflix offers streaming of movies online as well but not many of them are new releases. YouTube, however, may be looking to release some as soon as the same day of the release.

Netflix, Demand Media, and ON Networks are the latest content providers to join Sony's BRAVIA Internet Video platform. In the fall of 2009, Netflix members will be able to instantly watch more than 12,000 movies and TV episodes on Sony BRAVIA Internet Video-capable HDTVs and on previous BRAVIA models compatible with Sony's BRAVIA Internet Video Link module.

Infonetics Research releases the 1Q09 edition of its IPTV and Switched Digital Video Equipment, Services, and Subscribers report. Highlights follow. "All eyes are focused on video on-demand and streaming content servers as more and more programming moves to on-demand. VoD is rapidly becoming EoD (everything on-demand) as operators beef up their streaming server capacity to support not only HD VoD, but network and RS-DVR services, targeted advertising, and start-over services, all of which will become standard features for video providers. These changes will lead revenue for VoD and streaming content servers to triple between 2008 and 2013," said Jeff Heynen, Infonetics Research's Directing Analyst, Broadband and Video.

Espial announces the release of the Espial MediaBase version 9.0 VOD platform. Building on proven capabilities serving millions of live IPTV and cable subscribers, Espial MediaBase 9.0 achieves breakthrough performance and extends support for cable operators.

Kabel BW has selected Harmonic and eventIS solutions for its VOD commercial trial, to be launched in late 2009. This implementation represents Germany’s first major cable VOD service deployment. Harmonic is powering the complete VOD delivery infrastructure, with industry-leading products including StreamLiner 2000 video servers, Armada intelligent asset manager, CLEARcut offline content preparation, Rhozet Carbon Coder universal transcoding, NSG 9000 universal edgeQAMs, ProStream 1000 stream processing platform and NMX Digital Service Manager. Kabel BW has selected the eventIS TRAXIS, SPECTRIS and PRODIS VOD back-office products.