Amazon and TiVo have announced Amazon Unbox on TiVo, a soon-to-be-launched service feature that will provide TiVo subscribers with the ability to rent and purchase movies and television shows from leading studios and networks including CBS, Fox Entertainment Group, Lionsgate, Paramount Pictures, Universal Studios Home Entertainment and Warner Bros. Entertainment. Amazon Unbox on TiVo is currently in beta testing among a select group of TiVo subscribers and will be available soon to more than 1.5 million broadband-ready TiVo boxes.

The Amazon Unbox video download service, which launched in September 2006, offers thousands of movies, television shows and other videos for download to PCs and any Windows Media Video-compatible portable device. Now, in addition to PCs and portable devices, movies and television shows will be available to download directly to a customer’s TiVo box for playback on their television set. This is the first service that uniquely allows for downloadable broadband video to be integrated with programming recorded from TV so the consumer can easily navigate all viewing options.

“TiVo is taking the best way to watch TV and making it the best way to get popular movies and television shows from major Hollywood studios,” said TiVo’s CEO, Tom Rogers. “Now, TiVo subscribers can rent and purchase movies and TV shows and download them to their television set – all without leaving their homes.”

via VPN: Amazon Unbox

While Steve Jobs call for the record labels to end DRM has been warmly received around the world, his remarks’ reception from competitors and the labels themselves has been downright chilly.

Executives at the major labels dismiss Jobs’ challenge, saying that eliminating DRM isn’t going to happen. The marketing director for Microsoft’s struggling Zune portable media player brand dismisses Jobs’ remarks “irresponsible.”

The Universal Music Group, the Warner Music Group and Sony BMG Music Entertainment have declined to comment. But several industry executives said they viewed Mr. Jobs’s comments as an effort to deflect anti-DRM criticism from Apple.

Apple has been challenged recently in several European companies because of the lack of interoperability between iTunes and other portable media players. Its copy-protection has been ruled illegal in Norway, and Holland and other countries are challenging the company, too.

Based on the music industry’s response, though, don’t expect an end to DRM anytime soon….

Former Disney star and tween favorite Hilary Duff is joining the ranks of video podcasters with her Hilary Duff Video Podcast.

Unfortunately, instead of offering tween geeks the style of family entertainment people associate with the star, the video podcast is little more than an advertisement for Hilary Duff branded merchandise. Adding insult to injury, Duff doesn’t even appear in the current episode.

As a result, the Hilary Duff Video Podcast is a corporate podcast that actually hurts the star’s brand, rather than helps it. The podcast insults the intelligence and preys on their goodwill of Duff’s fans.

As a result, the Hilary Duff Video Podcast is a classic example of a corporate video podcast done wrong.

mywaves has introduced a new service, Auto Channels, that lets you create a personalized mobile video channel.

The service works as a content aggregator. You give it a search phrases, and Auto Channels searches the Web and automatically delivers relevant videos your mobile phones. Videos are delivered as a streaming channel. The service checks for new videos that match your search phrase and adds them to the channel daily.

If you like, you can be notified via a text message when new videos are available for viewing.

The service is free.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs posted a surprising statement on the company’s site today, challenging the music industry to abandon DRM (copy protection) on digital music downloads.

Jobs outlines three possible futures for digital music:

• Continue as is it is now, with each manufacturer competing freely with their own “top to bottom” proprietary systems for selling, playing and protecting music.
• Apple could license its FairPlay DRM technology to current and future competitors with the goal of achieving interoperability between different company’s players and music stores.
• Abolish DRMs entirely – according to Jobs, this is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat. If the big four music companies would license Apple their music without the requirement that it be protected with a DRM, we would switch to selling only DRM-free music on our iTunes store. Every iPod ever made will play this DRM-free music.

Jobs concludes by asking that people concerned with DRM convince the record labels to license their music to Apple and others DRM-free, saying that “Apple will embrace this wholeheartedly.”

Jobs’ statement is clearly self-serving; the company has faced criticism and legal battles from several European nations over its monopolization of digital music formats.

