Distribution

The new digital ways content was becoming distributed

MovieLink To Burn to DVD?
Movielink, a service which delivers films over the Internet, will soon be offering the ability to burn the downloaded films to DVD, complete with DRM protection, reports ZDNet.
It is understood that Sonic Solutions has been working with Movielink to provide the last link in the chain that has held many consumers back from using the service.
People like the idea of being able to take the films down, but as very few people have the PC in their lounge, don’t cherish sitting in front of the PC for 2+ hours to watch the film. As the films are delivered now, it’s not possible to transfer the films DVD, for fear that those naught consumers might copy the disc.
Being able to burn films to DVD is second nature for anyone using file sharing services, you know, the ones where the film companies don’t make any money from the films being downloaded, so it would seem quite reasonable to offer the same service to the people who are willing to pay for the films, wouldn’t it.
Sonic Solutions signed a similar deal with video CoDec company DivX back on 20 June to use Sonic’s AuthorScript disc-burning engine, although it was unclear if DRM would be transfered to the burnt disc.
The Movielink service, is limited to only US user, who own Windows-based machine and is a joint venture between Paramount, Sony Pictures, Universal and Warner Brothers.
MovieLink If you’re outside the US, don’t bother clicking, you won’t see anything of interest.
17 July, 2006
Shaun Woodward Paints A Rosy Picture For UK Digital TV Switchover
Shaun Woodward (right) the MP famed for the twin disgraces of his defection from the Conservatives to Labour and a stint working with Esther Rantzen on That’s Life, is now Creative Industries minister and is busy singing the virtues of the UK’s Digital TV switchover plans.
According to the minister, there’s going to be a golden digital age in the UK as more and more employment is provided by the creative industries, our children enjoy interactive education, the sick benefit from Tele-medicine and the new technologies even help the government with transport and defence industries.
Woodward speaking last week at a Royal Television Society event, Digital Switchover- Making it Happen did not seem to think that finding the £26.99 that you can now buy a Freeview box from Argos for, would pose a problem amongst the financially challenged members of the electorate in the deprived St Helens constituency he now represents. Woodward in fact hinted obliquely that although they might fail to feed their children properly and many have high levels of debt, he’d observed some good ‘entertainment kit’ in their homes.
Accompanied by Ford Ennals (below right) the Chief executive of Digital UK, the body charged with making it happen, he made clear that BBC licence fee; although not yet agreed, would be settled by the end of the year and this was would fit in with the digital switchover schedule. ‘The Government needs to be satisfied that licence fee payers are getting value for money,’ he told the audience but he was ‘confident that they’ll get the right number’ at the end of the process of negotiation with the BBC.
Ennals revealed that surveys from trial areas indicated high levels of satisfaction particularly amongst the over 75s, who along with other vulnerable groups that might find the new technology challenging, would be getting assistance. Ennals is busy co-ordinating Digital UK’s nine project strands that include the thorny issue of resolving the platforms being made available to those in Multi Dwelling Units (that’s flats and the like to you and me).
The switchover which is being rolled out region by region, will swap out the old analogue transmissions with super new digital ones starting in what was the Border TV region in 2008 and finishing up, not as originally planned in London, but in the less challenging areas of Tyne Tees and Ulster thus avoiding any conflict with 2012 Olympic games coverage in the nation’s capital.
Digital UK had the current 98.5% coverage as a target and expects to meet this with additional coverage being by satellite, cable and broadband. Current figures indicate a rump of around 2% of refuseniks, those viewers content with a meagre 4 or 5 channels who see no value in multi-channel viewing, but expectations are this number will shrink as the digitisation spreads across the country like a warm front.
The average cost per household is predicted to be around £130 the extra costs are likely to be those second and third TV sets that are so easily forgotten, new rooftop aerials and replacement of analogue video recorders.
