The Metropolitan Opera, through PermissionTV, is now offering Met Player, a new online subscription streaming service that continues to expand the Met’s use of digital media.

The Met Player will offer subscribers access to 170 full-length performances—including 13 operas shot in high-definition video, 37 standard-definition videos, and 120 historic audio recordings. Selections from the Met’s video and audio archives will be available to opera-lovers everywhere and at any time. Perfect for the audiophile and videophile crowd that classical fans tend to be (see DVD-A and SACD demographics).

In addition to online viewing, users can extend their Met Player experience by connecting their computers to HD TV sets and home-stereo sound systems. PermissionTV and the Met are leveraging Move Network’s technology to power the player.

Blockbuster stock is in the toilet. West Coast Video, Hollywood Video and other similar chains have been in and out of bankruptcy, and have closed down many stores, remaining chain and independent video store days are numbered.

Now that video can be delivered efficiently online, retail store costs and even sorting and shipping facility overhead are a recipe for a failed business. We’re still in the middle period - costs to mail Blu-Ray discs are arguably lower now than they are to deliver over broadband. But the costs of online content delivery continue to drop, codecs continue to improve and as more U.S. households sign up for higher-speed access the inconveniences related with downloading or streaming films in high quality continue to decrease.

So we’re not too far from an entirely digital content delivery ecosystem, though the electronics industry may have something to say about it and may throw up a roadblock or at least a speed bump before we get there.

Swarmcast, provider of multi-source video streaming which powers MLB.TV, TV Tokyo and a number of other online video sites announced today a new turnkey offering geared specifically toward delivering video for live sports.

Swarmcast for Sports offers media rights holders an end-to-end solution including acquisition, DRM, content delivery, comprehensive reporting and an open platform enabling codec-agnostic delivery. The offering brings the company into greater competition with Move Networks which delivers video for ESPN360 and recently made an announcement highlighting their recent success in delivering live video.

“Swarmcast For Sports fills a massive need in the industry by providing the technology and infrastructure to capture sports on the playing field, package that content with a variety of monetization tools and then seamlessly deliver to any broadband connected device” said Kelly C. Egan, SVP of Business Development for Swarmcast.

The major advantage of Swarmcast’s offering, like that of Move Networks is that the client-side protocol - a downloadable plugin enables the company to improve viewer experience for all users regardless of connection speed while at the same time using that network information to improve stability, do rights management, and get incredibly granular data on viewing and user interaction which needless to say is immensely valuable in advertising.

Unlike Move Networks which offers only a high end all-inclusive solution, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars or more in most cases, Swarmcast offers broadcasters the flexibility to use their system to take advantage of any aspect of the value chain. By mixing and matching depending on their specific needs, the open platform offers a turnkey solution if desired. But it also allows media companies the flexibility to adapt to the fast changing digital media environment while minimizing switching costs.

Vint Cerf, Google Chief Internet Evangalist and the guy who basically created the internet has endorsed Barack Obama for president in an A Vote For Science YouTube video, citing Obama’s stance on Net Neutrality.

We’ve previously covered Cerf’s Net Neutrality position, and he holds the honor of being the commenter on this blog I’m most impressed with (at least until we get a comment from Pauly Shore).

For Your Imagination annouced today they have received a bridge round of funding from OmniReliant Holdings, the licensing company which previously funded their original series A Day With the Hiltons.

OmniReliant will receive an undisclosed equity stake in FYI which should tide them over while they work toward closing a Series A round. To date For Your Imagination has raised 1.3 million in funding from Consensus One Ventures.

“For Your Imagination has shown the way for online branded entertainment that not only entertains and engages an audience but also delivers a powerful marketing message, ” said Paul W. Morrison, CEO of OmniReliant Holdings, Inc

In other FYI news, the company recently launched Axis of Comedy a portal for their comedic web series, hired Kathryn Vevel Jones as VP of Branded and Sponsored Entertainment and is in the process of developing a new show with Break A Leg Creators Yuri and Vlad Baranovsky.

Looks like mashup makers Eyespot are shutting their doors. In an email to account holders, and on a page when users log in, members received the following message:

To Our Users and Customers

We deeply regret to inform you that Eyespot Corporation will no longer be able to continue serving you.

For our users at eyespot.com, we’re no longer allowing you to upload new videos. We’ll soon be providing you with a simple means of retrieving your uploaded videos and video mixes from within your account.

For our business customers in the eyespot video network, your site will continue operate unaffected for a limited period of time. We encourage you to migrate your video solution to one of our competing providers in the video mixing: Kaltura, and video publishing space: Fliqz immediately. We’ll soon be providing you with the means of downloading your community videos from within your dashboard at http://eyespot.com/partnerDashboard. Look for “Download: Click to save.” under each media thumbnail in your galleries.

