Earlier this week, yet another digital distribution service threw its hat into the video-online ring: Amazon.  Amazon has been offering Unbox, a DRM’d video download service, for quite some time now; the new service, called Amazon Video on Demand, is for streaming as opposed to downloading.  Seems like a minor difference — downloading versus streaming — but it’s not.  Downloads are DRM’d and non-transferrable, but the streams are accessed by login and can conceivably be accessed from any appropriate device.  Amazon is working with Sony, and expressed the desire to work with anyone else who’s interested, to allow people to stream high-definition programming directly to their TVs (for the cost of a set-top box).

This is just one more in a long line of services designed to bring video content to desktops, mobile devices and even TV sets. It’s now a given that DVD renting will eventually become a thing of the past.  Dr. Johan Pouwelse, quoted in an Ars story about a new P2P filesharing project which will hopefully redesign how files are hosted and distributed, and create the type of flexible infrastructure mass digital distribution will eventually demand, said there’s “no doubt that TV will come through the Internet in a few years,” as well.  There you have it.  Right now is the time when new methods of delivery are still in development; time will tell which will reign supreme.

Here’s a quick overview of what’s out there (and by all means, please alert me to any I may have missed):

• ABC: Offers free, streaming video, including hi-def, of full episodes of ABC shows. There is locked advertising (that is, advertising that interrupts the programming and can’t be avoided, but not including banner ads on the site), and no membership is required, not unlike an actual TV.  It is only available to viewers within the US.
• Amazon Unbox: Offers downloadable video for a fee, either to rent or to own.  With only 16,000 or so videos, most of the fare is pretty mainstream.  Unlike the mp3s Amazon also sells, this material is DRM’d.
• Amazon Video on Demand: Offers streaming video for a fee.  It is not subscription-based; viewers access only titles they pay for individually.  Also mainly mainstream material, but with 40,000 titles, it has more selection than most rental outlets and any of their online competitors.  Has the added bonus of being (hypothetically, at least) viewable on a TV set.
• America Free TV: Offers free, streaming video, using Flash, mainly old, off-the-beaten-path stuff that doesn’t exactly have copyright holders frothing at the mouth.  There’s no locked advertising and no membership or login required.
• Apple’s iTunes Store: Offers downloadable video for a fee, either to rent or to own.  This material is in the form of proprietary AAC files, and is DRM’d.  They offer over 3000 TV shows and 2500 movies — not a great selection — but iTunes is currently the leader as far as paid-for digital downloads are concerned.
• Bell Video Store: As I have mentioned before, Bell offers — for a fee — downloadable content (mainly movies — about 1500 of them), either to rent or to own.  These run on Windows Media Player.  Obviously,  everything is DRM’d.
• CBS: Having forsaken Hulu, CBS offers some of their programming (pretty much just soaps, Price Is Right and Big Brother, really) as free, streaming video using Flash.  There is locked advertising but no membership is required.
• TheComedyNetwork: Offers free, streaming video of both clips and full episodes of Comedy Network programming, using Flash.  There is locked advertising but no membership required.  They offer not only recent episodes, but also (for selected shows like South Park) entire seasons.  My understanding is that this is inaccessible from outside Canada.
• CTV: Via ctv.com, CTV offers free, streaming video, using Flash.  There is no membership, but there is locked advertising.  They do show full, current episodes of CTV programming, but this is recycled often; there is generally only one episode per program available.
• Hulu: Offers free, streaming video, using Flash, mainly FOX and NBC clips and shows.  They have a tendency to rotate their material, which keeps it fresh, but also means you can’t watch an entire season of a show (there are still DVD sales to think about, after all).  There is locked advertising, locked so that if you close the window during an ad, it pauses the video, but there is no membership required.  Oh, and this is only available in the US.
• Joost: Offers free, streaming video, pretty much none of it supplied by mainstream sources or network TV.  Joost has partnered with other web-based content providers (like Xtreme Video, to name only one) to provide original material.  Membership is required, and worse, you’ll need to install the proprietary Joost Viewer to watch the shows.  I’m sorry I can’t tell you if there’s advertising involved, since my computer is too old to run the Joost Viewer.
• NBC: In addition to what it makes available on Hulu, NBC offers free, streaming video of their shows, including entire seasons’ worth of full episodes and shorter slips not aired on TV.  There is locked advertising but no membership required.  It is only available from within the US.
• Netflix: It’s too bad Netflix’s subscription video streaming service is only available in the US.  Available for a fee, in addition to DVD rentals that come through the post, Netflix allows anyone with a subscription to stream one of 10,000 titles.  Also, for the cost of an additional device, content is viewable on a TV set.
• Nerve: Offers free, streaming video using Flash, as only one of many types of content.  Nerve also offers some of the best (& most popular) original made-for-Internet content.  Obviously selection is limited, and content presented with very brief locked advertising, but there’s no membership required.
• SurfTheChannel: This one is kind of an end-run; they don’t actually host anything, but the will redirect you to free streaming video hosted elsewhere using Flash, with no locked advertising and no membership.  As a result, a lot of pirated material hosted by Asian websites is available with a single click — I was able to view Hancock simply by clicking a link on the homepage.  Not technically legal but a lot more convenient than trying to hunt down pirated material yourself, and in a foreign language, no less.  There is also, conceivably, some made-for-Internet content on here, too.
• Veoh: Same as SurfTheChannel, except it uses a proprietary viewer which must be installed.
• YouTube: Offers free, streaming video using Flash.  There is no locked advertising and no membership required.  The catch, of course, is that basically none of the material (at least in theory) is licenced; it’s supposed to be mainly copyright-free user generated content, with a small handful of legally licenced material thrown in.  In fact, YouTube is pretty much the go-to source of user generated content: they exhibit more UCG texts than the next 8 largest services combined.  But, as IP Carrier explains, UGC is usually a) crappy, and b) hard to monetise; expect locked advertising soon.

