Over the years, I have gotten lots of emails from people I do and don't know sharing information on new streaming services coming to the market. Yesterday, someone I don't know sent me images that show an Amazon app running on the Xbox LIVE platform for the Xbox 360, streaming videos from Amazon's Prime Streaming service. As with anything image based, you can never tell if what you are looking at is 100% legit, but the images do appear to look real to me.

I use to be in the beta testing program for Xbox and they would test new un-announced services like this with beta testers, so it's not a crazy idea that someone might get access to it and want to share it. That said, even if they are legit like I think, we don't have any way to know how quickly such a service would be rolled out to the market if it is in fact happening. I've seen most other content services on the Xbox get tested for about six months before they are made public and I have no way to tell from the images I was sent what stage the testing may be in.

In 2009, I got sent similar images of Netflix running on the Wii that I published on my blog and sure enough, two months later, Netflix announced their deal with Nintendo. That time around, I was able to confirm what was happening through a third party and was able to validate what I had been sent. In this case, I have not yet been able to verify this news from another source, but am working to do so. While I know neither Amazon or Microsoft would be willing to comment on what I was sent, I did reach reach out to representatives of the Xbox team anyway who had "no comment". I have not heard back from Amazon as of yet.

Maybe others will be able to help verify more of these details, but from what I can tell, I think it's a safe bet that Amazon's streaming service is currently being tested on the Xbox platform.

Note: I am not sharing any of the images I received.

I'm pleased to announce that Jeremy Doig, Director of Engineering for Google Chrome will kick off the Streaming Media East show on May 15th with a keynote discussing how device, operating system, and browser differences impact the video ecosystem.

With HTML5 bringing native media support to web browsers, a whole a new set of opportunities and technical challenges have been created for content owners and distributors of online video. Enabling the best possible experience across the broadest set of devices and platforms raises some hard questions around compatibility and evaluation of what the core requirements for online media technology are. Jeremy will discuss how device, operating system, and browser differences impact the video ecosystem and what content owners can do to help ensure a consistent user experience. Attendees will also hear about Google's direction for online media technology and get their questions answered in a Q&A session after the keynote.

We'll also be giving out some Google Chromebook's after the keynote and as always, all keynotes are free to attend. Simply go online and register for an exhibits pass and you're in. You can also register for a full conference pass at the discounted rate of $545 using my personal promo code of DRF01.

Don't Miss this at Streaming Media East!

How-to Sessions
Get ready for more hands-on sessions than ever before! Join some of the industry’s leading instructors in 18 “how-to” sessions on the various technical aspects of the industry – encoding, videoplayers, webcasting productions, and more. See them in the program.

Device Pavilion
Your chance to get hands-on with some of the hottest devices available this year! Find out more.

I have started doing my annual collection of industry pricing data (www.cdnpricing.com) from customers who used third party content delivery networks for the delivery of video. The survey consists of 10 questions and anyone who answers the questions will get a free copy of the entire results. All respondents will also be entered into a drawing to win a Kindle Fire and I will be presenting all of the results of the survey at the Content Delivery Summit, May 14th in NYC. You can register online for the event using my personal promo code of DRF01 and get a ticket for only $295.

[Updated: Tuesday, March 13th – Walmart announced they will charge $2 for SD and $5 for HD.]

Tomorrow at 1pm ET, Walmart along with UltraViolet partners Universal, Paramount, Warner Brothers, Sony Pictures and Fox will announce Walmart's UltraViolet offering. Studio execs I have spoken with say that consumers will be able to bring their DVDs into Walmart, which will then charge the consumer between $2-$4 per DVD to give the consumer access to that movie in the UltraViolet cloud locker system. DVDs will then be stamped at the store, so they can't be used by multiple people and I'm told pricing for converting the DVD to digital will vary based on either SD or HD quality.

I'm sure the studios and Walmart are going to talk about how great this is for consumers and they will probably use a term like "nominal" to describe the fee consumers will have to pay. In reality though, the studios are doing exactly what consumers don't want, which is forcing them to pay multiple times for the same piece of content. The fact that consumers already spent money to buy the DVD apparently is not good enough to allow them access to a free digital copy, which they could easily get if they ripped the DVD on their own. It costs the studios almost nothing to store the movie in the cloud, about two cents per movie, and it only costs about four cents, at most, for them to pay a CDN to stream the movie to the user. So at $2 per DVD, a user would have to watch the movie 50 times from the cloud before the studio was losing money from digital.

Consumers have been vocal in saying they want more content digitally, at a fair price, and many of the studios are acting like they are giving consumers what they want, when in reality, they aren't. You can get digital, but only of you pay for the movie again. And you can get a digital copy with the Blu-ray disc, but only if you pay between $5-$10 more for a copy that includes a digital copy. Pricing seems to be all over the map for a Blu-ray with digital copy, but they are clearly much more expensive than just the Blu-ray only disc.

While there have been a lot of technical issues with the UltraViolet system that have been well documented in the media, those issues could be resolved over time, but it's no guarantee. UltraViolet is not easy to use, it requires multiple accounts with multiple websites, there is very little device support and Disney and Apple refuse to join the consortium. Physical Blu-ray copies with digital are more expensive and studios are charging so much for their download and own offerings, between $15-$25 a movie, that it makes more sense for a consumer to rent the movie for $3.99 instead of buying. Many studios have gotten so greedy that they are pricing themselves out of the digital download to own market. In addition, with the way the content windowing works for content going from theatre, PPV, rental, purchase etc. the studios are now going to have to augment that window in some way to allow for the new UltraViolet offering.

