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Microsoft's iPod-Killer: Portable Media Center?
securitas writes "The Seattle Post-Intelligencer's Todd Bishop reports on what's billed as an iPod-killer: the Microsoft Portable Media Center line of digital media players that 'will store and play back video, music and photos.' The devices are expected to be demonstrated at CES this week. Hardware manufacturers Samsung, ViewSonic, iRiver, and Creative are apparently developing versions of the devices that 'will run a specialized version of Windows CE.' Analysts say that the PMCs will come with 40 GB hard drives and retail for $400 to $700. I got a look at an early version of the RCA Lyra Audio/Video Jukebox mentioned unfavorably in the article due to its size. The size is a function of needing a reasonably-sized screen to watch video. The article has an image of a Portable Media Center prototype. The devices are slated to ship in the second half of 2004."
It costs 300 dollars more. And it runs Windows CEment.
add bluetooth so it can connect to the internet via a bluetooth cell phone and play internet radio.
What people want is something small, stylish and cheap. For this kind of price I think most people would buy a palm PC instead, which although with a lot smaller storage they are cheaper and can do more.
Just because it does everything does not make it valuable to consumers... look at the N-Gage.
This is not an IPOD killer. man the new IPOD will have a 1GB drive and sell for @$100.00!
And I don't trust Microsoft. I never did and I never will.
The device is HUGE - check out the article image - the screen is just small enough to be annoying to watch a video clip on and just big enough to be too bulky.
I am all for this type of device, but Microsoft is no innovator. They shoudl wiat for Apple to creat ethe device, then rip it off. What is Bill THINKING!?!?
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
Microsoft's iPod-Killer
Ha yea, I bet a whole bunch of Mac owners are gonna swap their iPod's for a Microsoft "Portable Media Centers".
These don't really seem like competitors to the small, sheik, audio-only iPods. They seem like competitors to the previous Lyra Audio/Video Jukebox, and the like.
These things aren't going to be iPod killers. One thing that the iPod has over just about every other hard disk MP3 player out there (besides fabulous design and iTunes music store) is great battery life. A fried of mine has an Archos, and it needs recharging after 4-5 hours, whereas I can listen to my iPod all day at work.
What would kill the iPod for me would be something with the form factor of the iPod that also had PDA and cell phone functionality - especially if it used Bluetooth to connect to a cell phone headset and either Bluetooth or WiFi for internet access.
The next Cmdr Taco duplicate will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
porn.
pocket.
{Goodbye productivity!}
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
When Walkman where the big thing, Companys already tried to copy that success with portable video walkman.
The thing is walkman/mp3 player are successfull because you can still WATCH THE STREET.
I see that thing bomb
While Tablet PCs aren't that great, from what I know, they have hard drives, screens, and can play media such as these do... ...only these won't have the added benefit of also being PCs.
And with "real" (ie non-Tablet) laptop prices coming down to $700 - $800, I think it will be hard to justify less functional devices for roughly the same amount of money!
libertarianswag.com
People like to carry around a small device for listening to music on the go. You don't watch videos on the go. If you have a need to bring a portable video player somewhere, these already exist. From what I understand, they don't sell extremely well, due to the limited need.
These devices may be useful to some people, but not many; it's certainly no iPod killer.
Just my 2 cents.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
From the article: "Why should we work with another music store when we're working with the Microsoft of music stores?" - Steve Jobs
If Jobs is not on the ball, he may end up with another Netscape on his hands. They owned the market, thought they were invulnerable, and then circled the drain for a bit before selling off to AOL.
Am I cheering for Microsoft? Hardly. But they play to win, fair or otherwise.
When the iTunes service starts to lose major share of the market, though... That's when there will be real trouble. Losing the iPod is a small fish compared to iTunes.
Be excellent to each other. And... PARTY ON, DUDES!
40 Gigs, video, audio...
and 1 hour of battery life.
I've actaully reverted to my old Palm because CE's battery life is so poor.
If I seem short sighted, it is because I stand on the shoulders of midgets
Even if they took a 100% loss on this, they would not topple the iPod. It's just that superior.
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
What's needed is a wireless link to a pair of goggles (no larger or bulkier than typical sunglasses) where you see a virtual screen the size of a movie theater image.
Until then I'll stick to watching things properly in my home theater. I'll also maintain my attention span health so I'm not constantly craving electronic stimulation everywhere I go like a three year old.
--- Ban humanity.
But Microsoft's influence in this market may not be so profound. Apple has successfully moved from personal computers into a new market where the the line between the computer and home electronics are blurred. Every prior effort Microsoft has made to do this has met with only limited success. Witness WebTV and UltimateTV, both of which have sputtered.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
...is something that is half the price and looks almost as good.