Woodward repeatedly refused to answer the question as to why the government felt it was the BBC’s responsibility to handle switchover issues rather than Government, who have been happy to find funding to subsidise the over 75s TV licence fees.
The Minister agreed that there were questions still to be resolved, like the value of continuing the current ‘gifting’ of spectrum to Public Service Broadcasters after switchover, and how the desire for High Definition would be met, but they were being evaluated so no need to worry there then.
Digital UK with stakeholders across industry and broadcasting would not make the mistakes seen in Italy, where a planned ‘big bang’ switchover for 2006 had not even registered as a moderate whimper. In the UK it is all so far going swimmingly and Ford thinks the BBC will be keeping up the good work as long as the BBC licence fee is agreed by year end as Shaun assured us it will.
12 July, 2006
Significant Demand For WiFi On Trains: Study
The research was carried out by consultancy firm, Accent, after being commissioned by GNER will shock precisely no-one who has used a train on a regular basis. We’re sure that every laptop-toting rail-warrior will whole heartily agree with this one.
Interestingly Rob Sheldon, Managing Director of Accent, outlined how the availability of WiFi is dictating peoples travel patterns, “Many passengers commented that they look for Wi-Fi availability when choosing how they travel and 14% of those interviewed said that they were likely to make extra journeys by train over the next six months as a direct result of being able to use Wi-Fi onboard.”
GNER have lead the trend of providing WiFi on trains in the UK as far back as 2004, when they launched a service on the East Coast Main Line. The only downside has been the price of their service which, while free for first-class toffs, has been a punishing hourly rate for everyone else. We’re glad to see that they’ve dropped the price from the eye-watering £10 it used to be to a still-pretty-expensive-in-our-book £5/hour, £8/2 hours, £10 unlimited within 24 hours.
Three cheers for GNER for sticking to their complete coverage across its entire train fleet by August 2006 promise, which they brought forward from 2007, back in May.
If there is a consistent WiFi connection, it may lead to a peculiar situation where it will be better to make calls on a VoIP service rather than rely on the very patchy cellular service that you get on-board trains.
We trust that GNER won’t be publishing the passwords for the Wi-Fi service as they previously did for their internal system.
GNER WiFi page
11 July, 2006
Ofcom To Provide Solomon Judgement On HD Frequency Spectrum
One of the challenges facing Stephen Carter’s replacement as head of the UK communications regulator Ofcom, is how the frequency spectrum released by the move to digital terrestrial TV will be allocated. Not only is the decision crucial for Ofcom, who must reconcile both the requirement to allow the market to operate while taking into account the British citizen, but it also figures in the BBC’s strategy around the impending licence settlement and the organisations’ worldwide ambitions.
Although the World Cup has not been the High Definition eruption many in the electronics retailing sector had hoped for, there is now a realisation in the industry; that the move to adoption of flat screen TV displays has started in the homes of Great Britain.
How will displays receive the content to create the impetus for a large scale take up? The likely options are; Cable under what is expected to be a Virgin branded offering; Sky who are pushing HD to protect and grow their revenue; the BBC who are committed to both an alternative to Sky on Satellite and providing their content on all viable platforms and broadband, which looks increasingly viable by virtue of higher transfer rates to the home, along with improved digital compression technologies.
The issue for Ofcom is, should the frequency spectrum vacated by analogue TV go to the highest bidder (which on past experience looks likely to be mobile communications of some sort), or should it propel TV into the HD age with the potential benefit for the UK’s important media industries?
France, slower off the blocks in moving to a Digital Terrestrial TV service, with its’ amusingly acronym-ed TNT, has a solution that builds in HD capabilities, and for sure the UK will not wish to be seen falling behind mainland Europe.
And where does the BBC anguish become an issue? Well, if the only methods of receiving HD are by commercial operators Sky and Cable, how does the BBC reconcile the cost to all viewers when only a subset can receive it? The BBC is terrified of losing arguments that could justify a decrease of its universal fee, or marginalisation of its place as a leader in the deployment of advanced distribution and production technology. They’re actively lobbying to make sure that new frequency plans allow for both mobile TV and HD terrestrial.
