Vision - September/October 2007 - (Page 22) “it’s all about thE usEr ExpEriEncE.”—Davi Nevertheless, Koenig says CEA also sees video support—and thus the number of PMPs—grow significantly in the next four years, along with adoption of flash memory in the players. By 2011, CEA believes 85 percent of MP3 players will support video. In addition, CEA expects 77 percent of MP3 players to incorporate flash memory in 2011, up from 70 percent this year and only 42 percent in 2005. Today, according to Parks Associates, 19 percent of online consumers have a portable device that can play video—up from six percent in 2005. Yet, says Harry Wang, senior analyst at the Dallas, Tex.based market research firm, from the perspective of these consumers, not much changed in the past two years. eos. For example, owners of video-capable iPods are more likely to own and play videos on those devices— thanks to the selection available on iTunes—than owners of other brands of PMPs, who own fewer video titles for their devices. Moreover, of the 382 PMP owners surveyed, Wang says, 58 percent owned a 30-GB or 80-GB videocapable iPod. So, Wang concludes, while video content remains the driver for adoption of PMPs, it also is a stumbling block for the category as a whole. Services not dedicated solely to one PMP brand, like iTunes is to iPod, simply aren’t as user-friendly as they ought to be and aren’t providing the same broad selection available from a traditional video delivery service such as Netflix or from an online digital music vendor. The result: Lower consumption of video on PMP platforms. D Samberg content rules Content DisContent A PMP used to be defined as a handheld device with video playback ability, a hard drive and a display screen larger than three inches. And at the time, Wang recalls, consumers who knew about PMPs were largely unsatisfied with the selection and cost of the videos that were available to them. Fast forward to today: Thanks to the proliferation of both flash memory and video players in devices with screens as small as 1.8-inches, trying to define a PMP has become a source of confusion for consumers, and the biggest “wish to improve” about the devices is screen size and battery life. But dissatisfaction with the video content also remains a significant problem, Wang notes, adding that consumers aren’t finding the videos they want and aren’t finding it easily accessible from the devices themselves. In a survey conducted last May for its report titled “Mobile Entertainment Platforms and Services, 2nd Edition,” Parks found that 53 percent of PMP owners never play a video even though their device allows it, and among the 47 percent who do watch video on their device, only 14 percent watch video daily. Most use the PMP just to listen to music. To be sure, there was a positive side to the Parks findings: A strong correlation between the ready availability of video content for the market share of a particular brand of PMP and the likelihood that its customers will buy and play those vid- new ChoiCes emerging “Making it easy and convenient for consumers will drive adoption,” agrees Bob Greene, executive vice president of advanced services at Starz Entertainment in Englewood, Colo., owner of the Vongo video download service for PMPs. However, Greene asserts, “The market still is in its very early stages. Many of the early (PMP) devices were really a wonderful technology solution looking for content and relying on the consumer to go find it.” They were limited to running Microsoft’s Portable Media Center software or, in the case of the Microsoft Zune hardware, to its own operating system, he explains. The next step, he says, is to have a device that doesn’t restrict the user to a small choice of content from one source—like the Portable media players are essentially useless without content. So PMP makers are busy forging new links with sources of video content to play on their devices—and these ties are expected to grow more numerous as the category matures. In September, Toshiba plans to release its new T-Series Gigabeat, a PMP equipped with 4 Gigabytes of flash memory and a 2.4-inch LCD screen. The company recently paired with Napster to provide fresh content, says Sanggoo Kang, product manager for portable electronics at Toshiba America Information Systems in Irvine, Calif. Yet while currently it is device makers that are pursuing the content deals, soon it will be the dominant content providers that pursue the device makers, for OEM deals in which PMPs are made to the content providers’ specifications, much like cell phones are made to cell service providers’ specifications, Kang predicts. He adds it’s too early to predict which content providers will become dominant. It also remains to be seen whether content utilizing Microsoft’s PlaysForSure technology—or other digital rights management technology—gains dominance in the PMP arena, says Kenji Higa, research and development manager at Coby Electronics Corp. in Maspeth, NY. “We’re waiting to see how things pan out” before deciding whether or not to support PlaysForSure in future products, Higa says. “It’s not a one-size-fits-all game,” declares Sling Media’s Brian Jaquet, based in Foster City, Calif. The maker of the SlingBox—which enables people to control and watch their home-based video sources via the Internet on a computer or smartphone—is introducing a feature named Clip + Sling that lets users save and share video clips. To that end, Sling has been striking deals with content owners such as CBS and the National Hockey League. Jaquet says, “The holy grail is delivering compelling personalized content to the consumer.” iPod—but rather lets the user get a wide variety of content from different sources. He points out that a new generation of PMPs expected to debut this fall, based on Microsoft’s latest generation PlaysForSure software, will do exactly that. This version of PlaysForSure makes it easier to transfer content between devices, improves the quality of the video playback, and offers more security for the content owners, Greene says. As a result, content providers like Vongo can offer a larger selection to owners of a wider variety of PMPs. Vongo was launched in January 2006 with 1,000 titles and now offers about www.ce.org 22 September/October 2007 http://www.ce.org
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