Digital-Lifestyles

Simon Perry

  • Emuzed supply PVR hardware for Microsoft Media Center OEMs

    Following the announcement of Microsoft’s Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004 (MCE) , Emuzed, who supply video capture and encoding cards, have signed deals with a number of Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) that are using MCE.

    Their two products Maui-III PCI PVR and Bali-II USB PVR Beanbag have the ability to encode to MPEG 2 on-board from PAL or NTSC signals, write out the recorded content out to CD or DVD and support an optional FM tuner. The Bali-II connects via USB 1.1 or 2.0

    Two deals that they’ve announced recently are the Samsung MagicStation Q Media Center PC, HP’s new 17-inch widescreen Media Center zd7000 notebook PC which uses the USB version and most recently, the ViewSonic Media Center PC – the M2100.

    A relative new comer, they look like they are taking trade from the previous default supplier, Hauppauge, which is based in Europe.

    Emuzed

    HP zd7000 notebook

    ViewSonic Media Center PC – the M2100

    Hauppauge

  • Palm Release Tungsten T3 with Landscape Mode

    Palm have released three new models, the Tungsten E, the very iPod-looking $99 Zire 21 and the one we find most interesting, the Tungsten T3.

    The T3 is the first device from Palm that supports a high-resolution colour screen in landscape, which happens to be 50% larger than any of their previous products, making it, we feel, far more useful for reading document, managing calendars and watching video.

    By adding the highly compact, wireless (bluetooth) keyboard it also becomes a much more realistic device for typing text into, whether that be email, documents or spreadsheets.

    The only thing we are not quite sure about is what it is going to be like using the combination with the screen sitting on the left of the keyboard.

    It is selling at Amazon in the US and is already the 16th bestselling item.

    Tungsten T3 at Amazon.com

    Tungsten T3

  • US Triple-Play-Operator to Offer 5Mb Connection to Homes

    The RCN Corporation, a US company that offers television, telephone and Internet services delivered over cable, today announced that it will be raising its current 3Mb Internet delivery speed to 5Mb. Their already fast sounding 3Mb service came in a year ago under the tragically named MegaModem. Sadly the new service will be called MegaModem Mach5, but if you’re getting a 5Mb service delivered, you’re not going to argue about the naming.

    RCN, who focus on supplying services to densely populated markets in the US and currently service one million connections, say the speed upgrades will happen, at no extra costs, on 15 October.

    Significantly, when IP connections are offering this kind of bandwidth, it starts to become realistic for households to have a number of people watching different video streams or listen on different devices around the home.

    RCN

  • Microsoft Re-launch Media Centre Edition in 2004 Guise

    Microsoft launched Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004 yesterday with Microsoft Group Vice President Jim Allchin announcing the products new feature and new manufacturing partners. This follows their first release of PC as TV, PVR, DVD, photo displaying, music playing media hub in October 2002, which had a lukewarm reception and was felt by many more as a show of intention to be involved rather than a fully considered product.

    As the Media Center Edition (MCE) is expected to be used in the lounge from a couch, without keyboard and mouse, one of the big focuses of is giving the viewer the ability to control all of the media functions via the remote control. Many of the previous functions and some of the new features are available via a single key press, such as ability to control the newly included FM radio, by selection favourite stations and skipping back seven second if you misheard something. The selection, rotation and display of photos and the manipulation of music has also been made easy using the report control.

    A full list of the MCE functions are described in detail at the dedicated Website as are details on how to obtain an upgrade for the previous version.

    Online Spotlight – A new channel for content

    Microsoft have recognised that just giving people the ability to record their own content, TV programmes or radio is only part of the story. The real excitement lies in the new universe of digitised media that will become available. To this end they have launch Online Spotlight, an online guide created specifically for Media Center Edition PC customers that offers a central location for them to find the latest third- party services and software, such as music, movie trailers, news updates and even Karaoke.

    The initial content providers include CinemaNow, Movielink and Napster, but sadly these will only be available with the United States.

    Hardware supply partners

    There are more than 40 original equipment manufacturers (OEM) planning to ship Media Center Edition PCs to consumers in Asia, Canada, Europe and the United States and China on the list of later this fall. Product pricing will vary for each manufacturer and market, but will start at below $1,000.

    Two of the biggest new names are Dell and Sony with Dell reporting that they’re taking order online today and Sony shipping two new models of VAIO Media Center PCs in the next few weeks. Sony, who have already developed and currently market their own equivalent product, appear to be covering their bases.

