Vuze Blog

Mirror, Mirror On The Wall

We’ve been making the case for years now that Vuze users are avid entertainment fans and early adopters of hot new technologies.  Recently, we decided to prove it, once and for all.  We set out to gather some data comparing you to the average Internet user.

Let me introduce you to yourselves.

In short, you’re:

• Heavy movie fans
• Avid online video buffs (at the expense of “live” TV)
• Trailblazing tech consumers
• Ultra connected online influencers
• Uniquely attracted to science fiction and animation content.

When it comes to entertainment and tech consumption, there’s no doubt that you’re the fairest of them all.  In fact, you may just be Hollywood’s best customers.

As valued customers, you’ve made it clear on how you want your online entertainment catered to your needs:

• Screen shifting:  More flexibility to watch your content on any screen you want (PC, Mobile, TV)
• Time Shifting:  More ability to download and watch your content whenever you desire
• Higher resolution:  More HD, and less grainy, stuttering, pixelated videos
• Content:  More science fiction and animation.

Your feedback has empowered us to speak on your behalf.  Stay tuned…

For more detail on our findings, download the full summary.

Believe in the Future

“I’m a guy who doesn’t see anything good having come from the Internet.  Period.”

- Michael Lynton, CEO Sony Pictures Entertainment

Over the weekend, I caught up on the news and came across this quote from the CEO of Sony Pictures.  It reminded me of an old quote from a Hollywood leader in a bygone era:

“Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?”

- Harry Warner, President of Warner Brothers (1927)

After getting over my initial disbelief and amusement, I came to realize that it’s tempting to be pessimistic about this new medium.  Media’s early forays onto the Internet showed great promise on the dream of delivering content to consumers  anytime and anywhere.  To date, however, we’ve only delivered on part of the promise.  We’ve built the technologies for distributing media over the Internet, but the industry has only begun to solve the business model side of how we productively monetize this distribution.

As a result, Sony and others find themselves navigating through a formidable set of challenges:

• The Internet has enabled widespread piracy
• The economics of video on demand haven’t emerged (yet) as a viable replacement for the industry’s DVD business
• The music industry’s business model has been disrupted by the “unbundling” of songs (good for users, challenging for the industry)
• Segments of the younger generation are watching less and less TV, and spending more and more time online and playing video games.

Like every other distribution platform before it (radio, TV, VHS, e-commerce), online media distribution is being adopted by users much faster than by content owners and advertisers, thereby leading to a short-term net destruction in value.

So, if you’re a studio executive, how do you begin to navigate these turbulent waters?  One thing is for sure — ignoring the sea change going on around us is not an option.  Cowering in fear at the thought of translating “analog dollars into digital dimes” will have only one effect — converting these dimes into pennies.  Rather, we believe content owners ought to adopt the burning platform paradigm.  Recognize that content distribution will be heavily disrupted anyway, and that the worst strategy is to move too slowly. Instead, experiment like your business is at stake:

• Understand the need to re-think and evolve Hollywood’s traditional licensing windows (ad-supported versus purchase or rental)
• Understand the user experience that end consumers desire (HD versus SD, streaming versus download, PC viewing versus devices)
• Evaluate the real trade-offs that DRM introduces
• Understand WHY people are free-riding content today, since these same people also spend more money than the average Internet users on non-digital platforms (more on this later).

Technological disruption can be brutal and uncomfortable for a CEO in the media industry navigating turbulent waters.  However, nothing good can emerge from a focus on short-term pain rather than long-term gain.  The key is to focus on what’s important to the end consumer, and what this consumer would be willing to pay for what’s important to them.

Consumers are changing.  Let’s change with them, and identify business models that embrace this change.

None of us want to end up with a quote like this to our name:

“While theoretically and technically television may be feasible, commercially and financially I consider it to be an impossibility…a development of which we need waste little time dreaming.”

- Lee DeForest, a pioneer in the development of radio (1926)

Gilles

Introducing Vuze To Go

Find, Download, Play from any portable drive

We’ve spent a lot of time lately thinking about portability of your content. Across our efforts to deliver your videos wherever, whenever you want them, we’ve been focusing on devices that you already care about and own – notably iPhone, iPod , Xbox 360, and PS3 to date.

In addition, there’s another device that most of you own. Based on a recent survey, 72% of you (Vuze users) own a portable hard drive to carry around your media files. Combine this with the fact that you use an average of 2.9 computers on a weekly basis, and we decided to focus some attention on making it easier for you to take your media with you.

