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You did your job
You did it well....
Yo should feel mighty swell....
GO JOJO!!!!!
The genie is out of the bottle, austin
As the beloved mahatma said:
"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."
I'm well aware of your point of view, austin.
I feel the same.
Since you are posting here with your new-found EDIG friends, however, it is important to understand that closed proprietary systems is what this company is all about. They have consciously thrown their lot in with all of the "protectionists" of the digital world. Their bet has always been that "secure" content availability would validate their technology. The rallying cry for years was that they could make it all work together and still maintain the tight controls on intellectual property that the entertainment industry craves.
It has been a "very compelling" story!
It's a closed, proprietary system, austonia.
If all of the various services are offering the same 500,000 songs at the same price, it really doesn't matter that the codecs and DRM schemes are incompatible with other DAP players.
Sony is a very important brand in the audio world, and they will have no trouble selling their players, IMO.
"...Well, hell
just give me that one about the airplane thingie!"
"...JoJo! Where the sam hill
is that damn P.R.? I had it here someplace."
Gateway Extends Digital Entertainment Throughout the Home
Wednesday January 7, 10:00 pm ET
Gateway Will Give Consumers More Ways to Enjoy Digital Entertainment With Products Based on Microsoft's Windows Media Center Extender Technology
POWAY, Calif., Jan. 7 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Continuing to deliver products that let consumers enjoy digital entertainment anywhere in the home, Gateway announced today that it will support Microsoft's new Windows Media Center Extender Technology and plans to deliver innovative products based on the software for the holiday selling season this year.
(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20020930/LAM050LOGO )
This announcement follows Microsoft Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates' keynote address at the 2004 International Consumer Electronics Show, during which Gates stated that Gateway would develop Windows Media Center Extender products. Also during the keynote, Gates demonstrated an early version of a Gateway set-top box utilizing the upcoming software. This technology demonstration will also be on display in Gateway's booth at the Pepcom Digital Experience event from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. tonight in the Mirage Hotel's Grand Ballroom.
The new Gateway products using Microsoft Windows Media Center Extender Technology will allow consumers to enjoy Windows XP Media Center features without the requirement of a PC in that room. The new set-top box or TV with Media Center Extender functionality will enable access to digital entertainment -- such as photos, live and recorded TV, video and music -- that is stored on a Media Center Edition PC from any room in the house. Also, this new technology lets consumers have multiple connections to their PC; while one person in the house is using the computer in the den or home office, at the same time another can enjoy digital entertainment stored on the PC from another room using a Windows Media Center Extender product.
''We've been leading the charge to deliver easy-to-use, full-featured offerings for the connected home, so we've already seen first-hand that consumers are excited about products that give them more flexibility to enjoy digital entertainment,'' said Matt Milne, senior vice president of consumer solutions for Gateway. ''Our products based on Microsoft's new Windows Media Center Extender Technology will enable Media Center users to get more enjoyment and productivity out of their PCs.''
''Gateway is already shipping innovative Media Center Edition PCs, and we are thrilled to work with the company on the development of a Media Center Extender product,'' said Brad Brooks, director of marketing, Windows eHome division at Microsoft Corp. ''This collaboration will allow us to deliver a solution to consumers that will extend their Media Center PC experience, giving them improved access to their favorite digital entertainment regardless of where the PC is located.''
These new products expand Gateway's existing connected home product line and complement the innovative products that have made Gateway the premier provider of devices for the digital home. Other devices from Gateway that make it easy for consumers to enjoy digital media in their homes are the Gateway Connected DVD player, which can access digital media stores on a PC in another room via a wireless connection, and the Gateway® FMC-901 Home Theater PC, which looks like a piece of stereo equipment but is actually a full-featured PC that can act as the hub for digital entertainment in the home. Additionally, Gateway offers Media Center PCs and other easy-to-use wireless and wired home networking products.
Existing PCs, DVD players and equipment for the connected home are available now by calling 800-GATEWAY, on Gateway.com or by ordering them at the 190 Gateway stores located across the U.S.
About Gateway
Since its founding in 1985, Gateway (NYSE: GTW - News) has been a technology and direct-marketing pioneer, using its call centers, web site and retail network to build direct customer relationships. As it transforms itself from a leading PC company into a branded integrator of personalized technology solutions, its range of Gateway-branded products is expanding to include thin TVs, digital cameras, tablet PCs, and enterprise products, all of which are designed to work seamlessly together with the company's award-winning line of PCs. Gateway is America's second most admired computer company, according to Fortune magazine(1), and its products and services received more than 125 awards and honors last year. Visit www.gateway.com for more information.
