Less Shows but Same Content

One of the key things that I think our media player The Pipeline has struggled with is the fact that it has so many shows. The way that they are currently listed in the Channel Guide almost overwhelms any user. I’ve gone through and cleaned up the Channel Guide, merging shows together such as the Xbox 360 and PS3 trailers to form the Video Games show. While simplifying the Channel Guide, I tried to avoid lowering the amount of content available in each show. The Channel Guide also now lists the shows in a way that they are more so related to one another.

Remember to click on the Channel Guide button, in the upper left hand corner, to view all the different shows available on The Pipeline. Simply click on the title and you can start watching hours of content.

Add The Pipeline: Entertainment Within a Box to your page

iTunes to Stop Selling NBC TV shows

NBC has declined to renew its agreement to sell its shows on iTunes because Apple refused to increase its video prices from $1.99 to $4.99!

NBC

“We are disappointed to see NBC leave iTunes because we would not agree to their dramatic price increase,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice president of iTunes. “We hope they will change their minds and offer their TV shows to the tens of millions of iTunes customers.”

Apple’s agreement with NBC ends in December. Since NBC would withdraw their shows in the middle of the television season, Apple has decided to not offer NBC TV shows for the upcoming television season beginning in September. NBC supplied iTunes with three of its 10 best selling TV shows last season, accounting for 30 percent of iTunes TV show sales.

ABC, CBS, FOX and The CW, along with more than 50 cable networks, are still signed up to sell TV shows from their upcoming season on iTunes at $1.99 per episode.

You NEED News

I realize that many of you probably don’t know what’s going on outside in the “real” world. To much cyber interaction can lead to a somewhat time travel effect. When you thought it was Tuesday it might actually be Thursday. So in order to set you straight, I’m introducing three new shows onto The Pipeline that are real-world news videos.

These new shows are CNN’s Sick Twisted Freak, ABC World News, and Fox News Flash. In addition to the previous news shows such as NASAcast and the National Geographic Video Shorts – I hope that you all gain a better appreciation for the world around you.

Add The Pipeline: Entertainment Within a Box to your page

The Pipeline 2.0 – Now Live

Yes I know I said The Pipeline 2.0 was launching tomorrow, but earlier isn’t necessarily a bad thing is it?

Add The Pipeline: Entertainment Within a Box to your page

Remember that you can now post text, audio, and video comments! You can check some out in the Welcome to The Pipeline show. So go check them out and post your own on any video that you want to!

Major Update – Coming Tomorrow! The Pipeline

If you read this blog, you’ve noticed that I’ve talked a lot about The Pipeline update. Yes… it’s coming… Doesn’t this all sound familiar?

Tomorrow, August 30th 2007 the world will be able to use the new player design!

Here’s a list of all the new features:

SplashCast - Player 2.0

1. Video, Audio, or Text Comments – For any item in a show, YOU can now record or upload a video or audio comment as well as leave a text comment.

2. Easier item navigation – We know that we have tons of shows (around 50) and that each show has a ton of items for everyone to watch. Navigating through all of this content has been somewhat of a nightmare. With thumbnail navigation and the corresponding item title you won’t have to load each item to figure out what it is!

3. Captions – The captions box displays the Name of each item in your show. As always, the player fades away after a few seconds, but if you prefer, you can always close the caption box while navigating through the items if desired.

4. Full Screen button – View the player in full screen mode.

5. Pause/Play button – Pause actually pauses everything now… even background music. This is a great feature for everyone watching our slide shows.

6. Send button – Email friends and family a link directly to your favorite item or to an entire show.

SplashCast - Follow Me


7. Follow Me – You can now receive email updates to when a show has been updated. By clicking the Info button on bottom right you can access the new “follow me” link.

Lord Vader, Transform!

Darth Vader both versions

Ever wondered what a Star Wars-Transformers mashup would look like? It will sure as hell look as friggin’ cool as this! What you see above, folks is the Hasbro Star Wars Transformer Deluxe Death Star which you can buy for only $50 at Amazon!

The Vader gadget we see electronic light and sounds, a Darth Vader pilot mini figure, 2 TIE Fighter mini vehicles and 3 Stormtrooper mini figures. The Rebels will not escape this time, since Hasbro hasn’t confirmed whether there will be a convenient hole in the toy to drop that proton torpedo in.

We’ve also laid our eyes on one awesome, but weird Chewbacca-Millenium Falcon Transformer, so you never know what’ll come next. I’d like to see what they do with R2D2 and C3PO. I mean, those are actually robots! Check out the photos below!

Death Star Transformer Darth Vader Transformer Chewbacca Transformer

[Via a long line of sites that starts at Digg, ends at T3]