Punk’d by Borat

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How my buddy Tim was punk’d… and Netflix wasn’t surprised:

I got the movie Borat via Netflix and it I was a little bitter that it was a bootleg copy. Looked like a consumer purchased DVD with the title inked on the surface with a Sharpie. So I report it to Netflix, being the good citizen that I am and this is the response.

We appreciate this opportunity to assist you with “Borat.” “Borat”, is a comedic social satire. In keeping with the tone of the movie itself, the movie packaging was intentionally designed by the studio to look like a “bootlegged” or pirated movie. We hope you enjoyed “Borat” and appreciate your inquiry!

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Another BitTorrent Client Goes Legit (Yawn)

Following in the footsteps of BitTorrent, Azureus just launched Vuze with Showtime and the BBC onboard: Formerly code-named Zudeo, the site already attracts more than two million unique monthly visitors after only two months in existence. Vuze breaks new ground by offering a powerful tool set of enhanced features and functions that enable content providers … Read more

NY Times Grades TiVo’s Internet Features

I was just discussing yesterday that TiVo’s biggest challenge (in relation to One True Media movie sharing) is getting the word out and educating consumers on the features they offer above and beyond the typical CableCo DVR. Pogue’s large piece in the NY Times does a nice job explaining the basics of many of these … Read more

Digital Media Bytes

A periodic roundup of relevant news… from our other blogs. Web Video and The Speed of Change: Connected Home 2 Go Networks in the CE Spotlight: Connected Home 2 Go Did MediaPortal steal WebGuide MCE code: Rakesh Agrawal Vyyo, How Cable Will Compete with Fiber: Connected Home 2 Go

Sega To Kill Dreamcast Support

Come 9/28, Sega will end repair support for the Saturn and Dreamcast in Japan This isn’t so newsworthy here in the US or here on this blog… However, there’s a special place in my heart for the Sega Dreamcast. I worked for a small company back during the Internet boom and a few of us … Read more

Gotuit Powers Sports Illustrated’s FilmRoom

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News from Gotuit: The company has just announced a deal with Sports Illustrated to power the 2007 NFL Draft FilmRoom feature. Gotuit has essentially created a video database of Draft candidates’ top college plays. If you visit FilmRoom you can search for players by name, position or school and then watch mini highlight reels of touchdowns, passes, blocks, etc.

This is a very cool application for football fanatics, but it’s even more interesting to me for its potential across the landscape of online video.

Gotuit considers itself an online video publisher and will work with businesses in a number of different ways to make video on the Web engaging. In a situation like the SI deal, Gotuit encodes and transcodes video for the Web, adds massive amounts of metadata, and then provides the publishing and sharing tools to create a dynamic, semi-personalized application.

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