January 8, 2004
Lots of Players, Little Harmony
By MICHEL MARRIOTT
BRETT RENWICK, an enterprising refugee from the dot-com implosion, considers himself an especially tech-savvy consumer. He spent weeks poring over reviews and product specifications before deciding on a high-speed Internet service for his Harlem apartment. And he is studying the pros and cons of plasma, liquid crystal and digital light processing as he wrestles with finding a television ready for high-definition viewing.
But when it comes to shopping for a digital music player, he huffs and throws up his hands.
"It's more difficult today to chose a MP3 player than an HD-ready TV," said Mr. Renwick, a 39-year-old marketing executive at Nielsen Media Research. "There are too many choices."
Hand-held players that permit consumers to transfer music from their computers and play it on the go have, like digital cameras, moved from niche to mainstream. Yet industry analysts agree that consumers face a knot of issues when selecting a player to suit their tastes, needs and technical aptitude.
Browse almost any digital-player message board on the Internet, and you'll discover thousands of words detailing frustrations, failures and suggested fixes. Some consumers are learning the hard way that all digital music players and formats are not the same.
For instance, owners of Apple's popular iPod are finding that music encoded in the format, or codec, known as WMA, for Windows Media Audio by Microsoft, will not play on the iPod - which performs best with music encoded with a format called AAC, for Advanced Audio Coding.
"The codec confusion needs to get resolved before we see dramatic changes in the market," said Van Baker, vice president of GartnerG2, a research service from Gartner Inc. in Stamford, Conn.
The variety, and the difficulty of choosing, may only increase in the short term. On Tuesday, Apple unveiled a smaller iPod called the iPod Mini, and digital-music announcements by other manufacturers are planned over the next few days at the Consumer Electronics Show, a major trade event in Las Vegas.
Hyder Rabbani, president and chief operating officer at Archos, a maker of portable digital storage devices and music players, compares today's digital audio environment to the dawn of the cellular telephone industry, when there was a confounding mix of competing systems and formats.
"It stalled the entire adoption of the industry," he said, noting that many consumers waited until the formats shook out to a dominant few before they bought a cellphone. "There's a similar challenge today."
Long gone are the days when digital music came only on compact discs, and any CD would play on any CD player. Among the factors consumers must now consider are a player's price, capacity, compatibility and versatility, like the ability to transfer or "rip" music directly to a player from a CD.
Fundamentally, digital music players can be broken down into two groups: those with flash memory, and those with portable hard drives. The flash memory players can store a modest amount of music (usually about 90 minutes) and are also modestly priced, at around $100. Additional memory cards, however, can cost as much as the player itself.
More popular are players like the iPod, which store music on hard drives not unlike the shiny little boxes of spinning memory platters that laptop computers use to store data. These can easily store some 10,000 songs, perhaps 600 hours of music, and are far costlier at $250 to $500. Hard-drive players also demand far more power than those with flash memory, which involves no moving parts. (The modest eight-hour battery life between charges is one of the few regular complaints from iPod owners.)
There are also multifunctional devices that play audio files, like electronic organizers, hand-held gaming consoles and CD players that read music burned on discs in various formats, including MP3 or Windows Media.
In addition to the hardware, a dizzying array of software is required to manage digital music, including the formats used for storage and playback. For starters, there are MP3, MP3 Pro, WMA, AAC and a format called Atrac that is used almost exclusively by Sony. Each format has its advantages and peculiarities, and not all players read all formats.
At the big DataVision Computer Video store in Midtown Manhattan, personal digital audio players were one of the holiday season's best sellers, said John A. Griffin, the store's sales manager, and iPods were clearly the players of choice.
"For every one of the other players we sold people bought 70 to 80 iPods," Mr. Griffin said one day recently as shoppers ogled a store display of more than 50 different models of players ranging in size from cigarette lighters to small jewelry boxes.
But though the iPod has seemingly become the overarching symbol of the latest wave of music players - as the Sony Walkman was for the first generation - it is hard to determine its precise grip on the market because music players come in so many forms.
Many analysts give the iPod the lead with about 30 percent of the digital player market, while Sony - which considers all of its Walkman devices capable of playing downloaded music to be personal audio players - says it has a leading 35 percent market share.
To reassert its momentum in the field, Sony is using the Las Vegas show to introduce a new line of players. Based on a re-engineered version of its MiniDisc format, the players are being promoted as a middle road in price and capacity between flash-memory and hard-drive-based players.
