Category: Music

Microsoft Announce Partners for Portable Media Centers (nee Media2Go)

Microsoft has been talking about portable devices for a while that would enable owners to watch videos, view photos, play music, labelling them as Media2Go.

This week they have announced not only a new official name, but two companies that will help them create designs. AboCom Systems Inc and Tatung Co. will be the original design manufacturers (ODMs) of the now re-christened Portable Media Centers.

These designs will then be passed on the manufacturers, who are already lining up to get involved. So far Creative, iRiver International, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., SANYO Electric Co. Ltd. and ViewSonic Corp have thrown their hats in to the ring – others are expected to follow.

Intel has had this type of device, labelled a Personal Video Player (PVP), in development for a long time ($100 ZVUE!.

We imagine that Microsoft will hope to win the consumer, via strong integration of these devices with their operating system and the content owners, by highlighting their Digital Rights Management (DRM).

Archos Video AV320 information

Buy Archos Video AV320 at Amazon US and UK

Dell Announce their iPod Rivals

Dell have just announced their competitor to the Apple iPod. It is initially launching two models, the Dell DJ 15 Digital Music Player ($249) and the DJ 20 ($299), with 15Gb (~3,700 songs) and 20Gb (~4,900 songs) of storage respectively.

Both of the models work as music players and portable storage devices, enabling users to load content on to them. They also have a built-in microphone, giving the ability to record conversations – this can only be achieved by using an add-on for the iPod.

The Dell offering certainly loses on looks, it looks at-best functional and the use moving buttons, as opposed to the iPod touch-sensitive controls, may contribute to reduced life. It is rumoured that the devices are made by Creative Labs and just badged Dell.

Dell have done a deal with the online music service MusicMatch to allow owner to electronically buy music and transfer it to the devices via USB 2.0. MusicMatch is not well regarded and it is therefore thought to be a major weakness ,when compared with the iPod/iTunes combination. Music from the service comes in DRM-protected WMA format, but the devices can also play MP3’s.

The iPod is often criticised for its battery life. The current version runs for about eight hours, but the Dell is reported to run for nearly twice that.

Without having had our hands on the Dell kit, our instant reaction is that the $100 saved by going for the Dell will not be sufficient to sway US purchasers from the iPod. For users outside the US, who don’t have the benefit of the iTunes service, the choice would be less clear.

Dell description of DJ range

Dell sales page

Home HiFi Unit Enables Online Music Purchase

Pioneer Corp., Kenwood Corp, Sony Corp. and Sharp Corp. have came together at the start of the year to form Any Music Planning Inc.. Under this banner they co-developed a Linux-based music HiFi platform that enables home users to accesses and purchase music via networked services. Yesterday they showed working prototypes. Although co-developed – each of the four companies own a equal percentage of the development company – the units will be sold under their own brands.

Other devices such as the Onkyo Net-Tune NC-500, have had a similar form and functions – playing digitised music, delivered over a network connection and in the form of a traditional HiFi unit. Where this initiative differs is that the listener can buy the music via the device, without having to use their computer.

The new devices will initially pull content from online music service, LabelGate. It is thought that “OpenMG X”, Sony’s digital rights management and distribution technology will be used to protect the content.

The working versions will initially be released in Japanese, but “ultimately, our dream is to make the service a worldwide standard,” said Any Music CEO Fujio Noguchi.

Sharp’s audiovisual systems department head, Moriyuki Okada gave a stark comment – “Our industry is in crisis. We want to emerge from that by offering new business ideas.”

OpenMG

Onkyo Net-Tune NC-500

Apple iTunes v2 – New Features Analysed

Further details of the second version of the iTunes software and service are becoming clearer and as you would expect with Apple, they are not only interesting, but steps forward in the use of digital audio.

Audio books and Round Tripping
Apple have signed an exclusive, multi-year deal with audible.com to sell five thousand of their spoken books, equating to over twenty thousand hours of content.

Once the audio-books have been downloaded, the listener will be able to listen to it both on their computer and their iPod – features that were available on version one of the service. The clever part is that you can transfer your listen point, an audio bookmark, from computer to iPod and back again. This is best illustrated with an example – you starts listening to the book on your Mac, you then need to leave you computer, so transfer the audio-book to your iPod. The playback will continue from the point you left it at on the computer. When you return from travelling to your computer, hook up your iPod and continue listening from the point reached on your iPod. Apple have called this feature Round Tripping.

Round tripping is interesting for a number of reasons. Apple have only been able to quickly introduce a new feature like this into the market as they control both the client software on the computer, and the portable playback device, iPod, and can make the required changes to both. It will be interesting to see if Apple declare an open standard on this, to enable other playback devices to take advantage of this feature. We suspect they’ll be keeping this to themselves, at least for the while.

While Round tripping is nifty when listening to books, it becomes potentially far more interesting when it is applied to music, consumer electronic equipment and wireless connections – giving a listener the ability to have a “Continuous Music Experience” as they move from work, to the car and to home.

Enabling the “giving” of digital music
To enable children who do not have their own credit card to use the service, there is a patent-pending online “Allowance” feature which allows parents to automatically deposit funds into their children’s accounts – very smart.

People will also be able to give someone a gift certificate to spend in the online store. By signing on to their iTunes account, they can gift between $10-$200 to a person, who might not even currently have an iTunes account. The recipient receives an email telling them of the present and by clicking on a link, can start to use it to access content.

