Blog

After the launch in Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland it seems natural to translate the service to all local languages.

We have begun translating why you in addition to Swedish and English now can choose Norwegian, Danish and Finnish from the language selector. Please bear with us and have patience while we translate everything and correct all the errors and spelling mistakes that will pop up. If you find funny wordings or plain errors, please write to us. And if you want to help out and translate to even more languages, feel free to drop us a line in the comments or via mail.

Spelling corrections you send us earns you a free movie! :)

Dear friends!

We've been around in Sweden for a while and since last month also in Norway. It's time to move further and this time the luck has come to our beautiful friends in Denmark and Finland. We think they too deserve a good way of getting quality movies online. That's why we're launching in ALL Nordic countries today!

Our ambition is to become the leading movie service online and this is the beginning of international expansion. First the Nordics, then Europe and then the World!

We hope you stay with us on our journey - you've already given us invaluable feedback and appreciation which we're now taking with us towards new goals and new countries.

We would forever appreciate if you send this message further to your Danish and Finnish friends. Thank you!

We released our first plugin for the Plex Mediacenter in early December. Many users have started using it and send us feedback of what to improve. We have listened and enhanced the plugin with some new cool features and improved stability you have asked for.

The update should be available as an automatic update if you have already installed it. If you want to install it for the first time, start Plex and go to App Store -> Featured and look for Headweb in the list. Press Enter and choose Install. Presto!

So, Whats new?

We have introduced a new feature called Watchlist where you can save a personal list with movies that you want to watch. So far the Watchlist has only been available on Headweb.com but it's now available from Plex as well.

Subtitles

In this new version we've introduced the possibility to change subtitle while you watch (yes, a GREAT improvement! :) )

Top list

User interface: Norwegian

Our new Norwegian users that don't want the plugin language to be swedish or english can now choose norwegian under Plugin Language under preferences.

PS. Those of you wondering how everything progresses with other media centers: we're working hard on them but don't have any dates when we release anything.

We're very proud to inform that we for the 4th time in a year have been appointed "Sweden's best film service". This time magazine MacWorld embraces Headweb as a service in the forefront and gave us their highest rating. The motivation says:

"Headweb is the best streaming service for movies right now with a user friendly software and lots of good features. We hope prices will decrease but as the market is today, Headweb is definately worth the highest score."

This strengthen us in our continued work for a bigger content catalogue, improving the user experience and entering new platforms.

Hello, we've been slow on updating you all with what's happened on the services lately, but we'll publish more news here in a bit with info about all new features and recent content acquisitions. But first a Quality control session with two new movies

If you're nearby, please join us - we've just received a new batch of popcorn and we'd love to share them with you!

Paula Marttila has written a nice article about us which summarizes good what we're up to. Read the full story at Arcticstartup.com

En del Windows Vista-användare har rapporterat att en ny Vista-uppdatering orsakat ett problem med Headwebprogrammet. Efter uppdateringen kan inte längre Headwebprogrammet ansluta till Headwebs tjänst.
För att snabbt åtgärda problemet finns en enkel lösning nedan:

1. Starta notepad som administratör, genom att klicka på startmenyn->tillbehör, och sedan högerklicka på notepad och välj "kör som administratör".
2. Öppna en fil i notepad genom Arkiv->öppna och skriv in: C:\Windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts
3. Lägg till följande rad "127.0.0.1 localhost" längst ner i filen som öppnats och spara sedan filen

Nu kan Headwebprogrammet ansluta igen. En fullständig fix kommer i en uppdatering av Headwebprogrammet.

Vista-uppdateringen drabbar även andra program, mer information finns här:
http://forums.cnet.com/5208-6132_102-0.html?threadID=334042

We passed the 1000 title mark today! This great number means there's a lot of movies to watch and download and also a lot to celebrate! Keep an eye on the website and watch for the upcoming special 1000-movies-offering.

Recent additions include the reality drama Die Welle and Sliding Doors. On the 17th of April, Roger Mitchell's (Notting Hill) latest work Venus will premiere.

