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CinemaNow Delivers Music Videos for PC, Mobiles Broadband movie-on-demand outfit CinemaNow appears to be a company that's open to new ideas. Along with Movielink, it was one of the first companies to rent movies that are downloaded over broadband connections, the first to offer some of those movies on a download-to-buy basis and recently started offering news on-demand and renting exclusive previously unaired TV programs. Now CinemaNow has branched out even more - all the way to mobile devices. The company has launched WatchMusicHere.com, a new Web site that lets visitors download music videos. The videos, which are purchased on a permanent basis rather than offered for rent, range in cost from $1.99-$2.99 each. Once a video is purchased, the user can watch it an unlimited number of times on the selected playback device. Like most of the other for-pay music and video download sites out there, WatchMusicHere is only compatible with Windows-based PCs and portable devices. When a user chooses a video to download, he specifies whether it will be played back on a PC, Portable Media Center, Pocket PC or Smartphone. He can then download the video in the appropriate format to a PC and transfer it to the secure device using Windows Media Player 10. Because the video files use Windows Media 10 technology, they're all protected with digital rights management and can only play back on a single device. They can, however, be burned to CD for storage. According to the WatchMusicHere site, even if burned to a CD, the disc will only play on the PC to which the file was downloaded; it won't play in DVD players or other PCs. CinemaNow has secured licensing deals with Warner Music Group and TVT Records to sell their videos through the new service. The DVD-quality videos are available in a variety of genres including country, electronica, metal, pop, R&B, rap and rock. According to the companies, this is the first time that record labels are offering both "classic" and new music videos through an online service. "As the innovator in digital sell-through technology and the leader in providing video content for mobile devices, expanding beyond movies and TV shows is a natural extension," said CinemaNow president Bruce Eisen. "Launching WatchMusicHere.com is another demonstration of the diverse applications for our new revenue stream and we are equally thrilled to be working with Microsoft's Windows Mobile division to continue to provide valuable content for their innovative product lines." The site launched with 75
videos and expects to add more than 1,500 by the end of the
year. Back
to Headlines
TiVo this week landed a major deal with Comcast, the world's largest cable TV service. Comcast's DVR users, including those using existing non-TiVo-based Comcast-supplied DVRs, will in mid-to-late 2006 be able to access and use the TiVo service and also its interactive advertising capability. The two companies said the seven-year deal calls for them to work together to develop a version of the TiVo service that will be incorporated into Comcast's existing network and marketed under the TiVo brand name in the majority of Comcast's operating geography. Financial terms of the non-exclusive deal were not detailed. It's known, however, that Comcast will pay TiVo an upfront fee for the technology, followed by monthly fees that are based on the number of Comcast customers who subscribe to the TiVo service and the advertising revenue. When asked on CNBC's "Closing Bell" why Comcast subscribers, who could get Comcast's DVR service included in the monthly fee, would pay an additional $2 to $4 a month for the TiVo service, TiVo vice-chairman Tom Rogers said that TiVo users fall in love with the service. They say it changes their life, he said. He also noted that Comcast's monthly fee for the TiVo service had not been announced. A SunTrust Robinson Humphrey analyst speculated that if TiVo received a dollar a month per Comcast TiVo subscriber, it would get $19 million a year if 20% of Comcast's digital TV subscribers signed up. Subscribers to Comcast's version of the TiVo service will be able to use the "award winning" TiVo user interface for functions such as "Season Pass" - for recording all episodes of a TV series, "Wish List" - for finding and/or recording TV shows and movies with specified actors and actresses and "Suggestions" - for getting recommendations and occasional automatic recordings of TV shows based on past viewing habits. One significant function Comcast's TiVo users will get that DirecTV has disabled is the ability to schedule recording over the Net, such as from the office. A Focus on Home Networking The companies said that the service "will showcase TiVo's home networking, multimedia and broadband capabilities." According to Motorola, that means subscribers will actually be able to use those functions. This is an important distinction because: a) with those functions enabled, the DVR becomes the leading contender to turn into the media server for home networks in competition with other devices, most notably those based on an Intel-Microsoft platform; and b) it would give Comcast a competitive edge over the DirecTV TiVo box and service, its most formidable competitor. Even though networking, multimedia and broadband capabilities are built into DirecTV's TiVo boxes, the satellite TV provider has disabled them for undisclosed reasons. Comcast's inclusion of those three functions could put pressure on DirecTV to make those functions operational. Silencing the Critics It's estimated that TiVo, with help from DirecTV, had about one-third of the DVR market last year. Rogers was quoted in an AP article as saying that the Comcast deal was like an icebreaker. Rogers, who was once the VP for cable TV at NBC, said, "I've done a lot of deals with the cable industry, and when you do a deal with the largest cable operator it's very helpful in opening up other doors in the industry." Landing an account such as Comcast is like TiVo getting a new source of financing because it has the money and the incentive to get as many DVRs installed as it can. Comcast, for example, charges $9.95 a month for the DVR including the box and the service; another $5 a month gets high-definition. DirecTV charges $49 for its version of the TiVo box and $4.95 a month for all a home's TiVos. It gets rid of the monthly fee if the subscriber takes DirecTV's premium package. TiVo itself charges $12.95 a month or $295 for a lifetime subscription.
