Online Video

Philadelphia-area fans of the Phillies, Flyers, and 76ers should finally be able to get Comcast SportsNet via satellite TV. About 2.5 million poor households around the country will be able to buy broadband service for less than $10 a month. And the new breed of online-video distributors won at least some assurance that they won't be frozen out of access to NBC Universal's content. It's far too soon to know how Comcast's takeover of NBC Universal will affect the rapidly changing marketplace for consumers who love their TV, movies, and online video any way they can get them.

New fears that Big Cable will squash online-video competition has caught the attention of the Justice Department — and is one of several antitrust issues now facing cable giant Comcast Corp. Investigators have sent the equivalent of civil subpoenas to Comcast, other pay-TV providers, and programmers, in a broad sweep for information about contract provisions related to online video. It's an industrywide probe. Comcast's proposed deal to sell wireless spectrum through a consortium of cable companies and partner Verizon Wireless to market quad-play bundles — wireless phone, wireline phone, Internet, and cable TV — is being analyzed separately by the Justice Department and the Federal Communications Commission.

New Jersey State Sen. Diane Allen (R., Burlington) said Wednesday that she planned to introduce legislation soon that would make it easier to fire educators who bully their students. "My hope is that we can get it through very quickly," said Allen, a prime sponsor of the state's existing anti-bullying law. The legislation Allen said she was drafting was inspired by the recent case of the Cherry Hill father who captured Horace Mann Elementary School staff making hostile and inappropriate statements through a recording device he put in his autistic son's pocket.

The Internet made a big splash with its millions of Web pages of free information. But that was so 1990s. Video is the new new thing on the Internet, baby. The potential of Internet TV, online streaming of news and home videos, and HD movie downloads in minutes instead of hours, or days, was one of the great narratives at this year's Consumer Electronics Show. The basic fact for media watchers: "Video is more popular than reading," said David Hallerman, senior analyst with eMarketer Inc., a New York research company.

On West Lancaster Avenue in Wayne, local businessman Robert Lail runs what he calls "YouTube for business. " "Most people don't know how big the corporate video market is," said Lail, who sold corporate training videos in the 1970s and 1980s before launching a telemarketing firm, MarketMakers, for technical products. "I think it's bigger than traditional media. There are 13 million companies out there. Some of those companies have their own TV studios. " With that in mind, Lail developed eCorpTV.

Software whiz Bram Cohen released BitTorrent for free on the Internet in 2002 so his hippie friends could swap concert videos. The first big success was a Grateful Dead concert. Today, Cohen's peer-to-peer technology is so popular and powerful that it accounts at times for 50 percent of Internet data traffic, and has the potential to alter the economics of broadband Internet for companies like Comcast Corp. and millions of consumers. "Television is going to get phased out," Cohen, 32, a formerly out-of-work computer programmer, said in a phone interview from San Francisco.

When it comes to online video, men aren't the boss anymore. Rapidly growing in numbers and influence, female viewers are reshaping original programming at major platforms such as AOL, Hulu, and YouTube. WIGS, YouTube's popular women's channel, marks its first anniversary with the premiere Friday of the second season of Lauren , a powerful drama about rape in the military starring Troian Bellisario, Jennifer Beals, Bradley Whitford, and Raymond Cruz. Founded by filmmakers Jon Avnet ( Fried Green Tomatoes )

With Internet usage spiking, Comcast Corp. will eliminate its monthly 250-gigabyte cap for Xfinity Internet subscribers but charge additional $10 fees for users who exceed 300 gigabytes. The 300-gigabyte limit could be used to videoconference on Skype for 225 hours, or watch more than 100 hours of Netflix movies. Final details of the new plan were not available on Thursday because they have not been developed, company officials said in a conference call. The nation's largest broadband company with 18 million Internet subscribers will experiment with two new usage-consumption models in markets around the country before determining the best option for it and consumers.

Underwater Dogs By Seth Casteel Little, Brown. 144 pp. $19.99.   A family who adopts a Lab mix that's afraid of water is especially unlucky when it comes to dogs and swimming. But Seth Casteel's book, Underwater Dogs , can fill almost any wannabe water dog owner with hope. Swimming wasn't for our old Lab mix, Peanut. That landlubber Lab departed this scary mortal coil two years ago, his fear of water matched only by fear of storms, fear of having his paws held, fear of being alone.

Americans are finding new ways to watch entertainment and news, with people now simultaneously watching TV and surfing the Internet, according to Nielsen's latest study of viewing habits. People surfed the Internet while looking at TV on average about 3 hours, 30 minutes in December, substantially more than the 2 hours, 40 minutes of simultaneous viewing in June, the company said. The Nielsen Co. says it has found that people change their Internet habits while they watch TV. "We won't watch two videos at the same time, but we will social network," said Matt O'Grady, a Nielsen product leader who researches cross-platform viewing.

