Mediaholic

It sure is nice to get market confirmation to our analysis and predictions. This time there is an interesting statistics revealed by Cory Doctorow in his speech at the Digital Rights Management conference in London. According to him, BigChampagne, an online media market research group, has found that "DRM-protected files exclusively released through iTunes typically appear in unprotected form on P2P networks 180 seconds later" (taken from Blogzilla). Now, is that a proof that DRM protects nothing or what? Which begs the question, why have the studios and labels mandated DRM? And why do tech firms like Microsoft and Apple support them in that? Read our previous post about DRM for the answer.

We said that network enabling the iPod is the next big thing for the iPod and for mobile entertainment devices in general and we are starting to get confirmation from the market. Here is a scoop: we have received confirmation from Philips that it is working with Cyberhome to add WiFi support in their next generation of mobile entertainment devices (which also happens to be based on Philips Nexperia). This means that companies out there get it and are interested to go beyond the built in hard-drive and explore other sources of content and that these devices will soon be able to work with TVersity. In fact the specific product we are referring to has UPnP AV support and is believed to be tested with TVersity as it is being developed, which of-course is great news to all those that will end up buying it!

There is an interesting article in Hot Stuff (a gadget and technology magazine) about the BBC plans for Internet TV in 2006. Here is a quote:

“The BBC has confirmed its reputation as the world’s most tech-savvy auntie by announcing an autumn launch for its new internet TV and on-demand service.Provisionally called MyBBCPlayer, it will see the Beeb simulcast its terrestrial channels live on TV and the Internet for the first time. The move follows a ‘wake-up call’ last year when new Doctor Who series was leaked on the net, and the emergence this year of broadband services from Sky and BT.”

While this is undoubtedly a step in the right direction, there is little word about the kind of restrictions they intend to have and whether it will work worldwide or just in the UK (as is the case right now during the testing period). It is also not clear if one will or won’t be able to download shows to an iPod, PSP or other portable media players. This is particularly disappointing as the BBC was one of the first companies to follow the podcasting phenomenon and offer some of their shows for download based on this open standard. One would expect that now, with the video iPod and PSP gaining popularity, the BBC will do the same for video and offer some of their shows as video podcasts (or to use some of the other names out there, video blogs, vlogs, vodcasts, etc.). Alas, it looks like instead of doing that they decided to create their own players and introduce a whole bunch of restrictions that stifle innovation and probably make it better for now to stick with a DVR and just copy the shows to the iPod from there.

In contrast the PBS has taken the plunge with video already in mid 2005 and started offering shows as video podcasts to people all over the world. Their shows can be downloaded and viewed on any device and if necessary even converted to other formats in order to accommodate technical limitations of certain devices. In that respect the PBS is a true pioneer, by offering its shows with no DRM system and no geographic restrictions, the PBS is in fact the first traditional media broadcaster, that has truly gone worldwide and is available now to more people than any channel has ever been. WOW! What an achievement for a public broadcasting network that is operating on relatively small budgets.

So what exactly is the difference between the BBC and the PBS in terms of how they offer their video content on the web? The BBC is using its own player and is employing a certain Digital Right Management (DRM) scheme to prevent people from playing the media outside of that player. The PBS on the other hand, is relying on open standard to publish its video content and makes it available via RSS without any DRM system “protecting” it (this is just like both the PBS and the BBC make audio programming available). The benefits of relying on open standards and in avoiding DRM, are not just in the ability to copy the media to an iPod or a PSP but also to access it from any software that can read RSS (typically referred to as an RSS aggregator) such as iTunes. Another example of such software is TVersity, through which one will be able to access the PBS programming on their network enabled TV and mobile devices once the next release is made.
So it seems like the BBC was off to a great start with Internet broadcasting when it embraced audio podcasting, and yet is not doing that great when it come to video. It is our hope that they change their mind and leverage the great opportunity in the market today to become a leader and a pioneer in open and standards based Internet broadcasting, and if they don’t then too bad for them since others will seize this marvelous opportunity.

