Digital-Lifestyles

Simon Perry

  • TiVoToGo arrives

    TiVo has finally announced the release of the long-anticipated TiVoToGo feature for their series 2 machines. As the name implies, TiVoToGo enables content that has been recorded on the well known Personal Video Recorder (PVR) to be transferred to other devices that support MPEG-2, such as PCs and portable players. Support for playback on many different machines is also provided.

    This will be achieved through a free software upgrade that will be automatically uploaded to subscriber machines over the telephone line. TiVo are being considered and cautious about upgrading the software of remote machines, a wise move in our view. A small number of machines have had the new version deployed to them, to try to ensure any unexpected problems can be handled. Given this, the upgrading of all machines will take quite a while. Those in a rush (most TiVo owners we suspect) can apply for a priority upgrade. Those who register with this are warned that even this priority list will take “a few weeks” to upgrade.

    Software on the receiving PC must also be upgraded to TiVo Desktop 2.0, which only supports Windows XP and 2000. The playback machine must also have a MPEG-2 CoDec installed to view the recordings.

    Network connections on the TiVo will be required, cabled initially, followed by support for some 802.11g adaptors.

    DVD burning supported later

    Although not initially available, burning of the some content to DVD on DVD writer equipped PC’s will be supported.

    TiVo have done a deal with Sonic Solutions, providers of DVD burning software, to provide a special version of Sonic MyDVD, which will be available for purchase. A free trial of this software is available in mid-January 2005.

    Following pressure from the film studios, not all content will be burnable. A point of some controversy amongst many of the TiVo faithful. Content marked with a “don’t burn” flag will be excluded. It is not clear how much, if any, content will not be flagged like this.

    What’s not supported

    While TiVoToGo is a great step forward for TiVo owners, there are a few things that aren’t supported at launch.

    The upgrade will not be available to DIRECTV DVR with TiVo machines, and the same applying to the TiVo Series1 machines.

    Macintosh computers are not initially supported, although it it understood that this will be available later.

    While TiVos with integrated DVD Players will be supported, DVD Recorders with TiVo models from Humax, Toshiba, and Pioneer will not receive the TiVoToGo feature until later this year – probably because they don’t support the “non-copy” flag when burning DVDs.

    In the lead up to the consumer electronics show, CES, TiVo had to bring out this upgrade. As more of the general public become aware of the possibilities of carrying out these functions on their home computers, TiVo’s concern would be that consumers would simply replace their TiVo boxes. Only time will tell if they’ve acted quickly enough.

    TiVoToGo
    Sonic Solutions

  • Samsung HiRes 21-inch OLED screen, Claim Worlds Largest

    Samsung have announced a 21-inch single-panel, Organic Light-Emitting Diode (OLED) display. The 16:9 panel offers WUXGA (Wide Ultra Extended Graphics Array) resolution, providing 1920×1200 pixels. Samsung claim it’s a world first at these resolutions. Seiko Epson showed a multi-panel 40-inch display back in May 2004.

    OLED screens have several advantages over their LCD cousins, primarily the speed of their refresh (around 0.01ms vs 10ms), low power consumption (as they don’t need to be back lit) and a huge contrast ratio (50,000:1).

    In December 2004, Sony and Samsung signed a deal to cross-license what they call “differentiation technology patents”, not their whole related patent portfolio. Our reading of this was “we’ve both spent a lot of time developing our own ideas, and realise that the other side has something of value which we can mutually benefit from.”

    Having missed the trend towards flat screens, Sony have heavily committed to OLED as we covered back in September.

    Samsung

  • iBod from PlayBoy = iPorn

    PlayBoy iBodIt’s not that we’re surprised by this news, but it did send a ripple of laughter around the Digital Lifestyles offices today.

    In this world of new words being made up on what feels like an hourly basis, PlayBoy brings us iBod.

    Not surprisingly, their newly launched service entails delivering photos of scantily clad women to Apple’s Photo iPod. It’s nothing more than that really.

