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I've been reading some reviews about mobile platforms. They all seem to say that streaming is the future. That we won't have locally stored files any more. People don't want to download stuff, they want to be able to watch music and video on demand wherever.
At the same time, other reviews say things like "if you're half way through a box set you're subscribed to stream and the licence holder revokes the rights then it just disappears" together with other restrictions about only being able to watch things so many times, or within say a 48 hour time window.
One of the problems with the stored files approach used to be DRM. For example Apple iTunes files wouldn't play in anything other than Apple iTunes. But IIRC that ended - iTunes files play in Windows Media Player on my PC and used to play fine on my old Windows Phone.
The iTunes model is allegedly outdated - I can buy from my PC or phone and the two are kept in sync. I can listen to them anywhere. That of course meaning that I don't need an internet connection. However my Windows Phone didn't have iTunes on it, so to make this work involved having the iTunes folder in "My Music" and opening up Windows Media Player and having it rescan to detect the files, then plugging the phone in, then synchronising the files. iTunes is lovely with Apple kit. As long as you pay a small fortune for said Apple kit. We don't have an Apple TV nor do we plan on getting one so we won't be watching movies on that.
3G became pretty ubiquitous and 4G will eventually become fairly commonplace. To stream music you don't need much bandwidth, but even so it doesn't mean that the necessary bandwidth is there (wherever "there" happens to be) - an O2 user round here or in our local town wouldn't be able to stream anything, a Three or EE user could try and it would probably work most of the time. But this is hardly better than the DRM-restricted models of old and way from satisfactory. On top of that, data allowances on mobile packages would get used up very quickly. The pCell model might go some way to resolving that but we don't appear to be anywhere near this.
I can see the attraction for content providers. Nothing stored = nothing pirated. Potentially. People will just have to fork out the £5.99 a month or whatever it is (e.g. Netflix) and that fee can then be sub-divided and shared out among the licence holders. But versus the farcical prices of say a Blu-Ray I can't see content providers being happy with a tiny cut of nothing much. Presumably, hence the lack of available content which kills most of the subscription models. Netflix for instance being full of mostly rubbish and back-catalogue stuff with the occasional gem like Breaking Bad.
All this seems to be evolving quite rapidly. Your thoughts..?
At the same time, other reviews say things like "if you're half way through a box set you're subscribed to stream and the licence holder revokes the rights then it just disappears" together with other restrictions about only being able to watch things so many times, or within say a 48 hour time window.
One of the problems with the stored files approach used to be DRM. For example Apple iTunes files wouldn't play in anything other than Apple iTunes. But IIRC that ended - iTunes files play in Windows Media Player on my PC and used to play fine on my old Windows Phone.
The iTunes model is allegedly outdated - I can buy from my PC or phone and the two are kept in sync. I can listen to them anywhere. That of course meaning that I don't need an internet connection. However my Windows Phone didn't have iTunes on it, so to make this work involved having the iTunes folder in "My Music" and opening up Windows Media Player and having it rescan to detect the files, then plugging the phone in, then synchronising the files. iTunes is lovely with Apple kit. As long as you pay a small fortune for said Apple kit. We don't have an Apple TV nor do we plan on getting one so we won't be watching movies on that.
3G became pretty ubiquitous and 4G will eventually become fairly commonplace. To stream music you don't need much bandwidth, but even so it doesn't mean that the necessary bandwidth is there (wherever "there" happens to be) - an O2 user round here or in our local town wouldn't be able to stream anything, a Three or EE user could try and it would probably work most of the time. But this is hardly better than the DRM-restricted models of old and way from satisfactory. On top of that, data allowances on mobile packages would get used up very quickly. The pCell model might go some way to resolving that but we don't appear to be anywhere near this.
I can see the attraction for content providers. Nothing stored = nothing pirated. Potentially. People will just have to fork out the £5.99 a month or whatever it is (e.g. Netflix) and that fee can then be sub-divided and shared out among the licence holders. But versus the farcical prices of say a Blu-Ray I can't see content providers being happy with a tiny cut of nothing much. Presumably, hence the lack of available content which kills most of the subscription models. Netflix for instance being full of mostly rubbish and back-catalogue stuff with the occasional gem like Breaking Bad.
All this seems to be evolving quite rapidly. Your thoughts..?























