Media Experience

Home Media magazine just reported that the first Metamenu enhanced Blu-ray disc GAMER was the top selling disc last week. http://www.homemediamagazine.com/research/gamer-wins-top-spot-18255

Cross your fingers for SAW VI next week!

Only today did we get the news that METAMENU downloads cracked the Top 100 at the iTunes App Store, making it to 99 for Monday, January 11.

So that’s a surprising bit of news for us! And wow we have even bigger news tomorrow!

M&E Daily writes : iPhone integration is the new “it” feature for Blu-ray and DVD discs, as Hollywood seeks to establish itself on the putative “second screen” of today’s Net-connected living rooms.

http://mesalliance.org/blog/2009/11/11/studios-spin-disc-bonuses-as-iphone-apps/

More articles below. We are excited to see these roll out as we finish work on Metamenu integration for Gamer and Saw VI. It’s fun to watch the category establish itself with many players (and some old faces in the crowd). It will be interesting and fun to establish ways to maximize  consumer satisfaction  for the “second screen.”

http://www.videobusiness.com/article/CA6706503.html

http://www.dailygame.net/news/archives/008967.php

http://www.dailygame.net/news/archives/008968.php

DV Expo was a fantastic show this year! On the long drive home I listened to NPR story on entrepreneurship and felt an optimism I hadn’t felt since the early days of DVD. A lot of folks who came by the IDMA booth were interested to learn that they too find profit in the changes in digital distribution. Supporting the IDMA will help disseminate useful information and equalize access to the evolving audience. I look forward to the next few years, as we explore this new landscape together!

Another cool story, this time from The City I miss the most (where my wife and I met and married).

Meanwhile Samsung leapfrogs into the future with this device, which will enable consumers to stream video from their media player to their smart remote.

I’ve often predicted the emergence of proprietary solutions in this space, and it appears to be accelerating now. Both Smasung and TiVo would be smart to open media control capability and allow developers (yes developer like me) tap into the power of their connected platform.

Great to see the category expanding and more attention in the space!

Innovative Remote Control Technologies: 3 New Developments – CE Pro Article from CE Pro.

There are a lot of methods for digital media distribution. Here’s an option I’ve conceived but not seen done yet: rather than getting your movie into the iTunes library listing, you could theoretically get your movie into the App Store instead. Some music is being released this way, so releasing a “movie as app” would be a trailblazing move. You’d also have the advantage of advanced interactivity if you desired. My only concern would be the size of the file, which may be prohibitive from Apple’s perspective. Still, you could use the new streaming video protocols to get it done.

Also this would limit playback to the mobile device. No AppleTV.

I have pitched this concept (calling it the “mobile edition”) to a few major studios, but they aren’t biting for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is fear of cannibalizing the normal library products. I maintain that you could have it both ways: the linear file, and the mobile edition that’s filled with DVD-like extras and core-to-content navigation (aka chapter thumbnails).

Of course, the win for Metabeam would be to then integrate the mobile edition with our smart remote control: our iPhone App (Metamenu Remote) already provides direct jump-to-scene (bypassing onscreen menus); integrating a mobile edition would enable a user to–for example–preview a scene on their handset before watching it on the big screen.

I see this as a golden opportunity for someone with content they need to distribute…the simple act of doing it would garner some attention, which would presumably translate into increased sales.

I’ve been reading a lot lately about BD-Live and wow–a lot of people seem to hate it. BD-Live itself is neither good nor bad, it’s just a brand name for the plumbing. Qualitative statements about BD-Live in general aren’t very meaningful. Saying “I don’t like BD-Live” is like saying “I don’t like the web” or “I don’t like television”–perhaps the problem lies not with the pipes, but how they’re filled. BD-Live is in it’s infancy; passing judgment now would be like dismissing the Web in 1994. Bottom line: keep signing up for BD-Live, because the larger the audience, the more big content will invest in the platform, and the better it will be.

For those who  recall ripping their CD library into iTunes, it seems inevitable that similar programs (or iTunes itself) will enable ripping DVDs into personal video collections. Not that anybody particularly enjoys the task of inserting and burning hundreds of discs, but it had always seemed like a natural development. Sure enough, RealNetworks offered a really slick program called RealDVD that did exactly that, and added some cool features to help you organize the content, and then….got slapped with a lawsuit, which they just lost. So for those of you who are waiting for legal software to rip your DVD colections:  it looks like it’s not going to happen, at least not any time soon.

RealNetworks Barred From Selling DVD Copy Maker – Bits Blog – NYTimes.com.

It’s been established that it’s legal for consumers to makes copies for personal use, and the court didn’t touch that subject. Instead, it was determined that the DVD player license agreement was violated. So it’s still legal for consumers to copy content, but it’s still illegal to sell software that copies DVDs.

I’m sorry RealNetworks lost, and not only because I’d like to consolidate my DVD collection into something the size of a toaster instead of a dishwasher. From a user experience perspective, there is no question that–given the scenario of a making backup copy–it should be as simple as possible.

But I can see why the studios won. Because DVDs are easily rentable (and CDs never were) the potential  for so-called “rent and rip” abuse by consumers is an understandable fear… there would be those who literally burned through the entire NetFlix library. And if it’s legal for RealDVD to offer this feature on computers, then what’s to prevent consumer electronic DVD/BD players to start including hard discs and automatic copying to a home network. That’d be great for consumers, but from a studio’s point of view, suddenly  there would be no segment differentiation between rental and sell-through.  When renting is cheaper and there’s no benefit to ownership, consumers stop buying.

From my perspective, I wonder why these forces chose legal battle instead of creative compromise. Already, studios are embracing the  consumer right to a backup …that’s why many DVDs and Blu-rays now include a Digital Copy logo. It seems to me that a RealDVD customer would have represented the exact kind of psychographic that a studio is trying to reach these days: somebody who wants to enjoy the content on a computer or mobile device.  Why didn’t studios offer  digital copies into the proprietary RealDVD system, as they do with iTunes? This could have been done with very little disruption to the user experience, and I’m certain the development cost would be an order of magnitude less than the legal cost.  While many of my friends within the industry see this as a victory for the studios, I can’t help feeling that somehow there was an opportunity lost.

What do you think? Should DVD consumers be able to make backup copies? If yes, then should there be legal software available for the purpose?

Industry News from TechCrunch

Excerpt: “

Ever since OS. 3.0, the latest operating system for the iPhone, launched on June 17, prices among the top 100 apps in the iTunes App Store have been fluctuating wildly as developers push out apps taking advantage of all the new features in the OS. Some of the new features we are starting to see in apps include push notifications, turn-by-turn navigation, cut-and-paste, embeddable maps, access to external accessories, search within apps, and subscriptions.”

Link: iPhone App Prices Fluctuate As Developers Adjust To OS 3.0; Nav Apps Gain Pricing Power

META Blog “Industry News” posts are cited verbatim and are intended for informational purposes only. Any opinions expressed are those of the source and should not be construed as an editorial position of the Media Experience Trade Association or its members.