--Roku Believed to Be Updating its Netflix Interface
AnySource Media, a company that has developed an over-the-top-TV solution, called the Connected HDTV Platform, which it says will be embedded in certain new HDTV sets later this year (note: the company has not yet announced any partnerships with TV manufacturers) and will allow viewers to access hundreds of "virtual" on-demand channels "out of the box," announced Thursday that it has signed up social TV-enabled broadband video sharing service, Viddler, and instructional broadband video provider, Graspr, as content partners. "Viddler simplifies the challenges content owners face in hosting, distributing and monetizing their video, and that brings us to our partnership with AnySource," Viddler president, Rob Sandie, said in a prepared statement. "The Connected TV Platform offers our customers greater exposure by bringing their Web-based shows to the TV set." Added Graspr CEO, Teresa Phillips: "Incorporating the AnySource Media Connected TV platform into our distribution strategy puts us at a tremendous advantage over our competition and emphasizes the future of video across multiple screens."
According to AnySource, Connected HDTV is a turnkey solution that requires no expenditure of engineering resources for integration on the part of its content partners. It also preserves content partners' existing business models, whether ad-supported or paid, the company says.
In other over-the-top news: In a post in an online forum maintained by OTT specialist Roku (note: the company, which began streaming live content from MLB.TV Premium on its $99 set-top box, alongside its existing line-up of content from Netflix and Amazon Video On Demand, also recently revealed that it had raised an additional $13.4 million from Menlo Ventures in two financing rounds--see article published on itvt.com, August 11th), an employee from the company's engineering division, who goes by the online handle RokuJamesL, stated that the company is working on a new interface for its implementation of Netflix's streaming service that will be similar to the Netflix app on Microsoft's Xbox 360. "Roku does plan to integrate the same browse and add function to the Netflix experience on the Roku Player," the employee wrote. "We do not have an ETA on exactly when this will happen yet." (H/T Hacking Netflix.)