    For years, many have been enthusing about the huge revenues that will come from delivering p0rn to portable devices, based on the one-to-one relationship that people have with them. A few years back, when 3G operators the world over worried about how to make up the huge fees they had paid for the licences, some joked that 3G stood for Girls, Goals and Games.

    Playboy already sells to major wireless markets such as Germany, the United Kingdom, Australia and Brazil. They recently announced that they will now offer the same in the US.

    The fantastically-named Randy Nicolau, president of distribution for the Playboy Entertainment Group said “Given the extraordinary success we’ve had with our wireless offerings around the world, we felt the time was right to expand our wireless content to the millions of U.S. subscribers.”

    To the best of our knowledge the Photo iPod isn’t waterproof, but the Click Wheel is well known for its single hand operation.

    PlayBoy iBod

  • Microsoft Media Player-free Windows in Europe from January

    Microsoft has lost its appeal to block antitrust sanctions, originally imposed by the European Commission (EC) in March this year.

    Back then, along with a record-breaking near 500m Euro fine, the EC insisted that Microsoft should release two version of their Windows operating system, one without the media player built in and one without. The EC see Windows as the dominant computer operating system and want to try to ensure a more level playing field with the playback of digitally held audio and video. Some networking communication protocols were also opened up to compulsory licensing.

    The ruling won’t be a surprise to Microsoft but an unhappy result all the same. When we spoke to senior European Microsoft people back in September, they felt this action was likely, but were spinning a line saying that two version of the OS would confuse the public.

    It’s possible that the impact on the consumer may be close to zero. Philip Carnelley, research director with Ovum pointed out an interesting possible problem, “The way that part of the ruling was phrased doesn’t prohibit Microsoft from supplying Windows with Media Player at the same price as the version without, so there’s very little room for competition in the market place. If you can get something for free, why would you not take it?” The pricing issue was confirmed in a teleconference held with Microsoft general counsel, Brad Smith.

    Smith revealed that company lawyers wanted to look more closely at the 90-page decision before deciding whether to appeal. Smith confirmed that Microsoft would begin complying with the decision immediately, with a version of Windows that doesn’t include Media Player software being made available to European PC manufacturers in January and to resellers by February. Outside of Europe they have no plans to offer a version of Windows without Media Player.

    One long term worry for Microsoft could be that this ruling leaves it open for Europe able to question which extra bundled software could or should be included with Windows.

    We’ve got a couple of question about the impact of this ruling:-

    The Media player part of the ruling appears to only cover “Client PC’s” versions of Windows, not PDA’s or mobile phone version. We think the EC missed a trick here. If anything, the PDA or mobile player would be of more value to change, given its relative high market demand, than the less-than-furiously fought “Client PC’s” space. This oversight could be due to the age of the original legal action, instigated four years ago, when having media play back on a portable device wasn’t at the forefront of peoples minds.

    It is not immediately obvious which media player company will benefit from the removal of Microsoft media player. The only major PC maker to currently install Apple’s QuickTime player is HP, following their iPod deal. As far as we’re aware, Real player doesn’t have deals with major computer maker. Perhaps given this ruling they will accelerate their efforts and other entrants will be stimulated to enter.

    A confusing thought for you over the holiday period – will there be version of Windows Media Center Edition available Europe without Windows Media player! FYI – When we contacted the Microsoft team in Brussels said they didn’t think so.

    Microsoft ruling, Court of First Instance Order on Interim Measures – Court of Justice of the European

  • Cellular Phone Emissions Damage DNA, Study Finds

    A new study, majority-funded by the European Union, has found that in laboratory conditions, radio waves from mobile phones harm body cells and damage DNA, reports Reuters.

    When tested in a laboratory, the cells showed a significant increase in single and double-strand DNA breaks after being exposed to electromagnetic fields that mobile phones emit. Some of the damage couldn’t be repaired and “there was remaining damage for future generation of cells,” said project leader Franz Adlkofer.

