Category: Physical Formats

Any format you can hold

AtomFilms And CustomFlix: DVD compilation service

When I first used CDuctive in 1998, I was hugely excited. Using a Web browser, you could preview and select music tracks from different artists, pick the order of the tracks, pay for it and have it posted to you. The disks would arrive a short while later with a professionally printed cover, listing the selected tracks. I was so impressed with the idea, I thought the service was worth investing in.

These days the idea doesn’t seem that revolutionary. Indeed it appears a little old-fashioned, having been outdated by music downloads.

Today, AtomFilms and CustomFlix are announcing that they’ve got together to offer the video equivalent – DVD compilations of short films. Using CustomFlix’s Build-Your-Own DVD™ service (isn’t it amazing what you can trade mark these days), purchasers are able to choose up to 10 pieces, initially from a selection of 125 of AtomFilms’ shorts. There are a couple of limits – there cannot be more than a total of 90 minutes of footage onto one DVD and each video clip can be up to a maximum of 30 minutes long. In the same way that CDuctive worked, the disc’s content and packaging reflects the selected films. The disc then arrives in the post.

It’s a good idea, a DVD duplication service combined with a content company, opening the market to those who don’t have sufficient bandwidth to view films online. Posting DVD’s is a very efficient method of bandwidth delivery. 4.7Gb of data transfer costs a lot more than the price of an envelope and a stamp.

They label it a “major step forward in the distribution of on-demand”, which is stretching the concept of on-demand a little – with that logic anything you buy or rent is now on-demand.

After a quick look, it is encouraging to see that it looks like the service is deliverable outside the US. An advantage, I assume, of the contracts signed by AtomFilms for the original material being delivered via the Internet – by definition they are likely to have global distribution rights.

What is not clear is why there are only 125 films initially offered. Is it that Atom doesn’t have rights to physically distribute the other material or perhaps the material isn’t held, or even available in DVD quality?

It’s hardly worth mentioning because it’s too obvious, but clearly when broad-broadband is universal, online distribution will significantly reduce the demand for services like this. We’re not there yet, and clearly many parts of the world are far from close to that, so this service does have the ability to last a while.

There are advantages of buying it on DVD, over the future online delivery methods. The purchaser will own the DVDs content, free to play it on the device of their choosing and it will be DVD resolution, not a version compressed for download. If you go looking for CDuctive, I’m sad to see that it looks like it faded away – but that was six years ago.

CustomFlix
Atomfilms

Microsoft Announces Plans for Your Digital Living Room and 22 New Security Flaws in Windows Products

Microsoft began the latest phase of its big push for consumers’ digital lives by unveiling Windows XP Media Centre Edition 2005 (MCE) and a host of products designed to work alongside it.

Bill G and Queen Latifah demonstrated the most recent features in MCE at an event in Los Angeles, highlighting integration with Windows Media Player 10 and a compatibility with a range of new hardware devices.

To coincide with the do, Microsoft’s main press release describes a hypothetical family and how they might use digital media across the day – from recording TV programmes via their web browser to broadcasting music around the home using a Media Centre Extender.

The company also announced 22 new security holes in its Windows range whilst issuing an update to address them. One of the new flaws managed to affect Macintosh OSX users.

By promoting MCE as a digital hub, the company hopes to show consumers that they can view, share and store their movies, music and pictures around the home and on the move. To reinforce their view of the future, the company also announced a number of devices from partners like HP, Dell and Creative Labs.

Music is a very important part of MS’s plans, with Windows Media 10 and MSN Music receiving another PR boost. Amongst the devices promoted by MS were new Digital Audio Receivers from Dlink, Roku and MoniFi which are designed to play digital music from a central source in any room of the house. Creative, Gateway, iRiver and other also announced new digital media players for the Christmas season, with capabilities ranging from simple music to full video playback.

Will Poole, senior vice president for the Windows Client division at Microsoft said in a statement: “For years, many in the consumer electronics industry have viewed digital entertainment as a field of dreams: if you provide consumers with a solution, they’ll build it into a larger experience – regardless of cost or complexity. Windows XP Media Centre PC and all of these other devices and services make it possible, for the first time, for the average consumer to enjoy digital entertainment anywhere, anytime and in any way.”

Microsoft’s Media experience

Netflix’s Subscriber Growth

Netflix have released their latest subscriber numbers, and whilst the company’s user base has certainly grown, the future is certainly in online movie delivery.

Netflix had 2.23 million subscribers at the end of Q3 2004 – up 73% from 1.29 million on its books at the end of Q3 2003. Only 4% of its current subscriber base are on free trials, and those 96% of paying subs brought in a projected US$21 million in Q3 2004.

Netflix’s current business model is to rent up to three DVDs at a time to customers via the postal service. With the growth of home broadband, sending films out in the mail evidently has a limited lifespan, and so the company recently partnered with TiVo in a venture to designed to switch the delivery mechanism to online – finally putting the “Net” in “Netflix”.