Let’s face it, you don’t always have the ability (or desire) to install Vuze on the multiple computers you use at work, in school, or at a friend’s place. With this in mind, we set out to make it possible for you to run Vuze from the same portable drive where you store your media files, anywhere you go.

To do this, Vuze teamed with a company called Ceedo to create a simple, elegant app we’re calling Vuze To Go - a completely portable, self-contained version of Vuze.

Vuze To Go installs on any portable disk drive, like a USB hard drive or a flash thumb drive, rather than on your computer’s hard drive, and enables access to the full functionality of Vuze – anytime and anywhere. Just plug your portable drive (complete with Vuze To Go) into any PC and you’re ready to go. Vuze will run seamlessly from the portable drive, and all of your downloads can also go directly to that drive. And, like Vuze on your main computer, you’ll be able to play all the content in your Vuze Library even when you’re offline.

For you techies, Vuze to Go contains a virtual operating system, plus your familiar Vuze application.

While the core version of Vuze remains free (and always will), we’re offering a PC version of “Vuze to Go” for only $9.99. Try it out free for 2 weeks, and let us know what you think.

Look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Chris

Now playing, on all your screens

iPhone, iPod, Xbox 360, and PS3

With Vuze, you’ve come to expect full screen HD entertainment on your Mac and PC. What if you could take these HD videos and easily watch them on the TV in your living room, or the iPhone in your pocket? Ask no more.

With today’s release, we’re unlocking your content and giving it wings to get from your Mac and PC to the other screens in your life:  mobile and TV. Welcome to an open world where you own your content, and you can watch it on any screen you want – large or small.

Multiple Devices:
As part of our thinking, we asked you two weeks ago how you wanted to get your HD video from your PC to your mobile and TV.

The results (based on over 25,000 votes tallied in a single weekend) made it clear you care.  Among those responding, more than 80% of you took an interest in at least one device option.

Which devices would you like us to prioritize?

As of today, you’ll be able to watch your videos on iPhone, iPod, Apple TV, PS3, and Xbox 360.

Vuze has always supported open platforms and technologies, and we’ve designed our device support to embrace as many of the devices you asked for, as possible. Expect more to follow soon.

Smart About Formats In An Open World:
One of the key pain-points in digital video today is the lack of a consistent video format standard. We look forward to a day when the format landscape is no longer fragmented across a dizzying array of file formats: H.264, MPEG-4, divx, wmv, avi… In the meantime, Vuze will serve as your translator so you don’t have to know which type of file is required for playback on a specific device.

Your Content, Playable On Any Screen:
Another key pain-point has traditionally been cumbersome transport between devices.  Beyond the format maze, its been difficult to get videos easily exported to devices - especially game consoles.  The Vuze team spent considerable time thinking through how to simplify this experience.  Simply drag-and-drop files to the device of your choice within Vuze, and then click play on your Xbox 360, Playstation 3, or Apple devices.

As a result, you’re not locked into a single platform, and you can enjoy the best content across multiple platforms and screens.

How does it work?
The first thing you’ll notice when you download the latest version of Vuze is a new Sidebar item called Devices. Turn it on, and take it for a spin.

Turn On Devices Beta in Sidebar

iTunes, PS3, and Xbox 360 will be auto-detected and show up under Devices in your Sidebar (if they’re present on your computer or network).

Drag-and-drop videos from your Vuze Library (or desktop) to the device of your choice.  Vuze will detect whether or not the video format will playback on the device you select, convert the file, if necessary, and make it available for playback on the device.  All you have to do is sit-back and play your HD content on whatever screen you want.

Drag & Drop From Your Library To A Device

For iTunes, Vuze will push the video into your iTunes Library for transfer to your Apple devices.

For PS3 and Xbox 360, simply turn on your console and click the video you want to play.  Vuze will stream the videos from your PC or Mac directly to your game console.

You’re now free to enjoy full screen HD on all your screens.  If you’re anything like us, the first time you transfer a video from Vuze to your iPhone, a smile will cross your face…

Give it a try and let us know what you think.  You can learn more here.  We’re launching the feature in beta so you can help us quickly evolve and improve it.  Awaiting your thoughts…

Gilles

Psst… Quick question for you

Let’s say the Vuze team just happened to be thinking about a top secret project to help you watch downloaded videos on your TV and your mobile devices.  Which device integrations would you want us to elegantly support within Vuze?  We’re strong believers in an open world, and would like to support multiple devices (hypothetically, of course).  Which devices would you like us to prioritize?