    Despite what appears to us as being quite worrying information, the researchers said the study did not prove any health risks and suggested it “require further studies.” He recommended using a landline if available and an earpiece if using a mobile.

    The cellular phone companies have always asserted that there is “no conclusive evidence of harmful effects as a result of electromagnetic radiation.”

    Perhaps there’s nothing to worry about. The stock market certainly doesn’t appear to be concerned by the news, if Nokia’s stock is anything to go by.

    I wonder if the mobile phone companies have taken out insurance in the case that mobile phones are proven harmful to human health? If so, wouldn’t it be interesting to find out what the value of coverage was? [email protected]
    Mobile Phone Radiation Harms DNA, New Study Finds – Reuters

  • SuprNova.org closed in MPAA, BitTorrent Action

    For the last six months or so, the film industry has been gearing up to take on file-sharers exchanging video content online. The owners of the films are not very happy about people around the world freely swapping their content, and them not making any money about it.

    The first legal actions were against individuals who were sharing films. Next they mounted their assault on BitTorrent, an application that can be used to download video content. Most recently they have passed their attention to sites that point users to content distributed using BitTorrent.

    Their first move has been to take down the most popular of these, such as the self-described Universal Bit Torrent Source, SuprNova.org and TorrentBits.com.

    The sites targeted do not contain the actual video files. Because of the way bitTorrent works, they simply contain a list of pointers to the content held in the bitTorrent format. The video files are themselves fragmented around the network of people running the bitTorrent application.

    There are other sites, like TVTorrents, still continuing to make content accessible.

    While BitTorrent, in and of itself, is not evil, the film companies are very putout that their films are travelling through it. BitTorrent also has legitimate uses. It is used to distribute many type of material. Digital Lifestyles has used it to distribute audio recordings in the past.

    We hope that while pursuing their legal action to regain control of the distribution of their content, the film companies are also keeping their eyes open to the opportunities of this type of technology.

    As we’ve commented previously, when video content, distributed over a shared network, is combined with a new content alert technology like RSS, the result is a blueprint for a form of TV delivery. Content automatically arrives at the viewer machine when it’s been published alowing them to chose which they will watch.

    MPAA
    BitTorrent

  • BT Wholesales 4m ADSL Connections

    BT has, through its arrangement with over 150 broadband providers, delivery four million ADSL connections in the UK. This figure also includes connections sold directly to the public by BT Retail.

    BT say they are connecting a new customer every 10 seconds, equating to an average of nearly 60,000 new connections each week.

    The last million milestone was only back in August 2004 when three million connections were announced. A million new connections in one quarter is pretty good.

    Currently there isn’t really any competition for BT Wholesale, although some companies are starting to make early moves with specialist services like UK Online.

    We see this as another in the long running back and forth between BT and OFCOM. BT tells the press “No BT would equal No Broadband” (as Christopher Bland did to the Telegraph), OFCOM tells them to trim their prices. Is their any co-incidence that BT issued this news on the heals of OFCOM ordering BT to cut the cost of third party access to the customer, opening the market for strong competition for BT Wholesale?. As the Guardian commented

    At the moment BT is the gatekeeper to all but 16,000 of the UK’s 25m phone lines, and charges for access to them. The telecoms operator suffered a blow six months ago when it was forced to lower the prices it charges for access to its network. Ofcom is aiming to get a system in place next year that will see 1 million lines unbundled a year.

    Will BT continue to be so strong with meaningful competition?

  • Podcasting Primed, BBC Radio MP3 download success

    BBC Radio has for the last month been making some of its radio show available for MP3 download. Is this news? Well yes, previously they’ve always streamed their content, so you had to by your computer to receive it. With downloads you’ve been able to take it with you.

    It actually started with this years The Reith Lectures, which over the ten weeks it was available, had around 50,000 downloads. It has now grown considerably to the point where Melvyn Braggs show, In Our Time, had 70,000 downloads in November. The weekly BBC Radio 4 show was available to download for seven days after broadcast. Not only is it downloadable, but it’s also available as a Podcast. If you’re not sure what a Podcast is, you should read on. Digital Lifestyles was told by the BBC on Friday that in November, there were 100,000 hits on their Podcast (RSS) file for In Our Time.