Comcast's Motorola box and DirecTV's TiVo boxes both have dual tuners - record one channel, watch another. TiVo's own unit does not. Comcast's dual tuners require only a single cable line to the DVR, but DirecTV's dual-tuner requires a second line from the dish to the receiver. DirecTV includes a "standard" installation, but the installer has to drill more holes. Also, the DirecTV box has to be connected to a telephone line - how 20th century - the Comcast box does not. Comcast chairman and CEO Brian Roberts said that his company is focused on "providing our customers with a 21st Century television experience." He said, "TiVo has revolutionized the way consumers watch and access home entertainment. By partnering with TiVo, we are continuing to deliver technology that enables our customers to watch what they want when they want on TV. This agreement also reflects our commitment to work with leading technology providers to offer customers more value and choice in their home entertainment experience." Finally, a Cable Deal TiVo executives told financial analysts in January that it did not need to sign a cable TV company to grow its business. The company said that it could make it selling products to consumers through retail outlets. Piper Jaffray senior research analyst Gene Munster told the AP that the Comcast deal represents a "180-degree turn" from the independent approach - but the reversal was shrewd. It was this or an acquisition. The company is still troubled. But if they're successful in making similar deals with other cable companies, getting other subscribers hooked onto the service, the company could be viable." "It is very important that TiVo has found a way to work with the nation's largest cable operator on a cooperative basis to develop a state-of-the-art TiVo service, fully integrated with a cable set-top box, that will make TiVo available to millions of cable viewers," said TiVo's Rogers. "This is a real milestone for TiVo and for the cable industry, but most importantly it is a milestone for television viewers." Steve Burke, president of Comcast Cable and COO of Comcast, said the company is excited about adding the TiVo service to its video-on-demand, high-definition broadcasts and other premium services. He acknowledged TiVo's "clear track record of customer loyalty" and its "cutting edge features." As an extension of the relationship, TiVo and Comcast will make TiVo's interactive advertising platform available across Comcast's customer base "without interrupting the award-winning TiVo subscriber experience." Hello TiVo, Come Join Moto Motorola has the advantage over rival Scientific-Atlanta in that its architecture is more open. Motorola's DVR platform lets cable TV service providers select the DVR software and service that they prefer. Moto provides the hardware and the basic DVR functions - record, pause, play, rewind, forward and storage functions - while TiVo or another DVR service provides the user interface for those and other functions plus the on-screen program schedule - the electronic TV program guide. The cable TV service could also offer other DVR software and guides such as TV Guide and Guideworks Guideworks is a joint venture of Comcast and Gemstar-TV Guide International. Digeo lost out on the Comcast-Motorola deal, at least for now, likely because its software requires pricier hardware than does TiVo. Ucentric, which Motorola recently acquired, does not have DVR software. It offers home networking by using IP-over-coaxial technology developed by Entropic for the Multimedia over Coax Alliance (MoCA). The Entropic technology has some advantages over Wi-Fi such as enabling multiple standard and high-definition video and data services to be simultaneously distributed throughout the home, over existing unmodified coaxial cable, without the need for a service call by a technician. Motorola, which shipped about one million DVRs last year, also has DVR deals with the likes of Time Warner Cable, Charter, Adelphia and Cablevision plus a number of cable TV companies in Latin America, Asia and India. It also landed a deal recently with Verizon, which has promised to become a major supplier of TV services in its territory. Where Now TiVo? However, the Comcast
opportunity won't start until mid-to-late 2006, perhaps at the
same time that DirecTV's TiVo sales starts to ebb. Ramsay said
on announcing the Comcast deal that deploying the TiVo service
to millions of Comcast homes nationwide would enhance TiVo's
recurring revenues. As to competition in the DirecTV account, Ramsay said that there have been a variety of delays to DirecTV's own HD DVR. He said that there is "industry skepticism around when it is going to arrive," but that the company had assumed it would happen in the latter part of this year. TiVo as DVR Value Leader TiVo said that for its first quarter ending April 30 it will add between 265,000 and 300,000 subscribers. DirecTV will account for 200,000 to 225,000, with TiVo's retail efforts adding another 65,000 to 75,000. DirecTV now accounts for two million of TiVo's total three million subscribers. Ramsay said that trends in digital media favor the company, citing the popularity of iPods, the growth in the number of homes with broadband and consumers becoming aware of the any time, anywhere advantages that digital media offers. He talked about the company developing TiVo capabilities for the PC and a TiVoToGo function that will let subscribers transfer recorded TV shows and movies to portable video players. Personalization, control and mobility were the keywords Ramsay used to describe the benefits the company's technology offers. Ramsay said he still believed it is possible in the next three to four years to get 10 million subscribers, a goal he had discussed in past meetings with analysts. He does not foresee the company changing its subscription fee - $12.95 a month or $295 for a "lifetime." The company is particularly
keen to license its technology to CE companies who could then
use it to develop innovative products that would increase
TiVo's subscription revenues. Ramsay cited a Humax-made TV