› Continue reading

Cox Cable Delaying Traffic: Comcast Revisited?

Like many of you, we’re watching with growing concern recent announcements by Cox Cable that they’ll be taking steps to classify different types of Internet traffic as  “time-sensitive” and “non-time-sensitive,” and may “delay” certain traffic deemed to be “non-time-sensitive.”   Squarely on the list of “non-time-sensitive” (read “second-class citizen”) is all traffic using peer-to-peer protocols.  That includes all bittorrent applications, including your Vuze application.   We take that personally, and think you should too.

Cox outlined their plans at a very high level in their recently published Congestion Management Policy.   The complete list of low priority uses includes:

• File Access (bulk transfers of data such as FTP)
• Network Storage (bulk transfers of data for storage)
• P2P (peer-to-peer protocols)
• Software Updates (managed updates such as operating system updates)
• Usenet (newsgroup related).

That means if you’re engaged in any of these apparently “second-class” activities and the network gets bogged down, you may see your connection slow — even though you’re paying the same price as everyone else for access. Cox’s announcement also notes that the low-priority list may change or expand in the future.  Of course, the one of these that hits home for us (and you) is “peer-to-peer.”

Here’s what concerns us.  While Cox may consider our content and business to be unimportant or of lower priority, all of the content we deliver through the Vuze HD Network is delivered using our bittorrent-protocol-based technology.    That means that when you’re downloading Vuze content using Vuze, whether its a PBS documentary, the latest episode of “Pink” or some great user published content, it will automatically be classified as “non-time-sensitive,” and thus may be subject to delay at Cox’s sole discretion.  Suffice it to say, our 10 million users who access over a petabyte of Vuze HD Network content every month care about “delay” of their content.

This is all both odd and troubling.  On the list of “time-sensitive” activities entitled to higher priority is “streaming video and audio.”  Apparently, Cox doesn’t know or perhaps doesn’t care that we offer a progressive download (“virtual streaming”) option for much of our content.   Like other streaming experiences, you push “Play” and within seconds the content begins playing for the user.  That’s the experience our users expect.  So it would appear that under the new Cox regime YouTube and Hulu (and of course Cox services) are high priority, while Vuze’s similar services are relegated to the back of the bus.

Granted, Cox’s new classification system does not appear to mean that content will be automatically “delayed,” but it’s unclear what the criterion will be for making the determinations of the nature and extent of any delay.  Nor is it clear what the actual impact will be on the Vuze user experience or others who enjoy the benefits of peer-to-peer technologies.  This greatly concerns us.  There’s no doubt that Cox would minimize such potential impact, but we are loath to trust the judgments of a network operator about what does or does not hurt our business, particularly when they too are in the content business.

It also remains to be seen whether Cox’s plan and actions fully comply with the standards enunciated in the FCC’s recent order against Comcast.  Some of you will recall that Vuze became involved last year in a similar controversy with Comcast.  In that case, Comcast was accused of improperly interfering with Internet traffic through the use of false reset packets, also known as the “man in the middle” technique.  Several consumer groups filed complaints at the FCC against Comcast, and Vuze filed a Petition for Rulemaking requesting the FCC to promulgate a set of clear rules that would govern “reasonable network management.”  Vuze even testified at the FCC’s first field hearing at Harvard University.

The FCC eventually came down hard on Comcast, finding that their use of false resent packets was an “unreasonable” network management technique and a violation of Federal law and policy.  In the Comcast case, the FCC found that Comcast’s interference with peer-to-peer protocols appeared to contravene the federal policy of “promot[ing] the continued development of the Internet” because that interference impedes consumers from “run[ning] applications . . . of their choice, … including the video programming made available by vendors like Vuze.”  [Comcast Order, p. 25]

It remains to be seen whether Cox’s techniques will withstand FCC scrutiny, particularly under a new FCC Chairman to be appointed by President Obama, a known supporter of net neutrality.

Not surprisingly, FreePress.net, one of the original complainants against Comcast, was quick to express concern over the Cox announcement:

As a general rule, we’re concerned about any cable or phone company picking winners and losers online. These kinds of practices cut against the fundamental neutrality of the open Internet. We urge the FCC to subject this practice to close scrutiny and call on Cox to provide its customers with more technical details about exactly what it’s doing.”