    HP and Toshiba continue their strong support and are the only two companies offering product in three major Continents – Asia, Europe and America with many of the newly announced companies choosing to offer in individual countries.

    Of the announced supplier, Japan will have the widest selection of suppliers, numbering five, although interestingly Sony has decided not to sell it there, choosing the United States and Canada instead. The US and Germany will have four suppliers and Korea, the United Kingdom and France having three a piece.


    It sounds like Microsoft have listen to their previous customer and have adopted many of their ideas, time will tell whether they have been successful and we are looking forward to finding out.

    Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004 site

  • No Shock from Survey – The Buying Public Think CDs are Too Expensive

    US music channel, VH1, carried out a poll of their music buying viewers on the current pricing of CDs, and in particular the price drop Universal Music Group’s (UMG) is instigating from 1 October.

    There’s no great surprise to that 72% of them liked the idea and thought it would lead them to buy more CDs.

    When asked in detail about the pricing of CDs, 89% thought that current prices were too high and when asked what their expectation was to the prices they should be paying, 43% said $6-$9, 46% felt $10-$13, and 8% thought $14-$17 was reasonable.

    Inside the mind of the music downloader

    The telephone survey also asked in detail about music downloading and the attitude of those who had downloaded music.

    20% of those surveyed admitted to having download music, with 11% having done so in the last six months. Both of these are lower than expected figures and it is highly possible that many people did not admit to having downloaded music given the very public legal action by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) against downloaders. Indeed nearly all of those who had downloaded music were aware of the Recording Industry Association of America’s (RIAA) legal action against downloaders.

    As a strong indication to the music companies, this none the less indicative survey revealed that 58% of the downloaders thought a price drop would encourage them to buy more CDs. As is commonly accepted, the survey reported there is a hard core of 13% who said price drops would probably not make any difference and they would not return to buying CDs.

    In an indication that the current legal actions might not be steering the buying public in the expected direction, when the downloaders were asked if the threat of lawsuits would prompt them to buy new CDs, only 35% said it was likely, 21% were neutral — and 45% said it was unlikely that the threats would get them to shop for CDs at retail.

    The poll was conducted by telephone over a five day period between 17-22 September, 2003 using a random American sample of 1,038 adults aged 18 and older. It was reported that the results have a +/- 3.1% margin of error.

  • Hulk Up-loader Receives Six Months Sentence and Fines

    Vivendi Universal Entertainment took legal action against 24 year old Kerry Gonzalez after they found he had uploaded an unfinished version of The Hulk on the Internet several weeks prior to its theatrical release.

    Gonzalez pleaded guilt in the summer and was sentenced at the end of last week to six months home confinement, three years probation, fined him $2,000 and ordered him to pay $5,000 in restitution to Universal. He had faced up to three years in prison and a fine of $250,000 for felony copyright infringement.

    Gonzalez had obtained a “work print” of the movie that had been sent to a New York advertising agency. The print was missing some special effects, graphics, and a soundtrack.

    The FBI traced the Internet copy back to Gonzalez through an encoded “security tag” on the print, which was widely thought to be a watermark burnt into the video image. This could have traced the copy to an individual but neither the advertising agency or the employee who has made this possible by passing him the video tape were named or action taken against them. The reasons for this are not clear but it adds weight to the recent AT&T labs research that much of the unauthorised video available on the Internet is sourced from within the industry.

    After the pre-released version was uploaded, reviews started appearing on sites like Ain’t It Cool News slating the film for, among other things, its shoddy CG effects. Studio executives claimed that this could have depressed ticket sales, but the early criticism didn’t have too negative an impact; The Hulk grossed a $62 million in its opening weekend, a record for a June opener. It has earned $130 million so far, after costing $150 million to make.

    Vivendi Universal Entertainment, commissioned several studies to determine what Gonzalez’s actions cost the studio. While assigning a dollar amount is an inexact science, the studio settled on about $66 million in a victim-impact statement to the federal court. The court moved to make Gonzalez pay $5,000, but it is not clear if Vivendi will take further action against him.

    This kind of high profile court case will certainly make people think twice before uploading unauthorised video content to the Internet, or passing preview material to those who might.