with a built-in TiVo DVR as an example. He said the company is
number one in the US for sales of DVD recorders with a
built-in hard disk. Back
to Headlines What's with DVRs? Aren't They Just VCRs with a Hard Disk? When they first came to market, the TiVo and ReplayTV DVRs seemed to be nothing more than VCRs with a hard disk and all the resultant benefits - easy to use, no tape cassettes to change and keep up with plus the always appealing "instant replay. If that were all they did, they'd have no role in the digital media market. Add a network/Internet connector to the DVR and it suddenly has the potential to become the dominant product category of digital media - the home's digital media server. Properly equipped, a DVR-centric product can attract a large number of users - TiVo already has three million in the US, which would become the installed base for storing the family's collection of movies, music, home videos and digital photographs. It's the DVR functions that'll attract consumers; it's the home server capability that will keep them. Few families would want to give up a DVR that stores the family's digital treasures. Remember all those tapes of TV shows and movies that people collected but rarely watched? The same phenomenon causes people to keep everything they possibly can on their DVRs, rarely deleting anything until necessary. Remarkably, none of the best selling DVRs come from the traditional CE makers such as Sony, Matsushita (Panasonic) and Toshiba None are based on the Wintel technology from Intel and Microsoft Instead startup TiVo, plus .Motorola and Scientific-Atlanta, two traditional set-top box makers dominate. With the momentum the three have, it'll be tough for the CE makers or PC makers to catch up. The DVR market does not appear to be a traditional retail business. It looks to be a market that consumers will order from their TV service supplier. Look at TiVo, the only known brand name DVR, excluding the diminutive ReplayTV. Like the brands "Kleenex" and "Xerox," TiVo has come to mean the recording of a TV show as in "I TiVoed the game." TiVo's Q1 forecast is that it'll sell only 65,000 to 75,000 units in retail stores compared to the 265,000 to 300,000 it expects DirecTV to ship. It's difficult to see how a Sony or a Samsung, a Dell or an HP could move into the DVR market at this last date and sign up one of the cable or satellite TV services. If the DVR makers keep adding digital media functions - and if the cable and satellite TV services keep pushing them - DVRs will become the centerpiece of the home's digital entertainment network. There is another important
point about the DVR business. Whoever controls the home's DVR
will be in a position to control the home's network. Consumers
don't have the time or expertise to do all the "tech
support" that business and government organizations must
provide to keep all their gear functioning. There will exist
at least two revenue opportunities in home networking: a)
installing and maintaining home networks and digital media
devices and b) off-site backup storage for the family's
digital jewels. Back
to Headlines Outgoing FCC chairman Michael Powell was interviewed at this week's "Voice on the Net 2005" conference in San Jose where ZDNet's Charles Cooper got these comments from him: -"Broadband is the fastest adopting technology innovation in US or world history," in response to criticism that the US broadband market trails that of other countries, that "it is in shambles." "No one turns a switch on and changes the world in a revolution." -"I think the telecom industry is in need of restructuring. I don't think it's in a healthy place for where it needs to be for all the digital changes taking place. The long distance industry is collapsing rapidly and for good reasons. Long distance is becoming a virtually free commodity. It's hard to have a multibillion-dollar business intent on providing a service that essentially consumers bypass for almost nothing.... The phone industry has been incredibly ripe for more power being pushed to the consumer and a lot more control over their voice communication services." -On the current state of old
media: "Audiences are fragmenting, newspapers are
collapsing, consumers are skipping commercials, putting
threats on free over the air broadcasts. More and more
Americans are paying for TV rather than getting it for free.
We have a high-definition transition that needs to be
spurred." Back
to Headlines Veil of Next Xbox Partially Lifted The next Microsoft Xbox will be much more than a videogame console. It will be an "entertainment gateway" that will work with other media such as digital music and online communication, according to Microsoft's corporate VP and chief XNA architect J Allard speaking at the Game Developer's Conference in San Francisco as reported by eweek.com He said the unit will provide ultimate ease-of-use and customization =for gamers and a very developer-friendly architecture. Consumers should expect it to pave the way for the HD "era" of gaming. "In the HD era, the platform is bigger than the professor," Allard said in a written statement. "New technology and emerging consumer forces will come together to enable the rock stars of game development to shake up the old establishment and redefine entertainment as we know it." Microsoft, whose PR air is
being sucked up these days by Sony's new PlayStation Portable
(PSP), provided some details about the next Xbox. Consumers
will be able to play their own music while playing games.
They'll be able to download new game levels, skins, maps,
weapons, vehicles and content created by other gamers.
Back
to Headlines President Jacques Chirac told
France's national library to draw up a plan to put European
literary works on the Internet. Chirac wants a Euro- and
French-centric online library similar to the one Google is
doing. Chirac approved research into the project when
Jean-Noel Jeanneney, who heads the national library, said that
Google's plan to put books from some of the world's great
libraries online would favor the English language.