Sony says the new models, called Hi-MD Walkman players, will reach stores in April at prices ranging from $200 to $400. They will store up to 45 hours of high-fidelity music on a single, re-recordable disc, expected to cost about $7. (Existing MiniDiscs, which the new models will also play, cost about $2 and can store up to five hours of digital music, or 2 hours 40 minutes at near-CD quality.) The players are also designed to offer 30 hours of music on a single AA battery, three times the battery life of a hard-drive player.
Like Apple, with its popular iTunes Music Store, Sony is also creating a music downloading service, Connect, that will cater to its own players. "Our strategy for the new Walkman experience is a complete system for downloading, managing and playing back music on a wide selection of Sony portable devices," said Todd Schrader, vice president for marketing in Sony Electronics' personal mobile products division.
But if that music is in a Sony personal player, it will be playing in Sony's Atrac format, Mr. Schrader said. That means that consumers who already have music stored on flash memory or hard drives in other formats, like MP3 or Windows Media, would have to convert it to Atrac to play in Sony players.
Mr. Schrader said that more than 2.5 million Walkman devices in the United States were already compatible with the Connect service, and that another 4.5 million would reach the market this year. Sony says that all of its players use music management software, SonicStage 2.0, that translates various popular music formats into Atrac.
But some digital music enthusiasts contend that converting from one format to another degrades audio quality. Others complain that some formats (like Atrac) are more restrictive than others (like MP3) in the number of times a song can be played or on how many players. And some industry analysts question whether another music service, even one with Sony's brand and marketing muscle, can succeed in an already-crowded marketplace. In addition to iTunes, there are services from Wal-Mart, Musicmatch, BuyMusic.com and the recently introduced Napster 2.0, to a name a few. More are expected soon from big companies like Dell and Microsoft.
"Sony comes in here and says, 'We are going to do it on our own,' " said Josh Bernoff, a principal analyst with Forrester Research. "The question is, can Sony be as successful as Apple has been in creating support for its own format?"
The iTunes service offers some 500,000 songs (Sony promises that number for its own service), and Apple reports more than 30 million downloads to date. All of the iTunes selections are encoded in AAC, and the iPod, which works seamlessly with the music service, is the only personal digital audio player that can play the tracks. (Like many competing models, it also plays MP3's, the generally lower-quality files often used for online swapping.)
In effect, the Apple music service's optimal compatibility with iPod helps sell its players. It is a strategy that Apple's chief executive, Steven P. Jobs, has acknowledged. The new Napster music service, meanwhile, has created a particularly comfortable fit with the Samsung Napster YP-910GS player, which can store as many as 5,000 songs on its 20-gigabyte hard drive.
Other hardware makers are adding to the mix at the Las Vegas show, among them Archos, which is introducing a 20-gigabyte model, the Gmini 220, which costs $350 and is slightly smaller than a classic iPod. Samsung is announcing what it says is the smallest hard-drive-based audio player, the $300 YH-800. It has a 1.5-gigabyte capacity (compared with 4 gigabytes for the new iPod Mini) and measures 2.2 by 2.2 inches.
But for Mr. Renwick, the perplexed shopper and dot-com veteran, all the new hardware and music services add up to more choices to consider before he fulfills a resolution to buy a music player before the new year begins to show its age.
He said he was leaning toward an iPod, which would give him an excuse to scrap his four-year-old Windows PC and invest in an Apple desktop to keep things "perfectly" compatible. Then again, he just decided to buy a MiniDisc player for his wife to test some of Sony's claims.
Meanwhile, he ponders. "There's still just a clutter of confusion out there," he said.
Music key to new RealNetworks strategy
By Kim Peterson
Seattle Times technology reporter
RealNetworks has given its online media player a makeover, upgrading the software to cater to high-speed Internet users who want instant music clips, sports videos and news broadcasts.
The company is expected to launch the player today, along with a music store that sells downloads of 300,000 songs for 99 cents each, as the technology industry gears up for the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas this week.
RealNetworks also is expected to announce it will begin using AAC compression technology, a format rapidly gaining momentum and a competitor to Microsoft's Windows Media format. Apple Computer and America Online have already embraced AAC.
RealNetworks' new player, RealPlayer 10, requires a software download and is free, but that doesn't mean it won't make money. The Seattle company hopes to turn it into one of the Internet's top destinations for entertainment, through which it can sell music downloads and subscriptions to its premium services.