However, the company believes that their 25,000 title DVD library still has some legs on it – CFO Barry McCarthy commented in a statement: “Three years ago we shortened the estimated useful life for our DVD rental library from three years to one year. For a young company with limited operating experience, that accounting estimate was management’s best judgement of the useful life of catalogue content at that time. However, with several years of operating history behind us and based on analysis of this historical data, management’s current best judgement of the useful life of catalogue content is three years.”

SG Cowen and Co. report that things won’t be so simple for Netflix, and that they will face stiff competition from Blockbuster when they go online – Blockbuster’s brand and market share will impact Netflix’s subscriber base, both in its DVD by post and online rental business, over the next few quarters.

Netflix

Netflix and TiVo to Team Up

Newsweek is reporting that Netflix and TiVo are soon to team up to offer a film on demand service. Netflix currently operate a DVD-by-post delivery mode, but clearly that doesn’t cater for the people at home who don’t really fancy waiting three days for their chosen film to show up.

In many ways, the two companies were made for each other – Netflix has a huge library of films, there are TiVo boxes sitting under thousands of television in the US.

The proposed service will allow subscribers to download DVDs directly to their TiVo box via their broadband link home, and then watch them on their television. No popping out to the video shop, no waiting for the post, no crowding around a PC to watch downloaded films.

TiVo’s first step in this direction was its acquisition of Strangeberry earlier this year – the company produced a technology that allowed TiVo owners to plug a broadband modem into the back of their PVR and download media from the internet. Since then, TiVo have made hardware and software upgrades to their platform, and improved security and other copy protection features.

If Netflix can get distribution rights to their entire library, then many people may never go out again – and the Netflix name will finally make sense.

Tivo

Netflix

Dualdisc – Yet Another Disc Format

The big four record labels have decided that the way to sell more is to launch a new format – and here it comes, DualDisc. EMI, Song BMG, Universal Music and Warner Music have been quietly scheming away to produce the new format, which, as its name suggests, is a CD – DVD hybrid.

Playable on just about any drive that can play either CDs or DVDs, the DVD partition of the disk can contain extras like videos, interviews and photo galleries. How does it work? It’s really not that sophisticated – it’s just a double-sided disc with a CD substrate on one side and a DVD substrate on the other. As the format has been approved by the DVD forum, it will be allowed to carry the DVD logo.

DVD-Audio and SACD have not been very successful, and this is an attempt to recapture a lost market.

CDs are about 1.2mm thick – the new format can be about 1.5mm thick, which may cause it to jam in some players, though it is still within the upper limit for the CD standard.

The key advantage for audiophiles is that music quality is preserved. Extras on CDs tend to eat into the amount of space available for storing music, so bit rates can suffer on longer discs. Better still, listeners can enjoy DVD-A quality encoding on the DVD side at home whilst using the CD side in their cars and personal stereos. Perhaps it’s not so evil after all.

The first titles will include albums from Five for Fighting, Audioslave and Dave Brubeck. Sorry, who are these things aimed at again?

“We are delighted to be offering the first in a series of DualDisc titles,” stated Doug Morris, Chairman and CEO of Universal Music Group. “By combining music, video, interactivity and portability in a single disc, DualDisc will add an exciting new dimension to the consumer’s musical experience.”

“Dual Disc opens a new, exciting creative dimension for artists to express themselves and connect with fans. It’s an entertainment-packed product and is a big step in our effort to give fans music whenever, however and wherever they want it,” said David Munns, Chairman and CEO EMI Music North America.

DVD Plus International, a German company, is claiming ownership of a patent relating to a dual-format DVD, called, predictably, DVD Plus. Since Dualdisc is set for an October launch, they had better sort that one out pretty sharpish.

DualDisc – coming soon

MSN’s Cinema Push

MSN subscribers will soon have easier access to films and cinema, thanks to three new deals. MSN has signed deals with CinemaNow, Blockbuster and MovieTickets to allow subscribers to download films over the internet, rent DVDs and buy cinema tickets online.

“MSN is rolling out the red carpet to movie fans across the nation with easy access to renting, downloading or buying movie tickets online — making it the only Web destination for finding both old favorites and new releases through a simple click of the mouse,” said Yusuf Mehdi, corporate vice president of the MSN Information Services & Merchant Platform division at Microsoft.

MSN’s deal with CinemaNow will provide broadband subscribers with more than 2,000 films and hours of TV content for download or streaming to their PCs. The MSN customised version of CinemaNow will offer content from 20th Century Fox, Disney, MGM and others.

Subscribers will also be able to rent up to three DVDs at a time from Blockbuster 25,000 title library for US$20.

For those of us who still prefer seeing their films in the old school way – actually visiting a cinema, MSN has renewed and expanded their deal with MovieTickets.com to offer online ticket booking at 750 cinemas from 32 theatre chains.

