News written by Ben Reid (September, 2006)

Microsoft Corp. on Thursday revealed that its upcoming Zune digital music player will retail at the same price as Apple's market-dominating iPod; even though its need to compete with the iPod pricewise may see the world's largest software maker lose money this holiday season.

"We had to look at what was in the market and offer a competitive price," said Scott Erickson, Microsoft's senior director of product marketing for Zune. "We're not going to be profitable this holiday but the Zune project is a multiyear strategy."

Once on sale on November 14, Microsoft's 30gb Zune will cost $249.99, only 99 cents more than the 30gb iPod. Also, songs on the Zune Marketplace, Microsoft's online digital music store, will cost 99 cents - the same price as Apple's iTunes Store, which currently leads the market for 'legal' online digital music downloads.

The Zune, manufactured by Japanese electronics maker Toshiba, faces a tough challenge against an iPod brand which has been around for five years and has sold millions of units worldwide on its way to the summit of the mp3 player market. But it will pack a few feature advantages over its Apple-branded rival, such as wireless connectivity, an integrated FM radio, as well as a large three-inch screen.

According to Ron Bertram, vice president and general manager of Nintendo Canada, there will be 1 million Wii consoles available at its November 19 launch date, compared to 400,000 Sony Playstation 3 consoles.

"We’re looking at a million (units) for North America at launch. When Sony came out (with their PS3 announcement), they said 300,000," told Bertram. (Actually Sony said 400,000).

Speaking in an interview with Mackenzie Financial, he added, "If we get what we're supposed to get, this will be our most plentiful launch in the 15 years I've been at Nintendo. All signs are actually extremely positive".

It's one thing to have a million consoles, but selling that amount is a different ball game. Sony, on one hand, has the advantage of a predecessor (Playstation 2) which has sold over 100 million units worldwide; and it's that past success which has given Sony a loyal army of fans. Nintendo on the other hand, might have difficulties convincing the general gamers to get a Wii at launch.

Source:
Digital Battle

Despite the fact that gamers in Japan have yet to take to its Xbox 360 console, Microsoft remains focused on breaking into the Japanese market - the second largest gaming market in the world behind North America.

Xbox chief Peter Moore is fully aware that cracking the lucrative Japanese market is decisive to the console's overall sucess. "We didn't get the right content and we admit that we didn't do a great job here," said Mr Moore, talking to BBC News. "There is probably no more challenging a market for us than the Japanese market."

Microsoft has struggled so far to make an impact on a Japanese market in which gamers are fiercely loyal to home grown brands and games. Sony, for example, has shifted more 23 million of its PlayStation 2 consoles in its native country - accounting for nearly a quarter of overall worldwide sales, whereas Microsoft has only managed to sell a mere 1.8 million units of its original Xbox console throughout the whole of Asia, including Japan.

Microsoft will be launching a new wave of Xbox 360 games, including 'Lost Odyssey' and 'Blue Dragon', designed by Hironobu Sakaguchi - the man who pioneered the Final Fantasy series. The aim of releasing such titles is to give the 360's catalogue a more "Japanese feel", in order to woo Japanese gamers. "We're doing a lot to feel more Japanese, less American and less like an imported product," said Mr Moore.

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has found a new weapon in its battle against widespread movie piracy - a pair of DVD-sniffing Labrador Retrievers.

The purpose of the canine duo, named 'Lucky' and 'Flo', will be to sniff out optical discs in luggage or other containers, preventing the discs from getting to manufacturing plants where they can be reproduced.

The MPAA claims the illegal copying of movies and television shows on DVDs and other media cost them more than $6.1 billion in lost sales in 2005, and that $3.8 billion was lost to hard-goods piracy including bootlegging and illegal copying, with Internet piracy leaving it $2.3 billion short.

In recent years, the trade organization has stepped up its fight against intellectual property theft, including filing lawsuits against some individuals caught illegally sharing its movies on the Net. However, with billions of dollars still being "lost" to rampant global piracy, it's fair to say the MPAA still has huge task on its hands.

