“The Walt Disney Co. will let consumers watch full-screen, theatrical-quality video directly on computers and the new Apple video iPods starting with its upcoming movie release, ‘Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.’ Disney’s move comes only weeks after the company’s ABC television network struck a deal to sell episodes of two popular shows — ‘Desperate Housewives’ and ‘Lost’ — on Apple Computer’s iTunes online store. Both efforts reflect Disney’s desire to leverage its content online and on popular consumer devices,” Mickey Alam Khan reports for DMNews.com.
“Walt Disney Studios’ Buena Vista Pictures Marketing used Cambridge, MA-based Maven Networks’ broadband video software platform. The entertainment giant is the first movie studio to publish promotional campaigns directly to video-enabled iPods,” Khan reports. “Broadband-enabled consumers can visit the site at http://www.narnia.com to see trailers, clips, behind-the-scenes segments and interviews on their notebook and desktop computers. Maven software will let them automatically download and synchronize trailers and clips directly to video-enabled iPods.”
Khan reports, “After its installation, the ‘Narnia’ channel will automatically check for content updates. It also will offer options like the ability to send the link to a friend, check for movie times or buy tickets online. Maven’s software delivers this content in a single package encoded and formatted for iPod, computer and TV viewing. Another advantage is that the software does not tie ‘Narnia’ downloads to the iTunes store. ‘This has no Apple involvement,’ said Todd Boes, vice president of marketing at Maven. ‘It does not require consumers to be on the iTunes store. All it requires is iTunes to do the synchronization for the PC to the iPod.’ Firms like 20th Century Fox, Sony Pictures, Atom Films, Clear Channel Communications’ Premiere Radio, EMI Virgin Records, General Motors Corp., A&E Television Networks International, Pepsi and Nordstrom use Maven’s video publishing, delivery and management software.”
Full article here.
Jonny Evans reports for Macworld UK, “While Mac users can watch the clips online using QuickTime, and can watch/listen to a variety of Walt Disney’s podcasts, it appears access to video clips uses software which does not support Macs. The software needs to be downloaded to unlock the full suite of multimedia assets, including desktop wallpaper and more. It automatically downloads new content and even supplies news on special ticket deals. It’s ironic, because Apple makes both the iPod and the Mac, and Apple CEO Steve Jobs has an existing relationship with Disney.”
Full article here.
We cannot find any section of the “Narnia” website that requires a download (help us out if you find it), however, according to Mavin Networks’ website, “Maven’s technology supports Windows & Macintosh PCs and PC-connected portable devices.”
More info here.
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This isn’t big news: movie trailers can be played on the iPod!
I was hoping that they were selling the full-length movie in iTunes; THAT would be big news.
MW: full
This is great news. They have to start from something and this good choice.
If you share the Chronicles of Narnia video over Ethernet, would that make it an AsLAN?
Ampar… that has to be the geeky/funniest thing I have heard all day!
Awesome!
The Windows-only download page is at:
http://disney.go.com/disneypictures/downloads/index.html
I dunno. I just spent some time playing Flash games online and collecting “tokens” and generally having a reasonably fun time on the Narnia site.
I guess the “x-treme desktop” is what they are talking about. Otherwise, the website is just another example of a reasonably well-done flash website…
MDN Magic word=section as in “These kinds of sites are going to make me go section eight”
im surprised that MDN isnt bashing disney, thats a first…im sure theyre hoping for Narnia to fail big time as with ‘Chicken little’
I can understand that they want to develop something that doesn’t have to depend on the iTMS, but why wouldn’t they want it to work with the iTMS if a consumer prefers it to?