High gain Wi-Fi antennas like this one allowed one Ontario couple to leave Canada's cable companies behind and sign up for Time Warner service in the United States.

Last week, Stop the Cap! compared prices from two Internet Service Providers — Rogers Communications on the western side of the Niagara River — in Ontario, and Time Warner Cable on the eastern side in Niagara Falls, N.Y.

The price disparity is no secret to one Canadian family who read our piece and let us know they import their broadband service, thanks to long distance Wi-Fi, from the United States.

The couple, Neil and Michelle (we’ve been asked not their reveal their real names) and their three boys have lived along the Niagara River, which divides the United States and Canada, for over a decade.  Jim has been fascinated with low power, long distance communications since his days in amateur radio.

“I’ve always been trying to see what stations I can pick up, especially low power ones,” Neil tells us.

That curiosity came with Neil to his interest in broadband wireless communications.  Living along the river, Neil was fascinated to see Wi-Fi signals make their way across the river from the United States’ side.

“Thanks to a clear shot across the river, and a lot of businesses located adjacent to the Robert Moses Parkway, it’s easy to pickup Wi-Fi signals from businesses on the American side,” says Neil.

Neil discovered many networks wide open for public use and began to consider the implications of “importing” his broadband service from the United States to escape Rogers’ high prices.

“For Canadians, the idea of escaping the country’s communications providers is not that unusual,” Neil says.  “Some already have ‘gray market’ satellite dish accounts with America’s DISH or DirecTV, and some even use American prepaid cell phones, which are much cheaper than our own services and get good local reception across Niagara Falls down to Fort Erie.”

“So I began wondering what would happen if we could install a decent Wi-Fi system high enough on the house to get a good signal from a partner on the other side of the river,” Neil pondered.  “We started by putting a test signal up and driving through some Niagara Falls neighborhoods on the American side and found some good prospects.”

A long-shot advertisement on a well-known “for-sale/trade” website paid off, when an American family responded, intrigued by the experiment.

“The fact we were willing to pay their cable bill as compensation didn’t hurt either,” Neil suggests.  “The chances appeared very good for success, because we can see some of their trees from our roof.”

Niagara Falls, Ontario (left) and Niagara Falls, N.Y. (right), divided by the Niagara River.

Neil guessed right because today, with the help of two raised directional, roof-mounted high-gain Wi-Fi antennas that can literally “see” one another, the Ontario family enjoys its cable-TV and broadband service from Time Warner Cable.

“The signal is rock solid and the only time we get some speed problems is if someone in one of the bed and breakfast places nearby ends up on our channel,” Neil says.  “We can even watch television with the help of a Slingbox we installed on the American side which works perfectly fine on a Wireless N connection.”

Since the rise of Canada’s exchange rate against America’s declining dollar, the savings are dramatic. A comparable cable-TV plan with Rogers runs $80 a month for standard service, equipment fees, and HD service charges.  Add another $50 for broadband service with the modem rental fee and Neil would pay Rogers $130 a month before taxes for the two services.

“And we would be limited to just 60GB of usage per month before the $2/GB overlimit fee started making the bill even higher,” Neil says.

Time Warner Cable currently charges Neil’s adopted family $87 a month for television and broadband on a promotion.

Today, Neil’s conscience (and savings) led him to decide “borrowing” another family’s account wasn’t fair, so now he pays for -two- accounts with Time Warner, one for the New York family, the other belonging to him.

“Time Warner thinks of us as apartment renters and bills a post office box,” Neil says.  “The other family doesn’t care about cable-TV anymore so we’re just paying for their broadband account.”

The neighbors are certainly amused.

“When they come over, they call us ‘the American Embassy in Niagara Falls’ because of all the ads for Time Warner they see across the cable channels we get and because American cable systems ignore virtually all Canadian TV networks.”

Why go through all this?

“Now that we’re paying for two accounts, it’s a matter of principle,” Neil says. “I will not do business with a company that slaps usage limits on broadband, and now I don’t have to.”

In fact, now that the family’s sons are getting close to teen years, their Internet use is growing.

“We almost don’t care about the cable-TV anymore ourselves — we’re watching shows online, on-demand in this household,” Neil says.  “For my kids, they are growing up with the concept of television being always on-demand and it works around their schedule, not the other way around.”

