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Wired: Sony Prototyping Personal Video Player

Posted by timothy on from the all-the-cool-kids dept.

Cinematique writes "Wired is running an article about Apple beating Sony in the personal music player fight. The author suggest that Sony should skip its planned answer to the iPod and focus instead on a portable video player. But there's a catch: the legality of the content such video players would use."

3 of 150 comments (clear)

  1. Legality of content? by BizidyDizidy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I don't see as how this should be a problem.

    First, if you own a DVD, you should be able to "rip" it to one of these players as fair use. This would probably often be a useful feature.

    Even cooler would be if the future of DVRs would be to download content to such players, just like a computer to an IPOD. Being able to "TiVo" shows and watch them whenever you want would be quite a nice feature.

    Is there any "copyright" issues with using TV shows like this? How could it be any different from using a DVR in the first place.

    --
    The safest way to approach lava is to have another person with you and he goes first.
  2. Skipping iPod clone is a poor idea by drinkypoo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm not reading the article - I've given up on wired entirely - but that doesn't matter. There will necessarily be a gulf in price between a device which plays mp3s, and a device which plays video. The needs for storage, a fancy display, and additional processing (either in the form of a dedicated video decompressing engine in hardware, or a generally more powerful CPU) pretty much guarantee that a video player is going to cost more money.

    Meanwhile Apple is taking pretty much all the money for a large-capacity portable mp3 player, and Sony would like a bite of it for obvious reasons. They own all the technologies they'll need to implement it, so they need not license anything to do so - the only costs are for development and production. Sony is known to be able to churn out hardware at very low costs, so this should be a doddle for them.

    Let's also not forget that Sony is bringing out their new somewhat-PS2-based handheld, the PSP, in the not so far future. Since they already have a handheld video player coming, they might as well toss off the mp3 player right now, and work on video later.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  3. Maybe its just me but I just don't see the point.. by PierceLabs · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm not sure I really see the validity of carrying movies and TV shows around with me. With music its different - I can listen to music while driving, while coding, while jogging, etc. I just don't see the same appeal for video. While it would be a very useful device for those long plane rides when you're unfortunate enough to not be travelling on JetBlue or to calm a child on a road trip (and you already have a larger screen for them to watch) - I just don't see video being a big a draw.

    Listening to music is just a much more passive activity than actually watching a movie. I simply see fewer instances where I'd want to use it AND I wouldn't want a more compelling experience from a gameboy or cellphone games. Maybe its just me - but by the time this market develops - I would expect that 4G phones would be able to deliver all the video I need right to me :)