We have spent three years providing over a hundred thousand of you with a unique video experience. We believed that by putting creative tools and rights-cleared media into the hands of influencers and connectors, Eyespot would enable social media and participation culture like no other company.

After playing over two hundred million of your video creations, we have to stop. After assembling possibly the most potent team in digital media ever, we’re now moving on.

Thank you all for being part of our community over the past three years.

Jim Kaskade
President & CEO

Searching for good content online can be a pain in the ass. If your friend doesn’t send you a link, or you aren’t trolling YouTube for hours, you’re more likely to find a podcast that is already dead than discover the next cool show. With the volume of new webisodes being created, and only increasing, what we could use is a trustworthy source to do all that trolling for us, find the best of the best, and make it nice and easy for us to choose from.

Enter TheWebisodes.com, a new portal for webisodic content. Consider them the new TV Guide of web programming. Not just a guide, The Webisodes has its own show, The Weekly Webisode Watch (hmmm, kinda crimping on our name, but we’ll let it slide), that features co-founders Gil and Oran Margulis chatting about their favorite shows.

For those of you with your own programming, TheWebisodes is syndication friendly, hosting shows on their site or delivering users to your own site. Got content, make sure you tell the brothers at TheWebisodes.com. Finally, a portal page for the videophile crowd.

News that Adobe is close to completing development on a Flash App for the iPhone has generated plenty of discussion, but there seems to be a growing consensus that there isn’t sufficient incentive for Apple to publish it.

The iPhone’s closed platform gives Apple tremendous power which would only be weakened by offering developers another platform to create rich applications on. In terms of video it is less than critical; users already watch H.264 encoded YouTube clips via a separate app and can watch Quicktime encoded DailyMotion videos through the Safari browser. The range of video that can be watched without the Flash player will continue to increase as more video sites support industry standard codecs.

Access to the iPhone would be great for Adobe, the more platforms Flash can be used on the better, but Flash apps are typically processor heavy, they wouldn’t necessarily provide revenue for Apple and the iPhone already has a large, loyal user base. Until Flash can add substantial value, and right now it can’t there are few advantages in supporting it for Apple.

Continuing the hit parade of A-list actors making their foray into the online video world, former Friend Lisa Kudrow will be starring in “Web Therapy,” a branded entertainment effort for Lexus.

Unlike the “Smart Girls at the Party,” with Amy Poehler, introduced last week by ON Networks, Kudrow’s series is conceptualized, created and delivered by the brand. Sandy Blanchard, owner experience manager at Lexus’ marketing division told the Hollywood Reporter that the luxury cars will only be woven into the stories “when relevant and appropriate.” That said, there were no additional syndication partners mentioned, leaving us to believe that users will have to visit the L Studio to take in the show (and the brand), or rely on folks like us to embed it for you.

Oddly, she also told the HR that, “We kind of look at ourselves as a broadband HBO.” But as previously mentioned by OVW, HBO is broadband HBO.

The Associated Press has moved their Online Video Network back-end from MSN to thePlatform reports PaidContent, quoting Jane Seagrave, SVP for AP’s global product development unit:

When we got to discussing renewal, we jointly and very amicably agreed that it no longer made sense to have Microsoft handle both ad sales and technology. We’ve been pleased with Microsoft’s performance as an ad sales rep, so decided to stick with them.

In other words, MSN Video isn’t nimble enough to adapt to future technology changes. Even MSNBC saw fit to do away with the long-despised MSN video solution, and the AP despite a likely Silverlight pitch and the technical hurdles of switching their thousands of partners to a new provider, still opted to leave Microsoft.

A quick business school aside here, switching costs may be the least appreciated consideration in the online video business today. A number of media companies have gotten in bed with companies like Move Networks that hold very high switching costs; not necessarily a smart move in an industry where the threat of entry of new competitors and new technologies is so high.

This sentiment is summed up well in thePlatform blog:

Finally, AP is taking advantage of thePlatform’s open ability to adapt to our customers’ needs as they grow. As AP wants to take advantage of improving video technologies, or address new business opportunities, thePlatform will be there to support them.

Unlike the majority of mainstream media companies which continue to operate as if they exist in the same network and studio content-driven oligarchy, the AP’s video network and the many new media companies that rely on longer tail content are focusing on becoming more efficient.

By partnering with multiple specific technology partners - and playing the high number of content management, ad-sales, and content delivery competitors off of each other a content company can mix and match for a best-in-class, lower cost solution while ensuring that they leave their future options open.