Besides, Americans have access to Hulu, and Canada does not.

“Hulu is very important, and Netflix was even before it was sold in Canada,” Neil says.  “Now we can watch what we want, as much as we want, and pay a fair price for unlimited broadband.”

Neil can’t complain about Time Warner Cable, except for the fact it provides him with a U.S. IP address, which locks him out of a lot of Canadian online video-on-demand services from the CBC and other networks’ websites.

“They do a much better job than Rogers ever did with consistent broadband speeds and fewer outages, and we can live without replays of 18 to Life and Little Mosque on the Prairie,” Neil says. “I’m just glad you folks at Stop the Cap! convinced Time Warner to abandon the kind of pricing that is ruining the hell out of Canada’s broadband.”

While ivi enjoys the fruits of the Cablevision-Fox dispute which drew suburban New Yorkers to sign up for service, another “online cable system” with an even more obscure reputation in North America has launched live “HD-quality” streams of British television, most of the major television stations in Los Angeles, and hardcore porn.

FilmOn, the brainchild of British billionaire Alki David, has been in beta for at least a year — until ivi stole a lot of its potential thunder by selling access to network stations from Seattle and New York City for $4.95 a month.  Since ivi’s arrival, FilmOn has taken off the “beta” label and opened their service to all-comers.

We’ve been playing with FilmOn for about a month ourselves here at Stop the Cap!, but have not written about it until now because the service operates like a moving target.  Yesterday’s channel lineup may be quite different the next day, and pricing has changed at least twice for the service in a matter of weeks.  While the service says it’s not in beta, it sure feels like it.  So, with this in mind, we present a brief review of the service as it exists today, the 2nd of November.  Don’t blame us if the channel lineup has changed since.

Alki David is the founder of FilmOn

FilmOn has a bigger reputation in Europe, especially in the United Kingdom where British viewers hunger for access to America’s latest series and specials.  Getting access to FilmOn’s beta test was a badge of honor for many English speaking European beta testers craving direct feeds from CBS, NBC, and ABC stations in the United States.  Now Anglophiles on the other side of the pond looking for direct access to British television can now watch it live.

FilmOn uses its own free HDi player, which incorporates a viewing window, channel lineup, programming guide, and facilities to schedule recording shows for later viewing.  The player also includes authentication to protect the streams from unauthorized viewing, a bit of irony for many of the channels on the lineup which gave no authorization to be there in the first place.

The player software and layout is more advanced than ivi, and FilmOn’s picture quality is far superior to what we saw when viewing ivi’s streamed content.  However, FilmOn’s streams are far more likely to suffer from interruptions and buffering problems, and higher picture quality does not mean much if your favorite show sputters to a halt every 10 seconds or so.  That happened a lot with Los Angeles area signals on the channel lineup, especially in the evening.

The software allows users to increase the video buffer size, presumably to reduce re-buffering video pauses, but we found little difference in video quality regardless of how we configured it.  FilmOn either needs more robust American servers or allow the player to adapt to real world Internet connection quality by temporarily reducing the video encoding rate to deliver a stable signal.

FilmOn’s channel lineup changes regularly — way too regularly.  Since we started testing, entire groups and segments of channels have disappeared, returned, disappeared again, and many are back once more.  This is the biggest flaw FilmOn delivers to its paying subscribers, who simply cannot count on channels sticking around for long.  This is an issue FilmOn must address.  Paying customers don’t mind new channels being added to the service, but sudden removals will alienate them very quickly.

Like ivi, the centerpiece of FilmOn is delivering network broadcast station feeds.  Unlike ivi’s reliance on New York and Seattle-area stations, FilmOn prefers Los Angeles for its lineup.  That’s a definite improvement over Seattle area stations for Pacific time zone viewers.  But keep in mind Los Angeles stations are notorious for breaking away from regular programming to cover tragedies that regularly seem to impact southern California, from crazy car chases with Hollywood celebutards to the region’s various natural disasters.  While that is a plus for news junkies, someone seeking out a network show may find it interrupted by breathless reporters covering the latest wildfire, flood, earthquake, civil disturbance, or… killer bee attacks.

