• by David Goetzl  @dgoetzl, June 18, 2008

A curious paradox: Even as Time Warner Cable chief Glenn Britt is taking the lead in criticizing networks' increased willingness to make content available free online, his company plans to offer a device to allow that content to be streamed on the big screen.

Britt has suggested that TWC would look to refashion agreements with cable networks that place the same content online as they offer on TV; the potential threat is that consumers might simply drop their TV subscriptions. One holdup: the computer screen does not offer nearly the experience of the larger (and HD-enabled) television set.

But the intrigue was ratcheted up earlier this month when Britt said TWC is on the brink of offering a device that would allow the Internet content--including all those "free" shows--to flow right onto the plasma or LCD. The coming device is a wireless cable modem that Britt said allows a consumer to "network everything in your home." He suggested that it was superior to Apple TV, a clunky first step in the arena.

In a report Tuesday, Pali Research analyst Richard Greenfield addressed the importance of being first to market with a widely accepted device to link the Internet and TV. "Who will make 'the' device that enables you to easily access the Internet's wide array of on-demand content on your TV as most devices today are still walled-gardens (such as Apple TV)?" he wrote.

Greenfield posed the question because Disney is offering full streams of popular movies on Disney.com this summer. (Disney was the trailblazer, making TV content available on the Internet in 2006 with full episodes of ABC shows.)

The films that air on the "Wonderful World of Disney" on Saturdays on ABC will then be available for a week on the Disney site, starting two days after they air on ABC. "Monsters Inc." is there now, with only a pre-roll spot.

Other films that will go the same route include "Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen," "Princess Diaries 2," "Freaky Friday" and "Peter Pan."

Furthermore--and this is the particular type of maneuver that frustrates the Britts of the world--this Friday's Disney Channel original movie "Camp Rock" will be available on Disney.com starting this Monday. That availability does follow its Friday debut on the Disney Channel, then airings on subsequent nights on ABC (Saturday) and ABC Family (Sunday). Disney Channel original movies are coveted fare, and the ad-free Disney Channel is a key draw for families that subscribe to cable.

The Associated Press suggested "Camp Rock" could be this year's "High School Musical"--the best-known Disney Channel original movie. Analyst Greenfield wrote that "it is increasingly clear that the lines between traditional television and the Internet are blurring at an accelerating rate."

In addition to the films making their way to the Disney site, the new Hulu.com has a number of full-length films with minimal ads available.

In his report, Greenfield wrote that issues that may soon percolate at even greater levels are whether "multichannel operators (should) continue to pay the same fees for cable networks as content shifts online"; whether major retailers will lessen the array and number of DVDs of so-called library content they keep in stock if online availability increases; and "will cable operators' increasingly tight bandwidth situation and recent moves to cap bandwidth impact consumers' access to the recent explosion of high-quality Web video content?"