We join Free Press and others in calling for close scrutiny by the FCC of Cox’s activities affecting peer-to-peer traffic.  In the meantime, we will also be taking steps to monitor instances of actual interference with the delivery of our programming.  Fortunately, this task just got a bit easier thanks to the efforts of Google’s Chief Internet Evangelist, Vint Cerf, and Google who, working with MLab, recently made available online tools for measuring interference with bittorrent traffic.  We encourage all of you to use them and speak out about any irregularities.

Thanks for helping to keep Vuze and the Internet open and free.

Jay Monahan

General Counsel

PINK Season 3 on the Vuze HD Network

Here at Vuze, we are committed to supporting the work of indie producers who create compelling, original HD content.  One of the best examples of this is the PINK Series, which just debuted Season 3 on the Vuze HD Network (in 720P HD).

PINK stars Natalie Raitano as Natalie Cross, a talented but conflicted assassin who kills for the government. 

The series interweaves three periods of Natalie’s life: her childhood (focused on her father’s unusual parenting style), her college years, and her missions in the present day.  Clearly Natalie Raitano is the star, but one of the most interesting characters is Natalie’s father, played by Matthew Tompkins.

Tompkins has a gripping presence as a man with a heavy past trying to protect his daughter in the best way he knows how—by teaching her to kill and avoid being killed.

Independent web series are risky endeavors. Without the backing of major studios, their producers must find clever ways to do more with less.  Creator/Producer/Director Blake Calhoun succeeds in a making a television-quality production, but with an edge that’s rarely found on broadcast TV.  This is both a credit to the show’s creator and to Generate, the independent production studio that helped make PINK possible.

PINK has been a huge hit on Vuze, second only to Sanctuary as the most popular web series ever on Vuze (and Sanctuary was since picked up by the Sci-Fi Channel).  At the end of Season 2, PINK was one of the top 10 search terms on the entire Vuze service.  If you haven’t jumped in yet, I’d recommend downloading episodes 1-20 right away, as it’s best enjoyed straight through. Be sure also to subscribe, so you get each episode of Season 3 as it rolls out.

I hope you enjoy Pink as much as we do!

Erik
Vuze HD Network Programming

10 Million Strong and Growing

The broadband video space is getting a lot of coverage these days.  Beyond the hype of 2008, we can see the industry getting serious about building real online video businesses in 2009. I’d like to address a couple myths that seem to permeate the industry, and report on some interesting stats about Vuze.

Myth #1 — Consumers won’t download a video application.
According to our internal data (and Google and Quantcast), we’ve just passed the milestone of 10 million monthly uniques to our content portal, the Vuze HD Network.  We’ve been thrilled at the way our community has embraced the new design of Vuze 4.0, and think this disproves the conventional wisdom that people are only willing to stream videos from their web browser.  People do download applications that have compelling value propositions.  It’s the case for iTunes and Skype, and it’s the case for Vuze, which enables our users to Find, Download, and Play great videos – in HD – anytime, anywhere.

Myth #2 — Online video viewers are not engaged.
Well, this might not be a myth for some services, but we were surprised when we read research from TubeMogul, entitled How Much of a Typical Online Video Is Actually Watched?  This piqued our curiosity, so we did some number crunching and found that Vuze HD Network viewers are far less likely to drop off at any point during the video than the average web viewer watching a short-form web video.  This culminates in Vuze viewers being a full four times more likely to watch a five-minute video all the way to the end than the viewer of an average web video.

We suspect that more people watch videos to completion on the Vuze HD Network because they find content that is relevant to them, and because they love the superior picture and sound quality.  Which would you rather watch – grainy pixilated web video streams, or stunning full screen HD videos?

Some Interesting Stats About Vuze:
Here at Vuze, we haven’t been concentrating on industry buzz or PR.  We’ve been quietly focusing all our resources on building features for our growing community of users.   The results speak for themselves:

• Since our Vuze 4.0 launch in mid-October, 1 million unique users have signed up for the new Subscriptions feature, and more than 8 million total subscriptions have been created.
• Total Friend Connections among our users (to share content and get faster downloads) have increased more than 350% since mid-October.
• Search traffic on Vuze has increased more than 700% since June 2008, with our users currently conducting more than 1 million search queries per day.
• In the past 3 months, we’ve gotten more than 45,000 emails from our users with comments, constructive suggestions, and support for the direction we’re headed. In the words of one user (Josh K) who recently reached out to us:

I had this client since its humble beginnings - and I feel compelled to say that I believe Vuze is to other torrent clients as iTunes is to other music players. In my mind, that’s an accomplishment. Keep on in the direction you’re going - it’s awesome!