FilmOn Channel Lineup

KCAL-TV Los Angeles: KCAL is an “independent” station in Los Angeles delivering huge blocks of news programming to southern California audiences.  KCAL’s original reputation was its strong news coverage beyond Los Angeles, especially in Ventura County, the Inland Empire, and Orange County.  Although coverage of major breaking Los Angeles news events remains a hallmark of KCAL, the station is today owned by CBS, and is secondary to KCBS-TV.

KTLA-TV Los Angeles: KTLA was Los Angeles’ only true superstation, although it was seen mostly on cable systems in the western half of the country.  It used to be an independent station, but today is affiliated with the CW television network, which almost seems beneath it.  KTLA has an exceptional evening newscast and is well known for its coverage of major breaking news, but with the CW’s youth focus, the station’s news coverage has been dumbed down, especially in the morning.

KCBS-TV Los Angeles: The area’s CBS affiliate, KCBS partners with KCAL-TV in newsgathering.  Since the station is owned outright by the network, unless breaking news occurs you are certain to get all of the CBS lineup from KCBS.  The station has a lot of resources to cover breaking news stories, even after budget cuts reduced the news staff.

KVCR-TV San Bernardino: The Inland Empire’s PBS affiliate.  In large cities like Los Angeles, multiple PBS stations are not uncommon, typically sharing some major programming while different stations specialize in different programming at other times (educational, current affairs, nature, etc.)

KPXN-TV San Bernardino: The area’s Ion-TV affiliate, delivering religious and family-oriented programming.  Ion stations generally do not produce locally originated programming.

KTTV-TV Los Angeles: Fox’s Los Angeles affiliate delivers all of the Fox lineup and classic laid-back Los Angeles-style news coverage, especially in the morning.

KCOP-TV Los Angeles: KCOP used to be an independent station, but today serves as Los Angeles’ MyNetworkTV affiliate.  The station’s strongest years are now well behind it.  Today, it’s a dumping ground for a lot of shows other stations won’t take.  Fox owns the station, which means Fox shows occasionally air on KCOP during breaking news events being covered live on KTTV.

KNBC-TV Los Angeles: The area’s NBC station delivering the full lineup of NBC shows.

KOCE-TV Huntington Beach: Orange County’s local PBS station used to be considered a secondary PBS affiliate for Los Angeles, airing only about a quarter of the PBS lineup.  But on January 1st, KOCE will become LA’s most important PBS station as KCET-TV goes “independent.”

KABC-TV Los Angeles: The ABC station for Los Angeles, which includes a strong local newsgathering operation.

Universal Sports: The digital sub-channel network usually found on NBC stations carries an all sports format.

4 Music: An on-demand music video channel broadcast from the UK.

Scuzz: A British music video channel covering hardcore and metalcore genres.

Flaunt: Originally a dance music video channel targeting a LGBT audience, today the network delivers electronic dance music to all audiences.

Bloomberg: The well-known business news channel comparable to CNBC or Fox Business.

RAI Sport: RAI is Radiotelevisione Italiana, Italy’s public broadcasting network.  RAI Sport delivers Italian-language sports news and live coverage of soccer, motor-racing, and a range of other sports from southern Europe.

Dubai Sports: Emanating from the United Arab Emirates, Dubai Sports carries Arabic language coverage of sports ranging from extensive soccer coverage to camel racing.

Viva: is a music and entertainment channel serving the UK and the Republic of Ireland, owned and operated by MTV Europe.

Russia Today: Russia Today is the video equivalent of the Voice of Russia World Service on shortwave, delivering programming in English, Russian, Arabic and Spanish.  Funded primarily by the Russian government, the channel broadcasts a news-heavy diet of shows that speak to respective target areas.  For example, the network carried an extended interview with Ralph Nader commenting on today’s elections in the United States.  The channel tries to avoid blatant propaganda in their broadcasts, but has no problem celebrating Russia’s accomplishments and its importance in world affairs.

Sky News: The British news channel from the company that brought America Fox News Channel.  Less overtly biased than its American counterpart, its investment in international newsgathering and need to keep up with competition from the BBC has garnered the news channel considerable respect for the depth and breadth of its coverage, especially of live events.  But its political coverage definitely swings to the right.

