Digital music sees sales double

Digital stores can offer a huge number of songs.

Global digital music sales have almost doubled to around $2bn (£1bn) in 2006, according to an industry report.

But the rise, which represents 10% of all sales, has not reached the music companies' "holy grail" of offsetting the fall in CD sales.

The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) said digital sales could account for a quarter of all sales worldwide by 2010.

It also called for more action against illegal file sharing.

The IFPI's 2007 Digital Music Report said consumers last year downloaded 795 million tracks, up 89% on 2005, from almost 500 legitimate online music services available in 40 countries.

Court action

The number of tracks available for download doubled to reach over four million on leading services.

Despite this overall music sales were down 4% in the first half of 2006.

IFPI chairman John Kennedy said: "The pace of transformation in our industry is breathtaking, but at the moment the holy grail is evading us.

"I would like to be announcing that a fall in CD sales is being compensated for by an equal or greater increase in online and mobile revenues. But that is not yet happening on a global basis."

The IFPI said the 30,000 actions against illegal file-sharers globally had achieved some success against illegal file sharing but called for more action from internet service providers to stop such sites being set up.

Skype Net TV

The Joost interface allows instant channel hopping.

The founders of the Skype internet telephony service are launching what they describe as the world's first broadcast quality internet TV service.

Following speculation about a service dubbed The Venice Project, the online television software is now being unveiled under the name Joost.

It is designed to enable broadcasters to get their programmes in front of a global internet audience.

It will allow viewers to access all kinds of television over the internet.

Trial period

The chief executive, Frederik de Wahl, showing off the service in Joost's London offices, claimed that it provided a different experience from other internet television ventures.

"We are trying to replicate the complete television experience," he explained as he flicked through channels using the Joost interface on a widescreen television.

"It's full-screen, broadcast quality, you've got instant channel flipping, and interactivity - a viewer can come to us and get all their TV needs."

The service is still undergoing trials, but thousands of people have taken up an invitation to download the software and try it out.

But the big question is what is there to watch?

So far, it is hard to see a compelling reason to switch on to Joost, which will be a free service supported by advertising.

Competitive market

There is a line-up of sports, documentaries and music programming, but nothing that is going to tempt many away from their existing television diet.

But Mr De Wahl insists this is just trial programming and when the full launch takes place in the next few months there will be much more impressive content on offer.

Joost is backed by Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, who founded Skype, while Frederik de Wahl previously ran a business whose peer-to-peer software was used in Skype.

He says a version of that software is key to the appeal of Joost, with new peer-to-peer technology, backed up by the firm's own servers, making it possible to stream video on demand.

But rival services are already casting doubt on the claim that Joost represents a new frontier for internet television.

BT Vision, launched in December, offers video-on-demand via broadband, and Channel Four Television says its 4OD service promises DVD-quality programmes to download to your computer.

Meanwhile another company calling itself Babelgum contacted the BBC to insist that its service, launching in March, would also use peer-to-peer technology to stream video at "near-TV resolution".

A spokesman said "the Venice Project hasn't got this to itself."

The battle to broadcast over the internet is hotting up and the Venice Project - or Joost as we now must call it - will have to make plenty of noise to make itself heard.

AMD Opteron™ Processor Powers

Highlights of the Press Release:

• New servers from AMD and Sun drive Linux and Solaris applications
• The AMD Opteron™ processor will power the Sun Fire™ V20z server, the first in a family of AMD Opteron processor-based products from Sun Microsystems.
• The Sun Fire V20z is the first server to come out of a strategic alliance announced by AMD and Sun less than three months ago, and will give customers industry-leading performance in the Solaris Operating System or Linux environment.

The AMD Opteron processor and AMD64 technology:

• designed to deliver high-performance solutions for today’s most demanding enterprise applications
• provides leading-edge performance for both 32-bit and 64-bit computing
• supported by Windows, Solaris and Linux.
• gives customers a simplified platform for their application needs.
• continues to gain wide-ranging acceptance, with increased endorsements from
  • Fortune 1000 companies
  • the clustering and High Performance Computing arena
  • database computing and workstation customers

On AMD's partnership with Sun:

• “The AMD Opteron processor-based Sun Fire server gives enterprise customers the power of choice. AMD has delivered high performance 32-bit and high performance 64-bit computing in X86 architectures. In addition to the high-performance 32-bit computing and powerful 64-bit computing for AMD64 technology, the Sun Fire server gives enterprise customers their choice of running the Solaris Operating System or Linux on the Sun Java Enterprise System. With the introduction of Sun-based solutions, the number applications available to the enterprise increased dramatically.” -- Dirk Meyer, senior vice president, Computation Products Group, AMD
• “The Sun Fire V20z server is the first in a complete family of AMD Opteron processor-based systems from Sun which will feature Solaris, Linux and the Java Enterprise System. We plan to introduce a broad set of enterprise servers based on the AMD Opteron processor. Sun's collaboration with AMD represents a response to the increasing customer demand for x86 solutions that are 32-bit and 64-bit capable and deliver maximum performance.” -- Neil Knox, executive vice president, Volume Systems Products, Sun Microsystems, Inc.
  

  
  The original press release can be found here.
  

  
  

Connecting the digital home

Connecting the digital home


It has long been promised that the PC will become the entertainment hub of the home. However, the problem with this vision is that our computers tend to sit in the bedroom and means getting those movies, music and pictures the last few metres to the living room is a real pain.
Many devices deliver content from your PC to your TV.

This year's CES - the world's largest consumer gadget show - boasts a wealth of new kit which aims to make it easier to access digital media around the home - and in particular on TV screens.

Ideas on what should be at the centre of it all vary, from PC-based media centres, digital video recorders or even video game consoles.

Microsoft is promoting its Xbox 360 as the place to store and access movies and songs.

"Xbox 360 is at its heart, the world's best games console and we're continuing to sell it very well. But we also know that people have it connected to their TV, and that means they want to see movies," said Robert Bach of Microsoft.

"So we've added a Download Movie service, we've added an HD DVD movie player to it. You want to play music, so you can take your MP3 player or Zune player, and plug it in and see your music.

"Here we're announcing that you can take IPTV digital TV services and run them on top of an Xbox 360."

It should be pointed out that the downloads are only available to those that have a hard drive for their Xbox 360.

Sony's PS3 console does something similar.

Apple TV streams music and movies from a computer to a TV.

Microsoft's ambitions also include its Media Centre software which has not made the impact some had hoped for. It will now get a boost by being integrated into all but the most basic versions of Microsoft's new PC operating system - Vista.

The consumer versions of Vista is scheduled for launch on 30 January.

Apple is getting in on the act too. At the MacWorld show Apple boss Steve Jobs gave more details of Apple TV - the set-top box which uses iTunes to stream media to a television.

Various launches at CES suggest that moving files around the house should be easy. We have more choices now than ever before - hardwire Ethernet cables, Bluetooth or wi-fi.

Netgear's new Digital Entertainer set-top box is one of several here that let you stream HD pictures from your PC over wi-fi to the TV.

But obstructions and interference may hamper a steady picture.

Compatibility

Presuming we can move our digital media files around without too much problem, you then have to consider the alphabet soup which is compression formatting - or codecs - which allow all your devices to understand each other, otherwise you will not see a thing.

"Many of the files that people would like to buy and download, including movies and TV shows, are actually protected with what's called DRM, that is Digital Rights Management software," said Josh Bernoff an analyst from Forrester Research.

"A lot of this software is incompatible with some of these devices.

"So for example, if you buy a movie or TV show from iTunes it'll work fine on your iPod but it's unlikely to work on, say, your Xbox 360 that happens to be connected to the same setup."

Slowly this is changing. For instance, last month if you had bought a rights-protected Windows music file it would not have played on Sonos' high-end multi-room streaming system.

After a year of negotiations Sonos' hardware can now support those files. Now the boss of Sonos wants Apple to also open up, claiming it is customers who lose out.

"I think it's unbelievably frustrating because you purchase the music expecting to be able to play it where you would like to play it and then you find out later that this is not quite the case," said John MacFarlane of Sonos.

"That's not, generally, well explained at the point of purchase."

The steady march of technology is also helping break down these barriers. For instance, a new PC to TV chip by start-up Quartics might help audio and video streaming compatibility.

It allows any files your laptop can read to be streamed over wi-fi to your TV or digital projector.

It is hoped the chip - which can be updated with any new video formats as they emerge - will be integrated into some TVs by the end of the year.

Many companies are supporting a set of standardised formats through industry groups like the Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA).

And the new faster 802.11n standard for wi-fi should soon be ratified, which will help boost consumers' confidence in streaming video.

But for now it might be best to take all the hype with a pinch of salt.

IndoSwall

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