The announcements reflect the company's recognition that its previous player was not compelling enough to capture the growing number of high-speed, or broadband, Internet users. Customers said the player was confusing at times, and it became apparent a revamp was necessary.
In addition, the computer is quickly becoming a second entertainment center in many broadband households, particularly for music. RealNetworks wants to be the gateway for such use and tweaked its player in that direction.
"This company has been talking for a long time about digital media going mainstream, the acceleration of broadband and the mass-market adoption of digital media on consumer-electronics devices," said Dan Sheeran, senior vice president for marketing at RealNetworks.
The new player heavily emphasizes music, both for listening and buying. Users can watch the latest video by Pink, listen to Internet radio and purchase songs like Outkast's "Hey Ya!" by clicking on a "buy" button. The player also has links to sites where users can transfer songs to portable music devices or burn music onto compact discs.
The player will undoubtedly promote RealNetworks' Rhapsody music service. Rhapsody and RealNetworks' premium radio service have about 350,000 subscribers, but RealNetworks won't say how many are specifically for Rhapsody.
RealNetworks has not sold single-song downloads until now and has had to watch from the sidelines as services such as Apple Computer's iTunes raked in cash from song purchases.
But with a new music store seemingly being announced every week, it was no surprise RealNetworks would join the frenzy.
Online music stores generally are not big moneymakers; companies like Apple use them to sell music players, including its well-received iPod. RealNetworks is likely looking at its music store as a way to sell subscriptions.
Over the past year, the company has made most of its money from subscriptions to premium services, such as its $9.95-a-month SuperPass service.
RealNetworks isn't the only local company to set its sights on a comprehensive media player for broadband audiences.
Microsoft in October announced an online video player that broadcasts news, sports and other video free over high-speed Internet connections. A full version, MSN Video, is expected to debut soon.
Microsoft has also said it plans to launch its own music-store service.
Analysts say the free player is key to luring digital media customers of the future.
"It's important for Real to continue its efforts in the player battles because consumers look at the players, and that to some degree is going to push them in a particular direction," said Michael Gartenberg, an analyst with Jupiter Research. "By making RealPlayer available, and by making that tied into their other strategies, it becomes a very core component."
Vote of confidence
Another key component of RealNetworks' strategy is its use of the AAC format in its music store and for streaming music over the Internet. By supporting AAC, the company is giving more momentum to a format relatively obscure until a few years ago.
Microsoft has said that at least 50 devices play Windows Media Audio files and support its digital-rights management technology, which aims to prevent piracy.
About 400 devices play back Windows Media files in general, a figure the company is expected to update this week at the Consumer Electronics Show. That doesn't come close to the reach of the popular — and still dominant — MP3 format.
AAC only recently picked up momentum, mainly because it has one giant fan: Apple, whose iPod was the top digital music player in November, with 21.3 percent of the market share, according to research company NPD Techworld. iPods play MP3 and AAC files, but not Windows Media files.
AAC was developed in 1993 by AT&T, Dolby Laboratories, Sony and the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits under the jurisdiction of the Motion Picture Experts Group, or MPEG, which also developed the standard for MP3 files. The group put Dolby in charge of licensing AAC to interested developers.
The advantage of AAC is that it compresses files by removing parts imperceptible to the human ear, said Dolby marketing director Ron Vitale. That produces a high-quality sound even at a low transmission rate, or bitrate.
"We wanted to achieve the best possible fidelity at the lowest possible bitrates" for both dial-up and high-speed audiences, said Jim Van Huysse, general manager of AOL's Radio@ Network, which uses a Dolby-modified version of AAC.
RealNetworks' decision to use AAC shows how significant the format has become, said Roger Kay, vice president of client computing at IDC, another research company.
"When you get an endorsement from a big player like Real, that's a substantial sign that the standard is being adopted," he said.
Challenge to Microsoft
That also makes AAC more of a threat to Microsoft, the subject of an antitrust suit lodged by RealNetworks in December. The Redmond-based software giant would obviously like to see Windows Media become the dominant format used in every device and personal computer.
Even though some big names are lining up with AAC, don't count Microsoft out, Kay said.
"I guess I had always assumed that RealNetworks was slated for the dustbin of history, just given the way things go when you're competing directly with Microsoft," he said. "Whether this gives them a lease on life because they're aligned with another minority partner, I don't know if that ends up being a winning hand."
RealNetworks is also expected to announce other elements of its "Real 10" platform, including RealVideo 10 video-playing software. Also part of the platform is RealAudio 10 and RealProducer 10, which allows content owners to encode media into RealNetworks' audio and video systems.
