Category: Content

Content

IFPI Report Positive on Digital Music

The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) published a report yesterday where they stated that the music business has now got to grips with digital music distribution and sees 2004 as the year it take root with the consumer.

They feel the IFPI Online Music Report 2004 takes a thorough, global look at the music business and includes the results of a surveys they have funded investigating digital music habits in Denmark, France, Germany and UK. It shows that two thirds of those surveyed thought that downloading commercial music without paying for it was wrong, but worryingly for the marketing departments of the online music sellers, only a quarter of the same respondent know that there are now commercial services available. One sign of encouragement for them is their figure show that half million European user have signed up to sites that sell downloadable music. Figures of how many of them have paid for tracks were not detailed.

The IFPI are keen to stress the relationship between the music industries anti-piracy campaign and the consumers uptake of pay-for digital music. We feel what is far more likely is that commercial download service have now actually become usable in the way the consumer feel comfortable with, at a price they are content to pay – previously this has not been the case.

IFPI online music report 2004 (PDF)

AOL Offer MovieLink Films Online for 99c

AOL will launch a promotion offer, “Winter Movie Special”, in the US today giving their broadband subscribers access to download and watch some of the movies on MovieLink for only 99c per film.

Once the movie has downloaded, it can be watched as many times as the payee feels they can bear, but it must be watched within 30 days of the download or it will self-delete. The 99c offer is up to 80% less than current MovieLink customer spend, but only a select number of films will be available at that price, the other 600 films that MovieLink has can be watched for the normal $3.95 to $4.99.

AOL who have been losing large amounts of their subscribers, they lost nearly 700,000 dialup customer in the final quarter of 2003, are very keen to stop this slide and hope that bundled content deals will persuade people.

Movielink, the joint venture of six of the big Hollywood studios (Universal Studios, Paramount Pictures, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, Sony Pictures Entertainment and Warner Bros) has, in the past, received criticism of the breadth and quality of the films they offer, despite their recent upgrade to version MoveLink 2.0.

Commenting on the AOL deal, Jim Ramo chief executive of Movielink said “This is our first promotion with a major portal, and we’d like to do it with all the major portals,” he added hopefully.

The promotion will last until Feb. 26, and the companies do not have specific plans to extend it beyond that date.

We see many more deal like this coming along as broadband providers make offers, try to keep hold of the subscribers, and more significantly, as more computer become able to show content on the household TV.

AOL

MovieLink

Smallest GPS Locator Phone Announced

Wherify Wireless, based in Redwood Shores California, have announced what they claim is the smallest device to contain a GPS receiver and CDMA mobile phone. It has been specifically designed to help locate people carrying it. It is very compact (48mm x 12mm), light (45 grams) and simple to use, with only two buttons to operate. One button directly alerts the emergency services, 911, giving them the location within a few feet and ability to have a conversation with owner. The second button carries out the same function but to a user programmable phone number.

Authorised parties can find out the location of the device either using a Web browser, which will show the location of the device within a number of feet, or over a phone with an operator. Both methods take around a minute.

The rather grandly named GPS Universal Locator is rechargeable and power should last around 70 hours or 40 locates. To conserve battery, the GPS is not enabled until a location query is activated.

Wherify expect it to be available to consumers late second quarter 2004 and it is expected to retail for less than $150 with month subscription to the service at $19-$44 a month.

A similar service, mapAmobile, was launched in the UK in August 2003, but mapAmobile worked with a standard mobile phone, rather than needing a separate device.

Wherify Wireless, GPS Universal Locator, spec sheet

Wherify Wireless

First WiFi Portable Music Player

Ever since the rise of the portable digital music player people have been discussing the possibilities of connecting them wirelessly rather than via a cable, either for loading content, or playing it back. After two years development SoniqCast has now released the Element Aireo, the first product to come to market that includes 802.11b (WiFi) support.