Source:
Reuters

Earlier this year, Korean electronics company LG indicated that it was considering creating a player that could house the ability to play both Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD movies, but that now does not appear likely - at least not for the time being.

"We have had discussions about having such a device, but there are no official plans at the moment," said LG spokesman John Taylor. "The product in question was never really fleshed out in a lot of detail publicly."

Many believe that building a home player that could read the discs of both high-definition formats is practicible. Some, such as Sony Electronics COO Stan Glasgow believe cost is a major obstacle to such a project. The 'evolution' into High Definition is still in its early stages, therefore prices for HD hardware are high. Standalone HD players currently retail at about $500, while Blu-ray players sell for around double that. (Although Glasgow believes the prices of Blu-ray players will have halved to around $500 by next year.)

Steve Baker, an analyst with sales & marketing research firm NPD Group, doesn't believe a lack of a combination player in the near future is a major issue. "These are early-adopter products. It is fine if there is a fight right now," he said.

With only 75 movies currently available and only a week having passed since launch, Walt Disney Co. has already sold in excess of 125,000 feature film downloads in what appears to be a winning partnership with Apple Computer and its iTunes Store.

"This is just the beginning," promised Robert Iger, Disney's CEO, in the presence of Wall Street analysts at a conference Tuesday. He expects $50million to be made from movie sales through the service over the course of the next year.

Iger also said that offering online movie downloads is good for the company's business, as the only fee it has to pay is the cost of encoding.

Speaking at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia in New York of the company's drive to suceed in this new field, he said, "We are very, very bullish on consumption of electronically delivered media."

Source:
washingtonpost

Cellphone manufacturer Sony Ericsson on Tuesday became the latest in a long line of companies to enter the digital music download market by announcing its new offering, M-BUZZ. The main goal of the new service is to promote fresh and up-and-coming artists.

Two phones will initially offer the service, the W850 and W950 Walkman handsets which were announced earlier this year. Both phones will debut European, Asian and Latin American markets later this year, however, the the new service will not be available to North American consumers - at least not to begin with.

"Today's announcement is another great example of the cooperative spirit that exists between Sony Ericsson and other Sony Group companies, which gives us a unique opportunity to bring appealing, innovative content to our mobile phones," said Miles Flint, president of Sony Ericsson.

The offering is a development of the company's PlayNow service, which previously allowed customers to sample and purchase ringtones using their handsets.

Material available through the new service is set to include music videos, songs, biographies, tour schedules, as well as other content.

Yahoo! Music users will be able to download Jesse McCartney's new album "Right Where You Want Me," album in either MP3 or WMA format for $9.99 without any copy protection - a first for a mainstream pop album.

Ken Bunt, senior VP of marketing at McCartney's record company Hollywood Records, appeared to concede that illegal filesharing on peer-to-peer will never be stopped, therefore the record company is forced to experiment with unrestricted music in an attempt persuade music fans to "go legal".

"We're trying to be realistic," he admitted. "Jesse's single is already online and we haven't put it out. Piracy happens regardless of what we do. So we're going to see how Jesse's album goes (as an MP3) and then decide on others going forward."

Many different online download services, such as Apple's iTunes Store and Napster offer a large library of music to consumers. But chart music is generally restricted by digital rights management, which can make songs hard or impossible to convert, burn, share, or play on certain brands of digital music players.

Yahoo! previously sold an exclusive version of Jessica Simpson's song "A Public Affair" as an MP3. However, at $1.99, it was double the cost of a normal song - a high price to pay for freedom of music.

Video sharing site YouTube is today expected to announce an agreement with Warner Music Group Corp. which will put thousands of Warner music videos on the site and permit user created videos to legally feature music that Warner owns.

YouTube has supposedly created a system which will detect when copyrighted music is being used in videos, and give Warner the chance to accept or reject those videos. The technology will then calculate the royalty fees owed to Warner. But whether the fees are to be paid using YouTube's advertising revenue, or by the individuals who upload videos featuring music from Warner, remains to be seen.

Warner's stance on video sharing sites such as YouTube is in stark contrast to that of Universal Music Group, whose CEO Doug Morris hinted last week that the the record company may be suing YouTube in the near future, claiming, "these new businesses are copyright infringers and owe us tens of millions of dollars".