BBC News 24:  The domestic 24/7 news channel from the BBC.  Similar to CNN, this news channel targets news of interest to domestic British audiences.  Very highly respected for its sober news coverage and unflappable anchors, many of whom are well-known to any BBC viewer.

TVE Spain: Spain’s state-owned public broadcaster delivers current affairs and entertainment programming from Madrid to a global Castilian Spanish-speaking audience.

CNN International: The external service of CNN, targeting global audiences outside of the United States with a heavy diet of international news typically delivered by anchors without American accents.

Clubland TV: A unique British music channel entirely devoted to on demand viewing of video tracks from the Clubland series.  It’s almost entirely dance music oriented and beats the pants off MTV Europe’s dance music channel in the ratings.

E4: This channel is like the British version of the CW, targeting youth audiences with shows aimed at teen viewers.  It airs a heavy diet of shows acquired from American networks, some in current runs (Glee) and others in reruns (Friends, Beverly Hills 90210).

CBBC/BBC Three: The BBC’s children’s programming network delivering shows of interest to viewers 16 and under.  (Also see BBC Three.)

JSC Sport Global: Also known as Al Jazeera Sports, this network delivers Arabic speaking audiences some of the most popular sporting events, having acquired the rights to major soccer league coverage.  Operated from studios near Doha in Qatar, most of the anchors are dressed in traditional thawbs.

Film 4: A British channel devoted to movies — traditional and current, without editing them to pieces or slapping on-air graphics and logos all over the screen.

ITV: FilmOn delivers the three network suite of channels from the commercial ITV network.  ITV1 is the original ITV network delivering the network’s most popular British shows.  ITV2 depends on mostly on series and shows imported from the United States.  ITV3 targets over-35 audiences with repeats of classic ITV series and American reruns like Quincy, M.E.

BBC: FilmOn also carries all four BBC entertainment channels, which include:

• BBC One: The flagship channel of BBC television, bringing the hallmark of BBC produced programming to audiences.
• BBC Two: More edgy than BBC One, new untested British series often turn up first on BBC Two.  Two also more closely represents today’s multicultural Britain, and major segments of airtime are turned over to locally-produced broadcasts from the BBC’s regional TV broadcast centers in Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales.
• BBC Three: Shares time with youth-focused CBBC, BBC Three starts programming in the evening hours targeting audiences from 16-34 years old.  Almost all of its content is produced domestically or from Europe.
• BBC Four: This BBC network targets highly educated viewers with intelligent documentaries, highbrow entertainment, current affairs, art and science programming, and international foreign language imports.  Although respected for the depth of programming, critics occasionally make fun of BBC Four’s interest in obscure or narrowly targeted programming.

Channel Five: Britain’s lowest rated channel delivers lots of American reruns and shows that others have rejected.  The network has garnered about as much respect as MyNetworkTV has in the United States, and is derided as an economic mess.  The network has been sold several times, and is now owned by tabloid newspaper publisher Richard Desmond, who is pouring money into the venture.

One genre of programming FilmOn airs that ivi doesn’t touch is adult entertainment.  FilmOn currently has two hardcore porn channels — Adult XXX and Filthon XXX Latina.

Pricing for FilmOn services runs $9.95 per month (or $99 a year) with adult channels priced $5.00 per month extra.  FilmOn promises to beef up its Spanish language programming shortly with the addition of Los Angeles stations Azteca América (KAZA), Telemundo (KVEA)
 and Univision (KMEX).

A company spokesman said FilmOn is also available through mobile smartphones and will work on 3G networks without an app download.

In the coming weeks, FilmOn plans to add local stations from New York, Chicago, Miami, Dallas, Houston, and Seattle, which may give ivi some serious competition.

Still missing from the lineup are digital mini-networks like Retro TV which air classic TV shows.  Also missing, but perhaps not relevant to FilmOn’s marketing are Canadian networks like the CBC, Radio Canada, Global and CTV.

Something else missing is permission from any of these stations and networks to be included on FilmOn’s lineup, something it shares in common with ivi.

All of the major networks filed suit in September against FilmOn.com in the US District Court for Southern New York demanding a restraining order to stop the streaming as well as demanding damages.