Given all this, it looks like Stephen Carter could be showing admirable timing skills in vacating the OFCOM hot seat.
29 June, 2006
Net Neutrality Matters
Imagine a world where Internet performance is controlled by the company who owns the cables and where speed is sold to the highest bidder. Imagine a world where some Web sites load faster than others, where some sites aren’t even visible and where search engines pay a tax to make sure their services perform at an acceptable speed. That’s the world US Telecommunications companies (telcos) such as AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and Time Warner are trying to create.
The debate centres around the ongoing review of the US Telecommunications Act and the concept of network neutrality (net-neutrality). The telcos have been lobbying congress to allow them to introduce priority services ensuring that the fastest data transfers and best download speeds are sold at a premium rate. The telcos position is widely seen to be in conflict with the most fundamental assumptions about what the Internet actually is.
To the lay person, it may seem like a laughable proposition. As Cory Doctorow (FreePress) put it, “It’s a dumb idea to put the plumbers who laid a pipe in charge of who gets to use it.” And yet the US congress is swaying towards the view of the telcos, so what’s going on?
The debate was kick-started in November 2005 when AT&T CEO, Ed Whitacre commented, “Now what they would like to do is use my pipes free, but I ain’t going to let them do that because we have spent this capital and we have to have a return on it. So there’s going to have to be some mechanism for these people who use these pipes to pay for the portion they’re using. Why should they be allowed to use my pipes?”
Whitacre’s argument boils down to the assumption that services such as Google and Yahoo are somehow freeloading on the infrastructure owned by the telcos. Cory Doctorow points out a fundamental flaw in his reasoning, “Internet companies already are paying for bandwidth from their providers, often the same companies that want to charge them yet again under their new proposals.”
As Doctorow and other commentators have observed, Internet users and businesses already pay proportionally for their use of the net, allowing the owners of the infrastructure to take a further cut distorts the market in favour of those with the deepest pockets and threatens innovation and the development of new services.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, weighed in to the argument saying “Net neutrality is this: If I pay to connect to the Net with a certain quality of service, and you pay to connect with that or greater quality of service, then we can communicate at that level. That’s all. Its up to the ISPs to make sure they interoperate so that that happens.”
The debate in the US is split largely along partisan lines with Republicans favouring the telcos and Democrats siding with the pro-neutrality lobby. Since Whitacre started the debate, the telcos have promoted their case heavily using extensive television advertising and lobby groups. The pro-neutrality group (comprising the bulk of the industry) has organised itself with activist Websites such as save the internet and has signed up over a million individuals to its petition, but the campaign is not going well. On May 8th the House of Representatives passed the “Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement Act of 2006,” or COPE Act while defeating an amendment (the so-called Internet Platform for Innovation Act of 2006) that would have provided protection for neutrality. The next opportunity for progress comes this week when the Senate votes on Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2006 which also carries a neutrality friendly amendment.
Today, the legal Website Outlaw reported that two US Attorney Generals (Eliot Spitzer and Bill Lockyer) have backed the pro-neutrality cause. Spitzer wrote a letter stating that “Congress must not permit the ongoing consolidation of the telecommunications industry to work radical and perhaps irrevocable change in the free and neutral nature of the Internet”.
Whatever Spitzer and Lockyer’s influence, many commentators believe this kind of corporate influence on communications can only lead to economic censorship. As law professor and copyright activist Lawrence Lessig said in 2004 “The Internet was designed to allow competition and let the best products and content rise to the top. Without a policy of network neutrality, some of those products could be blocked by broadband providers”.
28 June, 2006
Channel 4 Rolls Out Broadband Simulcast Service
Channel 4 has today launched a new broadband Simulcast service, making their live TV schedule available online for viewing, for free.
To access the content users will need to register at www.channel4.com/livetv.