Back
to Headlines 35.5m New DSL Subscribers in 2004; World Total Passes 100m A few years ago many scoffed at the thought there would one day be 100 million broadband connections. The number of DSL broadband connections exceeded that number last month, and that's not counting the millions of folks that use their cable TV service for a high-speed connection. The growth rate for broadband has been phenomenal - over one-third of the DSL installed base, 35.5 million, were added in 2004. That's one new install every second. These numbers come from the DSL Forum and were compiled by industry analyst Point Topic. DSL connections in the US surpassed 16 million in 2004, with 4.3 million new connections. Canada now has 2.6 million DSL subscribers and Latin America sits at 3.4 million, with Brazil leading the way with more than half of the region's subscribers. Worldwide, DSL growth was enormous. Turkey, now approaching half-a-million DSL subscribers, showed a 725% increase last year, the Czech Republic 589% and Ireland 351%. Mexico, Malaysia, New Zealand and Lithuania all experienced DSL subscriber growth of 100% or more. China, the world's largest DSL population, saw a 2004 increase in DSL subscribers of more than 8.5 million. Rapid growth in European Union subscribers in both established and emerging broadband markets reinforced the EU's position as the number one DSL region worldwide. France came first with 3.25 million DSL subscribers added over the year. The UK grew by 2.8 million, Italy by 1.73 million and Germany by 1.4 million. "It is a significant success to have reached the 100 million subscriber milestone, with rapid growth in every region of the world," said Steve Kingdom, newly elected president of the DSL Forum. "It is also fitting that this accomplishment was announced at CeBIT 2005, as consumer electronics and the connected home have been, and will continue to be, major drivers in DSL deployment. We must now turn our sights to facilitating the achievement of our target of 500 million DSL subscribers by 2010." Point Topic founder Tim Johnson said, "While ADSL continues to dominate current DSL connectivity, deployment increasingly includes newer DSL options. ADSL2plus is rapidly growing in Sweden, Norway and France, with trials beginning in the USA and services coming on-stream in the Netherlands in 2005. This is increasingly the basis for triple play services. VDSL had at least five million connections by the end of 2004 - mostly in South Korea, Japan and China. VDSL2, delivering 100 Mbps over a single phone line, may provide new impetus when that is standardized in May 2005. We are also starting to see increased roll out of symmetric DSL services, with 1.2 million subscribers worldwide by the end of 2004." At CeBIT 2005 the DSL Forum
exhibited interactive DSLHome Showcase, bringing CeBIT
visitors the opportunity to experience firsthand how DSL can
improve their customers' lives. Focusing on educating
attendees about the potential of the newly evolved IP-centric
DSL architecture, and the variety of exciting services that
DSL empowers, the show provides a tour of the intelligent
home, including hands-on demonstrations of video on demand,
streaming video, IP telephony, online gaming, medical
applications, parental control and video conferencing.
Back
to Headlines Mediakabel Launches 3G Triple-Play Service Holland's Mediakabel has
launched a 3G Triple Play Content Platform called "Manycast"
that enables phone companies to offer live and on-demand video
services via cable, mobile phones and the Internet. Content
owners can deliver their goodies through various Web and WAP
portals as well as offer their services directly to consumers.
Manycast offers a fully automated workflow for managing,
encoding, publishing and distributing live television and
radio, as well as on-demand services to set-top boxes, PCs,
PDAs and mobile phones. It offers advanced digital rights
management (DRM) and a variety of payment options.
Back
to Headlines BT is trying to prevent Britain's Ofcom's telecommunications regulatory agency from splitting it into a BT Wholesale and a BT Retail operation. The company will appear before the Trade and Industry Select Committee to defend itself. BT's claim is that a "whole" BT is better for consumers. It also says there's no precedent outside the UK for the successful splitting up of an incumbent operator. At one time there was some talk in the US about splitting the regional phone companies into wholesale and retail operations but that thought has disappeared. In fact, the US telephone companies are in the process of recombining after a federal judge split the AT&T monopoly into regional services, leaving AT&T as a combination manufacturing-long distance company. There are only four regional phone companies remaining. One of them, SBC, is in the process of acquiring the remnants of AT&T. Providing competition to the ex-Bell companies are the cable TV and cell phone companies. However, even the majority of cell phone customers use a service owned by a regional telco, including Verizon with its Verizon Wireless and the joint ownership of Cingular, which recently acquired AT&T Wireless, by SBC (60%) and BellSouth (40%). Ofcom's goal is to ensure that
other phone retailers receive the same arms-length treatment
and access that BT gives its retail operation. BT and its
rivals will give evidence to Parliament this summer.