The WiFi connection enables the synchronisation of music-file contents with those on the PC’s hard drive, using their SoniqSync software. Synchronisation is either on demand or based on a user-defined schedule. Looking to the future SoniqCast are expecting to enable content download directly from the Internet via Hotspots and peer-to-peer content download from one Aireo™ player to another.

The built in FM transmitter (FM TX) can be used for wireless playback of music in cars or at home. While not a unique idea, this is achievable with an iPod by adding a third party extra to it, it is the first time it has been included.

This initial release has a 1.5Gb hard drive capacity built in, which while it hold a considerable amount of music, may appear to consumers to be dwarfed by the 40Gb storage offered on some other devices. The physical size of drive, could in a later product, be replaced by a 4Gb drive. Additional storage can be enhanced by up to another 1Gb by inserting an SD memory card.

The device won the “Best of CES Portable Audio” at the 2004 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.

While we welcome this type of device, we feel the wireless features will not remain unique for very long and our concern would be the devices battery life – using WiFi consumes a far amount of power, potentially leading to short periods between charging, eliminating the benefits of it being wireless.

It is expect to go on sale for $300 within the next month.

SoniqCast

Review of Bleep – DRM-Free digital music sales

Warp Records have made their music back-catalogue available for purchase online via their Bleep service, but with the twist that the tracks are not electronically protected.  The bought tracks are downloaded as high quality, open MP3 files not using any form of Digital Rights Management (DRM).

We see this as an important development, as it takes a different approach to the purchaser of the music – it assumes that the majority of their customers are honest and will not pepper the file sharing networks with their paid for tracks. We will continue to monitor whether this approach has been good or bad for their sales, certainly short term they have benefited from positive press from the technically aware.

We have used the service extensively and below give an overview of the process.

_The standard – iTunes Music Store
As anyone who is attempting to sell music online is very well aware, Apple’s iTunes Music Store (iTMS) has set a high bar for other to reach, never mind exceed. iTMS addresses one of the major reasons for music copying, it brings music that people want to listen to and purchase easily within their grasp. It’s a friendly, well thought out and fast to use system, that charges an arguably reasonable amount of money, 99c, per track. The purchased tracks are downloaded in secure AAC format, can be held on up to three computers, burnt to audio CD and held on as many iPods as the track purchaser owns. iTMS licensing terms were a liberal world apart from compared to the highly restricted, effectively rental-based previous system.

_The Bleep interface
Bleep does a good job of keeping the screen uncluttered and uses three easy to follow columns that naturally progress form left to right to complete purchases. The left is for locating tracks at an album level, or for searching; the middle columns list the details tracks selected as well as enabling previewing and picking for purchase; the right hand column show the tracks ready for purchase, and following purchase, a list of tracks that can be or have been downloaded.

Selection of albums and tracks is as smooth a process as you would expect, either by clicking on the album cover icon or individual track name, if a text search has been carried out.

_Browsing & previewing tracks
Once the tracks have reached the middle column, simply clicking on Play can preview them. The previewing is quick to start, essential for a good user experience. Although it is not quite as fast as iTunes, which is like pressing track skip on a CD player, it is impressive considering it does not use a content delivery network like Akamai.

The loading of the preview track in displayed in a small, integrated Flash player, just below the album cover art, giving good feedback to the user making them aware that something is going on. Once sufficient has buffered, the first 30 seconds of the track starts playing, with a green highlight bar showing progress along the track. The preview track has been encoded at 90kbs and we found the quality more than sufficient.

There are a number of areas that Bleep wins over iTMS.

  • Preview is no limited to just 30 seconds of the track – the whole track can be previewed simply by clicking the play button again, every 30 second chunk.
  • Once buffered, the listener can click anywhere to the tracks timeline to listen from that point.

__Purchasing tracks
When tracks are selected for purchase, they are placed in the right hand column. A running total of the cost is displayed at the bottom of the column, as is useful additional information such as the size of download and an approximation of the time they will take to download.

Clicking on the tracks in the checkout basket the chance to still preview the tracks, you can still listen to it.