    As regular readers of Digital Lifestyles will know, we are big believers in what we see as the effective rebirth of radio – the delivery of audio pieces over the Internet for playback on people’s portable music players. Over the last few months this hard-to-encapsulate idea has happily gained the moniker, ‘Podcasting’, but don’t be fooled by the iPod reference, this is for all music players.

    Strictly speaking Podcasting is slightly more than just the Internet delivery of the material, it’s also about automating the process. By using an application like the open source, iPodder, listeners simply select the Podcasters their interested hearing from and the content is automatically gathered for them. This apparent magic is achieved by combining a couple of already existing technologies, RSS and FTP. RSS (Really Simple Syndication) has until now mostly be used to gather news updates but hidden in its specification is the ability to point to enclosures, in this case MP3 audio files. FTP (File Transfer Protocol) is then used to download the sound files to computer. All of this happens without the listens involvement.

    Simon Nelson, Controller of BBC Radio & Music Interactive is clearly excited about it: “We’ve been surprised and delighted by the demand for downloads of what is one of our most challenging programmes; it demonstrates the public’s appetite for new ways of listening. Of course we recognise that we can’t offer all programmes in this way but we look forward to working with rights holders to explore ways we could learn from developments like this to drive radio listening forward.”

    These ideas have been bubbling around the blog world and it just starting to hit the main stream. The impact of this form of distribution will be significant. The barriers to anyone having their own radio station are removed. Of course, any form of enclosure can be catered for, including video. Beware broadcast TV, look out TiVo.

    BBC Radio 4, In our Time
    BBC Radio 4, In our Time – Podcast
    iPodder

  • RAJAR defeat TWG Audience Court Case

    RAJAR (Radio Joint Audience Research), the organisation that monitors UK radio audience size and listening habits, has defeated a case against them brought by The Wireless Group (TWG).

    Kelvin MacKenzie’s TWG launched the case back in March, claiming £66m in compensation for lost advertising revenues. TWG’s case came from the frustration at the alleged inaccuracy of the paper diary methods, and results of RAJAR audience monitoring. They felt the RAJAR figures for the their TalkSPORT radio station were not representative and this in turn left TWG’s advertising under-valued.

    TWG claimed RAJAR has abused competition laws when it decided against the immediate introduction of audiometers in June 2003, which they felt would give a more accurate, and therefore better, audience numbers for them.

    Today’s judgment was handed down after a two-day High Court hearing in early November 2004. RAJAR’s application to strike out the claim brought by The Wireless Group (TWG) in March of this year was upheld. Mr Justice Lloyd ruled that TWG’s description of RAJAR’s decision in June 2003 “does not match the reality of the case”.

    MacKenzie’s response? “RAJAR may have won a legal skirmish, but the war goes on until technology-based audience measurement is adopted”.

    RAJAR current method of understanding listener’s habits uses a paper diary system distributed to a listener panel. It is widely thought that this measuring method, while giving broad habits, does not account well for smaller stations – measuring widespread niche audience is challenging.

    To address this RAJAR has also set a target date for the introduction of a new audience measurement methodology, potentially including audiometers, of January 2007.

    Digital Lifestyles attended their extensive testing of three competing audiometers back in a November. RAJAR had taken over the whole floor of a London hotel, setting up different situations where people might be listening to such as with the TV on; another music source playing; a shower on. Each scenario would be gone through in strict rotation and at set times, the testers would flood into the halls ways to locate their next room for testing. It was clearly comprehensive and was the largest trial carried out to date.

    All eyes of radio audience measuring authorities from around the world are on RAJAR, awaiting the results.

    RAJAR

  • Creative Archive Gathers English MP support

    The Culture, Media and Sport Committee of the UK House of Commons today released the first volume of its report, “A public BBC.” The committee, made up of eleven cross party Members of Parliament (MP), has taken evidence both written and through expert witness panels going back as far as May 2004.