Once registered, PC users will be able to sit back and watch a streamed version of Channel 4’s TV schedule, broadcast at the same time as their live TV transmission.
Broadband users – and no doubt, bored office workers sneaking a peek – will be able to sneakily indulge themselves with a feast of Channel 4’s original content, although films and acquired shows (such as the hugely popular Lost or Desperate Housewives), are off the menu for now.
Channel 4 has, however, said that it is negotiating with US studios to add their content at a later date.
The programming will carry the same commercials as the regular Channel 4 TV service, and where the current programming is not available, a rather less-than-enticing sounding “loop of Channel 4 promotions” will be broadcast.
The streamed Channel 4 programmes will also be accessible via the channel’s Website for up to seven days after transmission.
Appearing in a thundercloud of enthusiasm, Channel 4 CEO Andy Duncan was on-beam and on-message and rapidly hit evangelical overdrive, describing the Web transmission as an opportunity “to build on what Channel 4 has always done – stimulate, infuriate, debate, create,” adding that he didn’t see the digital revolution as an attack on Channel 4’s power as a public broadcaster, but as a “fantastic opportunity,”
After taking a breather, he continued, “It is our stated aim to make Channel 4’s public service programming available across all meaningful platforms and to be the first UK broadcaster to begin simulcasting our content on broadband is a significant step towards delivering on this objective.”
Channel Four’s decision to slap their live TV content up on the Web is indeed a significant development, and proof of how new media is redefining distribution channels.
Despite this, many of the most popular consumer electronics devices remain rooted around a traditional TV, with Freeview boxes and widescreen LCD and HD sets enjoying huge sales.
www.channel4.com/livetv
27 June, 2006
BT Home Hub Examined
To date, most ADSL equipment that BT has put out has been pretty …. functional … or put another way, ugly. Their ethernet routers have been transposed from office equipment, and their USB kit, the Frog as it was known … well don’t get us started on that*.
This has all changed with their latest packaging of broadband. Released alongside this, the newly-announced BT WiFi Home Hub has been designed to seduce people into pulling their router out from it previous position in the study or under the stairs, and putting it in to their living space.
Why would they care about that? Well it’s important for the success of products like BT Vision, their autumn-release IPTV service, as the connection between the Home Hub and the BT Vision box currently has to be wired ethernet. Given most people don’t have their house cabled for ethernet, the Home Hub has to be located close to the main TV in the house, normally in the lounge. It also doesn’t hurt to have their new wireless-DECT VoIP phone handsets sitting in the main room in the house either.
It’s a looker
BT have clearly had the industrial designers on the case and what they’ve turned out is a bit of a looker.
Being white, you can’t but fail to be reminded of Apple (being that they own the colour white). It’s like a cross between a small, white, upstanding PS2 and an iPod, but lacking the curves of the iPod.
The BT VoIP handset, or BT Broadband Talk handset as they call it (sssh, don’t mentioned VoIP), sits in an integrated docking unit that is slots in the front of the base of the Home Hub.
What can you connect to it?
Apart from the 802.11G/B wireless connectivity, there’s six physical connectors tucked away at the back of the Home Hub.
There’s the connector that runs between the phone line and the box, a slot for you POTS phone, two ethernet connectors (one of these will be used for BT Vision) and two USB connectors.
One of these USB ports is intended for computers that don’t have ethernet ports on them (are there any of these still in circulation?) and the other is for an as-yet unannounced use.
One trick I feel they’ve missed is using the Hub as a print server, but discussing this with BT’s, they suggest that this is something that could be introduced later, via a software update.
Disco lights may drive you mad
The only issue we raised after spending a brief time with it was the usage indicator lights that sit at the top of the unit, which flicker whenever data passes through the box. Sadly, as yet, these can’t be turned off.
We’d imagine that while having these beauties flickering away may be a novelty initially, but long term, people are going to find it _really_ annoying, as they catch them out of the corner of their eye. Expect either the addition of some masking tape over them or a software update giving the option to kill them.