You can't kill iPod by making more expensive competitors! iPod is already too expensive.
Compare the stability of the following:
Windows vs Linux (or mac)
WinCE vs Palm OS
XBox vs PS2
Microsoft are moving from the PC space, where people have amazingly decided that a crashing computer is acceptable, to the consumer electronics space, where crashing is mostly unheard of. Either they improve there QA, or people will be returning these back to where they bought them after freezing up while in normal use!
On another note, the apple iPod plays MP3 and Wav files, in addition to their implementation of (the open standard) AAC.
Will this box play anything other then Microsofts proprietary WMV... or is this another attempt by the beast of Redmond to kill off competing formats?
Tony.
Battery life. Com'n, video playback? And a hard drive? Before you finish that 175-hour long video collection, the battery is probably on the way to garbage bin due to repeated recharges.
Personally, I'm curious to see what Steve his up his sleeve at MWSF.
Que Deus te de em dobro o que me desejas
[May God give you double that which you wish for me]
or is portable video virtually useless? Like another poster said, music lets you do other things while listening. Also, music sounds virtually identical whether listening to it on an Ipod or on your massive PC rig at home. While walking down the street listening to tunes you aren't being constantly reminded that the item delivering the music to your eyes is the size of a cigarette packet.
Completely different for video. You actually have to focus on a tiny screen and devote pretty much all of your attention to it (unless you are a woman, we all know how good they are at multitasking). You have to make sure you havent got glare in the screen and you can watch the video where you won't be disturbed (like AT HOME, perhaps?). Music on the move is in easily digestible 2-10 minute chunks. You can squeeze off a track while waiting for the bus or queueing up at the supermarket. Try watching LOTR in 40 odd 5 minute sessions. OK so movies are pretty useless on portable devices unless you are in the same place, undisturbed for several hours. Such as an airplane. If only there was a way for airplanes to deliver movies to passengers while they are waiting for their three hour flight to land...
What other uses then do we have for portable video? Music videos, maybe? Well you might as well just listen to the music separately. A black man staring at the camera shaking his hands about making kung fu motions with 100 pounds of gold round his neck doesn't add much on a 50 inch plasma, let alone a 6 inch LCD. With music videos and movies pretty much worthless as far as portable video is concerned what else is there that is of any value to the mainstream consumer? Funny movie clips? Recorded video? (we have devices called video cameras for the playback of such video). Porn is one thing that would be mentioned on Slashdot, but as any guy knows, you need to be on your own to enjoy porn. You wanna blow 500 bucks just so you can jerk off in a rest room squinting at what you think is a woman getting fucked?
So when your next walking down the street and you feel a pang of jealousy seeing someone with one of these on their waist, think to yourself, 'What am I actually missing out on?'
Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?
so.
Microsoft, and many slashbotters will never get this, but I will try anyway. Jobs understands that in product design, sometimes less is more. Steve knows when to make something, but more importantly - when NOT too.
The iPods works because it is a simple elegent music player that ppl can take with them to the gym, or whatever. Nobody is going to walk around with a movie player. Why would they? Can you ride a bike, jog, work out, watching a movie? - urrr no. End of product.
Memo to Microsoft - stick with the formula that got you where you are today - cloning and rebranding other ppl's ideas - give up on inventing your own.
A better choice would be to have this thing have a S-video out and/or composite video out where you could plug it into a TV in a motel or at a friends place and watch a movie there; a video screen on the device is a waste of time and only proves that MS doesn't understand the market.
--Pete
Got it. It's more than twice the size of an iPod. Given battery life on other devices with decent color screens, there's no reason to believe these will offer two hours of continuous playback reliably without spare batteries. Or maybe that's why it's so thick and weighs twice as much as an iPod or PDA.
Even at $400 it's twice the price of those cheap no-name portable DVD players you can get. It's too expensive to give to kids for car trips, and they'd be happy with one of those cheap portable DVD players anyway. Business travelers might like it, except they already carry laptops that can play the DVDs that they already own or rent for $2 a week.
Any decent content will be pay-per-view and won't be viewable on a TV unless you have a high-end PC running XP Media Center Edition in your living room hooked up to that TV, which amounts to a few thousand people right now. And with Media Center PCs retailing for $1600 or so in a market where most PCs sell for half of that or less, it's going to be a few years before that changes.
It's as expensive as a high-end PDA but isn't a PDA. It's a second or third gadget to carry around and with all that extra space needed for more batteries, it's not a zero-carry.