Remarkably, FilmOn’s parent company is publicly traded on the German stock exchange and has been operating in Europe for over a year with few problems.  But running into a brick wall of entertainment conglomerates in the United States may require FilmOn founder Alki David to spend some of his billions to fight his way through a torrent of litigation.  Even if the courts see David’s company clear, the next step will be fighting the inevitable, well-financed lobbying campaign to get Congress to enact legislation to ban such enterprises (unless those doing the lobbying own and control them).

For now, FilmOn’s player provides extensive free previews of their content so feel free to explore.  But don’t get too hooked on any of FilmOn’s channels.  What you see today may not be around tomorrow.

Get used to seeing this screen because we saw it for minutes on end when testing Time Warner's new Remote DVR service.

Time Warner Cable has launched its free Remote DVR programming service throughout the country, allowing customers to remotely manage their DVRs from the cable company’s website or through a smartphone application.

Stop the Cap! gave the service a test run this morning to see how well it works.

Here are some of our early impressions using the online, web-based interface (we did not test the smartphone application):

1.  The service is in beta and it showed.  Our first attempt to use the system this morning was laboriously slow, taking 30 seconds or more to change pages.  Things worked better as the morning progressed, but it still suffers from sluggish responsiveness.  Several features failed for us occasionally, such as deleting some scheduled recordings remotely.  After two minutes or more of waiting, we gave up.

2.  The application was generally intuitive and we did not need a lot of hand-holding to get started. But at the same time, the usefulness of the application itself was limited.  Scrolling through the online program grid was as tedious as the using the television version.  It’s fine if you know exactly what you want to watch and what channels to check, but terrible for browsing through hundreds of channels.

3.  The search and browse functions are far too limited to be useful.  It is impossible, for instance, to search just for movies.  Categories are too broad to be of much use, and many are missing.  “Drama” and “Action” included everything from a documentary to a series to a movie.  Netflix succeeds where Time Warner fails.  Their search categories are much better — documentaries, TV series, horror, foreign and classic films, and many more make it far easier to drill down to the type of show you want to see.  Netflix even offers sub-categories, helping people find similar programs to watch they never realized were available.

4.  Changing the name of the DVR from its hexadecimal default did not work consistently.  When we tried to rename ours to “Living Room,” sometimes it appeared that way, other times it defaulted back to the cryptic “DVR 00:xx:92.E9.xx.xx” (we replaced some numbers and letters with “x”).

5.  The more scheduled recordings you have, the more ponderous the application seemed to work.  We tried deleting some series (which did not always work either) and it helped responsiveness.  If you use your DVR a lot, you may find using Remote DVR a patience-testing experience.

6.  There did not seem to be an indicator as to how much recording space you have remaining or what is already stored on your DVR.

Time Warner customers who use smartphones and other Web-enabled mobile devices can access “Remote DVR Manager” at mdvr.timewarnercable.com.

[flv width=”640″ height=”500″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/TWC Introducing Remote DVR.flv[/flv]

Time Warner Cable produced this video to help introduce customers to its Remote DVR service, explaining how to register and get started with the free service.  (1 minute)

A Seattle startup launched its new “online cable TV system” this week offering a 30-day free trial of 27 live feeds of over-the-air television stations from New York and Seattle.

Dubbed ‘ivi,’ the online video service expects to charge customers $5 a month for the package of broadcasters delivering shows from all of the major American networks, plus several superstations most Americans haven’t seen on their cable lineup since the early 1990s.

‘ivi’ claims it offers more content than Hulu — providing online access to every network and syndicated show seen on New York and Seattle TV screens, and for an introductory price of $0.99 more per month, the company plans to turn your home computer into a giant DVR, capable of recording and storing any of the programming on ivi’s lineup for later viewing.

“The cable industry has spent countless millions of dollars on so-called ‘TV Everywhere’ solutions in a blind effort to prop-up outdated technology and business models” said Todd Weaver, founder and CEO of ivi, Inc. “However, ivi empowers its users to experience TV Anywhere, offering them major broadcast channels delivered live to their laptop or desktop, anywhere on the planet. Whether eventually integrated into Google TV, Apple TV, or meshed with an existing platform’s digital strategy, ivi makes the set-top-box and any ‘Web to TV’ products obsolete. Instead of attempting to bring the Web to the TV, ivi intuitively brings TV to the Web.”

