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I Want My MTV... PC?
Tsar writes: "MTV Networks is putting their imprimatur on a line of entertainment-oriented PC's to be available early this year. Targeting the college-age crowd, they'll have TV & radio tuners, DVD players, remote controls, and 'MTV-specific content.' CNN has this article on CNN's SCI-TECH page, but the original story was posted last Thursday on IDG.net. There's also news of MTV's impending digital music player, which uses DataPlay's 500MB matchbook-sized discs with built-in digital rights denial^H^H^H^H^H^Hmanagement."
Everyone knows the MTV generation has a 15 second attention span and I haven't heard of an OS that can do much of anything usefull in 15 seconds. Certainly Windows can't. ;)
Anyone remember the other theme based PC's and what happend to them? Barbie ring a bell? Ok, so this may have more of a chance, but really, MTV doing a computer?? Besides, I'd rather build my own anyhow, so I guess it really dosn't matter to me :)
If this thing has digital rights denial built in, that must mean it's made to allow pirating of any copyrighted material whatsoever, thus denying the Constitutionally given rights of content creators and copyright holders, no? That sort of thing ought to be illegal.
Sounds very similar to the digital hub that apple keeps talking about, i think i'd personaly take the apple, but it is interesting that they have tv and radio tuners, kinda like the sony vios... hmm sounds like alot of this stuff has been done before:)
I hope this is a hoax but if not oh well. I think this is going to be a failed marketing attempt for MTV. Even if you are a college student, would you want your computer to come from a channel that headlines a show where people pierce their asses? Not me, I just don't see this idea being sucessful.
You have to realize how hardcore a lot of teens are about MTV. Yes, the rest of us can see how lame it really is... but those who are sucked into it eat, sleep, and breathe it. If MTV says something is, IT IS dammit!
I should know.. my little sister would die without it. I think she even has withdrawals sometimes.
I can't wait to see if she wants one of these once they start advertising them all the time.
the new mtvML markup language. Written specificly for the new line of pcs.
Yo, buy this PC!
You will be hip
It is da bomb!
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
4 Words...
Jenny.
McCarthy.
Nude.
Screensaver.
S.t.e.v.e.
The last time I saw MTV (and its been a while) it was more geared
towards teenie boppers than college students
Maybe they are hoping a whole bunch of stupid freshman with
rich parents will buy? Or is this more for the N'sync/Brittney Spheres crowd?
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
Damn, doesn't MTV remember the past? They've tried this sort of thing before, and where did it get them. I think it was in 95 or 96, they considered releasing a similarly themed "Media Box" that was part laser disc, part cd player, part tape deck, part vcr, etc, etc
Needless to say it failed (You don't see any around anymore, do you?). During it's short lifespan (Remember those annoying commercials with the flashing colors and slow, loud beat?), a friend of mine picked one up.
I've never seen a worse piece of consumer grade electronics in my life. The laser for the cd must have been loose or something, because it would skip on just about every damn cd. And the tech support? It was a nightmare.
Basically my friend was told to bugger off because they had stopped production. In the warrenty it covered against this, so he was SOL.
And now they want to try this sort of thing again? God I hope they do a better job.
People at college...
- Have lots of spare time
- Don't have much money
- Are subject to a LOT of peer pressure in respect of the technology/clothes/whatever they own.
MTV aim to satisfy them by:
- Stopping them from ripping their friends CDs
- Appealing to "convenience" (look, you don't have to waste time with normal PCs and that Linux stuff...)
- Guaranteeing that they will have the credibility in class of an AOLer
Am I the only person who sees something strange in this...or do you need a qualification in marketing to see how this works?
Anyone dumb enough to buy this system (there are many out there that we all know) is going to be an impulse buyer. They won't do any homework on what system to get nor will they care.
I like music, and I like the idea's of having a radio and tv tuner in my box. But I won't pay the cash that MTV (or whoever building these systems) is bound to charge when I can put them in myself for a lot less.
For those out there who know nothing of computers, they will happily follow each other over the cliff like mindless zombies, just as they do today with Micro$ofts products. It's all about marketing and creating a WANT when people don't NEED it. Maybe that crazy movie Fight Club was right?
I've always wanted one of those hotwheel computers! =)
But, with a PC with publicized (and easily duplicated) specs, where's the benefit. If they add anything to the price for the "MTV" logo without adding some extra software or cool design features, there's nothing to stop Dell and every other computer manufacturer from creating their own "Compare to" models with equally cool colors, etc...
Where's the benefit?
That sounds like the geeks on here and Slashdot....
I think it's most important we look past our obvious hatred of MTV (I concur with all previous posts) and look at the technology behind this idea.
I for one would love an all-in-one box with a custom designed UI that did DVD/TV/Radio/Music with a remote that I wouldn't have to build.
