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DIGITAL MEDIA WIRE -- December 12, 2000
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To Subscribe For Free: http://www.digitalmediawire.com

o Companies Form Streaming Media Alliance To Speed Adoption Of Standards
o Entertainment Site LivePlanet Raises $12 Million In First Round
o Interactive TV Infrastructure Provider Commerce.TV Raises $23 Million
o Intertainer To Offer Software-On-Demand Alongside Video Content
o Visual Content Protection Provider Alchemedia Raises $18.5 Million
o Loudeye Offers Song Samples To Online Retail Sites
o Actor Charged With Hacking Talent Agency Site, Reselling Data
o IBM Partners With IPix To Sell 360-Degree Image Technology
> Digital Media Wire Networking Event -- Los Angeles
> Correction: Dec. 8, 2000 Edition
o Briefly Noted: PacketVideo, Singingfish.com - Inside Internet AG, IMAX -
T-Joy, Brilliant Digital - Long Beach Dub Allstars, SongCatcher, Incanta -
Atom Films, MarketWatch.com - VH1.com
_____________________________________________

o Companies Form Streaming Media Alliance To Speed Adoption Of Standards

San Jose, Calif. -- Companies including Apple, Sun, Cisco and Philips
announced on Tuesday that they have formed an Internet Streaming Media
Alliance (ISMA) to accelerate the adoption of open standards for streaming
media. The group aims to merge competing formats for streaming media,
making them all interoperable and giving them the ability to easily scale
bandwidth for different users' connection speeds. Neither Microsoft nor
RealNetworks, which develop the two leading streaming media formats, were
listed among members of the alliance. The first specification from the
ISMA will be an agreement for streaming MPEG-4, a higher-quality standard
of Internet video and audio streaming currently in development. "The
exciting promise of streaming media can be realized only if we have a
single standard for consumers, service providers, network operators,
equipment suppliers and content providers," said William J. Raduchel,
chief technology officer of America Online. "Having a standard,
interoperable implementation will remove many of the existing barriers to
delivering exciting new offerings to consumers and businesses." America
Online is not listed among the organization's members, but a complete list
is provided at the second link below.
http://www.ism-alliance.org/html/resources/press_release.html
http://www.ism-alliance.org/html/about/members.html
_____________________________________________

o Entertainment Site LivePlanet Raises $12 Million In First Round

Los Angeles -- LivePlanet, an entertainment site founded by a group that
includes actors Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, announced on Tuesday that it
has raised $12 million in its first round of venture capital financing.
Redpoint Ventures led the round with a $12 million investment; Accel
Partners contributed $2 million to the round. Los Angeles-based LivePlanet
creates entertainment programming for TV and the Internet. The company's
Project Greenlight asked aspiring filmmakers to submit scripts online; the
person whose script is chosen will direct film and Affleck and Damon
serving as executive producers. HBO has agreed to air a series on the
making of the film, which Miramax will finance on a budget of $1 million.
The company is producing another program for ABC, where viewers
participate in a manhunt for contestants who must perform various tasks
across the country.
http://www.liveplanet.com
_____________________________________________

o Interactive TV Infrastructure Provider Commerce.TV Raises $23 Million

Braintree, Mass. -- Commerce.TV, an infrastructure provider for
interactive television, announced on Tuesday that it has raised $23
million in its third round of venture capital financing. Investors in the
round included Motorola, Audax Group, Center Partners/ITV Partners,
Sandler Capital and Citigroup Technology Ventures. Massachusetts-based
Commerce.TV's technology for digital set-top boxes enables the advertising
and e-commerce aspects of interactive television, where users can buy
items they see on TV programs with their remote control. The company said
it will use the funding to finance upcoming deployments on digital cable
systems.
http://www.commerce-tv.com
_____________________________________________

