Verizon’s FiOS TV Eyes Web Video
by Todd Spangler -- Multichannel News, 7/28/2008
Verizon is testing a service for FiOS TV that will deliver Internet video from sites including YouTube, Veoh Networks, Blip.tv and Break.com to customers’ television sets.
The telco expects to offer the service to customers later this year or early next year, according to TV industry blogger Dave Zatz, who posted details of the Web-to-TV plans last week after meeting with Verizon executives.
The service, as currently being tested, would require FiOS TV customers to install Verizon’s Media Manager software on their PCs to act as an intermediary. The software regularly indexes video clips from selected sites and, when a viewer selects a video, automatically transcodes and streams content to the FiOS digital video recorder set-top.
Verizon media relations director Bobbi Henson confirmed that the company is beta testing the service with YouTube, Veoh and others. But she said it is “premature to give any kind of service launch date … since this is still in the testing phase and we’ll make adjustments to the service based on test feedback.”
According to Zatz, Verizon expects to offer the service as part of its top-tier Home Media DVR package, currently $19.99 per month, which provides PC photo-sharing and multiroom digital video recorder playback.
Other devices have trickled out that promise to bring Web-based content to the living room TV. TiVo, for example, has deals with YouTube and other Web publishers to download short clips to subscribers’ DVRs.