Digital Lifestyles:Apple Adds Windows Support to iTunes

Apple iTunes

Apple Hit 1m Windows Downloads of iTunes in 3.5 Days

In only three and a half days since Apple released the Windows version of their iTunes software, over one million copies have been downloaded. In the same period, one million songs have also been purchased, halving the time it took to reach same level when the Apple only version was released back in April.

Although the headline figure of songs downloaded initially sounds very impressive, we would assume the million songs must include ones bought by the current Apple users as well (Apple UK weren’t able to clarify this as they didn’t have this breakdown, Apple US were unreachable) – working out at an average of under one song per Windows user. This shows that people have been downloading the Windows version of the software and possibly not purchasing songs. We think it is likely that this is due to them currently being unable to buy music, as they live outside the USA.

Apple iTunes

Microsoft to launch European single music track download service

Microsoft will be partnering with On Demand Distribution (OD2) to launch a European rival to the US-only Apple iTunes service. OD2 currently has 200,000 tracks available from five major record companies, which they hope to expand to 300,000 in the next few weeks.The proposed pricing of single tracks is 75 pence (Euro 1.06, $1.21) with albums being £7.99 (Euro 11.37, $12.86). The Apple service pound equivalent is about 62p and £6.20.The higher pricing of the proposed UK service will re-ignite the debate over the pricing of electronically delivered good compared with their physical CD equivalent. The argument from those that say the download versions are priced to highly is that these aren’t physical good that need to be manufactured, packaged, shipped and justify their place on a retailers shelf – they’re electrons, that once encoded take up a tiny amount of low cost disk space and then have a low cost of distribution. The companies justify the prices saying they have large investments in server hardware. As more providers enter the market, competition lowers prices – in the US, rival pay-and-download services have started dropping their prices, with some offering tracks at 79 cents.It’s widely acknowledged that the Apple iTunes service has been a great success. The problem for the world at-large is that currently it only runs on Apple hardware, which only accounts for around 5% of all computers, and it is currently only available in the USA. Among the reasons that the Apple service has been embraced so heartily, is that is it fantastically easy to use, it recommends related music to you and the licensing terms gives the purchaser a lot of freedom to move their purchased music to different computers and portable music players. Details have yet to emerge as to what the Microsoft/OD2 offering will be like.

Apple Announce iTunes Online and New iPods

As previously rumoured, Apple announced two music-related products yesterday – the new iPod‘s and their iTunes Music Store service. The iPod is essentially an upgraded, thinner version of the current machine that holds up to 30GB. It comes with a new docking cradle and the same unit will work on both Mac and Windows (later in the year).

The iTunes Music Store is the really exciting part. It sounds like it’s simplicity itself, as they provide 30 second, full quality previews of each track and buying is easy as they’ve licenced the Amazon 1-click system. The initially 200,000 tracks available provided by the big five record companies (BMG, EMI, Sony Music Entertainment, Universal and Warner) and are individually purchasable prices at 99 cents a track. They’re stored in AAC format but users will be able to burn unlimited CD’s for personal use and will be able to copy to unlimited iPods Old and New, and to three different Macs. Interestingly downloaded music is sharable between machines on the same wired or wireless network – and by using streaming rather than copying they will placate the music industry. Sadly, due to the licencing restrictions from the music companies, the service will only be available in the US – at least initially.

Video: Steve Jobs launches new iPod’s and Music Store service – watch it

Apple secrecy on unreleased products is legendary, so it was amazing to see that all of the details of todays announcements were disclosed on slashdot back in December. I wonder if the poster is still working at Apple?

RIAA squeeze audio Webcastsers

There was some significant news at the end of last week that will affect/restrict the breadth of music you can listen in the future.

The dispute that’s been rumbling on since 1998 between the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) and audio Webcasters, widely know as Internet radio station. The RIAA wanted all Internet radio station to pay a fee to playing music, which most felt was reasonable. The major dispute has been about the level of the fee that is paid. On 20 June, 2002 the US Library of Congress set fee rates for playing music tracks over the Internet. The levels summarised on their site leads one of the many station that has been affected, somaFM, calculate that their DAILY fees would be $500 or $180,000 a year. somFM also say “Don’t listen to the RIAA press release that says most small webcasters will only pay the minimum $500 a year. Any station with more than an average of 5 concurrent listeners will be paying more than that minimum.”

Many of these stations are run by enthusiasts, many of whom made no money and others who spent money from their own pocket. Using their specialist musical knowledge and lead by their enthusiasm, they put collections of tracks together that exposed their wide audiences to music they were excited to hear.

While collect high royalties from Internet radio stations, allegedly more than 100% of their current collective revenues, the RIAA is using the argument that “Internet radio airplay hurts CD sales”.

This is opposite case for both me and many other listeners. By having my choices widened and I have bought more –one of the problems may be that these purchases have been from non-major labels and they don’t like it. The major labels must be frustrated by the fact the people are not interested in their ‘product’ and through lobby pressure they have forced a situation where the small originators find it financially impossible to survive. I’m sure they’ll be more than happy to fill the void this leaves.

There are two killing blows, the fees mentioned here apply to non-subscription services, subscription services have to be negotiated separately and the second is the fees are back date-able to 1998 making the successful, long term stations the hardest hit. With the shock of Internet radio stations being turned off now and not waiting until 1 September, 2002 when the actual rates become effective, they hope to force the listeners to take action by contacting their representative urging them to act.

Sadly the most recent ruling and apparent conclusion don’t do anyone any favours long term. A broad and vital source of exposure to different types of music has been halted.

I don’t think we’ve seen the end of Internet radio, it’s just that the choice we will be given will be significantly limited – diametrically opposed to the philosophy of the Internet.