• New design
• Automatic login
• It is possible to login offline to watch and burn downloaded movies.
• Simplified settings
• The Linux client package installes a shortcut in the application menu (Gnome Desktop)

 'Det är mycket nu!' som det sägs.

Ingen har väl ungått den konstanta mediabevakningen av Pirate Bay-rättegången och Ipred (som nu gått igenom)? Börjar kanske kännas som tröttsamma nyheter?

Vi har tidigare tagit del i debatten och t.ex. ifrågasatt Ipred eftersom vi inte anser att direktivet skulle göra nån egentlig skillnad på fildelningen/piratkopieringen. Lika lite tror vi att en fällande dom av Pirate Bay skulle ge en långsiktig effekt på piratkopieringen online. Vad som måste till är attraktiva tjänster som på allvar är bättre än den bästa 

IDG.se valde att lägga upp sin artikel om Headweb och Peter på sin första sida idag. Här kan du läsa artikeln:

http://www.idg.se/2.1085/1.214216/bittorrent-inte-bara-for-pirater

Även Metro förstår sig på vikten av legala alternativ som Headweb, läs deras artikel här:

http://www.metro.se/2009/02/25/46285/sa-bra-ar-de-lagliga-filmtjansterna/

Over and out.

Som ni säkert känner till så driver vi filmbloggen Filmstar.se på sidan av Headweb.
Kan inte låta bli att skryta lite då vi faktiskt gått upp i toppen och numera är Sveriges största filmblogg! Hur härligt som helst!
Så hur kan man bättre fira detta än att lotta ut en massa filmer?

Vi har 5st DVD av Låt den rätte komma in samt 5st pocketböcker som filmen är baserad på. Frågan lyder: Vilken är den bästa vampyrfilmen genom tiderna? Varför?
Klicka här för att svara!
Glöm inte att lämna mailadress så att vi kan kontakta dig om du vinner.
 

Tävlingen pågår t.o.m den måndagen den 2 mars.

Just in time for the weekend we released a small update to the software with the usual bugfixes but also an updated video player for rentals. This is a recommended update for all. But did you know you don't have to use the Headweb application to stream movies? That works perfectly good with your ordinary web browser.

The updated application is available through automatic updates or here.

Have a nice weekend!

With the latest update to our Flash video player the ability to play back trailers and previews through the Headweb client accidentally broke on some configurations. We are working on a fix and everything will work again tomorrow (Monday). Sorry for the inconvenience this may cause you.

But did you know that you can watch rentals on Headweb.com? You are not limited to the Headweb client to watch the movies - just use your favorite web browser!

Update: Everything is back to normal now

Apple announced DRM-free music on it's entire iTunes catalogue a couple of days ago. This is a big step forward for all consumers and users who now can even more easily listen to their music everywhere. Headweb embrace this move and we're delighted to see that DRM-free models are working and conquering new ground. We see this development picking up this year, also on film and we will continue to offer more DRM-free movies for you. Alexander Kuprijanko at Sydsvenskan interviewed me about this and wrote an article, read it here.

Happy New Year!

And what a good movie year 2009 is going to be! We have a great roll-out this spring and fun new features waiting in pipeline. This year's first big update is on the Flash Video player which just got updated. We have added these features and improvements, in no particular order:

• Support for more subtitle languages (click on the text bubble to see available subtitles)
• Improved visual quality and better and more easy to understand icons
• Menu is now beneath video instead of on top video
• Video quality is higher
• Support for High Definition (HD) and better fullscreen controls
• More video player languages

Try it and send us your comments below. We are also working out some known bugs already.

Aftonbladet har en artikel om hur man laddar ner film lagligt på nätet och hur man också tjänar pengar på det via fildelning. Vi omnämns såklart även om det inte framgår i artikeln att filmerna från oss är DRM-fria och också går att bränna till DVD! Att Headweb funkar för Mac och Linux kom med, kul att fler tänker på ALLA användare :)

Ni har väl inte missat att vi precis börjat med HD-kvalitet också? Se Barnhemmet i HD här. Självklart kommer fler filmer i HD snart.

Time flies and it's already Christmas Eve. We hope you will enjoy the Holiday and take good care of your family and friends. We've had our own Christmas party and now celebrating a great 2008 with our closest.