Movies at MSN

DVD Jon Cracks AirPort

More bad news for Apple keeping its grip on iTunes and its related technologies – DVD Jon has cracked the encryption behind AirPort.

Jon Lech Johansen came to fame five years ago when he co-authored DeCSS, an application for decrypting DVD video content. He wrote the software so he could watch his legally acquired DVDs on his Linux PC. I would like to point out that he was just 15 when he managed that. Now the Norwegian programmer has managed to discover the key that AirPort Express uses when sending data between iTunes and Apple’s wireless base station.

Apple is currently in cat fight with Real Networks over Harmony, a technology that allows Real content to be played on the iPod. DVD Jon has just made it possible for third party software and hardware producers to stream music to AirPort express from other music programs. An example picked from random, I suppose, would be Real Player – music lovers will now be able to stream music from Real Player or Windows Media to their AirPort receivers.

Johansen has released the source code to JustePort, a command-line tool that demonstrates how music can be streamed to AirPort.

SoSueMe – Jon Lech Johansen’s blog

US “Family Movie Act” Will Approve Parental Content Filtering

The Motion Picture Association of America is unhappy about HR4586, the “Family Movie Act”. The act will allow companies like Clearplay to manufacture software for filtering content from DVDs, without film studios suing over their product being tampered with.

As always, censorship is an emotive issue: parents should have the right to protect their children from inappropriate material… but then perhaps they should be more selective about what finds its way into the DVD player when their kids are parked in front of it?

“The technology my legislation allows does not alter any movie’s violence, sex and profanity,” said Lamar Smith, the Republican sponsoring the bill through Senate. “But it does allow parents to skip over the movie’s violence, sex and profanity. If they choose to designate a technology company to help them accomplish this, more power to them.”

Not being a parent, I’m somewhat baffled here: why would you want to sit your child through a film based around the themes of sex, violence and profanity, even if it is filtered?

Nevertheless, the studios are unhappy about someone else, the consumer with some software, having the final cut on their films. So this is all about artistic integrity is it? No, this is Hollywood.

Jack Valenti, MPAA CEO testified that legislation wasn’t necessary because studios are already working with movie filtering companies and directors to create new, edited versions of popular films that are more family friendly. Of course, having two versions of a film in the shops means more sales for the movie industry, whereas just one version means that it’s the filtering company that makes the money and not the studios.

Valenti’s statement

Lamar Smith on the Family Movie Act

Are There Really 1.67 million Illegal Movie Downloaders in the UK?

The British Video Association (BVA) has surveyed 16,000 people between 12 and 74 and extrapolated that there are 1.67 million illegal film downloaders in the UK, as they believe that 4% of the population are indulging in the practice.

We think this gives an inaccurate picture. The entire population doesn’t have internet access, and downloading all of Kill Bill Volume 1 on a dialup is frankly insane, limiting this kind of piracy to broadband subscribers. Ofcom estimates that there are around 4 million broadband homes out there – so perhaps 4% of them are downloading, making it roughly 160,000 pirates (which we feel is more accurate), or perhaps 25% of broadband subscribers are pirates (which we doubt).

The BVA goes on to estimate that this downloaders cost the video industry £45 million (€) in lost revenue. A quick calculation on the back of an HP48 shows that this is roughly two full price DVDs per downloader – yet the BVA goes on to say that the average downloader grabs some 30 films and TV episodes a year. Since many downloaders like to collect and share files for kudos, we suspect the picture in the UK is of around 160,000 pirates downloading 30 films.

Interestingly, according to the survey, the average downloader is under 35, male, and lives in the south of England – presumably because broadband is more prevalent there and not because they’re more prone to thieving.

The BVA’s report

Netflix Switching to Web Delivery

Netflix, the online DVD rental firm has plans to deliver films via the internet by 2005: “Our strategy is to get huge in DVDs and then expand into downloads,” Reed Hastings, Netflix Chief Executive, said to Reuters.

Netflix’s business model currently operates around the postal service – users browse the Netflix site, selecting titles they wish to view. DVD’s are then delivered to the company’s 1.9 million subscribers by post. Cutting out the postal service will pay for online delivery and allow Netflix to invest in more content. Hastings estimates that a download service will have 5 million subscribers by 2006.

Netflix currently charge US$20 (€17) a month for their postal-delivery service, and are proposing a US$22 (€18.50) per month charge for their download offering.

Netflix don’t want to download to computers, instead using a broadband connection direct to the TV set-top box – rather like Blockbuster’s unique VOD service in the UK.

Competition is going to be fierce – more movie download services are in the pipeline and Netflix will have to go up against strongly-backed groups like Movielink and CinemaNow. Movielink was formed by five major studios: MGM Studios, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Universal Studios and Warner Bros. CinemaNow counts Microsoft and Blockbuster amongst their investors.

Netflix

CinemaNow

MovieLink