Equipment

Boxee has apparently changed its marketing focus again, killing its Boxee TV brand and renaming it Boxee Cloud DVR. On top of that, Boxee added a free service tier and seems to have backed off some of the more strident cord-cutting advocacy that had driven the product's previous marketing.  The product still combines live TV and cloud DVR functionality for apps like Netflix.

A German firm, Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute (HHI) claims it can squeeze data throughput rates of up to 3 Gbps from "off the shelf LED room lights," offering up a new medium for delivering broadband in places where radio transmissions can be problematic.

Video encoder/transcoder vendors are tapping a new market of customers: content owners who are buying their own equipment to circumvent pay TV operators and deliver their services directly to consumers, ABI Research said.

Eric Berger leads Sony's multiplatform video entertainment network, Crackle, and plays a key role in managing ad-supported digital businesses and partnerships with companies including YouTube and Hulu.  FierceOnlineVideo 's Mariko Hewer spoke with him about "content snacking," Crackle's business model and the typical Crackle user.

Despite the best efforts of broadcasters and content providers, TV viewers with second-screen capabilities are not especially keen on using the devices to interact directly with apps that accompany TV programs they're watching, the latest research from The NPD Group indicates.

Having launched in Sweden, cloud-based TV operator Magine is ready to take its mix of over-the-air and cable channels to the German and Spanish markets later this year, then move across the English Channel into the U.K. sometime next year.