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Sony CTO Starts New "Buy Once, Play Anywhere" Group
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Mon Sep 15, 2008 03:20 PM
from the still-just-a-pipe-dream-at-this-point dept.
from the still-just-a-pipe-dream-at-this-point dept.
jriding writes to mention that a new effort, headed by Sony Pictures' CTO, will attempt to allow customers to stream video content seamlessly on any device that they own. One has to wonder how successful or "all encompassing" it will be without Apple, TiVo, and Amazon, some of the major players in the space. "It's all very much in the future, however. The press release is peppered with confidence-wilting phrases such as "will define and build a new media framework" (something this complex hasn't even been defined yet?), "we are developing," and "over time." Without even a spec in place, there's no way we will see working products for at least a year, quite possibly longer. And, if the strategy document we discussed in August remains accurate, new DECE-ready devices will be needed to make the whole scheme work. By the time video stores adopt the tech, electronics firms implement it, movie studios support it, and consumers purchase all the pieces to make it work, will it still matter?"
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Buy From Amazon With Your TiVo 50 comments
PunkOfLinux writes "From The NYTimes comes news that TiVo and Amazon have reached an agreement to allow consumers to purchase products from Amazon through their television sets using their TiVo remote control. TiVo will launch the new service to consumers by merchandising products related to several high-profile programs, including The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, The Colbert Report, and Burn Notice. Broadband-connected Series2, Series3, and TiVo HD DVRs will be able to take advantage of the new feature." This sounds like the latest incarnation of the dream of television executives who in the early '90s talked about the "information superhighway," before it was clear that the Internet was going to fill that role. What they envisioned was "interactive TV," i.e. buying stuff with your remote.
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"Anywhere...as long as we say so" (Score:5, Insightful)
Sony are notorious control freaks and DRM stalwarts. Need I remind anyone of the Rootkit CD fiasco [wikipedia.org], or the fact that they sold their Blu-ray format largely on the basis of its not one, but *two*, different "uncrackable" DRM layers [wikipedia.org]?
Is there anyone in the world who believes for a SECOND that their "Buy Once, Play Anywhere" will translate to anything other than "Buy Once, Play Anywhere, as long as you let us put our intrusive DRM schemes on your devices and let your devices phone home to get our approval first"?
Anytime you have a hardware manufacturer who is also a media content producer, you're going to get heavy-handed DRM on their devices and media content, all under their strict control. Sony is no more going to let you make copies of their movies willie-nillie than they're going to let you have access to the GPU on the PS3 for your homebrew.
Re: (Score:2)
so, it will work on both blueray and UMD...
but seriously, the only way I see that Sony could make this almost ubiquitous would be to build a web app that uses flash and something like google gears for disconnected content playback persistence.
Sort of like a mashup of youtube and itunes.
Sort of like a Sony music store [connect.com] except... better.
Re: (Score:2)
I know this is a bit offtopic, but that Wikipedia page says that the BD+ format includes a VM in playback devices and allows native code execution for patching hacked devices.
Sound like fun! (Disks that automatically "patch" devices...?)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm going to defend them on one point that they finally almost get the "play anywhere" idea and are willing to work across companies to achieve what Apple has already done. Apple has proved that people will buy up electronic copies sold "just like a book" and usable on so many devices. The "pairing" of iPods and Apple TVs to "mothership" computers has worked out very well. The only flaw Apple's stuff has is that you can't automatically aggregate stuff (to backup all your media) among machines even under t
and then they go bankrupt nt (Score:2)
nt
I dunno . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Hey! I've heard of that group. Don't they distribute in the "ripped DVD" and "ISO" formats for maximum portability?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
More insightful than funny. Why do we need DECE-ready devices to support this when plenty of no copyright-bit-detecting devices already exist?
Buy once! Play anywhere! ... (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
So it can play on a Sony Vio with Linux... Cool.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Open formats (Score:5, Insightful)
Sony and inventing new formats (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's take a quick walk back through the vault of previous Sony-invented media formats, shall we?
Betamax.
Mini-Disc.
Memory Stick.
ATRAX.
You'll pardon me if I ask why I should believe this will turn into anything other than another colossal flop.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
[Sarcasm on]
And not to forget the "Colossal Flop" of the Sony invented 3.5inch Floppy disk!
[Sarcasm off]
Sony has invented some great stuff, as well as some duds. MiniDisc, and BetaMax were technically superior at the time, but the marketing lot screwed both.
MiniDisc was in fact a REALLY good idea at the time, a portable recordable medium that was at least durable, at a time when Solid State was not really there.