o Intertainer To Offer Software-On-Demand Alongside Video Content

Cambridge, Mass. -- Broadband entertainment site Intertainer will soon
offer its subscribers the option of downloading software -- games,
educational titles and home accounting programs -- in addition to the
video content it currently offers. Massachusetts-based Into Networks
announced on Tuesday that it will provide the technology and integration
necessary to implement the streaming software-on-demand service to Los
Angeles-based Intertainer. Under the agreement, Intertainer will handle
all marketing aspects of the program, as well as secure software content
from publishers. The software streaming on-demand will complement
Intertainer's library of 60,000 hours of entertainment content from
companies including Dreamworks SKG, Sony Music, Warner Bros. and Columbia
TriStar Television. The company's software-on-demand service will compete
with similar offerings from Excite@Home and Time Warner.
http://www.intertainer.tv
http://www.intonetworks.com
_____________________________________________

o Visual Content Protection Provider Alchemedia Raises $18.5 Million

San Francisco -- Alchemedia, a provider of visual content protection for
digital images, announced that it has raised $18.5 million in its third
round of venture capital financing. The Carlyle Group led the investment
round; Autodesk and Hollinger Capital also contributed. San
Francisco-based Alchemedia provides protection for digital images that
among other things disallows users the option to copy images by
"right-clicking" on them. The company said it will use part of the
investment to fund an expansion into international markets.
http://www.alchemedia.com/press/releases/121100.html
_____________________________________________

o Loudeye Offers Song Samples To Online Retail Sites

San Jose, Calif. -- Loudeye, a provider of digital content encoding and
distribution services, announced on Tuesday the beta version of a new
service for online retailers that will allow their visitors to listen to
streaming song samples and download album cover art. Online retailers will
be able to offer visitors 30 to 60-second clips from a select number of
albums on the labels with which San Jose-based Loudeye has signed
licensing agreements. The company announced that BMG today joined
Universal Music Group and Warner Music in agreeing to license song clips
for the service, which offers streaming in either Windows Media or
RealPlayer at several connection speeds for both dial-up and broadband
users.
http://www.loudeye.com/news-events/releases/music-samples-beta_12_12_2000.html
http://www.loudeye.com/news-events/releases/bmg_12_12_2000.html
_____________________________________________

o Actor Charged With Hacking Talent Agency Site, Reselling Data

Los Angeles -- An aspiring actor has been charged with hacking into a
Hollywood talent agency's website and selling data stolen from the site
online, according to APBnews.com. The actor and another party have been
charged with grand theft and receiving stolen property, for allegedly
stealing private audition listings that let actors know about upcoming
productions and possible roles that will be available. The actor is
charged with computer fraud for hacking into Hollywood-based Breakdown
Corp.'s computer system, and was caught when trying to resell the stolen
information online to a New York employee of the company. Both the alleged
hacker and the other party have pleaded innocent to all charges in Los
Angeles Superior Court. A hearing is scheduled for Dec. 21.
http://www.apbnews.com/newscenter/breakingnews/2000/12/11/acthack1211_01.html
_____________________________________________

o IBM Partners With IPix To Sell 360-Degree Image Technology

San Ramon, Calif. -- IBM announced on Tuesday that it has signed a
multi-million dollar business alliance with iPix, a developer of
360-degree digital image technology. Under the agreement, the two
companies will develop and market an "imaging infrastructure" that
includes hardware, software, web hosting and consulting services for
e-commerce websites. Tennessee-based iPix develops images where a user can
access the different points of view of a 360-degree image. The companies
jointly announced that their first customer for the service is San
Mateo-based Makeover Networks, a provider of software for the beauty and
fashion industries.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/001212/ca_ibm_ipi.html
http://www.ibm.com
http://www.ipix.com
_____________________________________________

> Digital Media Wire Networking Event: Los Angeles

Los Angeles -- Digital Media Wire will host its next networking event on
Wednesday, December 13 in Los Angeles for subscribers and those interested
in the convergence of entertainment, technology and the Internet. Light
hors d'oeuvres will be served and there will be a cash bar. There is no
charge for the event and registration is not necessary.