Back
to Headlines China's ZTE Lands France Telecom DSL Order China's phone gear maker ZTE
has landed an order for all of France Telecom's ADSL
equipment. France Telecom and China Telecom had signed a
partnership agreement that called for the two to make ADSL
gear purchases jointly. ZTE previously signed up China
Telecom. Back
to Headlines Ireland Gets Faster Broadband; Lobby Group Wants More Ireland's incumbent telco
Eircom will double the entry-level speed for broadband from
0.512 Mbps to 1 Mbps. The company also offers 2 Mbps to 4
Mbps. The lobbying group IrelandOffline says the increase
doesn't go far enough. The group's chairman Damien Mulley
said, "Eircom completely failed to address the pricing
issues, which means Ireland will continue to be one of the
most expensive countries in the OECD for entry-level broadband
services, while continuing to fall behind in high speed
access. This announcement would have been impressive if it was
made two years ago, but instead we are now left playing
catch-up once again." Back
to Headlines AT&T to Test WiMAX as Phone Line Replacement AT&T, in the process of being acquired by SBC, will test the WiMAX wireless technology later this year as a replacement for traditional data phone lines to businesses, according to Reuters AT&T CTO Hossein Eslambolchi said that WiMAX, which is backed by =Intel among others, could be used as early as 2006 to replace expensive data lines that AT&T leases from local telephone companies. With WiMAX, AT&T would
"not only be able to lower its cost structure, but most
importantly be able to generate new services and new
capabilities," Eslambolchi told Reuters The tests will
send data at speeds of up to 6 Mbps for each user over =a
distance of two to five miles. Eslambolchi said the tests will
use two different varieties of WiMAX, one that requires a
receiver that has a line of sight to an antenna and another
that does not. Possible Broadband Providers WiMAX has been touted as a solution for the so-called "last mile "problem. Currently only the cable TV, phone and electric companies have wires capable of carrying Internet data to the home. The electric utilities seem frozen in implementing a broadband strategy based on the Powerline standard. The phone companies are trying to supercharge their ancient copper wire to speeds that will carry video to the home while simultaneously spending billions of dollars to install fiber optic wires to the home. The cable TV companies appear currently to have the best wire technology - the fattest pipe - and are also trying to supercharge the coaxial cable to increase data speeds. Neighborhood WiMAX would provide a fourth data distribution network to the home. The increased competition would serve to keep the other three on their toes. The satellite TV companies could provide a
possible fifth delivery mechanism but have not been, so far at
least, very aggressive at doing so. Back
to Headlines The Last 1.8-Mile Broadband Solution Motorola's Canopy WiMAX platform for the licensed 3.5GHz band is expected to be available worldwide in early 2006. The platform includes infrastructure, indoor and outdoor plug-and-play customer premise equipment (CPE) and management components. It will have a non-line-of-sight range of about three kilometers (1.8 miles). Canopy will be able to handle broadband services, video transmissions and voice-over-Internet protocol (VoIP). Motorola is expecting to sell the product to ISPs, governments, enterprises and carriers in some 85 countries. Its impact on the residential
market is unknown but could be considerable. An ISP or telecom
carrier could run a high-speed cable to the neighborhood, then
use WiMAX' wireless capability to connect individual homes - a
last "1.8-mile solution" with no costly, messy
wiring needed. Back
to Headlines NTL Sees 40% Broadband Growth, Increases Speeds UK cable TV company NTL increased its base of broadband users 40% to 1.3 million. Some 62,000 of the "adds" were from NTL's acquisition of Virgin.net in November. NTL estimates that the number of cable broadband subscribers will grow by 20%-25% this year. NTL has increased the speeds of its broadband products at no additional cost to its subscribers. The 0.3 Mbps service was increased to 1 Mbps; the 0.75 Mbps to 2 Mbps and the 1.5 Mbps service to 3 Mbps. Pricing is unchanged but a usage allowance was introduced. The 1 Mbps service has a 3GB allowance per month; the 2 Mbps and 3 Mbps services each have a 1GB per day allowance. NTL distinguishes its "allowance" from a "cap" by saying that it "reserves the right to contact customers who regularly exceed their daily usage allowance, where such excessive use impacts the quality of service for other NTL broadband customers." Before "enforcing" the allowances, which would then presumably be called "caps," NTL said it would give subscribers tools to monitor their allowances, and then offer the option of upgrading their service or paying for the increased usage. Separately, NTL said it is
testing an 18 Mbps broadband Internet service that uses ADSL2+
technology. NTL is also testing the streaming of
high-definition television over its IP-based fiber network.
Back
to Headlines EchoStar's Dish Network Hits 11m EchoStar increased its Dish
Network satellite TV service subscribers to 10.9 million at
December 31, up 15.7% over year-end 2003. In January, EchoStar
reported that Dish Network had surpassed 11 million
subscribers. The company said the growth was due to a number
of factors including the deal it made for SBC to sell the Dish
Network-branded TV service. SBC may become less dependent on
Dish for selling a bundle of services because it recently
announced that this year it will begin deploying an advanced
fiber network that will enable it to offer video services
directly. Back
to Headlines Rate Increase May Spell Death for Third-Party Broadband Providers New court-ordered FCC
regulations went into effect on March 11 that allow local
phone companies to raise the rates they charge third parties
to lease their infrastructure for providing local phone
service and DSL broadband. The so-called baby Bells - Verizon,
SBC, BellSouth and Qwest - no longer have to lease their phone
lines at government mandated rates. The expected increases are
likely to make it difficult, perhaps impossible, for the
third-party local phone and broadband providers to compete
with the Bells. AT&T, MCI, third party broadband providers
and others used the regulations to enter the local-phone and
broadband business in competition with the Baby Bells. Initial
price increases will be limited because the FCC capped how
much extra the Bells can charge over the next 12 months.