Aside for all of this, UltraViolet is a cloud based system that requires you to have to be connected to the Internet. As far as I know of, there is no way to play your movies from the cloud locally on your machine if you don't have access to the Internet. You have to connect to UltraViolet's system to get you license key and if you can't you won't be able to play any content. Unless UltraViolet comes up with an option for local playback, your entire library of movies and content will be in the cloud not accessible locally. That's not going to be ideal for a lot of people and it also requires consumer to once again choose between one quality over another. Studios should want to deliver consumers the best quality video available, yet they are going to force many users away from HD, simply due to price. That's not the best user experience.

Another topic one has to wonder about is privacy. UltraViolet is going to know every movie you stream from the cloud. And with so many studios, broadcasters, CE manufactures etc. in the program, what you what and when you watch it is going to be known. Who has access to that information? I can't find any language on the UltraViolet website that talks to the privacy of one's account in the cloud. Are they going to be data mining our usage habits and sharing that with third party companies? If they do, and I expect they will, that data is worth a lot of money to advertisers who will then know the demographics of who is watching their movies. That is very powerful data that UltraViolet is collecting, which they can make a ton of money from.

And what if UltraViolet starts using that information to track what you do outside of UltraViolet? Can they now deny you access to a movie in the cloud if they notice your IP address shows up in a torrent site? Can they now disable your UltraViolet account? In the end, do you really own the content that is in the cloud? I think this could be a major concern if the service starts to get some traction and is something UltraViolet will need to address

In January, Paramount rolled out a service to sell ten year old movies via the UltraViolet cloud for $22.99 for HD. Many of these same movies are available via Blu-ray for $8-$10 cheaper and I still can't find any definition from UltraViolet on what they classify as an "HD" movie. What exactly is the quality? How was it encoded? Is the digital copy in the cloud comparable to the Blu-ray disc? I highly doubt it as it would probably require 8-10Mbps to stream, which means the studios are selling HD digital copies, which are less quality than the Blu-ray, yet are charging consumers more for it. And the studios think this is something consumers won't notice?

Every year the studios seem to come up with new ideas and ways to try and charge consumers for movies. First it was the studios delivering two-hour movies to cell phones, even though consumers weren't and still aren't asking for the service. Then came the studios charging more for a digital download over the physical DVD. That was quickly followed by Sony charging $24.95 for a 24-hour rental and admitting it does not want to upset Walmart and the studios own DVD business. Then you had studios charging consumers more for movies on USB drives, and you also have some of the studios forcing Netflix and Redbox (and library's) from renting physical DVDs for 28 or 56 days, because the studios are trying to force consumers to buy more DVDs. Not to mention you constantly have the MPAA complaining about piracy. I don't condone stealing, but what do the studios think will happen when they aren't giving customers what they want at a fair price and will do everything in their power to prevent consumers from copying their own DVDs?

As a whole, the studios still don't get it. They aren't listening to consumers, they haven't truly changed their way of thinking and their pricing and business models don't make sense. In reality, a back-end system like UltraViolet that would allow such seamless viewing across all devices still hasn’t been created and it won't be the studios that make it happen.

Earlier in the week, Reuters was reporting that Netflix's CEO was in talks with cable operators about bundling Netflix's streaming service in with cable TV packages. Of course when then media got wind of the story, most of them naturally assumed something was in the works, yet a quick check with execs at many of the MSOs tells a very different story. Over the past week, I spoke to four different cable TV execs, three in the U.S. and one in Latin America, who all say no such deal is in the works. Add in the recent public comment from Comcast and that's five major MSOs who say the Reuter's story is "all noise".

Meetings between Netflix and the MSOs take place all the time and one cable TV exec told me that, "bundling was definitely on the table but discussions never went very far." Another said that, "in our many meetings with Netflix, the bundling of services is something that always comes up, but it is not something we are actively looking at". Cable TV executives has told me that the idea of bundling Netflix's service with their own is not new and that it has come up in their various discussions with Netflix, "over the past two years". The Reuters story made it sound like the idea of bundling was something new and called their story an "exclusive", but it's clear there is nothing new about the discussions at all. Each of the MSOs I spoke with reiterated that they have a clear strategy for video OTT and IPTV and are not currently working on any such bundling deals with Netflix.

Some suggested it would make more sense for Netflix to bundle their services with MSOs outside the U.S. in countries where credit cards aren't popular. That would give Netflix a way to charge for their services, through the MSO, who already has the relationship with the consumer. But a quick check with some of the major MSOs in these regions reveals no such deal is in the works. In a NYT story, which did a good job of questioning the news, they quoted Netflix as saying that Netflix's CEO comments about bundling were "futuristic."

Aside from the obvious content licensing questions around a bundled Netflix service through an MSO, cable execs also told me that they don't think that Netflix currently charges enough for their service to be able to share with the MSO the kind of revenue split they would want. One cable TV exec said, "at $7.99 a month, Netflix does not have a lot of revenue to share with any cable operator. Netflix would need to charge more per month to be able to give MSO's a few bucks per user". Those I spoke with all suggested that Netflix would also have to acquire a lot more original and exclusive content in order for such a service to even make sense.

Adding all of these details up, it appears that Netflix's desire to bundle their service with cable TV operators is just a wish for now, with nothing in the near-term taking place.