The ivi TV player is currently available for download to any Windows, Apple, or Linux computer, and will soon be available on other platforms, including mobile devices, tablets, and set-top-boxes.  It allows customers to access its lineup anywhere in the world where a broadband connection exists.

The company provides over-the-air stations in both New York and Seattle to serve different time zones, but the lineup also provides viewers the flexibility of catching a network show twice — once on East Coast time and again three hours later.

The lineup covers all the bases, particularly from America’s top television market — New York City.  Spanish language programming from New York stations provides access to Estrella TV, Univision, TeleFutura, and Telemundo.  Since many stations have agreements to use their digital sub-channels to deliver additional programming, ivi viewers also get access to RTV – The Retro TV Network, Universal Sports, This TV from MGM, and a handful of specialty PBS feeds.  KONG-TV from Seattle, a classic independent station not affiliated with any network, is also included.

Some other less notable stations making it to the lineup include Cedarburg TV, a public access channel from Cedarburg, Wisconsin, which spends part of its broadcast day airing NASA-TV, Radio Tele-Luxembourg, a station from the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg in Europe, CCTV-9, the English language TV network from the People’s Republic of China, and PlayTV — a music video channel.

Stop the Cap! snagged a copy of the Windows version of the player and gave the service a test run.  Those seeking a free trial can apply on the company’s website, but you will have to supply a valid credit card number to participate (if you cancel within 30 days, you will not be charged).  If you are concerned about this, consider using a “one time” credit card number, a service often available from credit card companies that generates a one-time-use credit card number.

The player, like ivi’s website, is apparently a work in progress — fairly spartan in design and looking somewhat outdated.  But the player is less than three megabytes in size, a welcome change from oversized “bloatware.”  It was also nice to see versions for Linux and the Mac during launch week, instead of the more typical “coming soon” attitude other new ventures rely on.

The player is generally intuitive to operate, letting you control how much bandwidth to use for the service.  The version we tested allows you to pause, rewind, and fast forward paused programming.  A channel guide offers basic program information customized for your particular time zone.

ivi's electronic program guide

Playback quality has issues, however.  Despite setting our player for “high definition” playback, the encoding rate was far too low to actually deliver anything close to HD viewing.  In fact, viewing artifacts ranging from shading errors to soft pixelization were readily apparent even in a reduced-size player window.  At full screen, playback reminded me of a medium-quality RealVideo stream from an earlier era.  It was watchable, but I wouldn’t call it a “cable-TV killer.”  On a large screen TV, it’s likely to be even more problematic.

Still, for $5 a month, it might be worth it, especially if you have dropped cable and don’t get reasonable reception of broadcast signals, or your local TV market doesn’t offer broadcast affiliates of the CW, MyNetwork TV, or those networks made-for-broadcast-subchannels — RTV and This TV.

Besides, if you sign up for the free trial today, you may not even have to pay a cent if the broadcasting industry sues the pants off the founders and shuts it all down before the end of the month.

Remarkably, ivi founder and CEO Todd Weaver told the Puget Sound Business Journal he was unaware of any other startup company attempting to deliver live TV feeds.

We here at Stop the Cap! do.  Weaver might want to talk to Bill Craig, founder of a very similar Canadian venture called iCraveTV in December, 1999.  We remember iCraveTV very well, because it delivered 17 channels of programming from Canadian over-the-air broadcasters and several network affiliates from nearby Buffalo, N.Y.  We especially remember the blizzard of lawsuits that promptly followed, all because the Canadian startup never bothered to get permission from the stations involved and they let Americans watch.

Weaver offers conflicting accounts about whether ivi secured permission from the stations it started streaming this week.

FierceIPTV reports the company hasn’t.

At the moment, the company has no contracts with any broadcasters, but ivi claims it doesn’t need to, since it’s an online cable system and, as long as it pays fees to the U.S. Copyright Office–which get disbursed to the broadcasters–it’s covered. Although Weaver says it’s not inconceivable that the company will face some legal challenges.

But the Puget Sound Business Journal reports the opposite:

The company has secured the rights to deliver live television feeds from local affiliates in Seattle and New York, with plans to expand to LA, San Francisco and other markets in the near future. Ivi pays the stations an undisclosed amount to pick up the signal, which it does by either placing a physical encoder device at the station or capturing it from satellite or antennae.

