Paramount Pictures

Movieclips.com, an online movie clip-sharing service, launched in beta test mode on Wednesday touting the cooperation of six major Hollywood studios amid an industrywide slowdown in DVD sales.

The founders and private backers aim to make movie clips searchable and sharable and earn referral fees for viewers who go on to buy or rent movies via links that lead to Amazon.com or Apple Inc.'s iTunes.

After exiting the beta period, the company also hopes to put advertisements over the bottom third of the clips and share ad revenue with the studios.

Viacom Inc. struck a hopeful note on advertising for the rest of the year even as the media conglomerate controlled by Sumner Redstone saw second-quarter profit plunge on weak ad markets, video game sales and box-office returns.

Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman said the company, which owns the BET and MTV cable TV networks, was "very pleased" with the nearly completed bidding in the so-called "upfronts," in which media buyers bid on commercial time ahead of the coming TV season.

More than 500 high-definition TV shows and movies will be available on demand from Amazon, the Seattle-based company announced Tuesday. Titles from Warner Bros. Entertainment, Sony Pictures, Paramount Pictures, MGM, Universal Studios Home Entertainment, and Showtime Networks include recent releases such as Frost/Nixon, Twilight, Yes Man, Californication, The Tudors, Smallville and Gossip Girl.

Blu-Ray 'Quaking in Its Boots'?

In the Wild West that is online video, Hulu.com has proven to be a trailblazing answer to how professional content can thrive on the Web.

It's this year's pick for Web site of the year.

"This is period of great experimentation in regard to media, in regard to online video," said Hulu chief executive officer Jason Kilar in a recent interview. "You've seen a lot, you're probably going to see even more in terms of various business models, various interface designs. I personally love to operate in moments of time like that."

After much delay, Sony Computer Entertainment is opening its Home on Thursday. The Home virtual community, originally scheduled for a 2007 launch but hit with several delays, will be available to PlayStation 3 owners worldwide free of charge.

PS3 users will be able to download and install the Home software, create three-dimensional avatars to represent themselves in the community, and communicate with others. The company said the main activity will be creating friends as avatars visit virtual bowling alleys, arcades, game- and movie-related spaces, and homes.

Asian pirates are producing counterfeit copies of copyrighted Blu-ray Disc videos. A recent raid on counterfeiters in southern China has prompted the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) to warn consumers about counterfeit movies.

Pirates are using software to create imitation Blu-ray disks with a format called AVCHD, which allows both high-definition and standard-definition recording. The format is used in tapeless camcorders that record onto DVD and Blu-ray disks. For high definition, all major variations are supported, including 720p, 1080i and 1080p.

RealNetworks Inc. said Monday it had temporarily stopped distributing its DVD copying software, RealDVD, at a federal judge's request in a copyright case brought by Hollywood studios.

"We temporarily suspended distribution of the product until tomorrow," said Seattle-based RealNetworks' spokesman Ryan Luckin.

The site, made inactive Friday, now tells visitors: "Rest assured, we will continue to work diligently to provide you with software that allows you to make a legal copy of your DVDs for your own use."

Five Hollywood studios have agreed to help pay for a $1 billion-plus rollout of digital technology on about 20,000 movie screens in North America, a precursor to showing movies in 3-D.

Digital Cinema Implementation Partners, a consortium of major theater chains, announced the deal Wednesday. The rollout in the United States and Canada, covering about half of all screens, is planned to start early next year.

RealNetworks is feeling heat from the movie studios involving its just-released RealDVD software, and is firing back with a lawsuit.

RealDVD lets consumers store, manage and play DVDs on computers. Think of it as a DVD backup, since the software does not let users distribute copies of DVDs.

The digital-content landscape could look very different in the months ahead if a group of more than 20 companies has its way.

The Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE), a consortium that includes seemingly all the major players except Apple, officially announced Monday plans to define and build a new digital-media framework using industry standards. The goal is to allow consumers to acquire and play content across a wide range of services and devices.