Category: Content

Content

Sony act to protect downloaded movies

Sony ISP in Japan, So-net, is working with JapanWave to provide protected, downloadable videos that stop working after a set period of time.The most common approach to protecting Internet-delivered music and videos is to stream them. The content distributor believes this will stop their content being permanently saved, which is not the case, as software has existed for a long time to store the streamed content to the local computer. The main problem with streaming is that viewing quality if dependant on the speed of its delivery – this doesn’t occur when the video is downloaded.JapanWave‘s approach is to fragment the downloaded video file and distribute those sections are around numerous directories on the receiving computer. The JapanWave player then reassembles these when the video is played back while checking to see if the video is past its “view by” date.As is common knowledge, all DRM’s systems are crackable and not surprisingly, the details of how Japanware protects the content aren’t given, but it sounds like a simple solution that will not detract from the viewers experience and should put off most casual hackers.

China fund BB video phones

This is an interesting step in the use of broadband connections.

The China External Trade Development Council (CETRA) is setting up free broadband video phone service between their offices local and oversea offices in an effort to minimise the affect of SARS on the flow of business with Taiwan.

Five CETRA office in Taipei, Hsinchu, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung will make their connections available to certified businesses at zero cost for one hour per day until the end of October. These offices will have the ability to connect to CETRA’s oversea offices in San Francisco, Toronto, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Paris, Warsaw, Osaka, Dusseldorf and London.

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?

Moves afoot in electronic music distribution

Real Networks have announced its intention to acquire Listen.com for around $36m in cash ($17.3m) and stock. They’re gaining the music assets (they have around 320k tracks on their service), their technology, subscribers (however there may be) and openings to their distribution agreements with a network of more than fifteen companies.

Listen has been around a long time and I’ve always been impressed with their virtual radio station service. There can’t be huge amounts of subscribers as in the statement they detail the level of Listen losses at $1-2m per quarter. It looks like Real is strengthening itself for a fight and on that front …

There’s further talk about the Apple online music service that is slated to launch on 28th April which will only be open, initially at least, to users of Apple computers. Apple only has 3% of the computer market but this worked in their favour when try to get access to the big five record companies content for the service. The music companies felt they weren’t exposing themselves and their content to the whole World, allowing them to “dip their toes in the water” of a different, non-subscription model.

I think it’s interesting that the proposed launch date is just one day before the Vivendi meeting, where they were rumoured to be making their intention to bid for Universal. Possibly co-incidence — potentially a great way of getting free press for the service.

Apple May Buy Universal Music (Update:Hoax)

Update: Some clever wags hoaxed this.

Major, major, major news if it’s true. The LA Times and others are reporting that Apple computers have been in discussion with Universal for several months and plan to make a $6Bn offer to the Vivendi at their board meeting on 29 April. Universal accounts for about 1/4 of all CD sales and is the biggest player in 63 territories around the World. As The Register points out, there may be some complications as Apple reached an out-of-court agreement with Apple Corp. (the Beatles music label) not to enter in the music business in 1990.

I was aware that Apple was working on a super secret project, so much so that people that were hired to work on it weren’t even told what they were working on – I guess this may have been it.

If this deal comes off, it will give the music industry the shake-up it’s been needing, forcing the four others major labels to provide reasonably priced, easy to download music.

If it happens, I foresee mass panic in the music industry.

BBC do synchronised media as it should be done

I noticed today that the UK BBC has a broadband offering available at www.bbc.co.uk/broadband. The site looks like it may still be in testing, as it’s pretty confusing with a lot of ‘click here’ text and quite a few links that don’t lead anywhere useful.

That aside, there are some really interesting pieces on it, in particular the Iraq Crisis Special Coverage. It’s a good example of a collection of video and other material that really provides depth to the subject.

The synchronised media is well executed as is illustrated with Road to War/UN adopts 1441 piece. As the video plays, a link appears at the bottom on the right hand side about a ¼ of the way into the video. When this link is clicked, the video that was playing is paused, a screen-grab thumbnail representing it is placed to the right of the video playback window and the full-length footage started to play in the main video playback window. Clicking on the thumbnail takes the viewer back to the point that they left off in the main video. As the main video is coming to its end, a new link appears on the bottom right, taking viewers to a click-able map of Iraq that it overlays the main video area.

This is the kind of work we did at LemonTV using Real and SMIL but, because of the vagaries of streaming video, the delivery over the Internet weren’t as polished as the BBC are now achieving.

I found it very interesting that they are using Flash to deliver the synchronised media including the video. Until now, the BBC has exclusively used Real to delivery its audio and video material, but given the normal poor delivery of the BBC streaming, and streaming generally, I’m glad they’re looking at other areas.

Here’s a quick list of advantages I see for them in using Flash over Real

  • Faster starting videos by using progressive download
  • They’re in total control of the format and the player
  • Copying the video is hard
  • They can pause video and bring in other video quickly
  • The interactivity can be incorporated in to one display area
  • No re-skilling to SMIL, they can use current Flash talent
  • Standard web serving – no need to pay for extra streaming server licences
  • Possibly there may be less bandwidth used

If this is a taste of what’s going to be coming out of the BBC, all power to them.

[BTW, if you’re trying to view the broadband content from outside the UK, you’re going to hit a problem – according to the BBC FAQ, it’s not available to non-licence payers.]