Just like DataPlay!!/
Buy some more, niz
the train is leaving the station, it's time to load the boat 'cause this baby is ready to rumble and RUN!! Go EDIG!!
Gil: That would be "da bomb,"
but not a chance, and not a dime, in this old naysayer's opinion.
It just seems to me that
had it truly been "reviewed," by people who really know about these devices, and especially what the competition is already doing, that the inability to load more than 20 albums as originally sequenced, into a player designed to handle many hundreds of albums was a glaring oversight.
It's not unlike the music business itself, where many seemingly important decisions are being made by corporate lawyers and accountants rather than the "music people" who, in years gone by, had influenced these creative decisions with a better understanding of the nature of the "content" that was being marketed.
I've never owned or even played around with an Apple product, but I will say that from my limited experience it seems that the most accomplished and, not surprisingly, the most intuitive and creative music and graphic artists that I've met tend to prefer Apple's approach to their respective fields of endeavor. The tools are "friendlier," it seems.
listen austin, crap on Apple
all you want, but don't be dissin' the gay colors.
what is ugly, anyway,
but a prionic misarrangement of electrons.
I'll be wearing the T-shirt
that says "I'm Zack!!" across the front. (thanx, mike)
Go EDIG!!/
Back to my roots, sporty
rah rah rah for
White Plains High School
Rah for the orange and the black......
rah, rah, rah, rah,
rah for the orange and the black
rah rah
Who's next?/
This baby's gettin' ready to run!!!!/
That's cold/
You never saw the video?
It's posted on Edigerati; tuscansun won.
Seattle scored, philo?/
No wonder they put you on a leash....
Actually you are a quality contributor to the info pool here, and I'm sorry to hear that you've been reduced to such a meager ration. Happy New Year!
Austonia: Putnam's his name....
investor relations is his game.
Give him a jingle; he'd LOVE to talk!!
Phone: (858) 679-1504.....tell 'im MH sent ya'!
Straight from the horse's mouth....
e.Digital's Interim Webcast for Thursday, December 18, 2003
You'll see volume, soon enough, but
I see lots of selling into whatever PRs are released. This is the history of the CES pump.
Hooray for Austin!!!!!
Happy New Year fred.
Two words for you, ucansee....
Happy NewYear.
DataPlay makes the top eight tech
flops ever......
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ttzd/20031223/tc_techtues_zd/115253&cid=1739&...
Seattle fans thought it was wonderful/
...."Battery. Well, like most other players, it's internal and non-replaceable. This makes it smaller, but unfortunately makes it practically disposable once the battery dies. Not too concerned as my iPod is still going stong for over a year. Hopefully Gateway will offer a battery replacement service in the future like Apple now has."
http://investorshub.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=1999808
TWOMIL: You're a panic, man.
If people choose to enter music files in an order other than that created for the CD, that is fine, and they should be able to do so. Users of a DAP, however, should not be required to create playlists to simply add the CD's contents to their DAP in the order that it was released.
Ordering of the selections on an "album" is done to create a "flow" of music that conveys the desires of the artists who created it. Proper positioning of the selections is an important component of the production process.
"Filler" comes from many places. Since it is compensated at the same rate as the "hits" on an album as far as mechanical reproduction royalties are concerned, it typically comes from publishers/writers who are politically connected to the producer or the label, unless the artist(s) are also writers. In any case compensation for filler, album cuts, "B" sides, or whatever you might call it, is an important part of the music industry because it keeps the game going for the labels and publishers.
Your zeal for the success of this
company and hope for the appreciation of EDIG's PPS has clouded your normally good judgement on this issue, sentinel.
A significant amount of thought
goes into the ordering of the selections on an album. The "flow" of the collection is very important to the presentation of the music. Producers and artists spend a considerable amount of time arranging that order, and even the varied amount of silence between the selections is carefully measured to maximize the musical experience for the listener. If, as austonia states, supported by the Gateway technician with whom he consulted, it is necessary to create a playlist for each of the hundreds of potential albums contained on a 20 gig HD, so as to have the tunes play in the order that was intended, it is, for sure, a PROBLEM.
Whether everybody listens to music the same way, or not, is hardly the issue. Nobody that I know willingly chooses to listen to a recording of material in alphabetical order. Why should the purchaser of a "moopod" have to go to the trouble of creating a playlist for each of the albums that they load to their DAP?
I was also surprised to note that, like the ipod, the Gateway player's battery is not replaceable. Will these guys be making another film?
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2001824165_ipodsecret27.html