An interesting trial is going to be starting soon, making CinemaNow’s content available to students at Duke university using their broadband network. I hope/assume the US universities have better bandwidth available to them than their UK cousins, which are normally really slow.
Microsoft to freeze their video format
Microsoft is planning to freeze the format of their Video files in an attempt give them a chance of becoming as the de facto standard, an approach that has previously been successful for them with the Audio format.
Xbox price drop in the UK
I was briefly at a MS PocketPC social event in London last night and MS had taken the opportunity of making a large numbers of Xboxes available (around 30-40). It’s no shock that the attendees were keen to play, they must be the perfect market, but they were incredibly popular. So why isn’t Xbox selling in the numbers anticipated – the price maybe?
Microsoft UK have announced they’re taking 1/3 off the price of an Xbox from 26th April, dropping the price to £199. The PR quote is that they are “determined to not make price an issue” – translation – people think it’s too expensive and the GameCube is going to be coming out at the beginning of May in the low hundreds. The current three-way battle should be interesting to watch over the coming months.
Oftel head commits to broadband
In a speech given by David Edmunds (Head of UK regulator Oftel) yesterday he outlined Oftel’s commitment of broadband through a strategy of keeping the Public’s aware of broadband, maintaining competition, controlling anti-competitive practises and regulatory guidance on widely available access.
Will current HDTV’s work in the future?
There have been rumours buzzing around about the possibility of many of the $5-10k HDTV set that have been sold in the US won’t be able to display HDTV by the time it’s actually publicly launched. A news item appears to confirm the rumour. Discussions between the Hollywood studios and equipment manufacturers has lead to the creation of the High Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI). HDMI will be the interface between the receiving set top box and the screen/monitor, enabling the content to remain encrypted up to the point it is displayed. By unscrambling at the point it is actually viewed, the studios hope to reduce unauthorised copying of films.
RealOne accounts for 49% of their revenue
Real’s RealOne monthly subscription service for audio and video content now has 600k paying members with consumer content now accounts for 49% of their total revenues.
SonicBlue to combine PVR and DVD
The constantly innovative SonicBlue have been talking about combining PVR and DVD players in the same unit for only about an extra $75 on top of one of the individual box price by xmas 2003. Their CTO also predicted that in two years they will have one terabyte of storage in their PVR – giving around 3,000 of programming.
VOD being sold as anti-piracy tool
A piece about how the VOD providers are marketing their products to studios as a way of protecting their content, by making it harder to copy that DVD and as a way for the studios to stop being dictated to by Blockbusters.
Ireland aims for widespread broadband by 2005
Ireland is hoping to have widespread broadband by 2005 and supply as many public services over these as possible.
Film world tries to fashion digital future
There has been a lot of worried people in the film world since Napster became mainstream. They’re paranoid about people stealing movies, in the same way that they were with VHS, but as history has shown, VHS was a boon for them, not a threat but that doesn’t stop them discussing how to control consumers seeing their content. Through their strong links with government they are trying to fashion the future in their image. I can half understand why they take this approach, it being better for them to be in an all powerful position, but this is not only controlling how content is copied but how and when it can be used. I’m sure most consumers feel they should pay for content and not be free to give it away to everyone at no cost. I hope the consumers will start to see the content owners ultra aggressive attitude and start to view them in their true light. After all we’re buying the product, why shouldn’t we use it in the way we feel?