When it comes to online video, men aren't the boss anymore. Rapidly growing in numbers and influence, female viewers are reshaping original programming at major platforms such as AOL, Hulu, and YouTube. WIGS, YouTube's popular women's channel, marks its first anniversary with the premiere Friday of the second season of Lauren , a powerful drama about rape in the military starring Troian Bellisario, Jennifer Beals, Bradley Whitford, and Raymond Cruz. Founded by filmmakers Jon Avnet ( Fried Green Tomatoes )

Team to probe Afghan crash WASHINGTON - The National Transportation Safety Board said Tuesday it was sending a team of investigators to Afghanistan to assist local authorities with their investigation of a U.S. cargo airline crash that killed all seven crew members on board. The plane, a Boeing 747-400 operated by National Air Cargo, crashed Monday just after takeoff from Bagram Air Base. The crew members were all American citizens, the board said. The accident site is within the perimeter of Bagram Air Base.

One of this spring's most anticipated TV shows isn't actually on TV. It's on Netflix. Hemlock Grove , a creepy werewolf thriller directed by horror maestro Eli Roth, will premiere April 19 on the subscription video-streaming site. It's part of a new wave of sophisticated, polished online scripted shows that - finally - have propelled online video into the big leagues. With backing from major studios and creative spark from Hollywood A-listers including Tom Hanks and Jerry Seinfeld, online platforms including Yahoo!

A former Villanova University student has been charged with taking clandestine videos of three females, one 17, and posting them to pornographic websites. Tyler Jones, 20, hid his iPhone in the bathroom of a residence in Switzerland and filmed three guests undressing, Radnor Township police said Friday. Police said Jones uploaded the videos to two pornography websites from his dorm room. None of the women was affiliated with Villanova. On Dec. 20, one of the women - a 30-year-old living in Brooklyn, N.Y. - contacted Radnor police after she learned that a video of her undressing had been posted, police said.

Underwater Dogs By Seth Casteel Little, Brown. 144 pp. $19.99.   A family who adopts a Lab mix that's afraid of water is especially unlucky when it comes to dogs and swimming. But Seth Casteel's book, Underwater Dogs , can fill almost any wannabe water dog owner with hope. Swimming wasn't for our old Lab mix, Peanut. That landlubber Lab departed this scary mortal coil two years ago, his fear of water matched only by fear of storms, fear of having his paws held, fear of being alone.

LOS ANGELES - Three California men excited at the prospect of training in Afghanistan to become terrorists prepared, authorities say, by simulating combat with paintball rifles, wiping their Facebook profiles of any Islamic references and concocting cover stories. Just two days before they were going to board a plane bound for Istanbul - and then on to Afghanistan - FBI agents thwarted plans that officials said included killing Americans and bombing U.S. military bases overseas. The arrests last week in the United States and of the man said to be the ringleader, American Sohiel Omar Kabir, 34, in Afghanistan was laid out in a 77-page affidavit, which included references to the group's online video conversations and audio recordings.

Colin Hanna , who runs the national conservative advocacy and fund-raising network Let Freedom Ring in West Chester, used to buy millions in ads on TV and news and political websites. But not this year. "We're doing it the opposite way: We're buying the audience," Hanna said. Hanna and his group are following voters from dozens of targeted social groups and tracking them by their online habits. Then they send the voters targeted ads, not visible to others, at hundreds of popular sites - Comcast's Infinity, MTV.com, Pandora, Yahoo , and magazine and game websites - says Hanna, a former Chester County commissioner.

THE OUTRAGE over the sucker punch heard 'round the world is still going strong. At a news conference Tuesday night, Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey expressed concern over a 36-second YouTube video that shows Highway Patrol Lt. Jonathan D. Josey II slugging a defenseless woman after Sunday's Puerto Rican Day Parade. And he said he wants the Internal Affairs probe into the incident to be completed quickly. "Obviously, it's a video that's very troubling," said Ramsey, who had been at a law-enforcement conference in San Diego when the video went viral.

LAKE FOREST, Ill. - Chicago Bears receiver Brandon Marshall criticized former NFL star Warren Sapp for calling him a "retard" in a radio interview. Marshall, who has been treated for borderline personality disorder and anger management, fired back Monday in an online video. "I got a really disturbing heads-up on something Warren Sapp said, called me retarded. That's really disappointing to hear that from an NFL legend, but I'm going to take this as a lesson, and I think we all can learn from this," Marshall said in the video.