Sure you can buy yourself an ATI All-In-One Card, use some software (or for your geeks, string together some perl scripts), purchase a serial port remote control doohickey and spend forever configuring it - but you won't get the same desired result.
This is similar to TiVo. Sure, I can use my ATI Card to record TV show, but my PC is not optimized for TV watching. A dedicated appliance that can provide all this stuff for the non-PC literate is a very marketable idea.
A previous most mentioned the college audience is the wrong target - and I think you're correct. The market they should really be aiming for is the teen crowd. I'm not, and never was part of the MTV demographic but the appeal of a cool little machine that can play my new Britney Spears DVD and record TRL (Carson is so hot! WH000000!) is probably something that appeals to a lot of teenyboppers.
Time will tell if those goes the way of the Barbie PC. I hope for the success of neat all-in-one integrated devices for the average consumer, but I have the gut-feeling of impending doom for such a venture.
But hey, maybe all those castoff MTV Boxes will make neat hacking toys in a a year or so.
After researching DRM last semester, I have come to the conclusion that it is not all that bad...
Only when it is implemented by adding value to the USER not the record label. The following criteria must exists for DRM to become marketable:
- cheaper/faster content access
- Access to new content along with vast library of everything that has ever been created. All available instantly.
- higher quality content than currently available in consumer market
- user choice in usage of content (rights specification)
- highly secure to user privacy - total commitment required by company
- easy to use (invisible to user)
- transparancy in rules/policies
- high quality products with vast 3rd party developer support
- market company's trust and dedication to user's needs - NOT company's needs
These are only some... but as you can see, there is failure from the beginning in DRM. In its current state DRM is a tool for corporations, not customers. That is why it WILL fail. (Divx anyone).
Frank
This
The Register had this article about 'MTV flogs own-brand PCs to students' four days ago.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The PCs should ship in the first half of the year and are likely to be priced starting at about $1800
.. last time I check the majority of college students can not drop $1800 for a "products centered around video-game play" (direct quote). During that time for me .. things like food and a roof over my head were considered luxuries.
.. or lists of credit card companies to apply to get those nice plastic cards to buy it.
Targeting 18-to-24-year-olds,
Hummm
I am curious, is MTV going to have a show dedicated to explaining to these mindless fools on how to beg and whine to have your parents buy one for you? Get student loans to pay for it
This shall die a long and painful death as MTV executives try to figure out why there marketing is not getting these to sell. Guess that means the 1 total hour of music videos a day they show will need to get cut back to 30 minutes to allow space for more advertising.
-- Knowing too much can get you killed, but knowing who knows too much can make you rich.
Seriously? They were cool during the 80s, then it seemed like there was a transition where they stopped playing videos and started doing sucky shows.
Is this channel a bore now because I'm approaching middle age, or is there something else going on? Can anybody who watches MTV explain the appeal? MTV was something special in its day because they played stuff the radio didn't. The internet had (perhaps still has) the potential to shake up music in a positive way, but hasn't yet. Hint: It won't happen by weazeling around copyright.
I was thinking that what we need is something like a Slashdot for music, where artists could stream selected songs at no charge to promote their album in exchange for giving the website exclusive rights to the CD sales, with a percentage to the artist and a percentage to the site. It would have a user/feedback moderation like Slashdot. You would also have to have a mechanism for category creation in the event that a truly novel form of music came along. I'm not sure what you would do about radio. Maybe the site would just charge radio stations a flat fee or make that a giveaway too. Hasn't anybody tried that, and if so, why did it fail?
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
I'm in college now, and I have to tell you, MTV will do amazing with this if they promote it the right way.
Most college-age guys and girls want nothing more than to write papers and play music on. Sure, it's an amazing waste of processing power, but that's all they want.
If it says Windows, the goons think "Word", and if it says MTV, the goons think "Music". Word and Music, that's the only reason they need the PC anyway.
The internet is a big factor, but people are slowly starting to realize that the internet is available anywhere with a connection, and isn't PC dependant at all. They're still shaky on the music and processing part, for some reason.
Oh well, I expect to see dozens of these in the dorm room next year.
As mentioned before, a thematic PC has already been proven to be a load of crap, basically toys for overpriviledged kids *coughBarbiecoughHotwheelscough*. While this does appeal more to the College/High-School generation that has a big sale rate for computers (Common graduation gift, I spose), understand that they are going to be buying them for that purpose: College and High school... so the odds of getting an entertainment-based system over something with a bit more practicality are slightly lower.
So the question is here: Why not just make an entertainment-based Console computer? Honestly, stop trying to make them PCs and come up with the Nintendo/MTV MusicCube or something like that... Be a helluva lot cheaper and thusly more likely that you're going to make some kind of dent on the market itself...
