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Sony To Launch PS3 Video Download Service
An anonymous reader points out a Los Angeles Times report that Sony is planning on making movies and TV shows available for download through the PS3 "as early as this summer." Sony hopes to make use of the roughly 4 million PS3s already sold in the US to compete with similar services such as XBox Live, which began offering video downloads over a year ago.
"One of the service's greatest obstacles may be Sony's own culture. Sony Chairman and Chief Executive Howard Stringer has been battling a corporate silo mentality in which divisions within his company work in isolation, undermining new initiatives. The PlayStation group in Foster City, Calif., has been notoriously aloof. Once, a former executive said, it scuttled plans for a movie subscription service for the PlayStation Portable even though Sony Pictures had supported the initiative. What is more, the company, looking to safeguard its film, television and music holdings, has been an aggressive champion of copyright protection, often, critics suggest, at the cost of technological innovation."
Bandwidth?
Just like Home was supposed to be out Q4 2007.
Howard Stringer doesn't deserve to be the CEO of Sony unless he changes his name to Wasabi Miamoto or something like that.
How long does it take to download Talladega Nights anyway?
This might be the service that finally puts net neutrality into perspective. Previously all the arguments about bandwidth availability and the ethics of throttling have conflated legitimate use with piracy. But the crux of the argument has been mostly hypothetical up until about now; A legal, widely deployed IP video-on-demand service will put the TV content providers into a very clear conflict of interests; it will be interesting to see how they plan on treating this traffic.
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
FWIW, most large Japanese corporations try to silo their divisions as much as possible. Often, large companies will silo a division, until it becomes 'self sufficient' with it's own P&L, and then the parent company will spin it off into quasi-independence. This forces middle managers to be as efficient as possible, but obviously costs somewhat in corporate-wide leveraging-- leveraging usually comes in the form of cheap capital and maybe shared real estate, but not much beyond that.
davejenkins.com |
They don't mention it at all, but I'd be interested to know on what format and quality they think they can manage to release these episodes and movies. No way in hell will any movies be blu-ray quality, 8+gig 780p, or even good DVD quality. Possibly for tv episodes that might be compressed down to ~300Mb, but I'd guess movies will be in the range of 600-800Mb, but questionable on the format. Maybe if Sony hears of complaints from end-users about network tampering, they'll support some sort of net neutrality since it will affect them with this effort.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. indymedia
After a few months of low sales and unhappy customers, they'll write it off. They'll blame the failure on poorly educated consumers.
Keep in mind that Sony Pictures and Sony Electronics are two different divisions of the same company. It's an unhappy marriage; what makes Pictures happy makes Electronics unhappy and vice versa. As these two opposing points of view seek to find consensus some very awkward compromises are made. See any Sony product that does anything with online digital media content for a good example.
Of course, while Pictures and Electronics battle it out they aren't paying much attention to what their market is asking for. Look how long it took for them to finally support MP3 format in their portable music players; while they fiddled the market went a different way and - well, the people who made the Walkman famous aren't even on the radar in portable music players these days.
Maybe they've learned something and they'll do this one right. Reality check: now many PSP owners are going to buy movies from Sony that can only be watched on the PSP? I suspect this product may not actually be profitable...
As consumers are beginning to learn, why are movies that are being bought provided as a service? If you're going to DRM, you either offer all movies available to a collection at a flat rate, with the monthly fee as the right to access such collection--otherwise you don't. You either sell an album or you sell the right to listen to it.
DRM'ed marketplaces claim you are "buying" an album, but the reality is that DRM gives you the right to use it until they turn off their DRM servers. They need to advertise that; anything short of that is misrepresentation.
I always felt that Sony could have been one of the few companies to really compete with Apple, not just in the mp3 market, but in streaming technology as well. They had the content, they had the technological know how, they had money and they had a pretty sizeable custome base to work with. But, while one of their divisions gives us the tools to rip discs and stream media from one Sony device to the other, they then turn around and make the consumers out to be the bad guys for using their hardware as they intended.
I think this is a great move for Sony because it sets them up to move to digital downloads if the competition is fierce but also packages Blu-ray into the same device. Either way, they win the movie-rentals and movie-player game.
