Movies stream from Sundance Festival

ShowBIZ Data and Microsoft have teamed up to co-host a digital screening room showcasing movies from online feature film distributors at the Sundance Film Festival 2001 in Park City, Utah.

Movies will be shown using the new Windows Media Video 8 beta, which enables delivery of film content at near-DVD quality across Internet broadband connections at speeds as low as 500 kb/s.

Content provider Filmspeed, which uses iBEAM to distribute its streaming video, will participate in the digital screening room at Sundance.

“We do very elite-level encoding and create very compelling viewing experiences in any online environment,” said a spokeswoman for Filmspeed.

CinemaNow, who also uses iBEAM to distribute its video, will be showing off its technology at Sundance.

“Inevitably the Internet will plug into your living room TV set and the market will be there. We are pioneering the video on demand experience to get it right and make it the best it can be for when this happens,” said Carlo Cavagna, business development coordinator at CinemaNow.

Cavagna believes that online film distribution will take off as broadband connections improve and more households are wired with high-speed connections.

“We expect the number of households with broadband to double every year for the next several years and as the connectivity and the technology improves, the streaming video on demand experience will soon be indistinguishable from DVD,” said Cavagna.

The schedule of movies set to play in the digital screening room range from classics and short films to Shadow of the Vampire, a first-run feature film.

Other online film distributors participating in the digital screening room include Intertainer, SightSound Technologies and Jetcast.