And just in time for the new year we reached another great milestone. From today we're offering movies in High Definition. That's right. Many of you have asked for it and we aim to please. The first HD release is The Orphanage and it's available as a 720p stream for you here. If you want to compare the old and new resolutions check the previews: SD and HD

Merry Christmas from all of us at Headweb

The first annual gingerbread competition of headweb is underway! Of course, everyone thinks their creation is the coolest and therefor we need your help to choose a winner.

The competing gingerbread entries are.

So, register your vote for "Gingerspeed", "Headweb vision" or "Tour Eiffel" in the comments of this blogpost and you have the chance to win a free download.

The last day to vote is december 17th.
Don't forget to write your username unless you are logged in.

Our friends at Macfeber has made a good guide of how the Headweb services work. It explains very easily how a rental is done and also how a purchase is being made. It's always nice to hear when someone says it's going to take 9 minutes to download a whole 4,5 Gb DVD. Can anyone compete with that?

See above for the guide.

Credits goes to Peter Esse at Mactv.se

Det här varit en uppsjö av heta debatter kring IPRED lagen och många har visat sitt engagemang och missnöje. Självklart så var ju inte Peter sen med att ge sig ut i debattångan och dessutom med konkreta förslag på lösningar.  Dvs: det är inte en lagstiftning som är lösningen på olaglig fildelning utan att göra de lagliga alternativen mer lättillgängliga och attraktiva.

'Vi måste få ut fler lagliga tjänster och fler modeller för att få kontroll över filmkonsumenters beteenden. Där måste branschen kraftsamla och möjliggöra för nya tjänster – fortfarande är det svårt för lagliga filmtjänster att få rättigheter att distribuera på laglig väg', skriver Peter.

Läs resten av artikeln här

Kom gärna med egna synpunkter och feedback - vi är alltid intresserade av Era tankar!

In an interview with Billboard three EMI executives give their views on the history, today and the future of the record label. The interview is a great read and highly interesting. Especially the part where Doug Merrill, EMI's president of digital, commented on the label's decision to abandon DRM on iTunes and other download stores.

Merrill said that the move towards MP3 only has been great for the company and that DRM in his eyes doesn't provide a value to the fan or the label. DRM was setting the wrong tone with the customers, Merrill said, because the message was that a musician's label didn't trust his fans. Therefore, abandoning DRM was good for consumers and artists.

So what about piracy? Have there been any more files traded since the company decided to forgo content protection? Merrill doesn't think so. Here's what he told Billboard:

"The pirates are doing a busy business regardless. The best way to get a pirated copy probably isn't to buy it from iTunes and then push it. We didn't see the needle move at all on [piracy]. But what we did see is consumers loved the product. It was good for consumers, it's good for artists. It gets people engaged with the art in a whole new way by getting rid of artificial rules-like we don't trust you, so I'm not going to give you this content. It just sort of set the wrong tone with our customers."

I've loved EMI since they decided to go DRM free and I'm sure they are happy they did too.

During the six months ending Sept. 30, EMI Music posted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of $88 million, swinging from a loss of $21 million during the same period last year, helped by a 37% rise in digital revenue to $152 million.

I bet a big share of that 37% revenue increase is thanks to the removal of the protection and making the music more accessible on more services. Those still arguing for DRM will have a hard time working against these numbers.

Movie studios - you've got mail!

Ny vecka  - ny tävling!

Farsdag är nu över och så även vår tävling där man hade chansen att vinna galabiljett till sig själv och pappsen. Tävlingssvaren har rasat in under helgen och två lyckliga vinnarna är nu utsedda som kommer att meddelas under dagen. STORT tack till alla er som medverkade!

För er som fortfarande är tävlingssugna så slutar inte det roliga här...
Idag drar vi nämligen igång en ny tävling där 5 lyckliga vinnare tillsammans med en vän får gå på en valfri Red Carpet premiär under Stockholm Filmfestival. Läs mer här...

Tävla och Vinn Filmfestivalens eftertraktade Festivalkort!