Compared to something like the Apple TV, the PS3 is superior if Sony can push out their movie rental service soon. If the PS3 supported movie download rentals, you would have the best of both worlds in one device. Want to rent a (high def) movie from the store or netflix? Play it on your PS3. Want to rent a movie download? Play it on your PS3. It may sound funny, but I've been considering buying the PS3, not because of the game console features, but because of the movie download potential and the bluray player. Hell, if they had a PS3 that came with a remote instead of a controller, I'd probably buy that instead.
Oh and BTW, the PS3 does run linux!
... It'll have about 10 movies available, all of which are either 10 years old or massively out of date. And the price won't be competitive with your local Blockbuster.
YMMV, this is from the perspective of a UK user. Maybe in the US you get a decent selection at a decent price?
This is great news for people in developing countrys with little or no HDTV content available and download (pirated) HD content that can't be otherwise obtained, specially HD shows like Lost or T:TSCC.
At least here in Argentina a lot of people have HDTV-ready TV sets, high-end PCs or next-gen consoles but we don't have HD supported cable, Directv or even a OTA digital tv format (We may get ATSC as standard next year).
If we could get HD downloads for cheap (let's say $2 an episode) I would gladly pay it.
Same thing for movies, imported from USA Blu-ray movies cost 60 dollars here and there is no local production like DVDs yet.
Postdata: I know Apple TV/Itunes has been doing this for a few months, but this device it's not popular over here. PS3 is.
Perhaps it's largely due to what the critics claim; that "The company, looking to safeguard its film, television and music holdings, has been an aggressive champion of copyright protection, at the cost of technological innovation."
But whatever the case, I think Sony missed a few opportunities to make the PS3 a better suited system for video on demand and the like.
1. Why only wireless "g" support in them, and not "n"? Wireless "n" support actually makes video streaming possible without drop-outs and pauses.
2. The bluetooth remote control is a $20 option that probably should have just been bundled with the PS3, or better yet - sold as a "higher-end" option, vs. a bundled standard IR remote control. You can't use a "universal remote" with a PS3 at all the way it is now, since universal remotes aren't going to do bluetooth. That also means a PS3 can't accept "change channel" type commands from another PVR type box (a la MythTV or Tivo), potentially further limiting its usefulness. How much would it *really* cost to add an I.R. sensor to the front of a PS3?
3. Hard drive capacity is really insufficient, especially on the cheaper PS3 models. With all the games copying over gigabytes of data when first played, plus people wanting to store their photos and music collections and downloaded demos, trailers, etc. - how much room can be safely assumed to be available for movie buffering purposes? (And what about selling movies to download and keep? That might go over like a lead balloon, even with people otherwise ok with having no easy backup for the PS3 drive, if it eats all that free disk space.)
Why not just sign a deal with Netflix to do their Video Streaming feature via the XMB?
"What is more, the company, looking to safeguard its film, television and music holdings, has been an aggressive champion of copyright protection, often, critics suggest, at the cost of technological innovation.""
I think this can be summed up by:
You can't serve mana and Heaven to.
Sony (the technology part) is doomed by the movie part. To bad , they used to make good stuff.
* Carthago Delenda Est *
If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.
"Taboo, like anything else, goes in and out of style."
The PS3 HDD is standard, and can be replaced. There are instructions that come with the console.
Not so for the 360.
Got to keep these rogue corporate divisions from deviating from the path. Except for Apple. Apple can do its own thing.
The remote issue isnt entirely true. There are after market USB IR dongles for use with the PS3. With this plus a universal remote you can get it working, but thats really only for the dedicated people who have one of those expensive universal IR remotes (Logitech Harmony)
A Games article that doesn't talk about games.
Minti: What's that huge shuriken in your back?! Kin: It's the instrument of my victory.
802.11n is not a standard yet.
And the PS3 uses a standard 2.5" S-ATA drive. With a S-ATA cable (male-female) you can connect whatever S-ATA drive you want, 3.5" or even a NAS.
Not to mention the PS3 has at least 2 USB ports (with 4 on the "upscale" models).