Charlie Demerjian at the Inquirer recently wrote about DRM in an article titled “DRM is a complete lie - Opinion It has never protected a single thing” with which I totally agree. I suggest taking the time to read it since it tells the ugly truth about something that might become an integral part of our lives and is already causing a lot of misery.

As a computer scientist with some knowledge in security and cryptography (and having the privilege to study with professor Adi Shamir from RSA) I must say that it is true that DRM protects nothing. The whole premise underlying a DRM system is that the key to unlock the content can be acquired by the user and so the content can be decrypted (and then in theory also converted to DRM-less formats). According to DRM supporters the users do not know how the system works internally so given the media and the key they won't know what to do with it, however from scientific point of view it is common knowledge that the details of any system can always be discovered with some reverse engineering so if the key is revealed so is the secret.

A few examples to illustrate it are DVD protection and Apple DRM (broken both by Real Networks and by DVD Jon). Not only that they were both broken but rather they are broken by definition and people even went into the trouble of creating programs to strip this DRM (the same principle holds for WMDRM although no program is yet available on the Net for stripping it, but of-course one is bound to arise sooner or later). Compare this to RSA, which is not broken, and with a sufficiently large key cannot be ever broken on computers as we know them today, disregarding how fast they become (unless one solves a very hard mathematical problem that is considered by many to be solvable only on a quantum computer but this is a different subject altogether, and quantum computers are a totally different beast). Yet once the key is known, the fact that RSA is not broken is irrelevant since any system that gives the user the key is by definition keeping no secret and hence is insecure.

Another interesting example is the broadcast flag, the flag is not securing the media in any way, it is just saying what one can or can't do and by the DMCA it will be illegal to violate the terms of the flag and so even though nothing is physically enforcing the usage policy, the existence of the flag is the protection. I would like to argue that it is just as good as DRM.

Of-course Microsoft and Apple and Google know it very well, so why all the fanfare around DRM? And why are Apple and Microsoft (and now Google) selling the DRM concept to the studios/labels? I have to agree again with the article that this is business related and it essentially gives control to the content owner and makes it possible to re-sell the same media over and over again. The best example here is UMD, the law makes it illegal to rip a legally purchased DVD and copy it to a PSP and Sony, in an attempt to take an advantage of this, thinks that one should buy the movie again.

Another question that we need to ask ourselves is what’s in it for Microsoft and Apple? The answer here is very simple - world domination. Computer companies like Apple and Microsoft try to control the software that forms the basis for everything people do. They do not want open standards they want their stuff to be the de-facto standard and then maybe they will license it or portions of it. Microsoft has always been doing it with Windows and Apple is doing it now with the iPod and their Fair Play DRM system. And for all the naive people that yearn for a standard DRM system, I say that you have a fundamental flaw in your thinking since there is already a standard system and it is Apple's Fair Play. When you control 80% or 90% of something you are the standard. The problem is that the standard is not open and cannot even be licensed, which goes back to world domination.

Another example regarding world domination (although unrelated to DRM) is what Microsoft did with the XBOX 360. They made it a great MCE extender in order to promote MCE but crippled its ability to play video with Windows Media Connect also in order to promote MCE. But this is not all; Windows Media Connect is based on an open standard (called UPnP AV) and works with many devices. One would think that the XBOX 360 is just another device and therefore it should be possible to use the XBOX 360 with other UPnP AV servers (e.g. the ones used by those other devices or with TVersity) and that those can be an alternative to Windows Media Connect. Well, surprise surprise, Microsoft made it impossible to do this by making the XBOX 360 deviate from the standard for no reason whatsoever (I mean if they added some features and improved the user experience it would be kind of ok, but they just removed features) and they also chose to keep the details secret in attempt (futile?) to block others and achieve you guess it, world domination.

