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Comments: 43 +-   Skype, Sony Working to Offer On-Demand iTunes Rivals on Tuesday December 19 2006, @09:45AM

Posted by Zonk on Tuesday December 19 2006, @09:45AM
from the more-competition dept.
internet
sony
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The field of on-demand video services continues to grow. Both Sony and Skype have announced their intentions to challenge the dominance of iTunes via download services. Sony is going to be offering movie downloads via the PSP, no doubt as a partial rebuff to Microsoft's entry into the field. Meanwhile, Skype is planning to roll out a broadband television service they are calling 'the Venice Project'. Funded with the money made when Skype was sold to eBay, the beta version was apparently launched last week. From the article: "On his blog, Mr Friis said the partners had been 'quietly testing with a small circle of people' for a few months, and that they would now expand the circle. The service will offer high-quality programs through an ad-supported platform. The project aims to bring quality TV programs free to consumers who have a broadband internet connection, the spokesman said."
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Skype, Sony Working to Offer On-Demand iTunes Rivals 43 Comments More /

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  • While I couldn't care less about Sony's offering, Skype's is something I'd be interested in, I have Time Warner digital cable and they offer on demand services, but they are very bland, a couple good music videos, a couple comedy central shows, and a few other good things among a bunch of crap. No variety really, I'd love to have a service that offers just about everything that's on tv and the click of a button.
      • Here's the thing Einstein...I never said anything about sony other than I am not interested...I never said it wasn't a good idea...regardless you'd have to own all the sony hardware that you mentioned...whereas the skype offering is for people who have a broadband connection and little else...oh and it's free...

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by God'sDuck (837829)
      Dude -- sign me up for video over broadband! With inexpensive DSL having just enough bandwidth for service...we're talking, phone, TV and broadband for $25 a month, plus whatever Venice or its peer charges. Even assuming $20-25, it would still cost less than basic cable in NJ.

  • Nothing to do with Skype (Score:5, Informative)

    by ballyhoo (158910) on Tuesday December 19 2006, @09:59AM (#17299876)
    This company is funded by Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, not by Skype. The Venice Project is as unrelated to Skype as Skype is to Kazaa.

  • Not Skype (Score:5, Informative)

    by hanssprudel (323035) on Tuesday December 19 2006, @10:02AM (#17299906)

    This the Skype foundrs, Zennström and Friis using the money they made selling Skype to create a new service. Skype is a product of eBay, and eBay are not involved in this.

    An interesting question is whether they will be using P2P filesharing techniques for video distribution the way they did for for VOIP with Skype. One thinks bittorrent and other types of swarming, but it seems more difficult to apply here (Bittorrent based protocols work by having people download different parts of the file, which is difficult to apply to a stream.)

    • (Bittorrent based protocols work by having people download different parts of the file, which is difficult to apply to a stream.)

      I envision a dual-protocol set-up. Instant on-demand video can be streamed off of a central server, while podcast-like subscriptions can arrive in the background via bittorrent or similar protocols to offset some of the server load. With enough bandwidth, it might even be doable to stream with a back-and-forth approach--stream from the server to cover gaps, while simultaneously

  • So far, of all these new "video on demand" services, the best are definitely iTunes and MS offerings on the Xbox 360. The former is great because they also incorporate free video from sites like Digital Life TV and Diggnation, and make it easy to move video to the iPod. The latter is great because they make it very easy to play video on your TV and because they are the only service offering true HD content.

    If MS were to incorporate free content (sans DRM), offer MUCH larger hard drives for the 360 (120 GB

    • If MS were to incorporate free content (sans DRM), offer MUCH larger hard drives for the 360 (120 GB+), and improve their interface (adding search capability, and RSS feed-like subscription option, etc. like iTunes) they would be the kings.

      Just like the PSP, the 360 is owned by a very small percentage of people and thus it's not going to succeed.

    • If MS were to incorporate free content (sans DRM), offer MUCH larger hard drives for the 360 (120 GB+), and improve their interface (adding search capability, and RSS feed-like subscription option, etc. like iTunes) they would be the kings.

      The first barrier to MS dominating the download market is that in order to use the wonderful service, you have to buy an XBox 360. Non-gamers (and there are a few of them out there) are uninterested in buying a console merely to replicate features they can already get

      • Re:Not sure XBox 360 will ever be the king (Score:4, Interesting)

        by elrous0 (869638) * on Tuesday December 19 2006, @10:31AM (#17300176)
        Most people also aren't interesting in watching TV shows and movies on their computer screens either. The big advantage of MS's service is that it connects right to your TV or HDTV. Apple may negate this advantage somewhat with their iTV box, but it would have to sell a lot of units to compare to the 360's already-substantial install base.

        -Eric

        • Apple may negate this advantage somewhat with their iTV box, but it would have to sell a lot of units to compare to the 360's already-substantial install base.

          True indeed. I wasn't really comparing iTV to the 360, but your argument makes sense if the point of comparison is iTV (or whatever it winds up being called) to the 360. I'm not sure that the device is the point of comparison, per se. The service is the real lynchpin of success or failure, imho. Right now iTunes has the lead because of the tight i

        • There have only been ~7 Million 360's sold since its release last year. While people are clamoring over the shortage of Wii and PS3s, there are plenty of Xbox 360s everywhere I look, but nobody is interested. The market interested in the 360 is pretty much saturated. Even the PlayStation 2 outsold the Xbox 360 this year!