Good, but they can do better : (Score:4, Interesting)
i want music provider to be my backup vault. if anything happens, i should know i can get what i bought from there again, with a click.
if i go traveling anywhere, i shouldnt need to worry about taking my mp3 player with me, platform, framework and shit. i should just be easy to know that from anywhere, i can login to the 'music provider x' and get whatever i need from there, again. they can limit my download to 1 per day if they want or anything. or, even can charge me something like 0.1 cents for each additional download for all i care.
i just want NO hassles, and full reliability.
its amazing that it took them THAT long to realize that this is the real deal.
Re:Good, but they can do better : (Score:4, Insightful)
If you subscribe to their notion that you're purchasing a license to listen rather than a copy of the music, then yes, they should absolutely replace broken/damaged/lost media. I think there's a saying involving cake about their approach...
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I agree, when you're buying physical property. According to the
Does that mean (Score:5, Funny)
that Sony has written a multi-platform rootkit?
It's all about patents/licensing. (Score:2)
Consumers need to buy replacement devices, and companies need the specs to make them. If this truly is buy once play anywhere, what's the difference between patent-free devices and a completely encumbered system which has the same effect? That's right, someone owns the patent and is making money. Like selling bottled water.
Correction in Title (Score:5, Funny)
Title should read, "Rent Once, Play Certain Places Until Obscure Format is No Longer Supported"
Re: (Score:2)
> Title should read, "Rent Once, Play Certain Places Until Obscure Format is No Longer Supported"
Yep. Or, "Rent once, play certain places until we decide the service is no longer profitable, and your device can't phone home anymore because we've turned off the servers.
But I'm being foolish. This has never happened before.
Round Two (Score:3, Interesting)
Dupe [slashdot.org]? Not really, as we now see just how much support this thing has.
It already exists. (Score:5, Insightful)
According to Singer, video should become a buy once, play anywhere technology like CDs and DVDs. ... will define and build a new media framework
Ummm.... doesn't this already exist? I mean, if you want to release video in a format that will play anywhere, on any device... this is trivial. Just release it using a well-established video codec. Every laptop and OS and browser and media center and video iPod and mobile phone can then play the file.
Of course this would be by far the most consumer-friendly approach, and would satisfy the requirement of "play anywhere technology." But of course the subtext to the article, which isn't explicitly stated, is that they want a "play anywhere" format... but with DRM.
This is basically an oxymoron, though. Like a "drive anywhere" car, that is incidentally specifically designed to shut-off if you drive outside of a pre-approved range. Or a "cook anything" microwave oven that reads the barcodes off your instant-meals, and incidentally won't turn on if unrecognized things (like home-made food) are put inside.
This whole venture is doomed to fail. It will fail because for a truly "play anywhere" ecosystem, the DRM spec would have to be open and not costly (in which case, homebrewers and hackers alike will circumvent it within minutes). It will fail because big companies (like Apple) have no reason to help this idea. It will fail because the implementation will be complicated and error prone. It will fail because consumers will still notice the DRM, and have to overcome it frequently (thereby defeating the purpose).
You can't achieve "play anywhere" with DRM.
Re: (Score:2)
I jest; but that really is the self-serving mythology of all this. Consumers are pitiful, helpless creatures totally incapable of creating anything for themselves(except when we are lobbying for more draconian laws, in which case they are terrifying interwebs-enabled super pirate/terrorists), so if we don't provide music downloads, or video streaming, or whatever, it doesn't exist. Therefore, when we finally get around to offering some pathetic, DRM cripple
Typo (Score:3, Insightful)
It's actually called "Buy Once, Pay Anywhere" ... they want to make sure that you have to pay for your content no matter where you watch it.
Time saver (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll save them millions of dollars and thousands of hours of meetings and development time: Xvid / MP3
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
No pesky mp3 licensing fees.
No thanks (Score:2)
The DRM thing is having a knock-on effect in my buying habits that go beyond the realm of media and into consumer electronics.
I'd rather build replacements for most home entertainment out of increasingly available mini ITX kit. A nice general purpose computer that I control all aspects of the product lifespan. Hey, no forced obsolescence! All except the ipod, but thankfully I'm not interested in that.
Things that defy mathematics, part CMXCVII (Score:3, Informative)
DRM is mathematically impossible, customers loathe and despise it more than any industry person could comprehend, and it never actually works.
But they're so addicted to control they'll keep begging people to take their money to sell them yet more snake oil. [rocknerd.co.uk]
Never another download or unpaid viewing! Not ever! This time! For sure!
Buy Once, Play Anywhere = non DRM'd MP3! (Score:3, Interesting)
All of this amounts to little more than big corporations attempting to unite, in order to better fight off the most dominant players in the marketplace (Apple's iTunes store, primarily).