Vi vill påminna dig om vår tävling här på Headweb där Du har chansen att vinna filmfestivalens Festivalkort tillsammans med ett Presentkort som ger dig och en vän en gratis biovisning!

För du vill väl inte missa chansen att få välja och vraka bland  de 170 filmer som visas under Stockholm Filmfestival mellan den 20e och 30e november?

Anmäl dig till vår tävling på studs! – läs mer här.

Festivalkort ger dig inte bara entrén till Stockholms internationella filmfestival den 20-30 november utan räcker mycket längre än festivalperioden. Kortet ger dig nämnligen även inbjudningar till minst sex förhandsvisningar fram till augusti 2009 (först till kvarn gäller).

Stockholms internationella filmfestival startade 1990 och är idag är en av de främsta filmfestivalerna i Europa. Festivalen äger rum varje år i november med över 170 filmer från mer än 40 länder.

Läs mer om årets filmer - här.

We are currently experiencing some smaller downtimes due to a transition to a new location. The move should be short and hopefully already been made when you read this but if you experience problems with the services please let us know in the comments.

The move means we now have a bigger setup with more servers, more power, and more terabytes. All in all we're ready to grow, expand and deliver more movies to more people faster than ever.

We celebrate our fine new hardware with a 20% off on all sales tonight and tomorrow while we are sorting out possible bugs and problems in all systems. Be sure to enter "filmstar.se" in the shopping cart to get the discount.

Headweb is featured in another fine article on the front page of idg.se. It's about the slow development of online video services and the reasons for it.

I give my view on the current market and present Digital Rights Management (DRM) as one big hold-back for legal services. Not until the legal services are user friendly enough will people start using them. And that means getting rid of DRM. DRM not only locks users to a specific vendor and platform, it also makes services more difficult to use.

Continue reading here (in Swedish only)

Swedish Macworld wrote a nice review of the service and gave it a rating of 8 out of 10. Nice indeed and the "Macworld recommends" is indeed a proof that we're on the right track.

Read the whole article here (Swedish only)

If Costner was to make a sequel to any of his past films then Bodyguard has to be at the top of the wish list. Costner has previously said no to making a sequel to Dances with Wolves, which has been a topic of discussions for nearly 10 years. Several ideas for it has been discussed and Costner once even wrote a draft for a sequel that featured Princess Diana as a co-star.

Regarding a sequel to Bodyguard Costner says he has a story if Warner Bros ever would like to make another one. The story is yet unknown but according to sources it doesn't include the character of Whitney Houston.

In an interview with SciFi Wire George Lucas unveils that research for a fifth Indiana Jones movie has begun. Lucas says the project is one of 50 projects that he'd like to do but adds that it's a long and slow process:

"It's very hard to come up with stories for that thing. You know, It's really impossible. Because it has to be real. It has to be something that actually happened. It has to be something people know about. It has to be supernatural. It's a really difficult research project. Which they're researching now. You know, and last time it took 14 years. So ... "

Next question of course is: Who will be the next Harrison Ford? [Source: Sci Fi Wire]

DN Galan Youth is now available as both downloads an free viewing from this link. Download your race with the Headweb application and burn it to a DVD after you've download it (it is also playable directly on your computer).

Go here

Last weeks broadcast of the DN Galan track and field meet and the DN Galan Youth was a huge success. Everything went smoothly and we got a lot of positive feedback from our viewers from all around the world.

People from no less than 86 countries watched the competition and the viewing numbers exceeded 17.000.

If you missed the live broadcast it is still available on demand from this link.

Yesterdays broadcast of DN Galan is now followed up by the live broadcast of DN Galan Youth. The opening ceremony has just begun and you can follow the broadcast via the link below.

Watch DN Galan Youth LIVE

Headweb Dream Camp was the Headweb sponsored basketball camp that took place in Los Angeles between June 23rd and July the 5th.

12 talented players from Uppsala got the oppurtunity to go on a 10 day camp and get coached by several NBA-coaches.

The camp is now finished and the players are back home. To see all the pictures and videos, head over to Headwebdreamcamp.se.