So given all that, what is the future of DRM? It will die out a natural death just like Windows is loosing its importance to the Internet (which is 100% based on open standards). For some reason that I cannot explain, history shows that all the attempts made by one to attain world dominance will eventually fail. It keeps happening to Microsoft, which e.g. went into all this trouble to define its proprietary network standard and its own private Internet and eventually had to accept TCP/IP and the public Internet.

I just wish we, as a society, could avoid wasting all this energy attempting to dominate the world and instead learn to work together. Look at the Internet, the WWW, email, RSS, so many great things happen when people put aside their ego and ambition to dominate others and just focus on promoting the state of things, so why do we keep repeating the same mistake?

I was watching Larry Page keynote from CES (I missed it when I was there and it was just recently made available for viewing via google video) and read some aricles about the whole notion of google creating a marketplace for digital media. This marketplace allows everyone to put their media for sale, the big studios and the small citizens are pretty much equal in what they can do. A nice concept which got me thinking about eBay. eBay is the biggest online marketplace in the world in which everyone is equal and in which you can find individuals, small businesses and very large companies selling in the same market using the same exact tools. So, what is the problem here? It should be kind of obvious that eBay can't just watch google take over what may be the biggest growth area for eBay in the coming years and therefore watch for eBay to enter this market soon, maybe even in 2006. Just another prediction for the new year.

Note: The original posting of this article was made on January 18, 2006 in the TVersity development blog. It is reposted here since this is where it belongs.


After sticking our neck and making a prediction about the next big thing for the iPod, boy were we happy to see all the hype surrounding the "mobile me" trademark applications by Apple. For those that missed it here is a quote taken from the San Francisco Chronicle:

Note: The original posting of this article was made on January 9, 2006 in the TVersity development blog. It is reposted here, with some additions, since this is where it belongs.


One of the most interesting aspects of the recent Consumer Electronic Show for me and for TVersity was the state of the UPnP standard and how well it is received in the market. What we found exceeded our expectations and we left the show far more excited about the future of UPnP than we were before, however we also found several reasons for concern.

Here are some of the interesting trends we spotted:

• UPnP AV is no longer standalone; One unsurprising trend is that digital media adapters, which were very hot in CES 2005 were not so hot this year. In fact I can think of not more than half a dozen new DMA models and they were all introduced by established players in the market who also introduced other products in which UPnP AV was merely a feature. On the other hand UPnP AV functionality got integrated into many different devices and has shifted its role from the basis for a new product category to an enabling feature of existing categories such as DVDs, TVs, Phones, NAS devices and so on. All the companies that released new DMAs (such as DLink, NetGear, Buffalo, and Zensonic) had also released networked DVDs or NAS devices and emphasized those products and not the DMA.
  
  
• UPnP AV in DVD players; Networked DVDs were almost exclusively based on UPnP AV. Some of you may know that there are two other proprietary solutions that are considered alternatives to UPnP. One of them has been created by Syabas (can be found in devices from Asian companies like IOData and Buffalo) and the other was created by Kiss and can be found in devices from Kiss (now owned by Linksys) and some other less known local European brands that licensed their technology. While in 2005 it seemed like Europe is divided between Kiss and UPnP and the far east is controlled by Syabas, with UPnP leading only in America, it is clear now that 2006 will be all about UPnP. Syabas, essentially admitting the inferiority of its solution, has added UPnP support to the middleware it sells and so new firmware versions for devices like the Buffalo Linktheater and the IOData Avellink essentially make them UPnP compliant. Moreover companies like Buffalo have made the switch from Syabas middleware to UPnP only middleware (e.g. in their Linktheater Mini and their NAS devices). At the same time, Kiss, despite its acquisition by Linksys, has not been able to spread their proprietary solution and to the best of our knowledge there was not even a single announcement in CES of a new company that is planning to release products based on the Kiss solution. Kiss however has demonstrated in CES that their latest models are compatible with Windows Media Connect, i.e. with UPnP AV.
  