Thanks, Josh - and thanks to everyone who is using Vuze. We have a bunch of things in the hopper that we think will give the product a whole new dimension.  With our efficient cost structure and amazing technology, we’ll continue to innovate and scale into 2009 and beyond.

Stay tuned,

Gilles

Quick Update to Vuze 4.0

As mentioned last week, we’ve been amazed by both the quantity and quality of your feedback on Vuze 4.0. Today we’re releasing some quick updates that address your top requests, including:

1)    Advanced View: Some of you have had trouble finding your familiar, beloved advanced view of your torrents.  The advanced view will always be a part of Vuze, and we’ve worked to increase its visibility and discoverability in this release.

2)    Search: The magnifying glass on the search box is now clickable, giving you another way to initiate a search.

3)    Deleting items from My Library: When you delete an item from your library, the default option is now simply to remove that item from your library (and leave it on your hard drive).  In addition, you still have the option to delete the item from your computer, but deleting from your computer will no longer be the default.

4)    Sidebar: Many of you have asked for more horizontal screen real estate to view your downloading torrents.  You can now minimize the Sidebar from the View menu (or simply by pressing the F7 button on your keyboard).

And finally, the frog has continued to enjoy her make-over, despite impassioned pleas on behalf of her former spotted self.  Our favorite plea came in last night:

Acting on behalf of your previous amphibious employee I suggest you purge this pale impostor from all future releases. My client’s dismissal purely on racial grounds has been brought to the attention of the NAAAA (National Association for the Advancement of Azure Amphibians) and failure to reinstate my client, without prejudice, will result in an immediate suit being filed against you and all your offspring. Ribbit!!

To say the least, she’s quite flattered that so many people care, but ultimately has vowed to continue to push the envelope in the tradition of all the avant-garde amphibians that preceded her. ☺

If you’ve already downloaded Vuze 4.0, you’ll receive the update automatically over the next few days.   If you haven’t downloaded it, get it here.

Chris

Your Top 5 Feature Requests for Vuze 4.0

Since launching Vuze 4.0 on Wednesday, we’ve been glued to your comments and feedback, and wanted to give you a read-out on our short-term plans.  There have been thousands of feedback comments left over the last few days, so it’s unlikely we’ll be able to respond to each and every one of you.  However, there have been a few consistent requests we want to address.

Your Top 5 Wishlist:

1)  Advanced View:  Many of you upgrading from older versions of Vuze have asked where you can find the familiar Advanced view of your downloading items.

The simple answer:  select My Library and click the View toggle in the top right corner of your Vuze app.

2)  Search Button:  Some of you have asked how you can execute a search on Vuze 4.0, given that the magnifying glass icon next to the search box isn’t clickable.

In designing the search box, we decided to adopt a client-based search box model (similar to the search box in browsers such as Firefox or Internet Explorer).   Simply type your query in the search box and press “Enter” on your keyboard.  We’ll work to clarify this interaction over the next few days.

3)  Deleting from My Library:  There’s been some concern that deleting items in My Library also deletes the file from your computers.

When managing inherently large video files, we believe the default behavior for deleting items from Vuze should be to delete the file from your computer too (in order to avoid clutter and storage issues on your computer).  That said, you can keep the file on your computer while deleting the torrent by right-clicking on any item in My Library, and selecting “Remove and delete torrent file.”   We’ll improve the messaging soon to clear up this confusion.

4)  Sidebar:  Some of you have requested the ability to minimize the footprint of your Sidebar on the left side of the Vuze app.

We agree this would be a great feature.  We’ll add it in the very near future.

5)  The Frog:  Some of you miss the dear old spotted blue azureus frog.

While we all have fond memories of the old frog, she’s gotten a full make-over and *loves* her new look.  She has no plans to revert to her old style.

Finally, it has been extremely gratifying to see the enthusiasm with which many of you have received the release.  Keep the feedback coming!

Chris