DN Galan is Sweden's largest annual sporting event. On July the 22nd, international track and field stars will compete at Stockholm Stadion and we will broadcast the whole meet beginning at 15.30. This is an exclusive cooperation and we're proud to be responsible for the live and on demand online broadcasting. Be sure not to miss the exciting competition but if you can't make it in time don't worry - it will be available as on demand also.

 
DN Galan Youth is the only Track and Field Gala created for the young athlete (age 12-19) to experience the same conditions, the same atmosphere and the same setting as the elite athlete. On July 23-24, we will live stream DN Galan Youth on Headweb.com and making all material available as downloads for parents and the contestants shortly after the competition has ended. Read and see more on Headweb.com and Dngalan.com.

This update is a little late but nontheless: We have more than 800 titles in the store and more is on its way in.

We are also happy to announce that we have just finalized several partnerships - some to be made official shortly! Stay tuned!

If you haven't noticed, there are smaller updates beeing made to the website weekly. This week we introduced the "Tell a friend"-feature and possibilities to post to Facebook and MySpace directly from the website.

The nice thing with these features is that if your friends clicks on the links you post on Facebook or MySpace (or in the sent emails) you earn credits! Every click gives you 5 credits.

Read more about credits in our Help section.

Headweb.com strives to be the most consumer friendly and readily available movie service in Europe and further proves that today by releasing Linux support for its online rental and download service of movies.

All titles in the Headweb catalogue are directly available for Linux. And just as before the movies are without DRM and are possible to burn to DVD.

Click here to download the Linux version.

We're really proud to present a new cooperation between us and the Hultsfred music festival. We will from the 16th of June show and offer concerts from this years festival together with live recordings from the 2006 and 2007 festivals.

This means we're expanding our offerings to include live concerts and music.

Right after the concerts in Hultsfred the recordings will be made available at Headweb.com for both downloading and streaming directly in your web browser!

- This is a unique cooperation - the Hultsfred festival is Sweden's best music festival with an amazing artist lineup and visitors from the whole country. And now people who went to the festivals can re-live the memories and those that missed the festival can also enjoy the performances says Peter Alvarsson, COO of Headweb.

The performances will be made available on the 16th of June and includes acts like Babyshambles, Gnarls Barkley, Brian Jonestown Massacre, Cat5, Marit Bergman, Max Peezay, Fibes, oh Fibes, Hatebreed, Park Hotell, Slagsmålsklubben, You Say Party! We Say Die!

In order to prepare another national day: until the 4th of July, we are going to release 10 American Independant titles per week. Among these titles, you'll find interesting and exlusive films like:

• Never Down, starring Kurt Vonnegut, the author of Slaughterhouse Five
• Eclectic Shorts, a compilation of creative short films
• Some Folks call it a Sling Blade, starring Billy Bob Thornton (The Man who wasn't there, A Simple Plan)

The Swedish Government decided this spring to get a grip on the file sharing question and initiated discussions with actors in the business.

Headweb, who also was active in the Renfors investigation, will take part in the discussions and talk about what is needed to create more user friendly services and business models for music and film on the Internet.

We will amongst other things talk about that DRM has no impact on piracy (piracy would decline if DRM worked, right?) and how important it is that services are user friendly and tech-netural, meaning they must work on other platforms besides Windows, e.g. Mac and Linux.

If you have some sayings or questions about this that you want us to raise on the meetings, feel free to mail us. We're listening to you and will forward the opinions to the government.

Headweb has been invited to talk about the different factors that plays part in a consumer's purchasing decision. The discussion is held tomorrow, June 4th at 9.40 and will be broadcasted live at this link: http://alpha.bambuser.com/node/24708

 You can also send questions to the panel from the above website. Headweb will be represented by Peter Alvarsson. Other speakers attending will be Johan Axhamn, Martin J.Thörnkvist and Olle Findahl.

A month ago, we were proud to announce 600 titles available. We are now even happier to have 100 more films to offer, among others:

• The Stone Merchant (with Harvey Keitel)
• The snake (by Eric Barbier)
• Tideland (by Terry Giliam)
• PTU - Police Tactical Unit (by Johnny To)
• Rebel (no place to hide) (with Sylvester Stallone)