LauncherOne is akin to a somewhat smaller Orbital Sciences Corporation’s Pegasus XL, or perhaps a much smaller version of the planned Stratolaunch Systems launcher, in that it is a winged, air-launched booster. LauncherOne is designed to be launched from the same White Knight Two carrier aircraft as SpaceShipTwo, and to carry up to 500 pounds to low earth orbit.

LauncherOne is also most likely Virgin Galactic’s entry into Darpa’s Airborne Launch Assist Space Access (Alasa) program, as reported in Aviation Week. Virgin Galactic is one of three companies awarded contracts to develop and air-launched system for placing sub-100-pound payloads into orbit for under $1 million, the other two companies being Boeing and Lockheed Martin. That alone is something of a coup, being a much smaller company. LauncherOne is a bit over-sized for Darpa’s sub-100-pound goal, with its stated capability of up to 500 pounds, but if they can hit the other project goals, including the price point, I hardly expect Darpa to complain about having too much capability. And it is possible that LauncherOne could be scaled by varying the fuel load, or having single- versus dual-stage variants, etc.

And while I’m posting about Virgin Galactic, they also recently published a couple of videos on their SpaceShipTwo program.

This first video compiles footage from the SS2 flight test program:

And this second one is basically a marketing pitch for Virgin Galactic – I’m sold, now I just need the money. Anyone want to give me a couple hundred grand for a ticket?

But it turns out this wasn’t Virgin Media’s, or TiVo’s, fault, but the BBC’s doing. The iPlayer used on the VM TiVo platform is their new ‘Big Screen’ iPlayer and they require it to be less integrated than the old player that was used on earlier boxes, as detailed by paidContent:UK (all emphasis in the original):

But, as iPlayer moves from PC to TV as a branded service, platforms like BSkyB and FetchTV would rather carry individual BBC programmes in their own EPGs, just as they do with live programming – something BBC syndication guidelines forbids.

Virgin Media’s new TiVo box is amongst those now forced to carry the badged Big Screen iPlayer in an “apps” section, separate from all Virgin’s other VOD, even though its previous V+ box had closely integrated BBC catch-up shows. All broadcasters are doing the same. Connected TVs are increasingly shipping with iPlayer, ITV Player, 4oD, Demand Five and, perhaps soon, Sky Player, resulting in VOD becoming siloed.

Fortunately, according to BBC on-demand GM Daniel Danker, this should be changing and integration should improve:

“This is a strange moment in time that I hope will be very, very short-lived,” Danker tells paidContent. “We are offering any provider our full metadata for everything we have in iPlayer.” That means the likes of Virgin, Fetch and BT Vision will be free to include BBC catch-up prompts in their own EPG, but clicks will deep-link out to the individual programme on Big Screen iPlayer.

It means box operators can own the initial discovery experience but the BBC will retain the subsequent viewing experience. Virgin Media is currently working with this metadata to improve its TiVo, Danker says.

This is good news for Virgin Media TiVo users. While it sounds like it won’t be as seamlessly integrated as in the past, it seems it will be a big improvement over the current state of affairs once the work to integrate the BBC iPlayer metadata is complete. Most of the complaints have focused on disappointment over the iPlayer content not appearing in the EPG and in search results, and it sounds like those issues, at least, will be solved. I don’t think users will care that they’ll be deep-linking out to programs in the standalone iPlayer.

Hat tip to Zatz Not Funny.

“The packaged media business is a $42 billion dollar business worldwide at the retail level, and we [Warner] have the largest market share of anybody,” said Tsujihara. “From our perspective, the most important piece of this whole puzzle is, “How do we get growth back into this category?” That far outweighed anything else.”

This [decision] was one hundred percent around what makes the most sense for the consumer, the retailer and the industry. This was not a bidding war. This was all about what was best, strategically, for us.”

Personally, even if there was a payoff, I don’t have a problem with it. That’s business. I don’t blame the HD DVD camp for buying loyalty either. That’s also business. It happens all the time, very few alliances happen in the business world without some financial compensation being involved.

In related news, Warner says their announcement does not cover New Line, HBO, or BBC titles, and that those studios will make their own decisions, likely soon.