The folks at iCraveTV thought they were covered so long as they paid copyright fees, too.  Craig said Canadian laws gave it the right to retransmit broadcast television signals, in the same way that cable companies and satellite companies do. As long as the company doesn’t tamper with the programming and paid copyright holders for their work, he argued, iCraveTV was completely legal.

The National Football League, horrified by the prospect of this venture airing its football games to Canadian and American viewers without a contract, promptly found a judge in Pittsburgh who issued a restraining order — the beginning of the end of iCraveTV and the start of some hefty legal bills.  When it was all over, 10 Hollywood studios, the Motion Picture Association of America, three major American television networks, and three television stations in Buffalo either filed or contemplated filing lawsuits asking for at least $5 million in damages from the venture.

Considering ivi was reportedly bankrolled for less than $1 million in “angel financing,” they better have a liability policy bigger than that.

“Whenever someone first hears that we are carrying their linear feed, the knee jerk reaction is: ‘I must protect my content, always,'” said Weaver. However, he noted that some broadcasters see ivi as a means to sell more advertising and a new distribution mechanism altogether. “We do not disrupt the existing live distribution models,” he said.

While that may be true for Cedarburg, Wisconsin’s public access channel, the major American networks that own the network-affiliated stations in New York are unlikely to see things that way, unless they own and control the venture, of course.  Neither will local network affiliates, who stand to lose local advertising revenue should large numbers of viewers flock to web-based, out-of-area network stations.  Local broadcasters effectively stopped satellite providers from reselling access to distant network stations in areas where local stations already provided that service, so it’s very likely they’ll strongly oppose ivi for the same reasons.

Still unsure how the industry will react?  Consider a combined Comcast-NBC network facing an online venture that promotes itself as a “cable cord cutter” asking NBC for permission to stream its programming online so viewers can cancel their Comcast subscriptions.

Enjoy ivi while you can.

Amazon Prime members may get access as part of their $79 annual membership fee.

Amazon.com is talking to TV show distributors and media companies about launching a new online streaming service comparable to Netflix to provide online television programming, according to sources familiar with the talks.

Amazon already offers $1.99 online access to individual shows and movies, but the new service would charge a flat fee for unlimited access.

Various news reports indicate Amazon has approached NBC/Universal Studios, Time Warner, and CBS/Viacom, among others.

The Wall Street Journal obtained access to one proposal that would bundle the yet-unnamed service with its existing Amazon Prime service, which charges frequent Amazon shoppers $79 a year to get two-day “free shipping upgrades.”

Would Amazon.com have access to current hit shows or find themselves restricted to showing 1970s Wonder Woman reruns?

Analysts say Amazon Prime’s steep annual fee has only attracted a small percentage of Amazon customers who perceive value from it, but including unlimited TV programming would give Amazon a built-in subscriber base and potentially attract new interest among current Amazon customers who want something more than two-day shipping for $79 a year.

Large web players are jockeying for video programming, seen as the next big thing as broadband becomes commonplace in most American homes.  It’s already a huge revenue generator.  Americans spent $340 million dollars watching TV online and another $300 million for online movies in 2009, according to Adams Media Research.

Those familiar with Amazon’s proposed service say the service is likely to find studios amenable to licensing older TV shows and second-run content, similar to what Netflix streams today, but will likely find strong resistance to licensing first-run, current network shows.  Most TV networks and major cable networks reserve those for services like Hulu and the cable industry’s TV Everywhere, which they own and control.

Some studios are concerned that licensing reruns of current shows might be eating into their lucrative deals with cable networks, which license network TV programming as part of cable programming lineups.  But many studios also recognize that viewers blockaded from access will simply pirate the shows online, downloading them from newsgroups, commercial file storage networks, or peer-to-peer services.

[flv width=”640″ height=”500″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Bloomberg Sony to Expand Service Amazon May Start Online Video 9-1-10.flv[/flv]

Bloomberg News covered Amazon’s video service in this morning’s Business Briefs, which also gave word Sony was dramatically expanding video options on its Playstation console and Motorola was putting $3.5 billion in cash into its mobile phone and set-top box unit destined to be spun-off in 2011.  (1 minute)