Source:
TechCrunch

Buena Vista Home Entertainment has finally released the full specs for its first wave of Blu-Ray titles, just days before the movies are due to hit stores.

The film studio told earlier this month that it will release its first four titles, 'Dinosaur,' 'Eight Below,' 'The Great Raid' and 'Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back,' on 19 September. Other Blu-ray-supporting studios Sony, Warner, Paramount and Fox are all employing a variety of different sound formats and video codecs on their disc releases, therefore those looking to adopt the Blu-Ray format early on have been awaiting news on what approach Buena Vista was going to opt for. But it appears that the studio's first batch is just as varied as its rivals'.

All four movies will feature 1080p video transfers in their original theatrical aspect ratios, however, two of the films ('Dinosaur' and 'Jay and Silent Bob') are encoded in MPEG-2, while 'Eight Below' and 'Great Raid' are in AVC/MPEG-4.

In spite of the fact that the Apple's iTunes Store dominates the market for legally downloaded music, only a fraction of iPod owners actually use the store for their audio needs, according to Jupiter Research.

A report by the research firm reveals that, on average, only 20 of the tracks on an iPod will be from the iTunes Store. The study also shows that users of the device much prefer to rip CD's they own, or download content from filesharing sites.

The report's authors estimate that during 2006, Europeans will fork out more than 385m euros (£260m) on digital music, most of which will be spent at Apple's iTunes Store. However, the study shows 83% of iPod owners don't regularly purchase digital music, if at all. Only a mere 17% buy and download music often, usually single tracks, at least once a month.

According to the study, only 5% of the music on an iPod will be bought from online music stores on average. The remainder will ripped from CD's or downloaded from peer-to-peer networks.

The report also warns that the importance of "free" to digital music fans should not be swept aside. Some firms have already made inroads towards a future of free digital music such as SpiralFrog, which has announced that it will use an ad-supported business model rather than charge consumers.

The chief of Universal Music Group, the world's largest record label, has hinted that the company may sue viral video sharing site YouTube for copyright infringement.

"We believe these new businesses are copyright infringers and owe us tens of millions of dollars," said UMG boss Doug Morris, speaking at a conference this week. "How we deal with these companies will be revealed shortly."

YouTube has grown to become one of the world's most-visited Websites, largely due to the wealth of copyrighted material available on the site.

UMG is also mediating with News Corporation, parent company of MySpace, for a share of performance royalties on the site. MySpace has refused to pay such royalties thus far, and its European VP justified its refusal recently, saying that MySpace users "... are interacting with music in the same way as they would in everyday life - in a store or on the radio", rather than committing any form of copyright infringement.

Radio stations however, (with the exception of U.S. Radio stations), do in fact pay royalties for the music they air. So if MySpace operates a similar model to radio stations, one would think it should be paying royalties to recording companies like UMG, just as the radios do.

DVDs will soon be embedded with radio transmitter chips which will allow the major movie studios to remotely track individual discs as they travel from factories to retail shelves and to consumers' homes. The studios hope the technology, which can be used for Blu-Ray and HD DVD discs as well as normal DVDs, will prevent unlawful copying and pirating of their films.

The companies behind the new advance say living room DVD players will eventually be able to check on the chip embedded in a disc, and reject any discs which have been copied or played in the 'wrong' geographical region. Ritek Corp., parent company of U-tech Media, which will manufacture the discs, is currently the world's largest DVD maker.

"This technology holds the potential to protect the intellectual property of music companies, film studios, gaming and software developers worldwide," claimed Ritek's chief exec. Gordon Yeh.

U-Tech, along with IPICO, the company behind the RFID chips to be used in the discs, confirmed on Friday that production of these new 'chipped' DVDs will begin at U-Tech's main plant in Taiwan. Once extensive testing is complete, home DVD players will be embedded with RFID readers to extend the anti-copying technology into homes as part of a digital rights management (DRM) system.

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., which currently accounts for about 40% of all DVD sales in the United States, is preparing to expand into the online movie downloads category, according to CNNMoney.com.

