Throng

We've just received an invitation to an event next week that reads "PlayStation and TVNZ are set to bring entertainment lovers the best of both worlds".

You may recall back in November last year that TVNZ Ondemand momentarily appeared on the PlayStation 3 after the firmware upgrade to 3.10.

At the time, TVNZ released the following statement

TVNZ and Sony Computer Entertainment are working together to enable a TVNZondemand interface optimised for the PS3.

The TVNZondemand logo appeared on the Xross Media Bar (XMB) for some PS3 users early in the rollout of firmware 3.10 upgrade.

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Sony Computer Entertainment Europe last night announced the arrival of TVNZ OnDemand to the PlayStation 3, giving it a dedicated icon on the main user interface (XMB), similar to how the BBC's iPlayer works in the UK.

Shortly after the announcement, SCEE promptly took down the reference and all related images. The image has since resurfaced by people who noticed the omission on later visits.

After numerous comments by Kiwi's and others concerned by our plight, James, the author of the blog post, responded saying they are going to get in touch with the New Zealand office (SCENZ), but since then, no news has come of it.

The feature was meant to be apart of Firmware 3.10 of the PlayStation 3 software, released today across the world. There is no sign of the TV or TVNZ OnDemand icons on the interface, meaning the feature has really been cut.

I love the concept of on demand television: watch what you want, when you want it.  Almost the only TV I watch “live” is sport.  Everything else gets recorded (I have a PVR, not MySkyHDi) and watched later.  Sometimes hours, sometimes days, or sometimes weeks later.  So a website that I can go to where I can catch up on shows I missed or forgot about is something that holds great appeal for me.

Is anyone else at the moment having trouble viewing video on tvnzondemand? When I try to watch one it just asks me for my connection speed and I click on it but the video never loads. Is this happening to anyone else or is there something that I should be doing?

Thanks.

Ondemand was something of a rush job for TVNZ, but (Jason) Paris says his team has an aggressive schedule. A new version should start rolling out around mid-year, including a recommendation system and uploading of user generated content, YouTube-style.
"Phase two is all about interactivity" Paris says. He plans to place users' clips on the ondemand website and perhaps even on the airwaves. "I can see a time when TV2, on a Friday night at 11.30, has the best of the user-generated content from ondemand, pre-packaged into a TV show, and we start closing the loop."

I wonder what happened? This interview was conducted in May, 2007 in Idealog.

TVNZ have announced that their video on demand service will be dropping DRM copy protection from their video, and all the content will be for free.

Instead of paying for a video, they are hoping to move each content provider to an ad-supported model, with an ad playing both at the start and the end of the show.

Instead of free content streaming via flash through their website, you will be able to download the free content (which will end up being everything on the site anyway).

Page one (of a two page article) is at The New Zealand Herald here: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/3/story.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10490999.

TVNZ will ditch premium downloads from its internet-based video on demand service and the digital rights management software designed to prevent piracy as it looks to advertising to pay the way.

The state broadcaster is also working with Microsoft and Sony to bring its video on demand service to the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 video game consoles.

TV shows can be streamed for free or downloaded at a cost of $2 to $4 an episode, 200,000 TV shows are being streamed each month to 150,000 local users.

TVNZ's head of emerging business, Jason Paris, said free video streams of programmes with adverts featured at the beginning and end of the feed had outnumbered paid-for downloads by "many thousands to one".

"New Zealanders conclusively said they didn't want to pay for content online. We're now focusing purely on an ad-supported model and it seems to have won out around the world as well."

TVNZ ondemand have launched their Shortland Street behind the scenes series
the series is a exclusive behind the scenes look at NZ's fav drama

Episode 1 From Story to Script

Episode 2 Actor

Episode 3 The Director

Episode 4 From tape to screen

http://tvnzondemand.co.nz/content/shortland_street_series_16/ondemand_video_skin?tab=INSIDER%20INFO&sb=date-descending