I wish the first-generation licensees luck.
cheaper... does audio video and photo... has larger harddrives.
only problem is no one considers buying archos products.
i've had my jbm 20 for about 6 months and it's definitely been worth the money. much better than your so called "iPods"
I'd actually like it to have a cradle on top of my TV. There, it would be charged and at the same time double as my PVR. If they could pull that off, doing a PVR (TiVo style or whatever else) in a small portable package, they might have a winner.
Hurricane Application Group, Dept of Meteorology Control, Ministry of Proactive Defense
In this situation, Apple has created a pretty self fullfilling market place:
- a device that only works with their music store
- a music store that only works with their device
In a situation where there is already a market leader, the above scenario doesn't fly because people have to replace both their digital device and their music store content.
However, Apple is #1 in digital music device sales and on-line music sales. So the following scenario holds true:
Person puchases an iPod and loves it, then buys Y songs from the iTMS at $1 each. When the iPod breaks or they want the cooler, newer digital device, they are gonna buy the one that their existing investment of Y x $1 songs can play. Vice Versa, if they have puchased a large library of songs from iTMS, then the only device they are interested in is one that plays their music, else they basically have lost their investment.
It is a nice little situation Jobs has created. For Rio or Dell or someone to sell a digital device, they hav eto overcome both the iPod AND the existing investment in AAC files. Likewise, for Wal-Mart music store or whoever to win, they must overcome both the iTMS library a user may have AND the exisitng iPod they own.
The hope for both WMA music sites and WMA digital devices is that the market is not saturated to the point that too many people own iPods. With Apple to announce within two hours their low-cost iPod, the game just went to level ten.
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
just... ick.
that "suggested design" has got to be one of the worst things I've ever seen. I can just imagine what it would be like to hold one, kinda like the Sega Nomad. waay to big, and you can't operate the thing one-handed. Besides, what's really the point in portable video devices like that? I mean, sure, you can take maybe six DVDs along w/ you, plus your music collection, but who watches stuff on the go? If you're walking somewhere, you need to watch where you're going, not some collection of flicks you D/Led. The same thing applies to driving.
As for flights, most people in the market for that thing are probably going to have laptops, which for the most part serve the same purpose. On top of all this, the price is just dumb. Low-end laptops are about the same price, and have similar enough features to render this device unnecessary. Maybe the uber-gadget-freak market would buy this, but it's never going to be a mainstream item, at least not in my lifetime.
...how much to replace the battery? And can I replace it myself? It is a Good Thang that the iPod has a decent battery life because you cannot just swap out a dead one with a charged one. Not easily - it is designed only to be done by Apple themselves! Ideally, I want three - one in the charger at home, one in the beastie itself and a spare to replace the one with the beastie when it dies.
I have an IPod, and I paid a premium for it mostly because it is a very small form factor. It is the only hard drive based mp3 player I can carry in a shirt pocket without looking like a complete embicile. The IPod does one thing and it does it incredibly well.
This won't be an IPod killer because it's going to do everything and it will do it in a mediocre manner. How many people need an ultra portable video player? I live in the city and do a lot of walking so having a portable audio player makes perfect sense. But it would be dangerous to do the same thing and watch video.
Something for the kids perhaps? Not at $400-800, unless the thing is indestructible. Why would I shell out for that when I can shell out a fraction of that for a game boy that will keep them far more distracted.
I can see only two valuable uses for this:
1) Long flights - but how many of us have enough long flights to pay for this and don't carry a laptop along already.
2) Photo/Video storage on the go - if you take a lot of pictures, it's nice to have a device to store the data on while you are on the go.
Other than that, what possible use do I have for this device. I've got enough crap to lug around as it is, why would I want one more device?
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
Only someone totally brain dead would fork out $400 - $700 for a "music listening device", which is enough to assemble a reasonably nice desktop system.
About a hundred years ago, when I used a Mac, I had a program called "Egg Timer" (or something like that). You plugged in a duration, and it counted it down. It did exactly what I wanted. Later, when I moved to Windows, I tried to find a program that did the same thing. No such luck. I found a dozen timer programs, but they were all way too complicated -- the simplest had maybe fifteen things that it could do, and either couldn't just count down and beep, or hid that function behind so many "features" that it was more trouble than it was worth to figure it out. THIS is my biggest problem with the Windows world. It seems that there is no task so simple that we can't complicate the hell out of it.
If you've never used a Macintosh (really used it, and not just dicked around with it for a few hours) you may not understand how wonderful it is to just use a program without having the software get in the way. That's why I use a Palm, and not a Pocket PC. I wanted a small computer to do a few specific things well, not a larger computer that was trying to replace my notebook.
Windows programs just seem to be overengineered to the point of being, if not useless, certainly less useful.
django