“Portable media is about to go to the next level, with Amazon.com today announcing that it’s taking pre-orders for Microsoft’s Portable Media Centers. These gadgets, which will begin to be available as soon as August, allow users to have music, movies, digital photos, and more rendered portable and on the move,” Alyce Lomax writes for The Motley Fool. “Did Apple miss a key opportunity by limiting its iPod to tunes?”
“Steve Jobs has been quoted as nixing the idea, theorizing that people don’t want to watch movies
it will go no where just like the xbox
I’m just want the iPod to go color (screen that is), and I mean millions of colors, not thousands, not 256. MILLIONS. And add support for a pen, and call it an iPad or something. With an IR Port and AirPort bard built in, and speaker port, and AV port. Okay maybe I’ll just stick with the color screen for now.
It’ll come with a free .wmv – the ballmer dance.
I already have a portable media center. Music, photos, movies, I can plug it into any modern TV. It even plays dvds at a reasonable size, it’s called an ibook.
Everybody says a video iPod will fail because nobody wants to watch video on a tiny screen. Well, that’s true.
But what happens if Apple puts a video-out port on it? Then you can take your video, photo slide shows, etc. and plug them into the TV at Grandma’s house, or run your Keynote presentation from your iPod, at the board meeting. Could you become the life of the party by showing up, pulling your iPod out of your pocket, jacking the iPod tunes into the stereo and the iTunes Visualizer into the TV? That might be worth something.
Like one of these:
http://www.smartdisk.com/Products/DigitalMultimedia/FlashTrax.asp
Think, people, think.
This is a simple one. Tiny TVs are NOT innovative. They’ve been out for decades… and they DIED!! They died for the precise reason Steve Jobs had said. Their only useful purpose were as monitors for camcorders.
Do you really need to show someone tiny versions of your digital photos. That’d be combining TWO Hell’s in one; the endless boring family vacation slideshow and some guy yankin’ out the pics of his butt-ugly children from his wallet. Now he can show your HOURS of pics of his butt-ugly children.
The only people using tiny screens are pre-teens on GameBoys. But their attention span is so short, there is no way they’d sit and watch anything longer than 10 seconds on such a media player.
I guess welding the bed of a pick-up truck onto a Porsche would make it more versatile… in theory.
Microsoft and its loyal tech writers want us to think that if portable music is a good idea, portable video is an even better one. Hogwash! Apple’s iPod does not focus on audio because of any hardware or software limitation; it focuses on audio because it can do that one thing very well. Portable Media Centres might have more features than the iPod but so do PDAs, and no-one gets excited about using those. Having said that, next generation PDAs might make PMC redundant, if they start including hard drives in their designs.
“‘These gadgets, which will begin to be available as soon as August, allow users to have music, movies, digital photos, and more rendered portable and on the move…’ Alyce Lomax writes for The Motley Fool.”
Yeah, well, guess what. I have a device that will allow me to have music, movies, digital photos and more, rendered portable and on the move; it’s called a Powerbook. And I don’t need some piece of shit Microsoft product telling me how much my licensing fee is going to be before I am “allowed” to enjoy all of that media. Alyce needs to get a clue.
Besides, I would rather look at a 12″-15″ screen instead of 4-6″ inches which is what’s on their crap. Gates’/Ballmer’s one and only priority is to extract as many fees from the general public as possible. Fukkem.
I have to admit, I like the concept. But I’m not convinced that the technology is there yet.
What I want is a device which would take the place of a paperback novel. It should be about the same size as one when not in use (about 4″ x 7″ x 1.5″). I think I could deal with a screen that was 7 inches wide for watching recorded television. Of course, to keep the same aspect ration as a television, I think the height has to be something like 4.5 inches. Folding LCDs perhaps so when I “open” my book, I have access to my controllers. Another option would be a pen or touchscreen-based interface so that you wouldn’t have to have any physical controls.
It also needs a battery life and a hard-drive capacity for eight hours of video at a minimum of television resolution. This would be suitable for a long airplane flight. I might settle for five hours, but no less.
