For any of you who are looking for an overview of Digital Rights Management and content protection, this is a great show. This week’s guest if Brian Baker, the CEO of Widevine Technologies. Brian gives us some background on his company, which is multi-platform and network content protection provider. Mike Wolf of ABI Research asks Brian about the differences around the traditional conditional access market and DRM, as well as how the music DRM market differs from that of the premium video market. Some highlights:
-Brian talks about his discussions with music labels who are interested in using non-player and digital marketplace specific DRM
- Brian talks about how studios are looking not only to protect their premium digital video assets, but also looking to content protection to protect the integrity of the embedded advertising in the video
-Brian talks about efforts around in-home distribution and protecting content as it moves from device to device
Great call this week, as Mike Wolf of ABI Research talks to Tom Cullen, the VP of Sales and Marketing for Sonos. Sonos is a manufacturer of wireless multi-room audio systems, and Tom tells us about how Sonos went through an intense period of useability testing - as they tap the expertise of the woman who helped with useability for Philips’ Streamium products - to put useability “in the bones of the device”.
Some interesting info Tom reveals about the typical Sonos user:
-typically male
-have thousands of tracks
-typical income is over $100 thousand
-users are generally not in their 20s, but typically 30-45
-Average of 3 rooms supported per customer, up from 2 rooms just a couple years ago
-The average user say their music listening has doubled since buying their Sonos system.
Fascinating call this week as Mike Wolf of ABI Research talks to Ashwin Navin, the President and cofounder of BitTorrent. Ashwin gives some of the background on the founding of the company with Bram Cohen and goes on to talk about some of the company’s initiatives with its BitTorrent DNA, efforts to put the BitTorrent client in consumer electronics devices, as well as talking about the company’s efforts to work with media companies to overcome the long-held perception that P2P is a dirty word.
For those of you interested in networked entertainment - specifically portable networked entertainment - this is a show you can’t miss. We spend some time with the Chief Operating Officer of Archos, Larry Smith. Archos is a pioneering portable media player vendor, being one of the first to deliver Wi-Fi connected portable media players. My discussion with Larry is pretty wide ranging, as we talk about how the new Generation 5 of Archos media players differs from previous generations, what Archos can do against the Apple freight train, and the likelihood of mobile broadband in the next generation of Archos PMPs.
Some interesting take-aways:
-55% of those who bought Archos PMPs in the U.S. last year bought the DVR Station add-on, effectively allowing themselves to make their portable media device a PVR
-25% of those who buy a PMP from Archos buy software add-on modules from Archos for new functionality. Archos is looking to take a more modular approach going forward as it allows them to reduce cost for their overall customer base while giving options to those who want to buy the modules
-They are looking at adding 3G connectivity such as WiMax in the sixth generation devices, as well as VOIP. My feeling is that the 3G is a potential, but that it may slip to later generations.
Anyway, lots of great info in this one as as Mike Wolf of ABI Research talks to Larry about the future of connected portable entertainment.
Take a listen :
Welcome back from (in the U.S, at least) a holiday week. This week’s show features an interview with Ronen Mizrahi, the founder of TVersity. TVersity is a media server, content management and entertainment guide application that can be downloaded for free at Tversity.com.
Ronen founded the company in 2004 and the company’s application has been available in beta since 2005. The product features a number of interesting capabilities, including a DLNA server, on the fly transcoding of a number of different media formats as well as a entertainment guide. The app works with all three consoles and can also be used with Nokia’s 770/N800 web tablets.
Mike Wolf of ABI Research talks to Ronen about his reason for founding the company and discussing the various iterations as TVersity marches towards release 1.0.
We have a great show with Ian McCarthy of Orb Networks. Ian and I chat about all things iPhone, as well as look at how Orb is doing now that it has been launched for all three of the big game consoles. Ian touches on the new Realplayer as well as his own digital home set up.
Enjoy the show!
Show Outline
2:00 – Show structure and format
2:30 – Digital Media Happenings
10:10 – Hello to Ian
11:30 – Three game consoles and Orb adoption
15:15 – Wii vs. 360 vs. PS3 as network extenders
21:20 – the Apple iPhone
23:15 – Apple positioning of iPhone
27:15 – openness of iPhone platform
29:00 - YouTube on iPhone
30:30 – Apple vs. Sony
32:21 – Apple TV and Media Center Extenders
35:45 – PSP phone and Walkman phone
40:01 – DRM on iPod
41:35 – new Real Player
46: 02 – remote vs. local storage of media and should you download media?
49:20 – renting vs. owning music
53:05 – Archos Wi-Fi players
58:20 – Ian’s digital home setup
1:00:01 – Ian’s final thoughts
1:02:44 – Goodbye
The first show back and its a great one. Joe Belfiore is our guest and gives us a great update on all things media center. We talk about CableCard, the launch of Media Center in Vista and the online features of Media Center in Vista.
Take a listen.
(Note: having trouble with this post in Wordpress - will repost showtimes hopefully later today or tomorrow…)
I was a little confused by the name of the product, which half-sounded like a virtual press area (they were announcing it from a trade show after all) and also somewhat Media-Center-ish. The new platform is really just the next iteration of their Microsoft IPTV software, and the new features include the ability to share home photos, video and content on your PC with your IPTV set top box. Sound familiar? Details are scant at this point, but I am curious if there are any of the same underlying pieces of code powering media center extender with the new Mediaroom. I have a feeling there is. I’ll try and get a Microsoft TV person on the show sometime soon.
I imagine that many of you gave up on Real Player quite a while ago, and I can’t blame you. I have a copy one of my machines, but I hardly use it anymore, except for the not-so-common chance I come across a site streaming in Real format. But with the new Real Player 11, I have a feeling after talking to Real today that I (and a few others) might give it a look.
The reason for this is its the easiest way I’ve seen to download web video. There are, of course, tools out there to download web video today, but none in such an easy way across formats (Real Player 11 supports Flash, Windows Media, Real and Quicktime). And while you can’t use the forthcoming version to send the content to another device (that feature is coming), you can do it in Windows Media Center as well as through the normal Windows of Mac file system.
Another interesting feature is the ability to burn DVDs. Now I probably wouldn’t pay the $30 they want for the ability to burn the videos onto a DVD since I already have good DVD burning software, but I imagine some who want an all in one solution would.
Another thing that turned me and many others off of Real Player a while ago was the annoying upsell to Real services like Rhapsody and others. They told me they’ve stripped the new player of this, and if what they say is true, this is another reason to give Real Player another try.
I’m curious - is anyone else looking to give the new Real Player a try?
A new company called Eye-Fi has developed an SD card with Wi-Fi to allow legacy digicams to transfer photos. I know the likes of Canon, Nikon (especially Nikon) and others have pushed out integrated Wi-Fi cameras, but this company would argue that there are tens of millions of cameras out there that need Wi-Fi. The card combines the memory with Wi-Fi (most cameras only have one SD slot).
My question to you, the Media Center community, is how appealing is Wi-Fi connected cameras? I think being able to replace the USB cable is great, but I actually usually just pop my SD card into my PC to transfer. Am I like everyone else, or are you looking to use the network for photo uploading and display?