    The 87-page tome contains a lot of interesting and insightful comments from the MPs which are going to take a while to digest. One of the manageable chunks is on the Creative Archive and being long term supporters of it, it drew our eye.

    The support from the MPs appears strong, but there’s few items that cause us confusion bordering on concern like the executive summary

    7. We strongly welcome the BBC’s proposals for a Creative Archive, and agree that access to this should be free for non-commercial applications. We look to the Corporation to develop, in cooperation with intellectual property owners, innovative solutions that appropriately balance the interests of rights holders with those of the wider public. Digital rights management is a key issue in the modern media environment, and we recommend the DCMS establish a forum for assessing its implications.

    We’re slightly confused as to why Digital Rights Management (DRM) is being mentioned in the same paragraph as the Creative Archive. Are these separate items that have just been mentioned in the same paragraph or is their suggestion that the Creative Archive material has DRM applied to it? One of the central ideals of the Creative Archive is the ability for the UK public to load the downloaded content into their video editing packages and create new content. How is this to be achieved if DRM is applied to the content?

    Much of this may become clearer when the BBC starts a trial of the Creative Archive in January 2005 as re-announced on 24.Nov.04 by Mark Thompson, Director-General, BBC.

    We’re going to be doing some more digging tomorrow to try and get some clarity on this.

    Details of material about the Creative Archive

    62. In Building public value, the BBC commits to launching a Creative Archive, providing “free access to BBC content for learning, for creativity, for pleasure.” The BBC’s ambition is that, starting with factual material, online access for non-commercial applications will eventually extend across all areas of its output.

    63. The Electronic Frontier Foundation espouses the benefits that will accompany the establishment of the BBC’s Creative Archive, and supports its becoming a core element of BBC services. Ultimately, this could comprise the whole of the BBC’s extant archive of radio and television programming, placed online under a licence that permits non-commercial distribution and re-use of this material by “remixers”. This open licensing system is similar to that deployed by the Creative Commons initiative, a system of “some rights reserved” copyright. And it is possible that, by enabling non-commercial exploitation, there is created “a gigantic and clever series of advertisements for the commercial rights” associated with the works.

    64. The Creative Archive brings to the fore what Professor John Naughton termed the “maniacal obsession” with intellectual property. In his view, the copyright industries “see digital technology as an unprecedented opportunity to extend control over how copyrighted material can be used to a degree that was inconceivable in an analogue world.”

    65. In written evidence, the Music Business Forum expressed concerns that such initiatives should not be allowed to “ride rough shod over the copyrights and performers’ rights of those who contribute to BBC programmes”. There had to be provision for rights holders to be paid for the additional use of their work through access to archives. This should be the case whether in the form of repeat broadcasting fees, extensions of the collective bargaining agreements in place for the payments of revenue for secondary uses, or through the negotiation of clearance for the right to exercise new rights on individually negotiated commercial terms. The BBC ought to consider the case for the implementation of encryption and digital rights management applications in order to counter growing piracy – whether via internet or personal video recorder downloads. The MBF is concerned that while this is available free and unpoliced, commercial download services will be unable to compete and artists, writers and the other creators will have no means of getting paid. “The BBC, as a publicly-funded organisation, has a responsibility to be seen at every opportunity to be upholding the systems of rights that operate in the UK, not least to act as an example to others. The licence fee does not of itself authorise licence fee holders to the free use of BBC output in whatever way they wish.”

    66. We strongly welcome the BBC’s proposals for a Creative Archive, and agree that access to this should be free for non-commercial applications. We look to the Corporation to develop, in cooperation with intellectual property owners, innovative solutions that appropriately balance the interests of rights holders with those of the wider public. Digital rights management is a key issue in the modern media environment, and we recommend the DCMS establish a forum for assessing its implications.

    Culture, Media and Sport Committee report, “A public BBC”