By Joey Alarilla
INQUIRER.net

FEELING nostalgic? Head on over to the Minisode Network, which is part of MySpace TV.

The site offers free streaming video of vintage shows owned by Sony Pictures Television such as “Charlie’s Angels,” “The Facts of Life” and “Starsky and Hutch.” The “Charlie’s Angels” photo I used here is courtesy of Associated Press.

These episodes are compressed so that you can watch the whole show over the Internet, which explains why they’re called minisodes. (Well, not exactly the whole show, because they’re edited so that they’re shorter, but you can still get the gist of the full episode. Watch them and see if they still make sense, heh.)

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By Lawrence Casiraya
INQUIRER.net

SINGAPORE–Imagine TV sets talking to one another. In the case of IPTV, Ericsson’s technology incorporates instant messaging. So you and your buddy can rave about your favorite characters while watching “Heroes.”

In this demo, the guys are showing how the technology can link up to an Internet-connected mobile phone and command the IPTV set-up box to record a show or block another user from watching a program.

That’s as on-demand as IPTV can get.

The set-up boxes come in either the one on the left that has a built-in hard drive (thus, more expensive) and the smaller one beside it that looks like an access point, which just routes content onto your TV set — granted of course, content is hosted the carrier’s network. And that’s the Kaiser Chiefs performing live; check them out as they’re one of the hottest UK bands around.

There are an estimated five million IPTV subscribers but that is expected to grow once broadband becomes faster. No wonder Ericsson just acquired this company called Tandberg that aggregates content specifically for IPTV. And yes, it recently announced a deal to host content from Turner Networks (which runs CNN, among other channels).

The only question really is whether the kind of broadband you‘re getting in your home is good enough to keep from buffering the moment Sylar makes another kill.

By Jose B. Javier, Contributor
INQUIRER.net

AS the publication Euromedia puts it, “If it’s April, it must be Las Vegas. And if it’s Las Vegas, it’s the NAB” or the National Association of Broadcasters of America Convention.

The latest annual gathering of broadcasters from around the world was held at the Las Vegas Convention Center from April 16-19.

The buzzwords in this year’s gathering were “interoperability” and “re-purposing content” as manufacturers of broadcast equipment tried their best to demonstrate why and how their systems were the natural choices if the networks wanted seamless delivery of production outputs. For the second straight year and in what has become a “high-definition”-bound world, HDTV equipment from content acquisition, post-production, management and delivery dominated the exposition.

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