However, a year from now, they'll be able to charge whatever
they want. Back
to Headlines UK Online's 8 Mbps service,
launched in November, is available to UK households in a
number of regions, according to a BBC news report. BT Retail
will begin trials of an 8 Mbps service, which it expects to
roll out across the UK by the end of 2005, according to the
article. BT rival Wanadoo plans to trial an 8 Mbps service in
summer 2005 and also aims to roll out broadband services that
will provide speeds of up to 15 Mbps. Back
to Headlines The number of IP TV subscribers
is expected to grow from 1.9 million in 2004 to 25.3 million
in 2008, according to Multimedia Research Group It predicts IP
TV subscriber revenue will increase from $635 million =in 2004
to $7.2 billion in 2008. Back
to Headlines BT: Digital Content Market Growing Exponentially "The market for digital
content grows exponentially year on year and BT fully intends
to become a leader in this space," said BT Global
Services CEO Andy Green. The newly named BT Media and
Broadcast (BTM&B) will run BT's global media and broadcast
operations, which will integrate BT Rich Media and develops
channels to market for digital content. BTM&B will
establish a global capability with the development within 12
months of digital media hubs on the continent, the US and
Asia. The offering and structure will be based on BTM&B's
"BT Mediahive" digital content management
capabilities, enabling it to capture, store, manage and
distribute any type of media file, including video, audio and
still images. The recently established BT Entertainment
division will also take advantage of BTM&B's capabilities
to deliver consumer-facing broadband content.
Back
to Headlines Despite the race to higher
bandwidth and the implementation of triple play, most
broadband service providers in Europe do not believe they will
need to implement fiber in the next three to four years,
according to Heavy Reading's new report "Next-Generation
Broadband in Europe: The Need for Speed." -Shorter local loops in Europe -Lower interest in HDTV -High costs of deploying fiber; lack of regulatory relief for deploying fiber -Widespread belief that ADSL2+, VDSL and current-generation cable modems can supply most user needs through the rest of this decade. The report catalogs and analyzes Europe's residential broadband environment from the perspective of both the wider region and the individual national markets. Other key findings include: -Broadband adoption is surging throughout Europe, but there is still plenty of room for future growth. Total broadband lines grew by more than 65% in 2004, with the UK, France, Switzerland and Italy registering the highest growth. -For the countries included in this report, overall broadband penetration by household is 21%, but there is wide variation, with Belgium, the Netherlands and Switzerland all above 30%, and Ireland and Greece below 10%. -Among the largest national markets, Germany has the lowest penetration at 16%. -Total broadband access lines in the region will nearly quadruple over the next five years. The report predicts that broadband subscribers in this region will grow from 38 million at the end of 2004 to 128 million at the end of 2009, representing a penetration rate of 69%. -Growth is following a classic
S-curve trajectory; the forecast assumes that over the next
decade, growth will rise to 90% of households as incumbent
telcos replace their existing networks with all-broadband
networks. The report charts the current status and projected progress of residential broadband initiatives and forecasts which technologies are likely to drive the expansion of residential broadband services in Europe and which service providers are best positioned to deliver those services to Europe's broadband users. It also focuses on the broadband services deployment strategies of nearly three dozen national and pan-European network operators in these national markets, collectively covering nearly 400 million people in more than 160 million households. Based on in-depth interviews
with network operators and a thorough analysis of deployment
and market data, the report provides realistic projections for
broadband service development in Europe through 2010 and
identifies the strategies that incumbent telcos, competitors,
and cable network operators are taking to secure their
positions in the broadband market. Back
to Headlines Broadband Via Satellite Comes to European Hotels Otrum, which provides interactive TV service to European hotels, and satellite operator Telenor Satellite Broadcasting have signed a contract for the use of two-way satellite broadband. Otrum will use the service both to download films to hotels and to provide two-way broadband. Back to Headlines
LIES, DAMN LIES, AND STATISTICS US Ringtone Market To Top $700m in 2009 The US ringtone market more than doubled from $91 million in 2003 to $217 million in 2004, according to JupiterResearch The market researcher forecasts that the market will more than triple in 2009 to reach $724 million. Its recent report, "Wireless Market Forecast, 2004 to 2009," also found that revenue from mobile games hit $24 million in 2004, tripled to $72 million in 2004 and should experience significant growth through 2009, when it should reach $430 million. US Mobile Ringtone & Game
Revenue Despite the rapid growth last year, ringtones and games made up just 10% of wireless carriers' non-access data revenue in 2004. One reason for this, says JupiterResearch, is that ringtone- and game-capable handsets have yet to achieve high enough market penetration. "During the next five years, the mix of data services will evolve, but messaging will still account for 65% of non-voice, non-data access revenues," said JupiterResearch research director Julie Ask. The mix of premium content