Then again, you could just buy an X-box...
Karma: Non-Heinous
Is the fact they they chose the AMD Athlon Series of chips to build these waste - of -space devices. That doesn't in any way account for the prices however. $1800 dollars is way too much for this type of system. if they were really inclined, a person could put one togther for less than $500. Just my .02
You keep going until you die..."Me".
Though I much doubt it. You could expect reasonable demand for something that would let you grab music from MTV's catalogue or build personalised play-lists which could then be dumped onto a digital walkman or your car. If it's an end-to-end proprietary solution similar to the revocable certificates .NET is talking about, they can placate the music publishers and even get them an income stream. Even I would consider paying for a personalised MTV.
Why it won't work: Rather than an appliance (ala TiVo or an XBox), they are putting in a PC which will be much more expensive to buy and altogether a greater PITA to support. Even for audio only, I'd hate to have this thing hooked up to anything other than a broadband connection; people don't expect to wait 30 minutes for a song to download when they start their radio, and they sure don't want video clips that stop and start. They'll also have to rely on a lot of technology (content control for a start) that is scarcely beyond vapourware.
If it was a hardware manufacturer with a rcord for delivering consumer PCs maybe, but MTV???
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
Just how much Silicon can one company push?
I really hate Dan Patrick.
They are saying the pc will be produced by Lan Plus, so this is probably what it will be.
/* Of course I'm real, but can you prove it? */
I don't understand why the Slashdot crowd is so jaded by this. Yeah, this development won't really apply to anyone here, but that's not the market that MTV is targeting with this.
They are going for the average user, one that doesn't care about having the latest AMD (rather than Intel) processor, a DVD-ROM without hardware-level region-coding, etc, etc. As someone else pointed out, they want the users that just want something to type their papers, check e-mail, browse, run some P2P app, and watch DVDs. And there are plenty more of these people than there are of us (and they have plenty of disposable income that can be spent on things after they get their computers).
Who's to say that this new media doesn't catch on for whatever God-awful reason, and we slowly see other companies following the lead here and the media catches on? (dumber things have happened)
And it's definitely possible that MTV is not trying to take over the computer industry with this. They are probably looking at a way to extend their brand into other arenas and make some money along the way. They've got a strong brand name, and as more of the younger generation get online, it's a logical step for them. They are already using e-mail and their web site to develop large fan communities. And the members of these communities have plenty of money to spend.
MTV will be laughing...all the way to the bank.
If all you have are silver bullets, everything looks like a werewolf.
Targeting the college-age crowd, they'll have... ...'MTV-specific' content
So what is this special new 'MTV-specific' content? Does the MTV PC actually allow you to see 'Music Videos' on MTV or something?
:)
I know this will be taken as a troll, or flame-bait. But here I go.
Everyone has put down MTV, the MTV computer idea, and so much more. It goes to show one thing:
Computer geeks don't get pop culture
Someone above posted:
Even if you are a college student, would you want your computer to come from a channel that headlines a show where people pierce their asses? Not me, I just don't see this idea being sucessful.
I guess that person doesn't realize that many, many people watch that show [Jackass]. MTV is way more than just a shiny things type of network. It's young 'veejays' are usually working 100 times harder behind the scenes. It's movie awards, while a comedy show, has really challanged the Oscars by giving awards to movies that the majority actually like. The Matrix would be a good example. No doubt that movie was a hit, but no nod from the academy.
If anyone is closer to what is on the minds of the public [from age 11-2?] than MTV, where are they? No doubt their success is proof.
Will this venture work? Maybe not. But if they got these machines hooked up to a broadband connection - it could be another MTV.
Remember, music artists spend millions to put their music on TV when they receive no immediate reward. Computers offer much more than TV.
I think free music would be one big draw. And even without DRM it would keep some piracy at bay. Think a thousand mp3 streams at your finger tips. MTV has the money and power to put that together.
Most college students I know are downloading mp3s and using P2P just to have something to listen to.
If they don't try to make this a computer, and more of an appliance that plays music, movies and videos... it could work.
Just something to think about.
Get your Unix fortune now!
About 18 or 19 (college age) is about when even the dullest of college students are able to think for himself and develop his own tastes, instead of liking whatever is put infront of them...
I say this, because, I don't know *any* college students (and I know alot being employed by a university) who watch MTV, infact I would say that most despise it. These are the same college students who were "sticking it to the man" on napster... MTV *is* the man.
Oh and guess what, college students are chronically poor by definition.
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
Sorry, billybob. I've got no excuse for adding 48 characters to your HTML download of this story, except that I was in a hurry when I submitted. Thankfully, your clever post has pointed out the error of my ways. Please feel free to bill me for the (48chars/yourcps) seconds which I cost you.
