Articles about Streaming

UK mobile operator Three has introduced a new tariff that lets subscribers stream music, TV and movies from a number of services without eating into their data allowance. The Go Binge Tariff allows for all-you-can-eat streaming access to Netflix, TVPlayer, Deezer and SoundCloud.

If this sounds a little familiar, that's because T-Mobile has a similar tariff with an incredibly similar name: Binge On. Of course, there is potentially a slight catch: price.

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A survey by the BBC reveals that over a third of Premier League football (or soccer, if you insist) fans are getting their gaming fix using unofficial (that is, illegal) online streams.

Kodi boxes and similar dedicated devices are used by more than a quarter of fans for this very purpose. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it is younger adults who are more likely to make use of illegal streams.

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Sony is seeking submissions from filmmakers across the country to help develop a new TV series that will be distributed primarily through its various PlayStation-branded channels.

In a partnership announced today with a group called Ideas United, Sony is opening up submissions for anyone to submit their best ideas for a new TV show with the eventual winners seeing their idea come to life in a professionally produced pilot.

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In recent weeks numerous Kodi add-ons have disappeared, and the popular site TVAddons also suffered the same fate. It had been presumed that the disappearances were related to a lawsuit taken out by Dish Network, and now the broadcaster has been granted subpoenas to help identify those developing the ZemTV Kodi addon and running the TVAddons website.

The subpoenas relate to a number of online services including Facebook and Twitter, and successfully identifying defendants will be key to the success with any lawsuits relating to copyright infringement.

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Last month, the BBC announced plans to force iPlayer users to sign into their account in order to watch the catch-up service. The requirement is now rolling out, and this means that the option to skip sign-in is starting to vanish.

Visitors to the site are now greeted by a message that reads: "You now need to sign in to watch. It's quick & easy. And we'll keep you signed in." Without following the instruction to sign in -- which gives the BBC the opportunity to check for a valid TV license -- it is not possible to watch any programming.

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The negative attention that Kodi has been attracting recently continues. A number of high-profile add-ons, such as Phoenix, have disappeared recently as interest in the piracy potential for the media player increases.

The latest victim appears to be TVAddons, a site which lists unofficial Kodi add-ons. The site was sued last week in a federal court in Texas, so the disappearance is not entirely surprising. But the removal of DNS records -- rendering the site inaccessible -- without any explanation is a little strange.

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Kodi -- built from the ashes of XBMC -- remains a popular but controversial streaming media solution. The beauty of the software is that it allows for the streaming of just about anything, and that includes contents of questionable legality (oh, OK... let's just admit there are a bunch of add-ons that can be used to stream pirated content).

There has been a great deal of legal interest in so-called "fully-loaded" Kodi boxes of late, and this has had something of an unfortunate side-effect -- for fans of certain add-ons at least. Seemingly fearful of the legal implication of what their add-ons make possible, the developers of numerous well-known plugins are closing down. One of the latest is the popular Phoenix add-on.

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The digital video recorder has been around for quite a while now and it revolutionized home media. The way we watch TV completely changed when we no longer had to pop in a blank tape and manually plan our recordings. Now we just set a show to record whenever it happens to be on.

Sling has been rolling out a cloud DVR over the past couple of months, and I've been using it since it arrived -- so, around two months or so. I'd like to give you a bit of the ups and downs from my experience.

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Coming out of beta, Plex's DVR feature is now rolling out to all Plex Pass subscribers. On top of this, the platform is also gaining Plex Live TV -- a way to stream OTA broadcasts from your TV tuner to the Plex app.

To start with, Live TV is coming to the Android TV and iOS apps, but it will also make its way to Plex's other offerings meaning subscribers will be able to watch live TV from just about anywhere. On top of this major announcement, Plex has also unveiled -- in a blog post entitled "#$%@ it! We'll do it live!" -- a number of key improvements to its DVR feature.

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DirecTV is a popular satellite service for those who don't or can't get cable TV. Many people love it, especially because of its exclusive NFL Sunday Ticket experience.

Roku is also a bit of a darling to people. The tiny box continues to add new "channels" that enhance the functionality of the device.

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Live-streaming of video is continually gaining in popularity, but it isn't just for gaming. While platforms like the Amazon-owned Twitch were designed for video games, they have evolved to the streaming of almost anything. Popular YouTuber Barnacules has a daily Twitch show where he drinks coffee with fans, for instance. With that said, gaming is definitely still the bread and butter.

In an effort to compete with Twitch, Microsoft bought the Beam platform in August 2016. Today, the Windows-maker announces that it is giving the platform a rebrand -- it is now called "Mixer." It is not merely a name-change, however, as Microsoft is also adding some new features. Not to mention, Mixer will get a dedicated page on the Xbox One Dashboard.

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Within the next few weeks the BBC is planning to introduce password protection to iPlayer. The system is intended to prevent people from using the streaming TV catch-up service without paying a licence fee.

The corporation says that it does not plan to introduce "mass surveillance techniques or ask internet providers for IP addresses," but is merely interested in ensuring people comply with the law. The system should also help the BBC to reduce the number of people from outside the UK using iPlayer for free.

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Twitter continues to place ever-increasing importance on video on its network, and the company has announced a new batch of partners that will bring a host of live-streamed programming to the service.

There are 16 streaming partners in total, including Bloomberg which will bring a 24-hour rolling news services to Twitter. Other partners include Live Nation which will deliver live concert performances, and NBA, PGA and MLB to cater for the sports side of things.

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Live-linear streaming over-the-top video (OTT) will surpass traditional broadcast TV within five years, a new report by Level 3 Communications, Streaming Media and Unisphere Research says.

It’s based on a poll that says 70 percent of respondents agree with the claim. The report, entitled OTT Video Services Study, polled almost 500 media industry professionals.

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At Facebook's F8 conference yesterday, much of the attention was focused on virtual reality, augmented reality -- anything that breaks out of vanilla reality. But there were other things of arguably greater interest, and for music fans there was news of the Spotify bot for Facebook Messenger.

Facebook has been throwing a lot at bots recently, and it's little surprise that big names like Spotify are getting in on the action. For the music streaming service, the bot serves a dual purpose: giving useful functionality to Messenger users, while simultaneously pushing people into taking up a subscription.

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