revenue will continue to diversify over the next few years,
according to the report, as games, wallpaper, content and
productivity applications gain more traction. Ringtones will
remain the largest revenue stream for carriers in the premium
content category, but will not dominate as they have in
previous years. Back
to Headlines Digital Media Cultural Revolution Sweeping China A digital media "cultural revolution" is sweeping China, according to ABI Research, which says that the small-but-powerful objects at the center of the storm are not little red books, but portable audio and video players, along with high-definition DVD players and TVs. ABI reports that high-end TVs are gradually replacing CRT TVs in China and will do so at an increasing pace. However, 2004 was a disastrous year for China's DVD player makers who were squeezed between high patent fees and falling prices. Three high-definition disc standards surfaced in 2004: EVD, HVD and HDV. In February 2005, EVD was authorized as the recommended national standard for high-definition discs. EVD, HVD and HDV player makers face two big problems. First, they have to produce DVD-compatible players. Second, there is a severe shortage of movie content in domestic high-definition formats. While that situation lasts, soaring HD-DVD player sales will not improve the outlook for the domestic disc standard. Meanwhile, the MP3 player is replacing the traditional CD player as the mainstream audio device. Flash memory models far outnumber hard disk-based players. Color-screen MP3 players are appearing, but due to their high price and small memory, ABI Research does not expect them to sell very well. Two of ABI's recent studies shed new light on these and other important changes in the Chinese personal entertainment market: "TV, DVD Player and PVR Market Trends in China" analyzes the product lines and recent movements of domestic TV, DVD, HD DVD and PVR makers, and offers insight into the market's current status and future prospects. "The Chinese Portable
Audio and Video Market in Transition" presents a complete
list of MP4 and portable DVD player products and assesses
their market prospects, while identifying devices that attract
Chinese consumers - in turn defining opportunities for vendors
and content providers. Back
to Headlines Not All Piracy Is Music and Movies Pirates, the ones that buy, steal, download and trade illegal copies of digital media files, hit videogame suppliers just as they do the record labels and movie studios. A survey from copy-protection software outfit Macrovision of 6,000 PlayStation and Xbox videogame console users found that some 21% of them use pirated games. Macrovision does not currently make copy-protection software for videogames. This high level of piracy on consoles, which are generally considered to be secure closed systems, is surprising, according to Macrovision. The study also shows that 43% of all gamers who play pirated games download over 15 pirated titles a year. Over 74% of downloaded pirated games come from Web sites or peer-to-peer networks, while 21% of the games are copied from friends. "The prevalence of
high-speed Internet, and the availability of pirated games on
Web sites and peer-to-peer networks, have made downloading
pirated games relatively easy and widespread," said Steve
Weinstein, executive VP and general manager of Macrovision's
Entertainment Technologies Group. Back
to Headlines 'How-to' Videos Could Spark Consumer Downloads "How-to" videos could prove attractive for consumers to download. One "how-to" niche is home and garden projects. Showing the audience size for the niche are the latest Web site numbers from the Nielsen//NetRatings NetView research: Top Online Home & Garden
Destinations DVD Recorder Boom Continues, New Tech on the Way Worldwide DVD recorder unit shipments, excluding those in or connected to PCs, will climb from 9.4 million in 2004 to 67.7 million in 2009, according to market research firm In-Stat The DVD recorder market doubled in size in 2004 and will grow by 87% =in 2005, the firm says. The next wave of DVD technology - two waves, actually - are due out this year. Both are based on using blue laser to record and both offer significantly increased capacity sufficient to store complete high-definition movies on a single disc. - The Sony-backed Blu-ray: three manufacturers are already shipping in Japan. Blu-ray is backed by most of the computer industry including Apple, but so far only Disney and Sony have said they would offer movies on it. -The Toshiba-backed HD-DVD: Shipments are expected this year including about 90 movies. Warner Brow, Universal and Paramount have agreed to offer content on HD-DVD. HD-DVD units will play conventional CDs and DVDs, something that Blu-ray units will not do. In-Stat says shipments of both next-generation blue laser recorders and players, not including videogame consoles, are expected to reach four million in 2008. Sony's use of a smaller version of the Blu-ray technology calling UMD (Universal Media Disc) in its newly launched PlayStation Portable (PSP) will result in large quantities. Sony expects to ship three million or more PSPs this year. DVD recorders with digital TV
tuners will increase in the three main markets, Japan, Europe
and North America. The FCC requires every DVD recorder shipped
in the US to have a DTV tuner beginning July 1, 2007.