  
• UPnP AV in every TV; We were astonished to see how many new gadgets have built in UPnP AV support. We must have seen two dozen TVs with built in UPnP AV support, this includes names like Toshiba, Sony, Samsung, Philips, HP and many more less known brands. The rumor is that Apple will announce tomorrow a plasma HDTV with built in support for Intel Viiv, which is also UPnP AV based.
  
  
• UPnP AV in Set Top Boxes; It will take some time before a large number of TVs with built in UPnP support finds its way into people homes and the same is true for DVD Players and other devices. So, what can spread UPnP fast? The same thing that is spreading DVRs, it will be given away for free by cable and satellite operators! Yes, one of the most interesting trends we spotted in CES is that most of the companies that build the set top boxes for the operators have either integrated UPnP into their latest models or are planning to do so. We spoke with NDS (maker of set top boxes for Direct TV) and with Digeo (maker or Moxi) and they already have UPnP support in their most recent models. We also spoke with Scientific Atlanta and they suggested that UPnP support will soon be added to their set top boxes as well. The same trend is evident in Europe where in fact companies like Siemens (with their M740AV which is already widely deployed and as it happens to be many of the users of this box are also users of TVersity) and other less known names (such as Kreatel which was recently acquired by Motorola) are ahead of the US market and have already added UPnP AV support and deployed these units in consumer homes.
  
  
• UPnP AV in phones and mobile devices; The Nokia N80 phone was a very pleasant surprise, not only that it is UPNP AV compatible but it works with TVersity as was reported to us by the Chief Designer of the Symbian Platform Development in Nokia (he also told us he was using TVersity at home and he was pushing Nokia labs to start testing their releases against TVersity!). We haven't seen any other phones with UPNP AV support but since we have had many visits recently to our web site by Motorola and since Samsung has already introduced UPnP support in Televisions we won't be surprises if by the end of 2006 the top three Cell phone companies will all have models supporting UPnP AV. Furthermore Nokia told us that they were seriously considering UPnP support for the Nokia 770 (which is a Linux based WiFi and bluetooth enabled, pocket size tablet) and we heard a rumor that Sony was planning to add UPnP support to the PSP.
  
  
• UPnP AV Devices are going HDTV; All the new TV and networked DVD product announcements were for devices that support HDTV. This included support for HDTV codecs (with MPEG2 being the basic most codec and H.264, WMV-HD and Divx-HD as the more advanced ones) and HDTV connectors such as HDMI and component video. In this CES, HDTV was a must have and essentially all devices (except handheld ones) had to have HDTV support.
  
  
• Storage is going UPnP; One very obvious trend was that every player in the NAS devices for the home and small office markets has now built in support for UPnP. This includes names like Buffalo, Netgear, IOMega, Linksys, DLink, Maxtor, Sony (Cocoon) etc. This is also an indication that UPnP Media servers have now two distinct markets, one is the embedded market and the other is the PC/Desktop/Server market. Although we do not have official numbers, it looks like TVersity is the leader in the PC/Desktop/Server market while other companies (like Mediabolic and Twonky) compete in the embedded market. This is not to say that we have no competition, if anything 2006 will bring much more competition simply because UPnP is gaining popularity, however we do feel that there is no other technology out there today that can match TVersity in its features, and that consumers come to acknowledge that and many of them make the switch from the media servers they got with their UPnP enabled product to TVersity.

While everything so far has been very positive to the UPnP standard there is also a serious concern as the standard has now many flavors which could essentially evolve into proprietary solutions. The flavors we identified so far are:

• Intel Viiv; Intel has announced their Viiv platform, which although is based on the DLNA guidelines (some additional interoperability guidelines to handle issues not properly handled in the UPnP AV standard), it seems to be destined to take its own course and as I am sure Intel would love to see evolve into its own de-facto standard.
  