Over broadband software updates
Keeping equipment up to date is a expensive and risky business, especially if you need to get the customer involved.
Like their video phone handsets, the Home Hub can be updated remotely by BT over the broadband connection. This gives them a chance to provide new features in the future, or to fix an problems that they might find, without having to bother the subscriber.
Do you need a Home Hub?
If you want to carry on using the Internet as you have previously, then the short answer is no, _but_ if you want to use any of the new BT services like BT Vision or BT Homesafe, their home security system (more on this soon), then yes.
For BT Vision to work, the STB that comes with it has to be able to control the flow of data over the broadband connection, because frankly, getting TV to run over a 2Mb DSL connection is asking a lot of it. If little Johnny is sitting in the bedroom downloading goodness knows what, he’s going to have to have his connection throttled, which Dad is watching the Football on Saturday night.
* Thank the gods of USB that BT have finally dumped the USB-connected Frog that used to ship in previous version of their broadband offering. We found this an odious move purposely designed to limit the number of computers that connect to one. In our book, this was detrimental to the wider adoption of broadband in the UK.
23 June, 2006
BT Include OpenZone WiFi Minutes with Broadband Package Shakeup
BT have released a shake up of their home broadband offering.
As well as reducing the number of options available, they’re also boosting the packages to try and both get people to switch to them, as well as attempting to induce their current subscribers not to switch away.
Mirroring their phone call plans, BT have gone for the Option 1, 2 & 3.
250 minutes of BT OpenZone WiFi
Most of the offering isn’t that different – OK, they’re bundling Norton Antivirus and firewall – the big innovation is the inclusion of 250 minutes of BT OpenZone WiFi.
BT have done a clever thing here in providing WiFi minutes. People will come to realise that they can use WiFi when out and about … near a BT roaming point only of course.
This is of course only averaging 8 minutes a day – and we all know how quickly time on the Internet can disappear.
Once they get used to that behaviour, people will start to run out of the 250 minutes that are available over the month – and start to pay BT for extra minutes.
This is a very clear indication that the convergence of network access is now well underway.
Free VoIP calls to UK Landlines
All of the packages provide free evening and weekend calls to UK landline, and until Jan 07, free video calls. International calls are not discounted – at all, which we thought a bit shocking.
This is not just calls using the PC softphone, but using the new Hi Def phone handset. We’ll cover this in more detail soon.
As well as the Hi Def phones and BT softphone, calls can be made to other BT VoIP handsets, like the now available BT Broadband Talk Videophone 1000 and soon to be available 1000 video phones.
We specifically asked about linking to other VoIP services. With no shock, we heard that this wasn’t going to be supported ‘at launch’, and we suspect ever. Locking people in to the BT handsets will be a way to attempt to increase their subscribers, with BT subscribers encouraging their family and friends into having a compatible, ie BT handset.
Equipment
In an effort to try and get you to step up to the highest subscription, BT are using an increasing amount of equipment to induce you to be tempted every increasing monthly fees. They’re leveraging their ability to buy huge amounts of equipment and the discounts that brings to them.
The entry-level Option 1 customers will be provided, free of charge, with a BT Wired router; Option 2 brings the white BT Home Hub; Option 3 includes the Home Hub and VoIP/DECT handset, that they label the Hi-Def handset.
If you persist in opting for Option 1, you’re able to purchase the Home Hub at the additional cost of £30 – £25 if done online.
Costs
There’s a promotional offer on each of the packages of a reduced cost for the first six months of subscription.
Option 1 – £9.95 for six months, then £17.99/month
Option 2 – £14.99, then £22.99/month
Option 3 – £22.99, then £26.99/month
Learning a trick or two from the mobile business, contract length for the entry Option 1 is 18 months. The others are a more expected 12. Do you get the impression that they really don’t want you to go for the Option 1?