You can already use an external USB drive to store music, video and picture, there is no reason that they couldn't store DRMed video content on one also.
They already store DRMed content on "removable" media by allowing you to download purchased content from the PSN Store via the "PC Store" or PS3 to PSPs. Since all PSPs use MemoryStick Pro Duos for their persistent storage, there is no real difference between using a MS Pro Duo and using a USB drive.
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Does anybody know if sony plans to put more 80gb PS3s on the market prior to the Metal Gear Solid release later this year?
Yellow dog and a torrent client.
What's really, um, "cute" about the 360 is that the HDD size is hardwired into the unit. It's not hard to crack open one of those drive thingies for the 360 and put your own drive in it, but if you put a 300G drive in, it'll still only format it to 120G at most. Because that's all the Elite will allow.
Stick a 300G drive into a PS3, and you get 300G. But Sony seems deathly afraid of actually selling you anything that would fill that space.
Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
I have to say that the summary makes sense in at least one area - the design interface seems really half-assed. Coming from a MAJOR corporation like Sony, that would lend credence to the accusation that Sony is in some ways its own worst enemy.
:)
:)
I admit that I bought the PS3 for one reason - Blu-ray won. I do not own an Xbox360, but I have several friends who do. The difference between the Xbox XBL interface/experience and the Sony XrossMediaBar (worst name ever, btw)/PSN/PSN Store interface/experience is night and day. The PS3 interface is polished enough, but its terribly clunky. It feels very inconsistent, and while the Store got MUCH better with the latest firmware release (2.30), it has a LONG way to go, and they better start adding more content soon and more quickly. It seems like new content is delivered MAYBE weekly, if that. It simply doesn't feel like there's much interesting to DO with the PSN at this point. Granted, I don't play MP games (yet), so take what I say with a grain of salt. But overall, the XBL experience just feels more vibrant and certainly a lot more tightly integrated than the PSN at this point.
Now, before people start calling me an MS fanboi, note which console I said I DO own, and which I DO NOT own.
I just noticed that apparently, the XMB won an EMMY AWARD, and is used in everything from the PSP to Sony TV's to Sony Ericsson phones. So what the hell do I know, go ahead and mod me into oblivion.
Sony has the content. This gives it a huge leg up on XBox. Trying to move video to portable devices has been, by an large, a total failure. Look at TV and video on Cellphones as an example. A PSP/PS3 DRM'd combo could be as big as Apple's iPod and iTunes. What it would take is a program like MIRO to tie into the existing Sony catalog as well as Internet sources. Add similar functions under a music tab to Itunes and maybe a Rapshody or Pandora capability and you've got a serious threat to Apple. Then it becomes your set-top box for subscirption content, your physical media player, and your docking station for your PMP. AND it plays video games. AND it's standalone. Versus AppleTV which is just set-top and requires a computer, and XBox 360, which lost the format war.
Oh honey look... How cute... an angry slashdotter!
Not sure I'd agree with that.
I mean, the PSN store has released quite a few download only games, games use the space to cache data, and Sony themselves have announced both PlayTV and this Video download service.
Not to mention just popping your Sony CD into the drive and ripping it straight to the Hard-Drive.
Sure seems like they're trying to sell you content to fill that space, it just doesn't happen overnight.
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using yellow dog and pirate bay
only without the DRM this will clearly have on it
Most Damage is done by people who are AWAKE
So, for Sony to make it work, it should have it's on Playstation Router. Also, it would have been very hard to implement a working Pre-N wireless client when PS3 was published in 2006, as the 802.11n standard was in its infancy back then.
I didn't see anyone mentioning this beast at all.
Basically it's Sony's answer to people who have too much money and not enough common sense. Share's the PS3's XBR system, holds 200 Blu-Ray discs and has a 500GB hard drive. Reading the owner's manual there's a lot to dislike (DRM everywhere), but I can see the people that they are targeting, and it does look 'cool'.