Event Sponsor:
iHollywood Forum

Date: Wednesday, December 13, 2000
Time: 6:30 - 9:30
Location: The Sunset Trocadero Lounge
8280 Sunset Boulevard - West Hollywood, CA

For additional details: http://www.digitalmediawire.com/dmw_event1.html
_____________________________________________

> Correction: Dec. 8, 2000 edition

A story in the Friday, Dec. 8 edition of Digital Media Wire incorrectly
attributed a statistic to Bloomberg News. The statistic came from a story
by Bloomberg News, which attributed the statistic to the National
Association of Broadcasters.
_____________________________________________

o Briefly Noted:

(San Jose, Calif.) PacketVideo, a provider of streaming video for wireless
devices, launched its PVAirguide service on Tuesday, and announced a list
of 40 partners that will provide video content for the service. PVAirguide
will offer video-on-demand, live streaming content and the ability to
download video clips to wireless devices equipped with a video screen. San
Jose-based PacketVideo will use content from providers that include Warner
Bros., Sony Pictures Digital Entertainment, Lions Gate Entertainment, Atom
Films and ABCNEWS.com.
http://www.packetvideo.com/press/pr12122000.htm

(San Jose, Calif.) Singingfish.com, the provider of a search engine for
finding streaming media files, announced on Tuesday that Switzerland-based
Inside Internet AG will use its service. San Jose-based Singingfish.com,
which was recently acquired by Thomson Multimedia, creates custom-designed
search engines for its clients that let users search for multimedia files
from its index of over 6 million audio and video clips.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/001212/oh_ca_sing.html
http://www.singingfish.com

(Toronto) IMAX Corporation, operator of the large-screen IMAX theaters,
announced on Tuesday that it has sold its first digital DLP Cinema
projector to Japanese cinema operator T-Joy. Toronto-based IMAX will also
provide all digital projectors to the multiplex operator for a term of
three years. T-Joy has installed a satellite at the theater in Hiroshima
to experiment with the digital transmission of film content made possible
through technology developed by Texas Instruments.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/001212/imax_cinem.html
http://www.imax.com

(Los Angeles) Entertainment content producer Brilliant Digital has
released a "webeo," or music video produced with interactive features for
the Internet, for the hip-hop act Long Beach Dub Allstars. Webeos allow
users to click on certain areas of the screen during the song to produce
various effects, and to activate advertising and e-commerce options. The
webeo for the group's song "Saw Red" includes a promotion offering free
gift certificates from Vans.
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/001211/ca_brillia.html
http://www.brilliantdigital.com

(Andover, Mass.) SongCatcher, a provider of "time-shifting" software for
Internet radio, announced on Tuesday the launch of its service. The
Massachusetts-based company's technology records FM signals from a radio
plugged into a user's computer and creates a playlist, at which point the
user can choose to keep or delete the songs recorded. The company says its
product is safe from litigation because it is simply time-shifting
content, much like a VCR, so that users may listen to the songs whenever
they choose.
http://www.songcatcher.com

(Atlanta) Incanta, a distributor of content for broadband Internet service
providers, announced on Tuesday that it has signed a distribution
agreement with Seattle-based entertainment site Atom Films. Under the
agreement, Atom Films will license its short films and animation content
to Atlanta-based Incanta for use on the company's online Cinema and Arts
channel.
http://www.atomfilms.com/about/press/00-12-12b.asp
http://www.incanta.net

(New York) MarketWatch.com, a provider of financial news, announced on
Tuesday that it will provide financial news updates to cable music network
VH-1's atWork online radio station. New York-based MarketWatch.com will
also place a stock update on the atWork homepage, and offer the Wall
Street "Song of the Day" to VH-1's online listeners.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/001212/ca_marketw.html
http://www.vh1.com/sounds.visions/vh1atwork/
http://www.marketwatch.com
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