Nevertheless, Jobs move demonstrates his intuitive mastery of public relations, redirecting criticism of Apple’s monopolization of digital music to the record labels and their licensing restrictions.

The text of Jobs’ statement follows.

It looks like Internet video has reached a tipping point: two-thirds of the people surveyed in a recent study view streaming video content at least once a week.

More and more, viewers are watching on-demand video, and watching less TV. While television content is popular, some of the most popular Internet videos are turning out to be things you don’t typically find on television, like AJ dunking a basketball.

According to an Advertising.com report, 66% view streaming video at least once a week. 44 percent of video viewers are between the ages of 18 and 34, while 56 percent are age 35 and older.

Findings:

• News and entertainment content are the most popular among streamers overall.
• Younger viewers are more likely to watch TV episodes online, create their own video content and foward video clips to friends. The 18-34 demographic also prefers to stream entertainment content such as music videos, television shows and movie trailers.
• Viewers 35 and older are more likely to view news and sports clips.
• 15-second advertisements not only preferred by consumers to TV-length ads but also perform better. End-play rates for 15-second spots are 20 percent higher than 30-second spots.
• When asked what would make video advertising more pleasurable, 66 percent of consumers ranked “shorter ads than television” as the number one factor.

“It’s fascinating how consumers are integrating streaming video into their old media consumption patterns — like watching TV episodes online,” said Rick Foster, vice president of video advertising products for Advertising.com. “But as the positive consumer response to shorter ads clearly demonstrates, not all the offline rules apply online.”

via Marketwire

A new service from WCities lets you automatically put city guides on your iPod.

PodCityGuides offers over 300 City Guides worldwide that can be downloaded and synced to your iPod. The guides feature information about hotels, restaurants, nightclubs, movies, local events, concerts, the weather and news.

The service offers a free application for Windows that downloads the Guides to your iPod. Users can personalize their downloads using the new WCities TravelBag to create an itinerary from restaurants, hotels, clubs, shops and sporting events. No Mac app is available, so Mac users have to copy the guides over manually.

The Guides are compatible with all 3rd, 4th and 5th generation iPods, including the iPod Nano, Mini, Photo and Video. The service is free, but requires you to sign up with the site.

Wcities is a location-based information service provider with coverage that currently spans over 1900 cities.

The New York Times reports that Wal-Mart is partnering with all of the six major Hollywood studios — Walt Disney, Warner Brothers, Paramount, Sony, 20th Century Fox and Universal — to sell digital movies and television shows on its Web site, becoming the first traditional retailer to do so.

The move plunges Wal-Mart into competition with several established sites, like Amazon.com, CinemaNow and iTunes, and given the chain’s penchant for price cutting, could drive down the cost of a digital download.

Apple dominates the online music and movie industry, leaving a sliver for everyone else to fight over. However, Apple has only been able to work limited deals, primarily with Walt Disney, for its iTunes store.

Nevertheless, Wal-Mart has failed to make much of an impression in digital media.

“As much of an 800-pound gorilla as they are in retail sales, they are an 80-pound weakling when it comes to digital distribution,” said Michael Goodman, digital entertainment program manager at the Yankee Group, a consulting firm.

Recent research by Harris Interactive suggests that the biggest threat to the future of broadcast television may come from YouTube and other Internet video sources.

Over four in 10 (42%) online U.S. adults say they have watched a video at YouTube, and 14 percent say they visit the site frequently. Almost one in three (32%) of these frequent YouTube users say they are watching less TV as a result of the time they spend there.

However, YouTube has its own set of challenges as it tries to monetize the viewer traffic it has amassed. If YouTube is considering airing ads before its videos, they may be advised to halt that thinking; 73 percent of frequent YouTube users say they would visit the site less if it started including short video ads before every clip.

We’re not sure if we really want to plug headphones into a watch, but the Swatch Infinity looks pretty sexy.

It is a bracelet-style digital watch that features a removable face, MP3 player, video and photo viewer. Unfortunately, it’s a design concept by designer Pierre Merlet.