First look: Adobe Media Player disappoints

by Steve O'Hear

October 2nd, 2007 | Posted in Net TV | Comments5 Comments

First look: Adobe Media Player dissapointsEarlier this week Adobe made available for download a Beta version of its new desktop video player based on the company’s Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR), a cross-platform technology designed to bring web-based applications to the desktop.

Adobe Media Player menu optionsThe Adobe Media Player combines a channel guide, streaming video player and video podcast client into a single desktop application, which, since it’s built on top of the AIR platform, runs on both a Mac or PC.

For publishers, of which CBS, PBS, Yahoo! Video, Blip.tv and others have already signed on, Adobe is offering “sophisticated” measurement tools, monetization through targeted advertising, as well as customized branding and copy protection.

After taking the application for a spin, here are my initial thoughts… Continue reading »

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New Zunes to be announced tomorrow?

by Steve O'Hear

October 1st, 2007 | Posted in Audio, Mobile | CommentsNo Comments

New Zunes to be announced tomorrow?BetaNews reports that Microsoft is to hold a special event in Redmond tomorrow, in which Bill Gates and Design and Development chief J Allard will announce a major update to the company’s line of portable media players.

Dubbed the Zune 2, one new model is reported to be flash-based and “will measure 3-inches by 1.25-inches” and look “much like the iPod nano”.

“The smaller Zunes will be video capable, and are rumored to include Wi-Fi and higher storage than competing products”, according to BetaNews.

Updated Hard drive-based models are also expected, which will look much the same as the current range, except for offering greater storage and being slightly slimmer.

In our recent analysis of Microsoft’s Zune platform (‘Is the Zune doomed?‘), Mack D. Male wrote that a major weakness, compared with Apple’s iPod, was the existence of only a single model, but also noted that there are still gaps in the market that the Zune could exploit, such as the need for high-capacity hard drive-based model with a large widescreen display suited to video. In comparison, Apple’s widescreen iPod, the Touch, is flash-based and offers a measly 16GB of storage.

Perhaps we’ll see such a model unveiled tomorrow?

Radiohead's new album challenges music industry's conventional business model

by Daniel Langendorf

October 1st, 2007 | Posted in Audio | Comments3 Comments

radiohead-in-the-rainbows-small.jpgThom Yorke, one of the artists behind the band Radiohead, hinted in 2003 that this day would come. Well, it’s here. Radiohead is releasing its seventh studio album, In Rainbows, completely on its own with no label and a pay-what-you-want price tag.

“I like the people at our record company, but the time is at hand when you have to ask why anyone needs one,” Yorke told Time after Radiohead’s contract with EMI/Capitol expired after its release of Hail to the Thief in 2003. “And, yes, it probably would give us perverse pleasure to say ‘f*** you’ to this decaying business model.”

The long-established business model is not dead yet, but Radiohead’s bypassing the record labels is another brick out of the music industry’s wall. Radiohead is still one of the biggest bands in the world, selling millions of albums and selling out concerts around the globe. Everybody — from artists to the record labels to the music industry as a whole — will be keenly following the success, or failure, of In Rainbows because it represents a new and potentially powerful way to sell music. Continue reading »

Joost on a set-top-box within 18 months

by Steve O'Hear

October 1st, 2007 | Posted in Net TV | Comments9 Comments

Joost on a set-top-box within 18 monthsEarlier today I asked the question: how long before we see Internet TV service, Joost, running on some kind of a set-top-box? Within “the next 18 months”, answers CEO Mike Volpi, during a video interview conducted by Liz Gannes over at NewTeeVee*, to coincide with Joost’s full public launch.

Volpi explains that Joost’s current user base is made up of a younger “early adopter” demographic who are comfortable with viewing content from the Internet TV service on a PC or Mac, as they already do when “popping in a DVD” or browsing sites like YouTube. However, for Joost to go mainstream, the service will need to run on other platforms. Continue reading »

Internet TV's future: PC or set-top-box?

by Steve O'Hear

October 1st, 2007 | Posted in Net TV | Comments2 Comments

Internet TV's future: PC or set-top-box?Two seemingly unrelated announcements last week have got me thinking about whether the future of “full screen” Internet TV applications, such as Joost or Babelgum, reside on a PC or, instead, some sort of set-top-box which connects to a TV.

Microsoft launched a Beta version of its new MSN Video-based “Internet TV” service, compatible with “Extenders for Media Center” devices from Cisco, D-Link, and HP; and Jaman published a software hack — albeit, unsupported — to enable content from its movie download store to work with the AppleTV.