At the moment, I don’t think technology is at the point where such a device can be built at a decent price (eg, about $300-$400). If it’s too expensive, it falls into the “Why don’t I just get a laptop?” category. Part of the problem with the current crop of devices is they’re trying to be all things to all people. The devices I’ve seen are too big and heavy to be a good music player and the screen is too small to be a good video/image player.
One of the nice things this will do, possibly, is get the debate over “fair use” out in the open. One of the things I will want to do is record things I receive over cable. So, for example, I’m certainly not going to go rent/buy “Pirates of the Carribean” for my cross-country airplane flight when I can just record it off of Starz. The companies which are offering content are going to have a hard sell–I’m not going to pay my cable company to get CNN and then pay CNN again to get what is essentially the same content on my portable player.
jobs is right, no one wants to watch movies on little screens. does anyone really buy those personal dvd players? if you do like to watch movies on 2 inch screens, buy a psp when they come out, but for now just use a laptop to watch movies, get an eyetv if you want to watch recorded shows.
The only one I see for preorder on Amazon is $500 and has only 20GB of HD space. How is that going to be nearly enough? No thanks M$…
Actually, I wonder how long the battery lasts on a single charge. We know that video requires higher bitrate and files are a lot bigger, even for postage stamp sized videos to have decent quality (but then again, you’ll see it on a tiny screen). It’ll force the drive to spin more.
Lets remember the MOST IMPORTANT point of this whole portable media thing!
And that is HOW PEOPLE USE PORTABLE MEDIA!
People will adopt portable media IF it is convenient (e.g. – they can do something else as well as what their listening or watching).
How many of you do something else while watching TV??
I bet the majority of you do.
Another fact is that do people actually have enough leisure time to watch a 2hr movie on a 4″ handheld screen?
And would they want to do that at home?
The chances are they won’t!
People spend most of their time at home from a day’s work and youre gonna watch a full size TV and not a 4″ screen!
I see only one market for this device and that was fulfilled by the tiny TV’s that were around – passengers in cars or on planes.
You can’t watch a movie while walking down a road, you can’t watch a movie while cycling or any activity – so Steve Jobs has got it correct!
If go on holiday and wanna watch a movie and there is no dvd player in the place I will take my laptop with a 15″ screen and not a 4″ screen portable media centre.
Lets remember the MOST IMPORTANT point of this whole portable media thing!
And that is HOW PEOPLE USE PORTABLE MEDIA!
People will adopt portable media IF it is convenient (e.g. – they can do something else as well as what their listening or watching).
How many of you do something else while watching TV??
I bet the majority of you do.
Another fact is that do people actually have enough leisure time to watch a 2hr movie on a 4″ handheld screen?
And would they want to do that at home?
The chances are they won’t!
People spend most of their time at home from a day’s work and youre gonna watch a full size TV and not a 4″ screen!
I see only one market for this device and that was fulfilled by the tiny TV’s that were around – passengers in cars or on planes.
You can’t watch a movie while walking down a road, you can’t watch a movie while cycling or any activity – so Steve Jobs has got it correct!
If go on holiday and wanna watch a movie and there is no dvd player in the place I will take my laptop with a 15″ screen and not a 4″ screen portable media centre.
And as I will be using my laptop, and not a portable media device with a 4″ screen, means I can use a full size keyboard, download my holiday photos the day i take them, play computer games and maybe even do a bit of work!
I bet you can’t do that on Microsoft’s portablr ‘media centre’!! (epecially one with only a 20gb hard drive and 2 hours battery life!!)
Just another way to spread Microsoft based viril.
Another fact is that do people actually have enough leisure time to watch a 2hr movie on a 4″ handheld screen?
Probably not. But I spend an hour reading a newspaper over lunch. Suppose, instead, I could watch Star Trek episodes? Or a documentary? Or news programs?
I see only one market for this device and that was fulfilled by the tiny TV’s that were around – passengers in cars or on planes.
I think you’re missing some other places. Passengers in trains or busses are another. When I lived in New York, I used to take the train into work–45 minutes one-way.
