I've got to hand it to Sony: Movie downloads from the company's PlayStation Store look great. And we've got our PlayStation 3 hooked up to a projector beaming the picture onto a 118-inch screen. If a downloaded movie looks good there, it'll look good on any TV.

Sony execs said a standard-def two-hour movie would take about an hour to download. We rented Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story and were pleasantly surprised to find that it downloaded in less than 40 minutes. We could also start watching it about a minute after the download began with no hiccups.

It wasn't that easy for high-definition, however. We rented Warner's 10,000 B.C. on high-def and it took about three hours to download.

Like with Walk Hard, we opted to begin watching the movie immediately, and the picture flickered on about a minu...Read More

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Sony expanded its PlayStation Store last night, offering movies and TV shows for download. So, of course, we had to check it out.

It went live kinda late in our time zone, so we'll try out an actual download tonight. But we did scroll around the store.

First, a quick note to Sony: If you want people to sign up for stuff, don't make it take 20 minutes. To access the PlayStation Store, you have to be registered for the PlayStation Network, which we weren't, and it took 20 minutes to go through all the screens. Do we really need to input our mailing address and billing information before we've even got through the store door, before we're even able to see what the store has to offer? If video retailers did that, I don't think business would be very good.

Once r...Read More

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Another company is bringing Web TV to the living room TV. VB sister company TWICE reports that Pittsburgh-based WhereverTV gets internationl TV programming that's on the Web and displays it straight on the TV. Amazon started selling the device today.

This is just for international TV right now -- so great for those of us who can't get enough of British sketch comedy -- but how long will it be before they're offering the U.S. version?

More and more devices are popping up to help viewers watch content on the web on their TV.

Comcast, DirecTV, Dish -- watch out.

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Well, Whedon fans did.

Joss Whedon's Dr. Horrible Sing-Along Blog, a three-part program starring Neil Patrick Harris, Nathan Fillion and Felicia Day made for the Internet, debuted late Monday night for free streaming on Dr.Horrible.com and on iTunes for $1.99 -- and 200,000 hits per hour on the free version crashed the Web site, according to VB sister publication Variety.com.

A DVD deal is being lined up. Looks like it already has a built-in audience.

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Those hardcore Japanese cartoons that were bookending your weekend? Now you can watch them any time you want.

Naruto, Bleach and Death Note, three manga, or graphic novel, titles that were turned into cartoons, are available on ...Read More

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Paramount has signed on to offer its movies on online rental service Jaman.com, according to VB sister publication Variety.

We don't hear about Jaman as much as the bigger online services, Movielink, CinemaNow, iTunes and Amazon Unbox. But Jaman could be the snail to the other services' hare.

Upto now, Jaman has been offering mainly independent fare, with movies including 2008 Sundance Audience Award winner Shake Hands With the Devil and older films such as Cary Grant/Audrey Hepburn classic Charade. The movies are ad-supported and offered free.

But technology-wise, Jaman has two things going for it: it offers movies ...Read More

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You might not have known that you wanted the first seasons of Punky Brewster and Swamp Thing to be available on iTunes, but you did. You really did.

Those two series, along with The Weird Al Show, Upright Citizens Brigade: Asssscat! and a few other titles will available on Apple’s iTunes service, courtesy of Santa Monica, Calif.-based Shout! Facto...Read More

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Playing Scrabble on a social networking Web site is probably not what the game’s inventors had in mind 60 years ago, but that’s where we’re headed.

Video-games publisher Electronic Arts and toymaker Hasbro said this week announced their partnership’s first foray into online gaming with plans to launch a Scrabble on Facebook. The word game, which is already available on Pogo.com, will have an application on the social-n...Read More

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LOS ANGELES – Anthony DiClemente may never eat lunch in this town again.

Convinced that digital downloads will have the same damaging effect on DVD sales that they've had on CDs, the Lehman Bros. analyst woke up Monday morning and downgraded the entire entertainment industry, contradicting predictions of both the studios and some fellow Wall Street analysts in the process and likely making him persona non grata on backlots from Culver City to Burbank.

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Don’t count American University among the online-video fun police.

The university’s Center for Social Media yesterday put out a so-called Best Practices Code for what it says outlines what’s “fair” and what’s not in terms of online-video posts. The document’s likely a response to the proliferation of video posts and views, as U.S. viewers are watching about 65% more online videos than...Read More

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Sounds like a good marketing tool to me.

According to VB sister publication Variety, new service Poptok has launched in beta to provide movie and TV clips for email and instant messaging. And it has most of the major studios, except Fox and Disney, on board. (Read the full story.)

All a user has to do is drag and drop their favorite movie line into their email and IM service and send to a friend.

But can't you just see a user watching Laurence Fishburne say "Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is" and a link underneath it says "Buy The Matrix on DVD and Blu-ray from ______", name your store, Amazon, DVDEmpire, Mom and Pop's Web DVD store? It could even say "Download The Matrix Now...Read More

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Bravia HDTV owners will be able to see Will Smith-starring Hancock on TVs before anyone else.

Sony plans to stream the movie through the Bravia Internet Link (requires an extra box priced at $299) prior to the movie's release on DVD and Blu-ray.

Studio's have been working on ways to offer video-on-demand in high-def prior to the DVD window, but they've been worried about copy protection issues -- they show it, people record it, why by the DVD?

Hancock looks like a glimpse into the future.

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