Citing sources, CNN say that Wal-Mart is accelerating its efforts to launch a digital movie download service in the months ahead. With Amazon introducing Unbox, and Apple launching its new movie download store, the company is reportedly eager to "dive in" and protect the dominance that it's gained through the DVD market.

The retailing giant is apparently debating price models, whilst keeping an open mind on the service itself. One option Wal-Mart is considering is a free digital download of the movie along with a purchase of the DVD version at a Wal-Mart store. Another concept reportedly being considered is allowing customers purchase a download of the movie for a few extra dollars when they buy the DVD version at the store.

A report issued late last year stated Wal-Mart was also considering installing in-store kiosks where consumers could download films on to portable discs using digital technology.

With the assistance of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) alongside the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), Police in the U.S. seized around 40,000 bootlegged discs plus scores of CD and DVD burners on Thursday, in what has been described as "a significant blow to the nation's piracy market," by industry leaders.

One person was arrested after the massive haul was discovered at a garage, said to be "among the largest CD burning labs and movie pirating labs in the country," and also an office. The suspect, Abdouraitamance Diallo, looks set to face a charge of trademark counterfeiting, according to Police.

The Police raid initially uncovered 23 duplicator towers, (similar to computer hard drive towers), which contained more than 200 burners. Then, a second search was carried out at an office where the 40,000 discs were found.

The alleged bootlegging gang essentially acted as a wholesaler according to the RIAA, which was capable of producing over 6,000 CDs per hour. The discs would then be sold off to people who would subsequently peddle them in flea markets.

Movies not yet officially released on DVD were among those being illegally reproduced, including "Snakes on a Plane" and "World Trade Center."

In the wake of the recent upgrade to its iTunes Store, Apple Computer has said its new movie service will not be available in much of Asia anytime soon.

The company launched the latest addition to its market-leading Music Store service in the United States on Tuesday, adding scores of Disney movies to its vast online library.

But due to problems with rife piracy, and a failure to agree licensing arrangements with record and movie companies, Asia, the world's fastest growing digital market, has been shut out.

"We cannot comment on the specifics but it is true that iTunes is not available in Asia," said Tony Li, Apple's marketing director for Asia. That goes for music and movies."

In the Asia-Pacific region, Japan and Australia are the only countries with access to the iTunes Store. Some labels have even refused to allow their songs into the Japanese service, in spite of the fact that it's now the world's second largest consumer of music after the United States.

Source:
Forbes

Microsoft Corp. has today unveiled details of the first products it plans to launch under its new Zune brand.

The Zune, Microsoft's answer to Apple's iPod, is scheduled for release this holiday season in the U.S. It will include a 30GB digital media player, the Zune Marketplace music service and "a foundation for an online community that will enable music fans to discover new music," according to Microsoft's Press Release.

The Zune device, which will retail with a choice of three colors (black, brown and white), will come equipt with many features including Wi-Fi, a built-in FM radio, and a 3-inch screen. As expected, it will store music, pictures and video. Supported audio formats will be MP3, unprotected WMA and unprotected AAC. Supported video formats will be MPEG-4, WMV and H.264.

In its Press Release, Microsoft also noted that sharing of music between Zune users will be possible through the device's Wi-Fi technology. It said, "Wireless Zune-to-Zune sharing lets consumers spontaneously share full-length sample tracks of select songs, homemade recordings, playlists or pictures with friends between Zune devices. Listen to the full track of any song you receive up to three times over three days. If you like a song you hear and want to buy it, you can flag it right on your device and easily purchase it from the Zune Marketplace."

In a joint project, Memory-Tech and Toshiba have created a one-side, triple-layer disc for both DVD and HD DVD formats. It is a breakthrough which opens the door to higher capacity hybrid storage on a single disc.

The new disc is an advance on Toshiba's current DVD TWIN format, which supports both DVD and HD DVD storage types. The three-layer discs will allow for either two HD-DVD layers and one DVD layer, two DVD layers and one HD DVD, or one dual-layer DVD and one HD DVD layer.

