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I'm not talking about a low-quality, 2 minute clip shot by a 13 year old, replicating the mentos+coke video. Youtube is an interesting experiment, but at least it's current incarnation is little more than a fad.

I'm actually talking about a high quality video feed produced by professionals that would play on my IP-TV capable television.

Tried Akimbo? (Warning: I dont even know if it is still up and running) http://www.akimbo.com/

"TiVo, in an increasingly diversified attempt to offer new content to its subscriber base.."

Why go with Brightcove which looks vaporish with scant content, and a huge list of open job positions: http://www.brightcove.com/careers-overview.cfm ?

When Akimbo has 10,000+ shows? http://akimbo.com/

Also one of the things is that it requires media center, which IMHO i should not have to have mediacenter to watch tv. If i am going to pay for a service i should be able to log in from my laptop(XP-Pro) or any computer. They do look like they offer a ton of programs but i still did not see any live shows.If anyone is interested the website is http://www.akimbo.com/

Akimbo has History Channel and National Geographic. No Comedy Central though. I've been using it for over a year now I believe. Between that and a little downloading I get everything I need on the level and cheap.

I was working on some scotch theory with a very good friend about 6 months ago -- we were both in a very short lived video production business ages ago. I had recently considered adapting Google to television in a very unique way and wanted his input.

My thought was to take television's closed captioning text and IMDB show data and run it through Google's "I'm feeling lucky" API in real time. Eventually you could have really cool "pop up" information program running that can give you pop up information correlated to what is happening on screen. Software running on a Media Center PC (or a Tivo?) could give you real time information on actors and what they're talking about. Imagine watching ER, wondering about a disease or illness they're talking about, and instantly having that information pop up without anything but a button click (if even that). Remember VH1's Pop Up Video?

As the conversation moved forward, we realized the real power of bringing Google to TV is advertising -- bringing ads to the web (more than just a GIF or SWF) and bringing web ads to the television -- contextual of course. Hours passed and the ideas that moved through the conversation seemed revolutionary (until we realized that Brin is a billionaire and we, well, aren't). Google certainly has the most powerful contextual algorithms in the market (although Yahoo is quickly catching up). Google's use of gmail and possibly AOL e-mails and IMs to aggregate even MORE user data (not just contextually but also within a physical region) will definitely give them more specific insight into a user's needs based on more than just what they browse.

The number one complaint I hear on why people use Tivo (or ThePirateBay as it seems to be lately) is that advertising sucks -- it is unimportant, too generalized and the same thing over and over. During our conversation half a year ago I made mention of how I'd love to see old commercials for current products -- the old Coke commercials are priceless (and comical) and there is NO reason why Google couldn't offer to bring back this and more. Instead of the same 40 ads in rotation, they have over 60 years or so of advertising they could bring back (some pre-TV movie theatre advertising) and stick in rotation, especially if the company is more logo-centric than actual product-minded.

I just signed on to Akimbo (need to set it up on my MCE box) and wonder how long it will be before these guys connect with Google. Tivo, Akimbo and MCE are programmable set top boxes just waiting to be utilized by Google. As even video game systems become more of a set-top programming station rather than a specific use peripheral, Google has an opportunity to really jump on everyone's hardware rather than design and sell their own. "Designed for Google!" could be the new sticker on every consumer device.

The conversation finished up (as far as I remember, I wish I recorded these nights of single malt drinking!) with us discussing things that Google might not even have put much weight in at the time -- SMS, VoIP, WAP searches and other data to be aggregated and utilized. If Google offers free VoIP, what prevents them from anonymously and generically aggregating your phone call keywords? If you're using Google SMS searches from your GPS-enabled phone, what prevents them from offering advertising to a local business (other than the one you're searching for). Taking all that information into their data centers and using their complex heuristic analysis gives them an awesome amount of information that advertisers could only have dreamed of 10 years ago. Being able to match price to need is also a big deal -- imagine what car dealers would offer Google for a local car buyer searching for a deal or how Google could knock around the realty market? Not exactly topical in terms of television advertising, maybe, but Google + Advertising can change how we define "on demand programming" nonetheless. Tomorrow's TV could just be today's BitTorrent with the Go

Well, if that is where Apple is heading, then some one has beat them to it. Check out: Akimbo

I found that a week ago and researched it a little bit. Very odd concept. Very odd programs they have been able to lease for rebroadcast. Most aren't really 1st line shows. But the idea is you have a monthly (or if you get in on the ground floor a one time lifetime) "Free for All" package that gives you a certain set of Free content every month, then you have other packages ala cable and sat that you buy to get content from the signed networks.

Apple could do it better though

Uh...

The guys at Akimbo have been doing this for almost a year...and have signed contracts with many major media companies.

Thoughts?

Yes!

http://www.akimbo.com/

The article stated that this was in response to what people were asking for. I know I'm one person so therefore my opinion alone can not be used as a statistic. Well it can be, but shouldn't. Is this really what people want though? I have plenty of TV's and capture cards and what not to watch TV through out my house. I want better on-demand. I've tried the Adelphia on-demand services and was not impressed. I'm currently trying akimbo and am enjoying it but it needs more backing from the larger networks. I want to watch what I want to watch whenever I want to watch it.

For any decent piece of content produced somebody is going to have to dedicate some time and resources to it. To do this in a steady stream it will require a near full time effort. Since the basis of P2P is going to be to distribute it free it will be very hard to get a DRM model to work. They could however come up with an ad supported system to make it equitable. I guess my only question is, would the community using this type of software be willing to accept that? Time will tell I guess. I do see this as a trend of companies like Brightcove, Prodigem and Akimbo emerging to fill this new demand. It will be interesting to see what business models play out.

What *I* want is the ability to browse, order, download and view movies from my TV.

Try Akimbo.

Broadband also enables delivery of video (a la http://www.akimbo.com/ ). You should pay for that.

http://www.akimbo.com/faq_accessories.html#dvr

A secondary factor is that while recently released Hollywood full length shows are protected up the wazoo, lesser damand video, stuff out on "The Long Tail" http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/10/05/185236 &tid=188, is more willingly sent out to subscribers.

Akimbo http://akimbo.com/ VOD, originally announced as starting in June but now expected later this month, will offer World Affairs Forum lectures, cartoon networks, CNNfn, old movies, documentaries, and tons of other low demand video material. The future you've been hearing about for five years could arrive next week.