When ready to pay, the user simply clicks on the Checkout link, and they will be asked to login to their account or create an account if they have not used it before.

Warp has done a good and wise thing in making creating an account as straightforward as possible, you simply supplying your email address and a password.

The user has three way to pay; credit card, PayPal, and in the UK, mobile phone SMS text message for single tracks. After entering these relevant details, future purchases are as simple as clicking on a link.

The purchase via SMS is of particular interest as this has never been used for buying music downloads. After entering your mobile phone number in the setup screens and sending a confirmation message from you mobile to Warp, purchasing single tracks is a simple as confirming your desire to pay via SMS. An SMS is then received to the handset confirming the price charged and giving a reference number. The SMS payment option is a great idea for opening music sales to people too young to have a credit card, as they are bound to have a mobile phone.

_Receiving the booty
Once payment has been cleared, the right hand column lists the tracks now available for download. To save the trouble of downloading each track individually, there is an option to bundle them all into one Zipped file.

The user is also free to add tracks to a new shopping basket while tracking are sitting in their download list.

_Summary
Warp has done a good job with this service, generally improving on Apple’s iTMS. When comparing them it should be remember that this service is browser based, not the simpler dedicated application approach that iTMS takes.

We spoken to Warp at some length and are impressed with their understanding of the users needs. They also have some very interesting plans for the service, which we will report on when they are becoming available.

Bleep online music service

Music Label Sells DRM-Free Music

Warp records have been a major force in electronic music for fifteen years (Band such as Aphex Twin, Autechre and Squarepusher) and are equally know for their Internet advances, being early converts to the Web when it was just beginning. The UK company today they launched a service called Bleep that sells all of their musical back catalog online – but the product their customer recieves is substancially different from the myriad of MeToo music services, it is a unprotected, high quality MP3. Going against the tide of the major record companies, Warp, through Bleep, have decided to not use Digital Right Management (DRM), in their words

“Bleep music has no DRM or copy protection built in. We believe that most people like to be treated as customers and not potential criminals.”

Pricing is slightly higher than the now-standard 99c. With individual tracks at 99 UK pence (~$1.80, ~€1.40) and albums at £6.99 (~$12.70, ~€10) or less. Payment can be made using PayPal, credit cards or, for UK users, premium rate SMS. Refreshingly reasonably after the bandwidth charges and Bleep running costs are subtracted, the artist gets half of the album or track price.

The tracks have been encoded at a slightly higher bitrate than Apple’s offering, averaging 205k vs 192k and are expected to be excellent through the use of the LAME (LAME Ain’t an MP3 Encoder), the open source and highly-rated encoding software taking advantage of the Variable Bit Rate (VBR).

We are impressed with the thinking and technology behind Bleep and will be writing a review of it on Friday.

Bleep, by Warp records

LAME

Apple Launch iPod Mini

The rumours of the mini-iPod have been proven as true with Steve Jobs announcing a small version of the iPod, the iPod mini at Macworld yesterday.

The smaller-than-current-iPod device will have an anodised aluminium body available in five colours; silver, gold, pink, blue or green and be capable of holding 1,000 128-Kbps AAC encoding, CD-quality songs on its tiny hard drive. It will also only weigh 3.6 ounces (102 mg).

The iPod mini runs the same software as current iPods, so no functionality is lost, despite its slight smaller backlight LCD screen (1.67 inch vs 2-inch and 138-by-110-pixel resolution, 0.22-mm dot pitch vs 160-by-128-pixel resolution, 0.24-mm dot pitch). In a further refinement to the design, the four buttons have been integrated into the touch wheel – Apple labels it Click Wheel.

Recharging times will be the same as the current model, but the mini will be able to pull its power from either the FireWire or USB 2.0 cable.

It will be available in the US in February and worldwide in April with a suggested selling price of $249 in the US and a UK price of £199 (inc VAT).

Apple also announced they have sold two million iPods and by way of a celebration they also announced that they will be upgrading the smallest capacity from 10Gb to 15Gb without increasing the price.