Then again, after looking at your posting history, perhaps it would be more fair if we billed you.
Oh, and I didn't include the link in order to demonstrate superiority (which I assume was the purpose of your dubious post), but for the simple convenience of the reader. I don't generally type unnecessarily—which is why I'll just link to this rather than waste more time on you myself.
I doubt they're marketing this towards college students (and if they are it probably won't work that well).
I could be wrong but it seems that most of the other college students I talk to are somewhat cynical of things like MTV. And there is no way in hell they'd parade around with a PC branded by MTV.
I think this would be more for the 13 year old teenyboppers. Sure, there are probably a few college students that would want to buy a MTV computer, but I doubt that's their market.
Or perhaps I just hang out with people like myself and don't really know how many people would be interested in something like this.
FiGZ.COM - A waste of perfectly good web space
More like...
o/~ Your FAT's corrupted, ain't no lie / Data, bye, bye, bye o/~
Want Linux games? HERE.
The Matrix would be a good example. No doubt that movie was a hit, but no nod from the academy.
Ah the usual Slashdot flair for accuracy. The Matrix won four Oscars. No mean feat.
Da Blog
at least from the minority stand point.
And it may actually take a big market slice away from already small percentage that is controlled by Apple Computer. Apple is trying to get the rest of us interested about looking at them and the company is diving right into the music market with iPod and the new "digital nub" iMac. Having MTV jumping in there with more than they can provide like for example content, may causes some tooth ache to SJ and its mignons.
PPA, the girl next door.
-- I feel better now. Thanks for asking.
Don't dismiss MTV so quickly, their web site currently features O-Town. Now your knee-jerk reaction might be to catapult them all into the gutter, but would you believe that Ashley Angel, the prettiest of all pretty boys, starred in the Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete, arguably the best written Japanese RPG? It's true. Lunar is a real fan favorite amongst console gamers, so it's a neat twist that one of the nerdiest games links to one of the hippest bands.
Old news... You can find some more stuff at the Reg
I wonder if I can get the Carson Daily signiture edition...
"I might trust Microsoft to make me a good PC, but I'm not stupid enough to buy a MTV computer."
Is it broken logic, sure, but probably how it will go.
Incidentally, I think any Media vendor branded content embellished PC type thing will flop to similar reasoning.
"What they think I'm stupid enough to buy the Disney PC? What if I want to watch bugs bunny."
The only thing that keeps the WB minivan dvd honest is minivan competition.
MTV is taking a money hit as a favor. Somtimes it's easier to pretend an idea stands a chance despite knowing you will fail. This probably started as "but Jack what can we do?" at a board meeting.
Novel theory: Modern Man evolved from psychopath
This is actually a great idea, all complaints about mtv's value added advertising aside. If I had some VC I would consider making a similar computer and selling it around campus. A dvd, mp3, digital music, video, game playing, media center designed to be easy to use and able to mesh well with other computer or with audio/video setups.
Surf the web, watch dvds, listen to cds,mp3s,etc all in one... great idea. Maybe they should consider building in gamecube technology too.. then they could appeal to jsut about everyone and everyones needs.
I think this idea is simply brilliant and one of the best uses for an internet appliance that I've ever heard. Imagine if you had one machine that was totally dedicated to your audio/visual needs (ok, not your high end, rendering Toy Story 3 needs, but a/v all the same) that had a highspeed internet connection, solely for downloading content. How cool would this be: want an mp3? Download it in less than a minute. Want a music video? Download that in less than 3. I cannot tell you the amount of effort that goes into finding all of the older, more obscure music videos that were released before computers got their tv/video cards. Imagine all of this content, plus a dvd and maybe email on a simple dedicated machine? It'd be the new entertainment center... and you wouldn't have to buy an entire cd, you could finally only get the music you want! Sure, let them put in all the content-protection they want. As long as I can access whatever I want, whenever I want, I don't need an actual copy of the music. This wouldn't replace a computer, but would handle all of the entertainment aspects of it. Make it a reasonable price with a flat screen and this is a surefire seller.
Wow! I'm so old that I remember when MTV was ONLY music videos, and I used to discover bands that I liked by watching it.
Now they have a variety of shows, but I rarely catch them playing a video when flipping through. I want my (old) MTV!
I'm pretty much LMAO right about now.
Oh a breading, breading, breading we will go...
Anyone remember the other theme based PC's and what happend to them? Barbie ring a bell?
I was at the Rochester, NY Hamfest a few years ago and some poor bastard was trying to sell a U-Haul full of the printers that were supposed to be packaged with the Barbie PC. I don't know where he got them from, but I'll never forget watching him plead with people that a printer with pink casing a huge flowers all over it was still a decent purchase.
--saint