          Of those 7 million units, likely less than half have a hard drive. That means the majority (of "Core systems") can't be used with the XBLive movie download service without an upgrade. So the
          • Mod parent up, the install base for the 360 is really really small and will probably be surpassed. Apple still has a fighting chance and sony definantly will due to the larger harddrives their systems will be coming with.
    • As obsessed as some departments of Sony are with DRM, the PSP and PS3 are surprisingly nice, actually.

      Or at least, I've got a PSP and an XBox 360, and converting downloaded video files to a format that works on the PSP (and would also play on a PS3 if I had one) is a hell of a lot easier than the WMV-or-nothing setup on the 360.

      To the extent that I'm considering doing without HD, and converting everything to H.264 then connecting my iPod to the TV instead.
      • converting downloaded video files to a format that works on the PSP (and would also play on a PS3 if I had one) is a hell of a lot easier than the WMV-or-nothing setup on the 360.

        Yeah, the conversion process for each is a pain in the neck. However, I did find a nice project on Sourceforge that will convert anything to anything else provided that you install the libraries separately - including converting MP3 to WMA and back again for free. I'm positive it does movies as well. It's a pretty nice app - Med [sourceforge.net]
      • Bash Sony and get modded up.

        Sorry, but not all of us trust companies who install dangerous rootkits on our computers just to keep us from ripping a few CD's. Not that I think MS and Apple are saintly (far from it), but at least I can depend on a relative level of SANITY from them.

        -Eric

  • I have mixed feelings about this. Certainly moving TV services onto the Internet is generally a good thing - especially if it is easier for everyone to enter the market if their product is good enough.

    However, since I live in a country (Germany) which has probably the worst TV I've ever seen anywhere (along with, by at least one order of magnitude, the worst Supermarkets on Earth - but that's a post for another day) I do not watch TV here at all, which has trained me to watch what I want, when I want - s
    • I'm all for the IPTV, but what I really need is HDTV Sports. Specifically hockey. As soon as Someone offers that, sign me up!
  • Well, if the guys that set up Skype and sold it for billions are going to have a go at the on-demand TV over IP market, then I'd bet on them. I've seen completely computer-illiterate people set up Skype and make calls.

    The various teasing articles around the subject suggest they've got deals that mean they will have content from the mainstream as well as ads (and presumably whatever they can steal from YouTube). There's absolutely nothing on how they'll integrate ads and mainstream content, but the cont
  • I'm all for 'free' Internet TV but at the moment with 'free' broadcast TV, the length and frequency of adverts within programmes is really beginning to grate. The broadcasters are at least limited by regulation on the amount of advertising. I doubt the Internet will be regulated the same and we will have more ads than programme before long. Time to invent an ad skipping streamer.

  • Accounts and clients suck (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Total_Wimp (564548) on Tuesday December 19 2006, @10:21AM (#17300088)
    Even assuming they fix the DRM issues and iTunes loses it's monopoly, I'm starting to get bummed about everyone wanting an account and client software to download a song that costs a buck.

    It's bad enough that I need to have a user name and password every place I shop on line, and I can understand why newegg.com needs an address because they have to actually ship something, but why is the process still so tedious to download a single song? What happened to micro-payments?

    The matter gets worse when they want you to install software to download. Not only do I need the iTunes client to download from Apple, but now I have to install a Yahoo client to download a non-DRM MP3, and I'll probably have to go into the registry to keep it from showing up in my "tray" at startup.

    What will Sony and Skype want me to do? Who knows. But if they're trying to attract new customers, my advice would be to try and make it easier. At least Skype is likely to use PayPal, but if they don't make the download web-based, they might find it hard to convince me to install yet another "music manager" that I don't want or need. I have a Q and a Y in my tray. Someone somewhere is going to have to realize that this isn't a game of Scrabble and I really don't need to add two Ss.

    TW
    • The matter gets worse when they want you to install software to download. Not only do I need the iTunes client to download from Apple, but now I have to install a Yahoo client to download a non-DRM MP3, and I'll probably have to go into the registry to keep it from showing up in my "tray" at startup.

      Use emusic instead? No client or DRM.

      What will Sony and Skype want me to do? Who knows. But if they're trying to attract new customers, my advice would be to try and make it easier.

      Don't underestimate Sony's abi
      • yes it all depends on how their download plateform will be compatible with clients. iTunes success is coming thanks to small portable MP3 players. I don't think the PSP is market-wide enough to make downloadable movies popular...
    • Well, if you look at the music stores that are based on the web-browser, they really suck. I actually like having the store as part of my music player, and not just another lame website. It certainly streamlines the process.
      • It is nice. With one store. Add three stores and then tell me what you think. My personal opinion is that at about two stores it starts to bite. But you know what they say about opinions.... :-)

        TW
  • Please press "Install the trojan/client, then press download to get your songs"...
  • Arrgh.

    I'm not _that_ unusual in having an iPod, a 360 and a PSP, am I? Deciding whether I want to buy my movie from one store, and not be able to play it on either of the other two devices is a bigger pain than buying a DVD and letting the PC do a bit of conversion work (or just sticking it in the machine in the case of the 360).
  • This will be great, iTunes rivals at our fingertips! Slow news day, d/l an iTunes rival. Bored, d/l an iTunes rival. The big question is then, will it be possible to resell the iTunes rivals when they start to drag profits down in the red?
  • There's really no point to competing with apple, because if they get mad, they'll just do a subscription service on the ipod, and since their install base is already so large, they'd basically be pulling a microsoft and killing all the competition for at least several more years, even with zero additional innovation.
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