Jaman
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Jaman | |
|---|---|
| Image:Jaman.gif | |
| Developer | Jaman |
| Latest release | 0.9.5 / July 31, 2007 |
| OS | Mac OS X, Windows |
| Website | www.jaman.com |
Jaman is an internet service and online community for independent and international entertainment. The company’s founder and CEO is Gaurav Dhillon, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur who co-founded the software firm Informatica in 1992. Dhillon left Informatica in 2004 to consider new ventures, particularly with a social outlook.
After a yearlong sabbatical traveling abroad, Dhillon noted the conspicuous absence of world entertainment available online, as well as the meager percentage of world cinema available to U.S. moviegoers [1]. To fill this gap, Dhillon developed a web-based alternative to the Hollywood-dominated mainstream, one that also tapped into the internet's growing social-networking potential. Jaman (an Indian word for purple from the tree and the purple fruit it bears) began acquiring rights to a vast library of American Independent and European art cinema, Latin American dramas, kung fu movies, and Bollywood spectaculars. At the same time, the company developed its own DRM[2], as well as a P2P network platform, Cascade, for delivering content in high-definition. The company provides a movie manager and player that runs on Windows and Mac[3].
The site debuted on January 30, 2007 at the high-tech launch venue DEMO, in Palm Desert, California, and opened to the public in March. In June 2007, Jaman's library numbered more than 1500, with 500 titles encoded and available for download. The site's archives and online content continue to grow, with more than a dozen new titles added to the site each week.
Users can browse the Jaman site freely, but need to install the Jaman Player in order to watch its licensed movie titles, which rent for $1.99 for seven days of viewing, or sell individually for $4.99. Currently, the site offers three free rentals of titles from its entire library to all new users, and, additionally, two free rentals per every friend they get to sign up. Movies are viewed either directly on the computer, or, by connecting the computer to a TV.
Building an online film community is a major component of Jaman's mission. By creating a profile, users can network with fellow movie buffs, fans, and filmmakers, write movie reviews, and take part in a variety of cinema- and pop-culture discussions on the site's message boards. Users can also upload and share original content to promote their feature-length movies or shorts, via a site geared toward professional-quality content. Current online user profiles include major film festivals with whom Jaman partnered in cross-promotional campaigns, including the 2007 editions of the Tribeca Film Festival and the San Francisco International Film Festival. Both partnerships involved Jaman offering the ability to watch a selection of each festivals’ films for free online during the run of the festival.
Ahead of launching, Jaman had secured online distribution from a diverse slate of international libraries. Among these were offerings from Hong Kong's Celestial Pictures, which includes the Shaw Brothers archive; Tiptop Entertainment, a UK-based repository of Bollywood titles; and sizable offerings from the motion-picture institute Cinequest, and the multi-media house Dreamachine. More recently, Jaman has made available 70's era low-budget horror and exploitation films, courtesy of cult U.S. distributor IIP, and a cross-section of films from the National Film Development Corporation of India, containing post-70's art-cinema titles from notable South Asian directors, including Satyajit Ray and Shyam Benegal.
In June, 2007, technology blogs Gigaom.com[4] and Last100.com [5] reported that Jaman had unofficially developed a plug-in for Apple TV. The plug-in would allow current and future Apple TV users to find and sync content from Jaman's client directly to their Apple set-top boxes, thereby streamlining the computer-to-TV transfer process. Jaman has yet to announce availability of the plug-in, but is expected to do so by September 2007. The Gigaom article [6] went on to mention Jaman’s plans, in coming months, to complement its cinema content by offering international TV shows and music channels.
