Internet video

Cisco Systems, the dominant provider of the digital pipes that run the Internet, is making a big play in digital entertainment. The company says it plans to introduce a new line of products in January, including a digital stereo system that is meant to move music wirelessly around a house.

YouTube made two announcements Thursday for Web surfers who want high-definition videos. The company has expanded its HD player and is testing three new landing pages that aim to help the video-watching masses find news, music and movies on the site.

"People are beginning to watch more Internet video on their television and they are beginning to watch more long-form video, so it's inevitable that they are going to want to see higher quality than YouTube has normally provided," said Phil Leigh, a senior analyst at Inside Digital Media.

A Significant Difference

The mobile revolution is merging with the social-networking revolution as MySpace partners with mobile video company RipCode on a new streaming-video service. MySpace announced its latest foray on Wednesday.

MySpace Mobile will let members view videos from mobile devices. With the announcement, MySpace becomes the first social-networking portal to launch video streaming for mobile. YouTube offers a similar service.

NBC Universal is running an unprecedented 3,600 hours of Olympics coverage on television and the Internet, most of it live online, letting fans track their favorite sports in a way not possible even if they'd gone to Beijing.

Excited by the prospects, I set my alarm for 4:45 a.m. on Sunday to catch cycling, handball, archery and rowing events on NBCOlympics.com as they happen half a world away in China -- 12 hours ahead of New York.

As I watched the first few minutes of a TV program on the new $99 Netflix Player, I grew worried that the DVD rental service had gotten something horribly wrong with this foray into Internet video downloads.