  • Nintendo to Launch Wireless Game Boy Adaptor

    In a move to try and balance the efforts that Nokia are putting in to the N-Gage portable gaming platform, Nintendo has been working closely with Motorola to create a wireless adaptor for the Game Boy Advance and Game Boy Advance SP. The reasonably sized add-on uses the already crowded 2.4GHz band to enable up to five gamers to play against each other.

    Motorola say they have applied considerable effort to make the unit consumer as little power as possible, while using the TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access) communication protocol to provide game users a fast receive-and-respond capability similar to a wired experience.

    The wireless adapter with the new Game Boy Advance software “Pokemon FireRed” and “Pokemon LeafGreen” will be launched in Japan first half of 2004.

  • Marc Cuban and Todd Wagner Buy US Art-house Cinema Chain

    It is with great interesting that we see that Marc Cuban and Todd Wagner have bought Landmark Theatres, America’s largest chain of 54 art-house cinemas which are scattered over fourteen states.
    They both came into the public eye when they sold an innovative webcasting company, broadcast.com, that they had founded in 1995, to Yahoo! in 1999 for $5.7 billion. Following that avalanche of cash, Cuban went to buy the NBA team Dallas Mavericks, found High Definition TV specialist HDNet and co-found 2929 Entertainment with Wagner.

    HDNet two 24/7 networks, HDNet and HDNet Movies, produces and televises more hours of original HDTV entertainment, news and sports programming than any other network.

    2929 Entertainment is a vehicle for movie production and, following its November 2001 purchase of Rysher Entertainment, holds substantial film and television programming library, including various rights to shows including “Sex and the City”. It is also currently in post-production on two films including “Godsend” staring Robert DeNiro.

    The Landmark Theatres chain has been for sale since 2001, languishing as part of a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing. The financial terms of the purchase, which is scheduled to close in October, have not been disclosed.

    Why does this make an interesting deal?

    Digital cinema has held promise for a long time, but has effectively stalled.

    The cinema theatre owners are not willing to pay for the digital projectors, as they say the margin that the make on showing films is so slim (the reasons the cite for the necessity for popcorn sales) that they are not able to invest in the equipment. They also point out that it is the film distributors that will gain most benefit from the drastically reduced film distribution costs – physical copies of the film, at a cost of around $3000 each, do not have to be made, nor to they have to be transported to each of the cinemas.

    The film distributes say it is not for them to pay for the equipment, as this is the responsibility of the theatre owners. It is also widely believed that they have very little will to digitally distribute their content, as content protection schemes haven’t been decided upon.

    The excitement of d-cinema is not just about showing blockbuster films, but the ability to economically distribute small, independent film and other video content that would not normally be shown at as cinema, such as music or sporting events – enabling cinema to become something different.

    Now they have the theatre chain, Wagner said they can now take movies from production to the screen with no outside interference – “We think this acquisition provides a unique opportunity to make a significant impact in the art and independent film, HDTV production and digital exhibition communities.”

    Together this collection of companies not only have the content, technical savvy, strategic vision and the money to make this possible, but they are run by people who are keen to shake things up. This could be the kind of competition that the film companies need to make them sit up, stop the current stalemate and move up a gear or two in realising digital cinema. We wait with baited breath.

    Landmark Theatres

    HDNet

    2929 Entertainment

  • Xbox Japan employs well know Japanese games figure

    The sales of Microsoft’s Xbox are considerably behind that of Sony’s PS2 in Japan, so it is interesting to see that Microsoft have appointed Yoshihiro Maruyama as the new general manager of the Xbox Division at Microsoft Japan, starting 1 October.

    Until recently Yoshihiro Maruyama was Senior Vice President (SVP) and Chief Operating Officer COO of the highly respected software developer Squaresoft, who are best known for the Final Fantasy epic series of game.

    Maruyama has dealt extensively with both the US and Japan when negotiating content licencing with companies in both countries including Disney.

    It is imagined that Microsoft hope his appointment will bring them much needed credibility in Japan.

  • Gateway Becomes Top US Seller of Plasma TVs

    Gateway Inc. has become America’s top seller of plasma screen TVs to consumers, surpassing Sony, Panasonic, Samsung and other traditional industry leaders.

    Previously only known as a direct-sales PC seller, they started selling their first thin television,
    a 42-inch Enhanced Definition (ED) Plasma TV, last November and by June this year they held a 28 percent market share of major consumer electronics retailers.

    They plan to expand their current six thin screens offering, which range from 17 inches through to 50 inches, before the christmas season.