I mentioned the lunch counter. Another possibility is anywhere that I would be waiting. Jury duty and standing in line at the DMV. Essentially, this sort of device would take the place of a paperback novel. I keep one in my car for situations like that.
I agree, a 4″ screen is ridiculous. But, as I said above, give me a device with a screen and form-factor not much larger than the size of a paperback and it would be worthwhile and far less bulky than your laptop.
When the iPod came along it was exactly what I had needed for a long time: a compact device that stored music and data to be taken anywhere. So I bought it. Now, along comes Microsoft with this… thing. But who wants it? I’m not going to watch a movie while I exercise, or go hiking or walk the beach. It’s just so stupid.
Then again, I can’t wait to see this “next big thing” from Microsoft die a pitiful death. Much like tablet PCs…
Only a complete dork would want this. Peter, you are that dork.
First of all, even if it was perfect, who would want to watch DVD’s/recorded shows, etc. on this tiny screen? I see very little use for this unless you are traveling. Even then, you are traveling.
“Hey Peter, we’re in Paris…what do you want to do today?”
“Oh, you know, I was thinking of sitting in my room watching Star-Trek on my tiny screen for the 8th time this month.”
“Ok, well, we’re going to go get laid by hot European women.”
Dork.
I swear to god, the only person I’ve ever known to have a personal DVD player was a complete and utter dork. Surprisingly, he didn’t like porn, which is the whole point of this damn contraption. [Think of it…most of the ideas for electronics come from sexual desires…cameras, camcorders, hair dryers, uh..wait a second.]
Either way, the whole point of DVD’s is to watch a very high quality video on a big screen. Why do you think they are making big screen HDTV. It’s only fitting that while the attitude of the people is bigger TV screens that M$ would go with a tiny media center. Yeah, right…that’s going to work Bill. Dumbass.
Also note, how is this going to fly with that whole “inducing” illegal downloading thing? Talk about piracy.
Ha! I’m going to buy 2. (or 4??)
Sync them together… wow what a screen I’ll have then!!!
Now who’s laughing?
apple is bound to dramaticl improve an iPod in september when there are new models comion out, they are not stupid and dont forget iPod was out for few years so its older then that windows thingy.
All I can say is TGIF … or Saturday.
Peter: But I spend an hour reading a newspaper over lunch. Suppose, instead, I could watch Star Trek episodes?
Your brain could atrophy?
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g: Hey Peter, we’re in Paris… we’re going to go get laid by hot European women.
You’d better do an underchassis check to ascertain she’s not a TV.
I think the best move is to allow video out… i.e. the iPod reads your .mov .mpeg etc files and your t.v./projector is the visual output.
Personally this is something that would save me a lot of time! And Money! And much better quality!
no re-encoding to make the experience unwatchable…
It will fail simply because there are alternative products that do the same thing and don’t require another investment. Many people either have a laptop or portable DVD player already. A multi function product means trouble. The iPod has succeeded because it does one thing very, very well. Only techies really want a multi-purpose device and they alone cannot guarantee a products success. The highly touted M$ tablet has failed to catch on in any big way. The X-box is not a failure by any means, but it still has plenty of competition. And, above all, any product that depends on M$ software has two strikes against it already. Oh yes, remember the big deal about the M$ watch? Ummmm, whatever happened to it? It bombed in the marketplace.
Yes, good example that Internet watch. What was the plan again? I think by now we were all supposed to be wearing goofy watches that connected us to some kind of network in order to have 100% accurate time and weather reports. Like I said, goofy.
The only people who will want this PMC are those who have every DivX file they could find in P2P hubs and are looking for something to do with them all. Some kids might also think that it is novel enough to play with but they will propably prefer SONY’s PSP which will be available everywhere this time next year.
Microsoft is looking a bit desperate, trying to steal Apple’s thunder with an all-in-one, good-for-nothing device like this. They propably would be better off trying to compete with SONY and Nintendo in the portable console arena.
‘g’ wins the contest for the funniest post ever on MDN.
“Ok, well, we’re going to go get laid by hot European women.”
too much … just brilliant.