Toshiba say the TWIN format was created so that consumers could have both the standard definition and high-definition versions of a movie on a single disc, so videos can be played on DVD and HD DVD players. This also means film makers and producers can put two editions of the same film (SD and HD) on the same disc without worrying about reaching capacity.

The TWIN format has yet to be widely accepted, although some companies have adopted it, such as Japanese visual entertainment company Pony Canyon. "We have been releasing TWIN Format titles since April," said Pony Canyon's general manager Hideki Oyagi. "We are getting positive feedback from the market, and our TWIN Format titles are selling better than anticipated."

Microsoft will reportedly bundle an external HD DVD player with the Premium package of its Xbox 360 console in Europe next month.

According to gamesindustry.biz's sources, the standalone HD-DVD drive stands to retail at GBP 199 (293 Euros), and will be bundled with two HD DVD movies. It's also suggested that Microsoft will bundle the Premium console along with the HD DVD player for under GBP 400 (589 Euros) – and that the price could even be as low as GBP 375 (552 Euros).

Next-gen format support will likely be a key selling point of Sony's PlayStation 3 and Microsoft's Xbox 360 consoles. This HD DVD package could retail around GBP 50 (74 Euros) less than Sony's machine, which will feature the rival Blu-Ray format.

Microsoft only recently reduced the price of the Xbox 360 Core package, following a similar move by retail outlets.

The bundle could be an ideal opportunity for Microsoft to capitalize on the fact that the PS3 will not hit the European market until March 2007, and increase sales ahead of its rivals' belated launch.

Source:
GameIndustry.Biz

Time Warner owned AOL is today expected to announce plans to offer two new NBC programs on its Website a week before their television broadcasts.

The shows, entitled "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" and "Twenty Good Years," are produced for NBC by Warner Bros. Television, also owned by Time Warner.

The move by AOL comes hot on the heels of other experiments by U.S. television networks and show producers to promote new shows and appeal to new categories of viewers who may elude traditional Television in favour of the internet.

"We're pleased to be offering consumers the chance to view two of our most highly-anticipated shows ahead of their broadcast premiere," said John Miller, NBC's Chief Marketing Officer. "This partnership with AOL allows us to continue our aggressive online preview campaign and ensures an enormous number of users will have an opportunity to sample our product."

Earlier this month, CBS Corp. paired up with digital video recorder giant TiVo in a similar project, which will allow TiVo subscribers to view the pilot episode of CBS's "The Class" a week before the TV broadcast.

Amazon.com has launched it's new digital video download service, Unbox, which offers thousands of television shows, movies and other video content from more than 30 studio and network partners including 20th Century Fox and Paramount.

The new service is the only one of its kind to offer DVD-quality resolution, according to a press release by the company, which also boasts, "Unbox offers triple the video quality of the leading commercial Internet video services, delivering content encoded at 2,500 kilobits per second using the ultra-efficient VC-1 Advanced Profile codec.."

Another seemingly unique feature of this service, is Unbox RemoteLoadTM, which allows consumers to buy from one PC and download to another.

Unbox also uses progressive download, which means users can begin watching their content before the download has completed. "This means the typical cable broadband customer can start watching any Unbox TV show or movie within five minutes of ordering," adds the press release.

Television episodes currently cost $1.99 each, with most movies priced between $7.99 and $14.99. Renting videos for $3.99 each is also an option for consumers in the U.S., whereby videos can be stored on a PC for 30 days, but once the user has started watching it, they have 24 hours before it expires.

Napster UK is giving all new subscribers to its online music service a free MP3 player.

Anyone who takes out a three month 'Napster to Go' subscription from 14 September will in return receive a free 512MB Sandisk Sansa m230, which can store up to 240 songs.

Napster's subscription service allows unlimited music downloads from library of two million tracks, for a fee of £14.95 a month.

Earlier this year, audiovisual media analyst Screen Digest said the majority of MP3 players sold in the UK are flash-based devices. Napster will be hoping the move will increase its sales, and gain ground on Apple's market-dominating iTunes Music Store.

