Video On Demand

It seems that more and more people are cutting the cable-TV cord these days. Just this morning, Dianne Nice announced on the Globe and Mail blog that she and her husband would be pulling the plug on pricey TV bills at the end of this TV season. Her rationale? The bills are too high, she can watch the TV she wants on the major networks’ websites, and Netflix – ah yes, Netflix! – has a major library of older shows available to her for the paltry sum of $8/mo.

Chez Saunders, I don’t think we’re ready to take that step yet. However, some months ago we invested in a Boxee Box (superb!) and a Netflix subscription, and are continuing our shift away from watching television in real time. Boxee lets us watch all kinds of movies and television available on the internet for free, and Netflix has replaced the video store entirely. We maintain our satellite subscription for two reasons: not all the television we watch is available on line, and (more to the point) that which is available isn’t available (reliably) in high definition.

Janice and I are kind of old school, however. Both of my older sons, who have moved away from home, don’t have any television subscriptions.

Be afraid, cable companies! Be very afraid!

Cord Cutting is Reel: Online Video Advertising to the Rescue (reelseo.com)
Boxee Box Adds Movie Trailers, Documentaries and HBO Go (gigaom.com)
The Four Big Steps To Cutting The Cord (crunchgear.com)
Cord Cutting: It’s Easy if You Try (newsgrange.com)

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Reports are emerging today that a 450,000 computer strong botnet has been built over the summer. The Shadowserver Foundation says that the number of compromised PC’s may have expanded from 100,000 at the beginning of the summer.

According to the Internet Storm Center, an increase in malware infected email hasn’t been infected, leading them to believe that the increase in compromised PC’s is either due to more experienced botnet herders getting better at keeping control of infected machines, or an increase in drive-by downloads.

I myself have had my anti-malware system trigger twice in the last few weeks at two different web sites.

We talk about what a botnet is, how to avoid being ensared by one, and how these nets are being used by their creators.

Also, yesterday – just in advance of the CEDIA show — a flood of new Blu-Ray devices was announced from Sony, Samsung, and others. Samsung VP Andy Griffiths has said he figures Blu-Ray has five years left in the format. He also says this is the year the format will hit mainstream. Cognitive dissonance, I asked? No, said the panel. Physical media is dead. Most of the folks on the call live in the US where video on demand, including the Amazon variant, is widely available. Several claimed not to have rented a DVD in over a year.

On today’s conference call: Tom Orr, Dan York, Dan Rockwell, Bill Volk, Mark Hewitt, Jim Courtney, Jeanette Fisher, Sheryl Breuker, Michael Graves