Tech Talk

The BBC will evaluate Thomson Grass Valley's disk-based Infinity camcorder as part of its move to tapeless production. BBC Technology Group will test Infinity, which can record on REV PRO removable hard disks from Iomega or standard flash memory cards, over the next year as part of its Starwinder project, which is intended to shift the BBC to tapeless high-def production by 2010. The Infinity camcorder and associated Grass Valley products will compete against Panasonic's P2 solid-state camcorder, which the BBC is also testing.

MovieBeam, the new on-demand movie service that uses analog broadcast spectrum to deliver movies to a proprietary set-top box, has added indie-film distributor Magnolia Pictures to its list of studio partners. MovieBeam, which already counts Disney, 20th Century Fox, Warner Bros., New Line Cinema, Paramount, NBC Universal and Lionsgate as studio partners, has added Magnolia titles Bubble and Oscar-nominated Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room for purchase in either standard-definition or HD. Backed by Disney, Cisco, Intel and a handful of venture-capital firms, MovieBeam is selling its $200 set-tops at retailers including Best Buy, CompUSA and Sears. Its on-demand service, which charges $4 for new SD releases and $5 for HD titles, is available in 29 markets. The company is expected to announce that it will deliver movies to its set-tops via the Internet later this year.