Distribution

The new digital ways content was becoming distributed

Sony Paint Ad: First HD Advert In UK
Sony and Sky are tying up to show the UK’s first HD advert tonight.
You may well have seen a lot of the build-up for Sony’s latest advert – the one with the paint. It’s the follow-up to their coloured balls advert shot in San Francisco.
Appropriately the advert is for Sony’s Bravia range of HD TVs. Shot in the somewhat less-glamorous location of a disused tower block in Glasgow, Scotland, it shows 70, 000 litres of coloured paint exploding up the side of the block of flats.
Shot over 10 days and with a crew of 250 people, the paint was mixed on site by 20 people. The clear up took 5 days and 60 people.
Behind the scenes footage of the shoot has been circulating on the online video services for about two months now. The wobbly camcorder shot material lends itself to looking like it’s been shot by your ‘man in the street,’ but given the size of the campaign, it’s more likely to be seeded by Sony or their advertising agency, to try and create a build up of interest.
Here’s the finished results.
It makes total sense for Sony to shoot this ad in HD given they’ve been pushing HD for nearly 3 years in Europe – initially through their professional arm that sells the cameras. Given their zeal in this area it makes you wonder why it took so long for an HD advert to come out from them.
The launch of this first HD ad follows a major marketing agreement between Sky and Sony to promote HD.
The HD advert will shown on Sky Sports HD 2 tonight during the Chelsea vs Barcelona football coverage.
18 October, 2006
NEC’s Chip To Play Blu-Ray And HD-DVD
The almighty ruck between Blu-ray and HD-DVD could have found a bridge for the consumer.
The clever sticks at NEC have come up with a chip that will play both HD-DVD and Blu-ray disks.
A smart move for NEC, this could save the consumer having to make a choice between the two formats they have little or no knowledge of, but are being told that they simply must have.
The difference between the two standards is pretty considerable, not just in the capacity of the disks that Blu-ray has tried to make much of – as they saw it as a competitive advantage. One of the major differences is the interactivity, with Blu-ray going the route of Java, giving them both a considerable processing overhead in the machines that need to play it and huge flexibility in the depth of interactivity that can be achieved.
It’s not the first time that bringing together the two formats has been suggested. Over a year ago Samsung said that they’d produce a dual format player. Mysteriously they’ve dropped this idea, and gave a serious amount of umm-ing and ahh-ing when asked about it at IFA this year.
NEC is telling all those who will listen that the chips should be shipping from April 2007 onwards.
12 October, 2006
BBC Use Digital To Pressure Government
BBC Director-General Mark Thompson is back on again trying to justify to the British government why the BBC should be allowed to increase their licence fee above the Retail Price Index (RPI).
Thompson’s main thrust for the increase is the cost of going digital. It’s a clever approach as the UK government has publicly committed itself to switching off analogue TV in favour of digital. Thompson also knows that once the analogue spectrum is freed up, the government may make bucket loads of cash from making that spectrum available.
Thompson ratcheted up the pressure on the Government to comply, by reminding them the risks of digital transition, “If it is under resourced it will fail. It’s as simple as that – and the failure will impact on many millions of households.”
The UK public has for a long time been told, primarily by the BBC, that Digital will be amazing and their lives will somehow become increasingly glorious once they get a Digital TV. Only now are they starting to understand that it’s going to cost them more to have.
Until today, Thompson was asking for an increase in the licence fee of RPI plus 2.3%. today it’s dropped to +1.8%. Under the adjusted figures, the license fee would be £149 in 2013/14 by today’s prices. The reduction has been helped by Ofcom making the decision to no longer charge the BBC a spectrum tax.
Being publicly funded, this kind of ~~argument~~ discussion is very important to the BBCs future ambitions – digital and otherwise. The license fee is payable by all UK residents who have a TV.
Mark Thompson speech today
11 October, 2006
Wales First For BT’s 21CN Next-Gen Network Rollout: Details Emerge
BT has released detailed plans for the rollout of its next generation 21CN network.
The technology will form the basis of BTs voice and data services for the near future, with the first area to be linked into the network being Cardiff.
And what finer city could they possibly start with?!
Between November 2006 and Summer 2007, 350,000 customers in the lovely, lovely Principality will be hooked up to the new network, with a rolling program scheduled to connect the rest of the country starting in 2008.
BT says that nationwide coverage should “substantially complete” by the end of the decade.
The 21CN network project sees BT shifting all voice and data services onto a single IP network that will carry fixed, mobile, voice, data, and video on-demand at speeds of up to 24 Mbps.
“Rebuilding the core telecommunications infrastructure of the UK is a massive undertaking,” said Deb Covey, managing director of BT Wholesale networks.
“Planning the rollout programme has been a complex task with industry consulted at every stage. Work is now well underway to create the new backbone for 21CN – this has to be in place across large parts of the UK before the first customer lines are switched across,” she added.
Huw Saunders, of Kingston Communications, speaking as Industry co-chair of the Consult21 Steering Board, commented: “As an industry, we’ve participated in the development and design of BT’s programme to ensure that it takes into account the needs of everyone, regardless of which communications provider they choose to take services from.”
“What happens in Cardiff in a few short months is only the beginning of the journey,” he observed.
We only hope he wasn’t referring to Saturday night punch-ups on St Mary’s Street.
What is 21CN?
Here’s how BT describes the new technology:
“21CN is BT’s next generation network which it is building in the UK and throughout the markets we serve. It is an advanced broadband network based on intelligent systems, Internet Protocol (IP), Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS). IP is key to 21CN because it has the potential to act as a common transport protocol for all types of communication and applications; SIP allows the service provider to control the communications activity to meet a customer’s requirements and MPLS enables the efficient designation and routing of IP traffic flows.”
BT 21CN
9 October, 2006
TalkTalk Admits To Free Broadband Cock Up
With its bottom spanked raw by a damning expose on the BBC’s Watchdog programme, beleaguered TalkTalk boss Charles Dunstone has admitted that they screwed up the launch of their free broadband service.
As we reported in June this year, the company – owned by the Carphone Warehouse – was experiencing problems keeping up with demand for their ‘free’ broadband offer which gave punters unlimited landline telephone calls and broadband access for £20 per month (plus a one-off £29.99 connection fee.)
After the launch of the service in April, more than half a million people signed up, but thousands failed to get connected and were forced to endure interminably lengthy waits on pay-per-minute helplines.
Speaking to the BBC’s Watchdog programme, Dunstone admitted the company bungled the launch, saying that the company had been overwhelmed by the number of people signing up, with their call centre staff unable to deal with customer demand.
“I got it wrong. I didn’t realise that free broadband was going to have the effect on people it has,” he whimpered.
Charles feels your pain
Clearly displaying a penchant for understatement, Dunstone commented in his blog: “We have had our fair share of negative publicity of late, and I more than anyone know how frustrating it has been trying to get through to us if you had a problem.”
We somehow doubt that he knows how frustrated Vie Marshall, from London was with his company.
The Watchdog site reports that after signing up in May 2006, Talk Talk completely failed to connect her to the Internet, even managing to lose her details three times.
She soon learnt all about how useless their call centre was too, on one occasion spending 56 minutes 40 seconds waiting on the line.
Donald Beal, was so fed up with TalkTalk’s crap customer service that he cancelled his contract after seven weeks, only to find that the company continued to bill him for a further two months – even though they’d already acknowledged his cancellation request.
They then went on to ignore his letters, emails and phone calls before referring his account to debt collectors.
TalkTalk broadband is, err, a “beautiful child”
After admitting that it had been a “bruising experience for everyone at Carphone Warehouse”, the relentlessly upbeat Dunstone chirped on, “as things start to improve, I hope people will appreciate that what we did was for the best for all consumers, and whilst giving birth to free broadband was painful, it is now turning out to be a beautiful child.”
He added that the company has now hired more staff and that by Christmas, anyone calling a TalkTalk call centre will get to speak to a living, breathing human, not a robotic automaton. Too kind, Charles!
Even with the extra call staff, TalkTalk has said that it can still take anything up to a month for the broadband connection to be turned on after the telephone ‘go-live’ date.
TalkTalk (don’t all rush now!) Dunstone’s blog
4 October, 2006
Brits Spend An Average £5,000 On Gadgets Yearly
A survey released by Best of Stuff suggests that nearly a third of Brits own up to 15 gadgets.
The survey revealed that 30 per cent of those interviewed were the proud owners of 15 gadgets or more, with 60 per cent spending a hefty £5000 on gadgets every year.
Not surprisingly, mobile phones topped the charts as the ‘most treasured gadget’, with 34 per cent of respondents insisting that they simply could not live without one.
The trusty ol’ gogglebox came in a close second with 27 per cent of the vote, and 46 per cent of those surveyed reckoned that the fabbest new innovation in the market is HDTV.
Brits were found to be most excited about Sony’s forthcoming PlayStation 3, with 44 per cent getting moist at the thought of its launch next March, while Nintendo’s Wii was dampening gussets to the tune of 24 per cent of the vote.
But it’s not all love-love-love in the world of gizmos, with 40 per cent of respondents declaring themselves disappointed with their gadget’s battery life, pointing the finger of blame at MP3 players, laptops and mobile phones as the worst offenders.
Best Of Stuff
4 October, 2006
NTL 4 for £40 quad-play announced
NTL, UK Cable provider, has announced a quad-play offering for £40.
The ‘4 for £40’ service (with the inevitable Virgin-inspired foreplay joke to come) is the first product of the tie-up between Virgin Mobile and NTL.
As we’ve reported extensively, all of the communication world is bringing out packages that bring together various elements of communication as mobile phone companies get together with fixed-line broadband providers. The additional part with the NTL deal is the Digital TV.
The ‘4 for £40’ package includes:
Broadband
- Up to 2Mb with no limits on downloads
- Firewall and anti-virus software included
- Installed by an expert and modem included
Digital TV
- Over 30 channels, including Sky One, UKTV Gold, E4, Film4, ITV2 and LIVINGtv
- On demand access to a huge library of programmes and films – watch what you want, when you want
- Set-top box included and no need for a dish
Home phone
- Unlimited weekend calls to any UK landline
- Highly competitive mobile rates and simple tariffs at other times
- Standard features including 1471 and 1571 voicemail
Mobile
A Virgin Mobile SIM
300 texts and 300 minutes a month, plus free voicemail
Access to Virgin Mobile Bites entertainment service

One interesting feature is that the broadband offered is unlimited, which is bound to appeal to the tech savvy.

NTL 4 for £40 quad-play announced Bigging the service up and attempting to create extra excitement for the future, Neil Berkett, chief operating officer of ntl Telewest, enthused: “Quadplay demonstrates the unique power of the cable-Virgin Mobile union and this is just the beginning. Our new package represents unbeatable value while meeting a wide range of consumers’ entertainment and communication needs.

Current subscribers to NTL won’t be left out in the cold, they’ll be able to take advantage of the new service for an additional £10/month on top of their current packages.

NTL. (Strangely for such a big launch, the NTL site hasn’t been updated with details of the 4 for £40, at the time of publishing.)

27 September, 2006