That’s a lot of services, and obviously that’s not all of them.  A field of players this large lends itself to a certain amount of frontier romance — who will win this showdown?  Of course, this doesn’t fit the same paradigm as the usual format wars (think cassette versus 8-track, HD-DVD versus Blu-Ray); there’s no reason that these different types of delivery can’t peacefully co-exist, catering to different needs by offering different features, the same way broadcast TV and DVD rental have done — the specific characteristics that determine the types and quality of content supplied, and the way they can be used, both now and in the future, being:

• Is the service free or for a fee?

The higher the fee, the better the quality, both in terms of the production values, and the file integrity (that is, the image looks better).  Celebrities, special effects, sets and locations, and other production values will lend themselves more to fee-based programming, while syndicated content and user generated content will probably move more quickly when paired with advertising and delivered for free.

There’s a direct relationship between the rate at which a text devalues over time and the broadness of the appeal of the text in the first place.  When a once-popular text reaches the point of sufficiently diminished returns, it can become profitable again through distribution under another model.  Traditionally, this would apply to the model where mainstream films are released into theatres, and when the revenue falls sufficiently, the films are moved onto DVD, and when rental sales drop off sufficiently, the film might appear on broadcast TV.  In the future, this may mean video premiers on a for-fee service like iTunes or Netflix, then later moves to advertising-subsidised sources of content when revenue has dropped off — when the text has moved sufficiently down the long tail.

This also addresses the question of advertising; generally advertising is used to offset the cost of producing content in the absence of payment from the consumer.

• Is the content streaming or downloaded?

Content of all kinds will naturally be desired both ways — the question is important not in terms of what content is accessed, but how users are accessing it.  Both can be monetised, but streamed content can be free or paid for, while downloaded content is virtually always paid for and with no advertising.

It follows that downloaded content will be both a) of higher quality (since it’s paid for), and b) sought by people who want to transfer content between devices, make backup copies, and share content with friends (because of the nature of the medium).  By extension, downloaded content will be of higher value (to the viewer paying to watch, and to the distributor trying to monetise the text), since it allows for better text quality, more freedom in the way texts can be used and shared, and because it is, by its nature, likely to be rewatched over and over, whereas streaming content is meant to be enjoyed once and then “discarded.”

• Is the content DRM’d or not?

This one is moot for streaming content, but for downloaded content, it impacts the freedom users have to make backup copies of content, to share with friends, and to move content between devices — basically the viewser‘s overall experience.  The entire issue of fair use hinges upon this question.

All these services are still in their infancy, so none of these economic or delivery models is guaranteed against change.  There will be some corporate Darwinism for the next little while, and it will be very interesting to see which services the market supports, and which collapse.