  
• Windows Media Connect is a Disconnect? Microsoft has released at the end of 2004 the first version of Windows Media Connect which was fully UPnP AV compliant with some necessary extensions to support WMDRM. However a year after, at the end of 2005, they released the second version which had no real new features other than the vague headline of "support for XBox 360". Those of us that cared wanted to know if the XBox 360 was UPnP AV compliant and unfortunately we now know that the answer is NO. We spoke in the show with the CTO of Twonky and he told us that they were able to add support for the XBox 360 through reverse engineering and that the Xbox is designed not to work with any other UPnP media server other than Microsoft's Windows Media Connect. Is anyone out there surprised? We are however happy to say that we had a very good conversation with the CTO of Twonky and we both feel that the two companies, being the real champions of open standards, should remain on friendly terms despite the obvious competition.
  
  
• Bite the Apple; Apple is rumored to release a Plasma TV based on Intel Viiv; We will know if it is true or not tomorrow, however the correctness of the rumor aside, we mention it here since Apple is sure to either create its own flavor of UPnP or come up with something else altogether as it has done so far with its proprietary solution for streaming audio from iTunes to the Airport Express.

Clearly, the UPnP AV standard is catching on and yet its success could also be its demise as companies like Microsoft, Intel and Apple may each try to take advantage of the interoperability it offers to promote their own interests while introducing their own proprietary extensions and keeping them unpublished, in order to block others. If you care about open standard and wish to see an open ecosystems in which innovative solutions from small companies and even individuals can prosper just like solutions from large companies (which tend to be innovative in terms of business models and new revenue streams and not in terms of benefits to the consumer...) then do your very best to encourage consumers to refrain from solutions that deviate from the standard and make sure that neither Windows Media connect nor Viiv become the new names of UPnP since this will be their gain and the loss of all of us the consumers.

Note: The original posting of this article was made on January 5, 2006 in the TVersity development blog. It is reposted here since this is where it belongs.


Right now I am in Vegas waiting for Bill Gates keynote at CES, and so I finally have some time to do some blogging about … Apple. Yes, Apple the only company absent from CES, and yet the company that is able to generate more buzz than the entire CES show and all its exhibitors. I know I for one care about Apple plans for 2006 more than I care about Microsoft and Intel’s plans combined, simply because Apple is the only company that has been able to demonstrate the real meaning of convergence while others have been mainly talking about it and spending lots of marketing dollars with no real progress. Speaking of marketing, this CES is the beginning of a new marketing campaign for Intel, the VIIV campaign which was announced a while ago but is really starting only now (big billboards with VIIV and the new Intel logo, Leap Ahead, instead of Intel inside, were welcoming everyone at the airport at Las Vegas), I wonder if VIIV will catch on or not but this probably deserves its own post, so let’s get back to Apple.

It is well known that Apple is keeping its plans as a complete secret until an actual announcement is made by Steve Jobs, and this time, with Mac Expo just around the corner, is not going to be any different. Since it won’t be another week before Steve Jobs shares with us his company plans, I find it too tempting not to join others in the industry and use the time left till the show, to make some predictions about Apple’s plans for 2006. Now, I am a long-term guy so I have no intention to try and guess what will Steve Jobs talk about in this coming Mac Expo, however I am going to try and guess what he has in store for the iPod in 2006 as a whole. If past experience is any indication, there will be several press conferences this year in which Apple reveals just another piece of the puzzle so when the upcoming Steve Job’s speech in Mac Expo will seem to have nothing to do with what I am about to say, do not be too harsh with my predictions, wait till the end of 2006 and then make up your mind.

Without further delay let me get to the point, up until a few months ago when video support was added to the iPod, video was the hottest feature expected by the pundits with almost everyone agreeing that it is just matter of time till it’s added. Now that it is a done deal and the iPod can play video, it is time to come up with the next great frontier for the iPod and if we can all agree then we can all go back to speculating when it will be added instead of what it is. Of-course unlike video support there is nothing obvious that everyone is talking about and so I do not expect everyone to agree with my prediction and yet I think I can at least convince you not to discount this possibility and to give it serious thought. Clearly small improvements such as a bigger screen, longer battery life, thinner form factor, and a fresh design (cooler than ever), are all going to happen in 2006. But what is the next BIG thing, something that will turn the iPod into an even greater gadget, something so wonderful that it will make Microsoft spend even more money trying to buy the entire industry in an attempt to catch up with Apple.