They knew from day 1 that Apple wouldn't go for it, since they rather like their "ecosystem" being undisturbed.
In the big picture though, ditching the DRM is the real answer. We already have standard audio and video formats out there! They're proven to work effectively on all sorts of hardware.
The content sales people always talk about "format incompatibility" because it sounds better, but this is REALLY about unifying protection schemes bolted on TOP of the formats.
And who did they forget? (Score:2)
They forgot Nokia, Samsung, LG. No movies on mobile phones? EPIC FAIL [rocknerd.co.uk].
Dead in the water (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't you guys recognize a press release when UC1? (Score:2)
This is for the investment community on a bad stock market day.
There is no reality here.
This is Sony, who would give you a rootkit to control their DRM. Expect that this works with and only Sony products, sometime when your hair turns grey, if then.
Plays for sure, MK2 (Score:2)
"Play Anywhere" ... just like "PlayForSure"? (Score:5, Insightful)
I seem to recall another DRM solution with fairly broad manufacturer support, that promised to work "for sure".
How many times will the industry bring out new, better, "consumer-friendly" DRM? At what point do they realize that you can't dress up restrictions and pass them off as features?
People might not always be educated on topics like DRM or copyright but that doesn't mean that people are suckers. Attention music industry: don't piss on our heads and tell us it's raining.
The World Through Sony's Eyes (Score:5, Funny)
Consumer: "I wish I could have a digital backup of my music..."
Sony: "We'll offer you streaming versions of your favorite songs! Buy it once, play it anywhere!"
Consumer: "Awesome! So how do I use this on my iPod?"
Sony: "...well, you can't."
Consumer: "But you just said..."
Sony: "Listen, kid. We have a streaming service that works through a couple of major retailers, and works with some very popular devices..."
Consumer: "But I want it to work on mine!"
*later*
Consumer: "Alright, I got one of these new-fangled...whatevers...that supports PlayAnywhere. Now what?"
Sony: "Go online and buy a CD...like that one you have right there..."
Consumer: "This CD? But I already have it..."
Sony: "What's your point?"
Consumer: "Fine..."
*later*
Consumer: "I lost my new-fangled whatevers! Quick, let me download a copy of my songs!"
Sony: "I'd love to, but that new device you just bought supports version 2.7.1 of PlayAnywhere. I'll need you to upgrade your songs or buy them outright -- either way, gimme your wallet."
Consumer: "..."
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
**even later**
Consumer: "Well, Sony weren't very helpful, but the great thing about PlayAnywhere is I'm not limited to a single supplier! Let's see who else supports these files...Great! Microsoft is a fully paid up member! Now, where's that new Zune I won in the McCain For America raffle..? OK, *Squirting files to device*...'Incompatible format!' WTF?"
Consumer: "Hey Microsoft! It says right here you fully support the PlayAnywhere Ecosystem! Why won't my files work?"
Microsoft: "Oh come on kid. Don't you get
I already know how to do this. (Score:2)
We call it MP4 and MP3.
Okay the are not totally patent free but are common enough to work.
For something to truly be Play Anywhere it would have to be.
DRM free, patent free, and documented.
Why do I think that this Play Anywhere will end up being like my Unlimited broadband and Cell phone data plan?
Re: (Score:2)
I thought that H.264 was more patent encumbered than MP4. AAC? I said MP3 because it is so common. I would rather have full OGG support, Vorbis, FLAC, and Speex myself. Speex would be great for audio books.
Xvid/Divx isn't too bad. Much better than Quicktime or Windows Media.
Now RealMedia is interesting. They have open sourced some of their stuff but I am not sure what or how good it is.
great.... (Score:2)
Rootkits on our phones.
UPnP is dead. DLNA is dead. Long live DECE (Score:2)
This new standard will be the standard to end all standards. Plug & Play. Interactive Java games. Local storage. Not so sure about movies.
Great! (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
We already have this, avi format (Score:2)
I have the perfect name for this: (Score:2)
You know what this is going to be... (Score:2)
I wouldn't mind DRM if it was truly buy once, play anywhere, but that's not how it's going to work.
Heck, these are the same people who came up with the concept of DVD "Zones". You can own two identical DVD players from the same manufacturer, but you can't play the same DVD in them if one player is set to one "zone" and one player set to another "zone".
This is also the same group that allows me to buy a song via iTunes, and play it on my iPhone, but won't let me play that same song as a ringtone without shel
I can already do this (Score:3, Insightful)
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The answer is, usurp control of the right-revocation system. Use it to revoke the rights of set top boxes to play back recordings of the most popular shows on television. Use it to revoke the rights of computers to run software in some hospitals, but restrict your activities to the software that c