Options 2 & 3 are pretty much the same, except for the amount of data that can be downloaded by the subscriber – option 2 give 6Gb usage per month, Option 3 a more generous 40Gb. It’s unclear if BT Vision is used if this will be included in the usage.
23 June, 2006
T-Mobile Offers Unlimited Mobile Surfing For A Quid A Day
T-Mobile has announced that it is to extend its web’n’walk unlimited mobile Internet access service to include pay-as-you-go customers.
From 1st August, pay-as-you-go customers will be able to gorge themselves on the Internet for a maximum of a quid a day for the web’n’walk service.
T-Mobile says the service will be available for up to 25 handsets across the contract and pay-as-you-go web’n’walk tariff range, including the Motorola V3, the Nokia 6131, the Nokia 6233, the Sony Ericsson K750i and the Samsung E870.
Phil Chapman, Director of Marketing for T-Mobile UK, looked deep into his crystal ball and saw the clouds clearing, “We strongly believe that in future, mobile will be individuals’ primary means of accessing the Internet, just as it already is for voice communications.”
All the web’n’walk handsets come pre-configured to connect immediately to the Internet, with customers able browse any web pages they chuffing well like rather than the ‘cut-down’ mobile-optimised web pages available through some services.
To help new customers on their mobile surfin’ way, T-Mobile Favourites comes pre-stocked with links to popular UK websites like Amazon, Sky, lastminute, BBC, Yell, Multimap, BAA and the RAC.
With two thirds of mobile customers on pay-as-you-go contracts, T-Mobile are hoping to scoop up new and existing customers to their new data deal, with each kilobyte of data charged at 0.73 pence, up to a ceiling of £1 – after which, customers will pay nothing more for rest of the day.
We love it
We’re already big fans of T-Mobile’s web’n’walk service – after years of paying eye-wateringly inflated data access charges, we were delighted to jump on their unlimited web’n’walk flat rate of just £7.50 a month for pay monthly contracts.
With unlimited data usage, we’ve found the service more useful than Wi-Fi in daily use – now we can get our email, check the news, download RSS feeds and waste time on IM/chat without having to wander about looking for a free hotspot. Nice.
There are caveats to the service though, with a ‘fair use policy’ applying to their definition of ‘unlimited’ and anyone trying to use their connection for laptop surfing can expect a prompt slapdown from Messrs T and Mobile.
T Mobile
22 June, 2006
Nokia Trials Mobile TV With TeliaSonera Sweden
Nokia has announced a partnership with TeliaSonera Sweden to trial a complete DVB-H system, using Nokia’s Nordic know-how, their Mobile Broadcast System 3.0 and Nokia N92 mobile TV devices.
Currently being wired up by teams of studious, white-coated boffins at the Nokia facility in Kista, Stockholm, the system will be hosted and managed by the Nokia team and will allow TeliaSonera Sweden to serve up a veritable feast of mobile television.
The test system is set to debut over Gothenburg and Stockholm from early August until the end of the year.
“Nokia is very pleased to be working so closely with TeliaSonera Sweden in this new area of DVB-H based mobile TV. We believe strongly in the capability of this technology as well as in the mobile TV service, and we are looking forward to verify the full potential of mobile TV together with TeliaSonera Sweden,” purred Jan Lindgren, Vice President, Networks, Nokia.
Anders Bruse, Senior VP, Products and Services at TeliaSonera, joined in the PR love-in, adding that the DVB-H technology trial should “give them a better understanding of their customers’ expectations.”
About the technology
DVB-H lets punters on the move download high quality terrestrial digital broadcasts on their mobiles, and also offers tempting business opportunities for mobile service providers, content and broadcast companies, infrastructure and handset manufacturers.
Feedback from several mobile TV pilots has proved promising, with a trial last year in Oxford, England finding that 83% of the pilot participants were chuffed with the service provided.
Nokia
19 June, 2006