Back
to Headlines Philips Shows Off HD Media Processor Philips Electronics' newest PNX1700 Nexperia media processor chip offers high-definition (HD) capabilities. It combines media processing, network connectivity and display enhancement on a single chip. Philips says the PNX1700 is designed to deliver unprecedented picture quality of streaming movies, news, digital photos and TV programs, doubling the performance of previous processor chips while maintaining both hardware and software compatibility. Digital connected consumer
devices enabled by the PNX1700 include Internet-based (IP)
set-top boxes, digital media adapters, personal video
recorders, videophones and TVs. Back
to Headlines Apple Tips DVD Format Scales in Blu-ray's Favor There's an old Arabian adage that goes, "My enemy's enemy is my friend," which is not always too wise in the world of international politics, but where a business battle over a standard is concerned, it seems to hold largely true. And the arrival this week of Apple in the Sony-Philips-Matsushita-dominated Blu-ray camp reeks of a common dislike for the other side. Apple will, in fact, go onto the Blue-ray Disc Association board of directors, obviously a price Sony and friends were glad to pay to get Apple's endorsement. Apple was, after all, the very first PC maker to bundle CD drives into its devices (in the '80s) and it controls a big chunk of the TV and film industry's software for making, editing and burning DVDs and CDs. It expects to shift the market into the high-definition era sometime this year with HD versions of iMovie, Final Cut Express and Final Cut Pro editing software. Apple is also set to put out QuickTime 7 with the H.264 codec bundled in. Both moves, backing Blu-ray and bundling the MPEG-defined high-definition codec, are deliberate slaps in the face by Apple against Microsoft, which has endorsed the competing HD standard from the DVD Forum and is also offering its own codec to the digital media community. The HD DVD standard adopted both Microsoft's VC 1 and the H.264 codec alongside the existing MPEG2 standard-definition codec. Apple QuickTime 7 will come out with a new release of the Mac OS X in the first half of 2005. The Blue-ray Disc Association now has over 100 members for its 50GB disk format. Along with Apple, its board includes Dell, Hewlett Packard, Hitachi, LG Electronics, Mitsubishi, Panasonic, Pioneer, Philips, Samsung, Sharp, Sony, TDK, Thomson, 20th Century Fox and Disney. Faultline said that Blu-ray had won the DVD wars back about eight months ago, but the DVD Forum using a spec from Toshiba and NEC, refuses to lie down and claims to have signed up competing studios in Warner Bros, Universal and Paramount. The preceding article is from
Rethink Research's Faultline newsletter. Contact Charles Hall
at charles@riderresearch.com for a sample copy or subscription
details. Back
to Headlines SecureMedia, a developer of
conditional access and digital rights management technologies,
raised $4 million of venture capital financing. The Natick,
Massachusetts-based company's SecureMedia's Encryptonite
provides secure distribution for video-on-demand, broadcast TV
and other multimedia content over IP networks. Customers
include Sony, NTT, Texas Instruments and RealNetworks The
funds will be used to make additional hires in its
development, =customer support, sales and marketing divisions.
Back
to Headlines Hardware-based DRM Coming from Microsoft Dell, Hewlett-Packard and IBM
are already selling PCs with built-in "trusted
computing" hardware, according to CNET. The
specifications, developed by the Trusted Computing Group
initiative, allow software applications to "lock
down" data such as music or movie file to a specific
computer. Lock down will not be possible until Microsoft ships
the next version of Windows, code named Longhorn, in 2006 - or
later. Back
to Headlines Africa Wants First-World Countries to Self-Impose Digital Divide Tax
EU Drops Investigation into ContentGuard Acquisition The EU Commission has dropped
its investigation of Microsoft's proposed acquisition of
ContentGuard now that both Thomson and Time Warner have joined
Microsoft in the purchase of the digital rights management
firm. The Commission said that it does not have the authority
to investigate an acquisition where three companies are
involved. The commission said that Microsoft would not be able
to use DRM as a "gatekeeper" technology and
arbitrarily introduce a licensing policy. Subsequently, the
companies said they have consummated the acquisition.
Back
to Headlines Warner Asks UK To Get Tough on Movie Pirates Movie studio giant Warner Bros is urging the UK to take tougher government and police actions against film pirates who allegedly cost the movie industry more than $7 billion a year. Josh Berger, managing director of Warner's UK operations, said the movie industry is faced with the same threat that the music industry says cost them billions of dollars in sales for the past four years. "Deloitte Touche says that the cost of online piracy is even higher than the bootlegs, worth an estimated $4 billion in 2004," Berger said. The music industry says it lost an estimated $4.5 billion in lost sales of music CDs and a further $2.4 billion from online copying. "We need more help, like
encouraging the new EU accession countries to crack down on
piracy," said Berger said. "We need tougher
enforcement with police and trading-standards authorities
making combating copyright theft a high priority."
Back
to Headlines Swedes Raid Country's Largest ISP, Seizes Piracy Evidence The MPAA lauded the Swedish authorities for raiding the offices of Bahnhof, Sweden's largest ISP, last week. The Swedish anti-piracy group Antipiratbyran reportedly seized four servers that housed 1,800 movies, 5,000 warez files and 450,000 songs, in addition to data on as many as 20,000 Bahnhof users who may be guilty of copyright violations. "This was a very big raid," MPAA anti-piracy operations director John Malcolm told Reuters "The material that was seized contained not only evidence of =a piracy organization operating in Sweden but of online piracy organizations operating throughout all of Europe." The Swedish police seized
servers that stored some 23 terabytes of unlicensed material
including 1,800 digital movie files, 5,000 software
applications and 450,000 digital audio files. The MPAA said
Bahnhof had been "considered a haven for high-level
Internet piracy for years."
Back
to Headlines Apple Gains Rights to Use iTunes Domain in UK Apple has won the rights to use the itunes.co.uk domain name for its British online music service. UK domain registrar Nominet held that Benjamin Cohen, CEO of CyberBritain Holdings, was "cybersquatting" when he purchased the domain name. Napster turned down his offer to sell it the domain name in 2004. Apple had offered $45,000 for the name but Cohen wanted $50,000. Nominet also ruled that the domain |