DVRs

Hulu, the online video portal joint venture between NBC Universal, News Corp.,and Disney may begin testing a paid subscription service next week, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing people briefed on the plans.

When McDonald's contracted to have its branded iced coffee cups on the set of KVVU Las Vegas' morning newscast in 2008, the fast-food behemoth got way more bang for its buck than it had bargained for. The Las Vegas Sun wrote about the product placement play, as did The New York Times a day later.

Comcast Labs has developed a prototype of a web-based remote control that will extend Comcast's interactive programming guide to many IP-enabled devices. The Xfinity Remote, which Brian Roberts demoed today on an iPad at the NCTA show, enables you to search for your favorite shows and movies on television and video on demand, change the channel on your cable box right from your iPad, and set your DVR remotely.

Google has announced a bid to dominate the television screen in the same way that it dominates the web - launching Google TV to software developers in San Francisco, the company set out its ambition to combine "the best of the web with the best of TV".

Notwithstanding the glitches, the demo last week was impressive; the seamless blending of TV and web content, the beautiful UI, the smooth search and browse capabilities. Now, a few days after the heady discussion and CEO briefings at Google's I/O developer conference, we can reflect a bit on what the outlook might be for this ambitious new Google initiative.

Sezmi has launched a service blending free and pay-television broadcast channels with video on demand delivered over broadband. Initially available in the Los Angeles area, assuming it proves successful, the venture capital backed start-up company plans to expand nationally across America. Sezmi combines terrestrial transmissions with online video but could struggle to compete with existing pay-television providers.  

The habits of US visitors to online TV sites reveal that online TV-viewing acts as a replacement for DVR (digital video recorder) viewing, according to research from Nielsen.