WB/AOL Online TV Deal

[Milkman]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051114/ap_on_hi_te/online_tv

Dozens of old television shows including "Welcome Back Kotter" will be available online and free-of-charge under a deal between America Online Inc. and Warner Bros.....

Welcome Back Kotter," "Sisters" and "Growing Pains" are among the 30 series to be offered initially. They will be grouped on channels by genre, including comedy, drama, animation, sci-fi and horror, action-adventure and "vintage TV."

Anyone have more details on this?

[Radhil]

I ran across a tech article that mentioned that AOL will basically be setting up their own P2P network - the very thing that keeps getting sued out of existance for being home to pirates and such - in order to keep bandwidth costs down, just for these shows.

As to the sci-fi, I've heard mention of B5 being on this list.

EDIT - Make that confirmed - the original NYTimes article mentions it explicitly. Also La Femme Nikita and Wonder Woman, to run the widest range possible.

[Shr'eshhhhhh]

I wish I could see 'Search' aka 'Probe'. I have fond memories of it but no one shows it here and no dvd, or video has surfaced to my knowledge.

[Milkman]

Very nice. While i have all the B5's on tape as well ask DVD, perhaps it may draw new viewers since it will be available free.

It will be interesting to see how well this takes off and whatelse they will be offering.

[elver]

Babylon 5 brought to you for free by AOL?

http://slashdot.org/articles/05/11/14/150222.shtml

According to the article it's pointing at, Babylon 5 will be one of the shows that will be released for free on the AOL p2p network. So, yay!

[Capt.Montoya]

http://slashdot.org/articles/05/11/14/150222.shtml

According to the article it's pointing at, Babylon 5 will be one of the shows that will be released for free on the AOL p2p network. So, yay!

I saw this at the FirstOnes.com forums and you beat me to posting it here.
The NY Times article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/14/business/14warner.html

Warner Brothers is preparing a major new Internet service that will let fans watch full episodes from more than 100 old television series. The service, called In2TV, will be free, supported by advertising, and will start early next year. More than 4,800 episodes will be made available online in the first year.

Of the media companies' new experiments, Peter Storck, president of the Points North Group, a research firm, remarked, "They are saying let's take the plunge, put the content out there, and figure out how to monetize it." Programs on In2TV will range from recently canceled series like "La Femme Nikita" to vintage shows like "Maverick" from the early 1960's . Other series that will be available include "Chico and the Man," "Wonder Woman" and "Babylon 5."

The company will offer a changing selection of several hundred episodes each month, rather than providing continuous access to all the episodes in a series, Mr. Frankel said, so as not to cannibalize potential DVD sales of old TV shows.

For those who want to watch on a big screen, AOL is introducing optional technology that it says will produce a DVD-quality picture. Even with a broadband connection, most Internet video looks grainy at full width on a computer monitor, let alone a big TV set. The new option, called AOL Hi-Q, will require the downloading once of special software, and the program may not start for several minutes, depending on the speed of the users' connection.

There is a catch. To use the technology, viewers will have to agree to participate in a special file-sharing network. This approach helps AOL reduce the cost of distributing-high quality video files by passing portions of the video files from one user's computer to another. AOL says that since it will control the network, it can protect users from the sorts of viruses and spyware that infect other peer-to-peer systems.

(Quotes added for convenience of those not registered at New York Times. Maybe you can access that from Google News to read it all even if unregistered).

It mentions the possibility of watching on the TV if you own a Windows Media Center PC. Watching it on TV through a TiVo is being explored.

No word if this will be available outside the USA... likely, given that it's through the internet.
No word whether there will be a Mac OS version of the p2p software, likely, but uncertain.
If there is a Mac version it would be cool if this In2TV could be plugged in to (or played through) Front Row.

[Dr Maturin]

Who'd waste their money on registering with the NYT...?

They called last year begging me to subscribe. LOL.

For that matter, who'd waste their money on an AOL account?

I'll just buy the DVD sets that I want, thanks.

[Jan]

Hot off of the Moderated Newsgroup:

Title: Re: B5 part of WB/AOL online TV deal
Author: [email protected]
Date: Tue, 15 Nov 2005 01:18:57 +0000 (UTC)
Message-ID: <1132017497.[email protected] .com>

Patty Winter wrote:
> Because I don't have AOL, I wasn't paying much attention to the
> postings in rec.arts.tv about the new Warner Bros./AOL agreement to
> provide old TV shows over AOL until I saw these examples of shows
> that will air on the "Heroes and Horrors" channel: "Wonder Woman,
> Lois & Clark: The Adventures of Superman and Babylon 5."
>
> More details at:
>
> http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6283279.html
>
>

Also at: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/14/bu.../14warner.html

Yes, this is going ahead. I've been quietly working with WB on this
for a while now, both for the AOL material and the wireless phone
component...editing down various parts into differenty-sized bites for
when you're standing around in line at the bank. So there's "make me
laugh" and "thrill me" segments (the elevator scene in "Convictions"
being one, and a big Narn/Shadow fight for the latter) of 3-4 minutes,
"Tell me a story" which is 12 minutes long on average, being an a- or
b-story pulled out on its own, and of course "show me an episode."

This combined approach will help to put B5 out there in front of a huge
audience of both regular viewers, computer folks, and people just
curious to sample the show in brief bites.

jms

message (c) 2005 by
synthetic worlds ltd.
permission to reprint
specifically denied to sfx magazine

I'm going to have to check at least some of these out!

Jan

[AaronB]

Not to cause any problems but do we really need two threads about this?

[Jan]

I give up...where's the second one?

Sorry, couldn't resist...I've merged the threads.

Jan

[AaronB]

I give up...where's the second one?

Sorry, couldn't resist...I've merged the threads.

Jan

First you disallow any flinging of midgets and now this?! Jan, being a moderator is really going to you head.

[Jan]

I gots da POWER!

See what happens when I'm forced to put on that damned hat?

Jan

[Dr Maturin]

They could do some good stuff with wrestling...

[Milkman]

I gots da POWER!

See what happens when I'm forced to put on that damned hat?

Jan

haha.. well.. my thread was first, but the other thread must have had a snappier title? :P

Anyway this is of course great news. Getting B5 in the public eye is always good. Maybe some more interest will be generated for a movie again.

[WorkerCaste]

I gots da POWER!

See what happens when I'm forced to put on that damned hat?

Jan

With great power comes great responsibility...