Apple iPod & iPod mini specs

Philips and Samsung Announce Universal CE API

Consumer electronics (CE) companies, Philips and Samsung have today announced the Universal Home Application Programming Interface (UH-API). Aimed at simplifying the development of software, be that applications or middleware that uses their semiconductor-based systems, thus reducing the time to market for home consumer devices. This is a reaction to, and acceptance of, the need for increasingly complex software to operate and combine digital consumer electronics. Drafts of UH-API are expected to be available in the first quarter of 2004.

The UH-API consists of a set of software interfaces for configuring and controlling the audio and video-related components of a semiconductor platform targeting the consumer market, and it is complementary with the leading operating systems across the industry. It is designed for target devices including analog and digital televisions, Set Top Boxes, DVD players and recorders, personal video recorders, home servers and other consumer audio-video devices.

Leon Husson, executive vice president of Consumer Businesses, Philips Semiconductors said, “This is a fundamental change from developing standalone consumer electronics products that fit proprietary schemes to a universal choice of hardware systems that can support the multiple features of the diverse consumer electronic brands.”

Both companies have said they will “realign their internal resources” to develop UH-API-compliant semiconductor chipsets and solutions. They will also invite other CE companies to participate in enhancing and deploying the UH-API specification.

Philips plans to make their Nexperia Home semiconductors range UH-API compliant. Samsung will start by making its HD TV chipset compliant and plan to expand its coverage from there.

Philips Nexperia IC’s

T-Mobile Launch TV to Mobile via GPRS

T-Mobile, the worlds second largest mobile phone service provider, has launched a service in Germany enabling their subscribers to watch television over GPRS to their mobile phones. A first for Germany, the service with the very catchy name, “n-tv mobile live TV”, will initial be offering a live stream of news direct to the handsets that have the Real player installed. Currently their Windows-based PDA offerings, T-Mobile MDA or T-Mobile MDA II and Symbian Series 60-based platforms, Nokia 3650, a Nokia 6600 and Nokia 7650 support this.Interestingly there will be no additional charges made on top of the cost of GPRS data transmission, although it should be noted that video is the most dense and bandwidth hungry form of data.This new service follows hard on the heals of a deal between T-Mobile and Kodak that enables their subscribers to send MMS-photographs or other digital photos to be printed at Kodak then deliver via post. To use “Fotoservice”, some software has to be installed on the Symbian-based handset that uploads the images to a private storage area. Given the current low resolutions of phone-based camera, there is an option to place a number of photos on the same 10×15 print.

PSX Spec Downgraded but Still Sells Out

Following the recent launch of Sony’s PSX, which combines the functions of a PlayStation 2, PVR and DVD burner (full details), there have been a number of dissenting voices over the reduced specification of the released product. Despite this, the first shipment to shops is reported to have nearly sold out on launch day, with long queues on the day of its release. The size of the initial shipment has not been disclosed. A spokesperson for Sony added that they plan to ship one million PSX systems by the end of 2004.

Quite a number of what would appear to be vital functions and features of the PSX have been downgraded or removed, which Sony say is to time pressures in hitting an xmas released date. The most surprising omission is of a functioning Ethernet port, clearly vital for accessing online content and sharing content between rooms in a household.

A number of formats will not initially be supported. MP3 playback will be missing, but Sony’s copy-protected ATRAC will be and TIFF and GIF graphics formats, although JPEG will continue to be supported. Two disk formats, CD-R and DVD+RW have also been dropped. The speed of the DVD recording has been halved from x24 to x12 which should have too much of an impact.

Financial analysts have been damning in their views of the changes with Kazumasa Kubota of Okasan Securities has described the PSX as a “publicity stunt”, while Kazuya Yamamoto of UFJ Tsubasa has claimed that “lowering the specifications of the PSX hurt Sony’s image”.

We feel the removals have been more about anti-piracy than a need to “rush” the release and are probably victims of the long-running struggle between Sony’s content and CE division.

Sony PSX site