And the Oscar goes to…wait a second I can’t seem to be able to open the envelope provided to me by the academy…ok, ok I know it’s enough going in circles so here it is, the Oscar goes to wireless networking. Whether it is bluetooth, WiFi, wireless USB or all of the above, the next big thing for the iPod in my opinion is to become a part of the network, the home network, the Internet and the all encompassing network of the entire universe – also known as the Ansible (oops this one is not yet invented, I guess it will be announced in CES 3006).

Now that I spilled it out and it’s out in the open, it is time to defend my prediction. So, why on earth does the iPod need to join the network? I mean isn’t it supposed to get a 120 Gigabyte hard drive this year and thus allow you to carry whatever you want, eliminating the need to be connected (expect when synchronizing). Well, the huge storage concept works great for audio but if you ask me it won’t work so well for video. You see, unlike many, I think that video like audio will be very successful for the iPod and like audio most of the media people store on their iPod won’t come from the iTunes store but rather will be things like recorded TV shows, DVDs, illegal downloads, etc. And for recorded TV shows, which will probably be the most important element in the success of the video functionality of the iPod, a wireless connection is very important since it will allow synchronization to happen automatically when the iPod is within range of the home network. This “minor” improvement is very important since newly recorded TV shows become available every day, where with music one needed to synchronize their iPod only once in the beginning and then when they bought a new CD or song (probably once a month for the average Joe and once a week for the music enthusiasts).

Of-course seemless synchronization while important cannot justify by itself adding WiFi support. The real great thing enabled by a wireless network connection is the ability to stream music and video from the home network or from the web, without needing to synchronize anything and to incorporate this streamed content with the iTunes store such that impulse contextual purchases can be made from the iPod without going through a computer. I can for example, visualize recording a TV show and while it is being recorded the show is also being streamed to my iPod in some other part of the world where I am enjoying coffee in some hotspot. With respect to music, I can visualize many new CD quality commercial free radio stations that are made available for the iPod for free simply because the iTunes store can now be accessed from the iPod and so impulse purchases can be made as one listens to the radio (yes Sirius and XM should be very worried since their business model is under a serious threat). And if all that is not compelling enough then what about all the video content available today freely on the Internet, I am not talking about vlogs (which are already integrated with the video iPod), I am talking about the networks and the studios webcasting lots of great stuff on the Net. This stuff is not downloadable so it can’t be used with the current video iPod but once the iPod is network enabled suddenly I can watch MTV or Bloomberg TV live on it from any part of the world (which also remind me of a prediction I read that satellite TV capability will be added to the iPod, once the iPod is network enabled who needs satellite TV?). Now I know you are going to say that the quality of this stuff is still not adequate, well this is the beauty of it all, the quality is not good enough for the big screen, but on the small iPod screen it will look like hi-definition TV!

So where is TVersity in all that? TVersity from its very inception has made it a goal to allow one to create her own personalized lineup of channels and to access it from TVs and from mobile devices. Yet, we do not support any mobile device yet, do we? The reason for that is the inability of most of these devices to access the home network or the Internet. Once this ability will be added, these devices just like digital media adapters will not be able to handle many of the media formats and of the streaming protocols out there and we intend to solve that problem for these devices just like we did for networked DVDs and DMAs. This will make our solution more complete as we will all get one step closer to having universal access to our media. Here is to the future and a happy 2006 to aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaall!

Welcome to mediaholic, the new blog published by the guy behind TVersity (http://www.tversity.com). Recently I started making some posts in the TVersity development blog about the new media market and some analysis and insights into the future and somehow it did not feel right to use a development blog for that purpose. Yet it did feel right to share with you this stuff and so I decided to start a separate blog in which I can freely babble while keeping the TVersity development blog clean. I plan to re-post here the stuff that I posted in the TVersity blog and does not really belong there so that I can delete that stuff from there.