Other online video services to have already aligned with hardware manufacturers include BitTorrent, which released an SDK for set-top boxes, Network-Attached Storage (NAS) devices, and media extenders; Google-owned YouTube with their strong partnership with Apple; and DivX who are busy shopping around their “Connected” media extender hardware reference design to Asian consumer electronics companies.

What all of the above companies are betting, to varying degrees, is that for all the social and interactive advantages of online video, certain kinds of content, particularly long form programing, still wants to be viewed from the couch on a large widescreen TV. Continue reading »

Weekly wrapup, 24 – 28 September 2007

by Steve O'Hear

September 29th, 2007 | Posted in last100 weekly wrapup | CommentsNo Comments

Here’s a summary of the week’s digital lifestyle action on last100. Note that you can subscribe to the weekly wrapups, either via the special weekly wrapup RSS feed or by email.

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Top digital lifestyle news

The biggest news this week was Amazon’s entry into the digital music download space. Amazon MP3 finally launched, offering DRM-free downloads with a catalog of over 2 million tracks. Can it compete with iTunes? See our full review.

The other major announcement of the week came from the DigitalLife trade show held in New York, where Microsoft made a number of Windows Media Center-related announcements: New media extenders from its hardware partners Cisco, D-Link, Niveus and HP, along with the Beta launch of a new Internet TV service called — wait for it — “Internet TV”. Continue reading »

Will mobile iTunes impact the carriers who sell over-the-air music?

by Daniel Langendorf

September 28th, 2007 | Posted in Audio, Mobile | CommentsNo Comments

itunes-and-wifi-store-sm.jpgNow that the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store is available on the iPhone, will it impact the wireless carriers who also sell music over-the-air? In the short term, probably not. In the long term, watch out.

At the moment, Apple’s iPhone has a relatively small install base — it was released at the end of June. Apple also delivered at the start of September its new high-end iPod, the Touch, which is essentially an iPhone without the phone. Like the iPhone the Touch uses Wi-Fi and can access the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store.

Mobile carriers, on the other hand, reach more consumers because their networks can handle many more phones from various manufacturers — Sony Ericsson, LG, Helio, Samsung, Motorola, Nokia.

But in the future, as Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch user base grows, the carriers could be in trouble if for two reasons — the shopping and playback experiences. Using the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store to purchase music is incredibly simple, playing it on the iPhone or iPod Touch is quite satisfying, whereas buying music from the carriers and playing it on small phones can be cumbersome and unpleasant, depending on the device. Continue reading »

Jaman publishes "unsupported" AppleTV hack

by Steve O'Hear

September 28th, 2007 | Posted in Net TV | Comments8 Comments

Jaman publishes Back in July, Jaman, which sells high definition movie downloads, announced that it was on the verge of releasing the first commercial plug-in — or is that hack? — for the AppleTV. With the software installed, movies downloaded via Jaman’s desktop software, running on a Mac or PC, would also show up in a new menu option on a user’s AppleTV. If released, this would represent the first time a commercial entity had successfully plugged their service into Apple’s set-top-box, to create a level playing field with the company’s own content offerings.

That day has finally arrived, albeit with a pretty heavy caveat: While Jaman’s website points to where users can download the necessary software, along with instructions, the AppleTV plug-in isn’t officially supported by the company. That’s because Jaman’s solution still requires users to “hack” the device, since Apple is yet to sanction the AppleTV to run third-party applications.

Jaman AppleTV plug-in

One-third of American TV watching will be video-on-demand by 2012

by Daniel Langendorf

September 27th, 2007 | Posted in Other | CommentsNo Comments

girl with remoteSometimes it’s just easier to sit in your favorite chair or stretch out on the sofa and watch a TV show or movie “on demand.” No muss, no fuss.

A just-released report by Pike & Fischer notes that Americans are warming up to the idea of watching movies and TV shows on a whim. Video-on-demand, the report notes, will occupy well over a third of Americans’ TV-viewing time by 2012.

The Maryland-based market research firm says that a majority of U.S. households will watch some form of on-demand content from cable, satellite, or fiber-optic providers. It expects that the amount of time viewing video-on-demand will rise from 8.5 percent at the end of 2007 to about 38 percent by 2012, while the average monthly TV viewing per household will remain stable. Continue reading »

Microsoft announces Internet TV for Windows Media Center; new lineup of media extenders

by Steve O'Hear

September 27th, 2007 | Posted in Net TV | Comments16 Comments

Windows Media CenterAt the opening day of the DigitalLife trade show held in New York, Microsoft made a number of Windows Media Center-related announcements, including new media extenders from its hardware partners Cisco, D-Link, Niveus and HP, as well as the Beta launch of a new Internet TV service called — wait for it — “Internet TV”. Continue reading »

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