Leanne Sharman, Napster's VP, said, "We see a parallel in the UK between the mobile phone industry and the digital music business. The mobile industry is more mature than ours, but it began as a pay-as-you-go business reliant on handset sales. This is the model for the future of the digital music industry where content is king and MP3 players are disposable."

Source:
The Register

South Korean-based firm Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. announced on Friday plans to introduce its own online music service to compete with Apple Computer Inc.'s iTunes Music Store - currently at the summit of the online music market.

It plans to link up with with media provider MusicNet to launch a music subscription and download service later this year in the UK, Germany, and France. Samsung said it plans to later expand the service throughout Europe and Asia.

It also said the online music service will be compatible with its upcoming line of portable MP3 and media players, a concept similar not only to Apple's iPod + iTunes Music Store combination, but also to Microsoft's upcoming plans for it's Zune service, announced in July.

"Apple has shown that to do this, you have to control as many of the parts of the chain as possible," said Mike McGuire, an analyst at Gartner Inc. market research firm. "Microsoft is taking a page out of Apple's book, and now Samsung is, too."

There are no additional details regarding pricing or fees yet.

Source:
newsfactor

Tech manufacturing giant Toshiba has confirmed that it will launch its first HD-DVD player in Europe on 15 November - just two days before Sony drops its Blu-ray featured Playstation 3.

The HD-E1, which will retail at around 599 euros (approx. £400), will be closely followed by a second Toshiba HD-DVD player to be released in December, the company said.

Toshiba and Sony are backing rival formats, but the competition between the two could seriously damage the market for next-gen DVD equipment, according to analysts.

While Toshiba showed off its new HD-DVD machines at IFA in Berlin, Hollywood studio Twentieth Century Fox gave its backing to Blu-ray by announcing plans to release films for that format only. "We have no plans to release on HD-DVD. Consumer-wise Blu-ray is the best proposition," said Mike Dunn, global president of home entertainment for the studio. And according to Reuters, Time Warner has also confirmed its plans to release films on Blu-ray.

However, Toshiba's digital consumer chief, Yoshihide Fujii, questions whether Hollywood films will require the greater storage capacity Blu-ray offers.

Popular online community site MySpace.com has become the latest outfit to challenge Apple's market-dominating iTunes Music Store, after announcing it is to start selling the music of nearly three million unsigned bands before the end of this year.

Over the course of the past year, MySpace has become the most visited site the US, according to researchers. It boasts a whopping 106 million users, something which MySpace co-founder Chris DeWolfe is looking to capitalize on with this venture into the digital music market. "The goal is to be one of the biggest digital music stores out there," he told Reuters. "Everyone we've spoken to definitely wants an alternative to iTunes and the iPod. MySpace could be that alternative."

The new service will allow users to sell songs on their MySpace pages in DRM free mp3 digital file format accompanied by eBay Inc.'s PayPal system.

The bands will decide how much to charge per song after including MySpace's distribution fee, said Rusty Rueff, the chief exec. of Snocap, the company which will manage service.

Rueff added the "small" distribution fee is yet to be decided.

When BitTorrent technology was first introduced, it was great for those who wished to share large files very quickly. Internet Service Providers (ISP's) however, didn't see it in quite such a positive light, as the majority of their bandwidth was consumed by BitTorrent traffic. As a response, some ISP's, such as Canadian provider Shaw began throttling the service, so BitTorrent clients such as Azureus added a feature that encrypted torrent traffic in an effort to circumvent these ISP roadblocks.

Now, a company called Allot Communications has developed a new hardware product, the NetEnforcer, which it claims is the first device that will identify and throttle encrypted BitTorrent traffic. According to a spokesperson for the company, the NetEnforcer utilizes deep packet inspection technology "to identify and analyze hundreds of applications and protocols, track subscriber behavior, prioritize traffic and shape traffic flows."

On one hand, increasing BitTorrent traffic is most definitely a problem for ISPs. In early 2004, torrents accounted for 35 percent of all traffic on the Internet. By the end of that year, the figure had almost doubled, and some estimate that in certain markets, such as Asia, torrent traffic uses as much as 80 percent of all bandwidth.