III.IIVIVIXIIVIVIIIVVIIIIXVIIIXIIIIIIIIVIIIIVVIII
DRMed content on external drives might not work simply because of the file size - the only open file format that everyone uses is FAT32.. so that's what Sony uses too on its external drive. That limits you to 2GB/file, which sucks somewhat for hidef stuff.
I wish they'd enable ext2 or ext3 (hey it's linux under the hood.. can't be *that* hard) but I guess they're thinking about the mass market who wouldn't know how to ext2 format a disk if it was explained to them in crayon. NTFS of course is not possible because it's microsoft proprietary and it really wouldn't surprise me if MS had protected it with a few patents, just to be sure.
That's if they allow Argentinian consoles to use the service, a lot of internet sites restrict viewing/purchases by region :/
I Just bought a ps3 two days ago. I figured it was time as I had plenty of cash on hand and an itching for some call of duty 4 and GTA IV is coming out next week. And Soulcalibur 4 in a month I'm really pissed at Sony. They didn't include any HD cable at all. They didn't include any backwards compatibility, at all. They don't even attempt it in software anymore. I'm still waiting on my HDMI cable but hopefully i'll get some PSubuntu going with Mame to make up for losing all my ps2 games. Bleh. Fuck Sony.
No easy backup?
You can plug in any fat32 USB drive. I have a 500gb USB hard drive enclosure hooked up to my PS3 with all my media on it (and I can take it to another system). It's great because I won't have to back it up in the unlikely even t my PS3 fails and needs service/replacement.
Also, IR remotes are awful, and I'm thrilled Sony is doing something to push technology along (and wish their TVs and DVD players relied on bluetooth as well), but I'm a bit hypocritical. You see, my PS3 has an IR sensor, and I use my universal remote with it. This is very common. You can either buy the adaptor for $15, or, like me, just use the PS2 remote's sensor and a PS2->USB adaptor. For me it was a $5 investment, but I sure hope IR remotes go away eventually.
Lastly, wireless G is 54 mbps. It's not going to max out my 1080p display and run my 8 speaker audio system with PCM (thankfully, those are connected directly to my PS3), but that's sufficient for decent, non home theater video... and I would bet it's plenty and plenty to spare for the quality of video Sony (or anyone else) will sell online for a long time.
I think a lot of people are still uncomfortable with the concept of paying for games/music/etc without having anything physical to show for it. Especially late adopters [like me].
If each mistake being made is a new one, then progress is being made.
Well a 2'14" video in 720p (unencrypted compressed w/AVC and AAC) takes 96MB.
Using the back of this napkin (and aiming for rounder numbers to make it easier), so a 9 minute video would take ~400MB.
That would put a 45 minute video at ~2GB. Easily enough to handle a TV show (not sure what they have).
For a calculation of SD offerings, they offered the Sony E3 press conf last year (SD only). It has a run time of 1 hour, 35 minutes, 24 seconds, and a size of 1098MB.
Another possibility though is that it could be like Amazon's Unbox service. Unbox supports downloads to computers and TiVos, Sony's service could support download to Computers and PS3s. With a little bit of design, you could stream the file from the computer which also solves the space problem, opens the service up to lots more people, and still gives the PS3 and important spot in the offering.
Of course most of this is speculation.
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Damn dude, they didn't do to well with the $600 platform, and you'd have them push this into mid range PC pricing. I mean hell, it'd cost at least as much as a cheap laptop, look at all the features! :)
Cut them some slack at least, it does have Gig E, the regular controllers are BT and can fully control A/V playback, and the hard drive is user-replaceable, with instructions in the manual. Ain't perfect, but I spent enough as it is already.
It is trivially easy to backup your PS3 hard drive. You can use virtually any storage medium. USB drive, USB hard drive, SATA drive, Memory stick, SD, compactflash, etc etc etc.
I have a huge hard drive in a usb enclosure than I use for my laptop, and it's got all my movies on it. I just happened to hook it up to my PS3, and all my divx movies played. In fact, all the movies I've downloaded from the PSN (trailers and crap like that), actually went straight to the USB drive.
There is absolutely no space issue, since the PS3 is very open.
Is only Sony would pull its head out of it's ass in other ways. I'm sure it will be eons of announcements and delays before this service is available.