Barry Fox

Every new technology creates the same scenario. The people selling the stuff – from company bosses, PR publicists and fluffy gadget magazines to the shop floor – haven’t a clue how it works.

When consumers can’t use what they have bought they give up and buy a newer model.

But the credit crunch could make consumers stop junking stuff and expect it to work. The companies selling portable audio and video look set to be the first big losers.

The original cassette Walkman created a new way of life. Sony was then bullied by its music division into the crippling Mini Disc with proprietary compression, vicious copy protection and user-hostile PC software.

The first Digital Walkman range was crippled in the same way. By the time Sony had admitted defeat on Atrac compression, the awful Sonicstage software and Magicgate DRM (digital rights management), Apple had won hearts and wallets with AAC compression, iTunes software and Fairplay DRM. Sony had to scrap its software and Connect online music sales site. But Apple will not license Fairplay. Meanwhile Microsoft offers Windows Media with its own DRM. So we are stuck with split standards for music downloads.

Apple hopes that iTunes video will repeat the success of its music sales. Paramount has a rival deal with Motorola using OMA (Open Mobile Alliance) DRM. Warner has fooled around with AOL. Services such as Sky’s Anytime Skyplayer and the BBC’s iPlayer use Windows Media DRM.

Warner and Fox are trying something different. A double-DVD set (Harry Potter 5 and Die Hard 4 in the US, and I am Legend in the UK) has a digital file copy of the film on the second disc. A use-once DRM key lets the file be copied to a PC. The file is protected by Windows Media and will not play on an iPhone or Playstation Portable. At well over 1.5GB, the Die Hard file is too big for most handhelds anyway. Both studios say they have plans for iPod- and PSP-compatible files, almost certainly with different DRM.

NDS, the company that developed the Videoguard smart card encryption used by Sky for broadcasting, has been working with Sandisk on a USB stick with integrated smart card that locks stored video.

There is more confusion because MPEG4 is not a video standard but an umbrella for several incompatible standards. When I asked Sony UK which of the types its latest Video Walkman can handle, a month of emailing yielded no useful answer. This is not a trivial question, I kept reminding them; it is the difference between whether a movie plays or does not play.

Giving up on Sony, I used PC conversion software and the Pinnacle Transfer hardware device to convert unprotected MPEG2 files into a wide range of formats, transferring them to portable players and finding out by trial and error which ones play sound and pictures.

If anyone in Sony UK is interested, your Video Walkman handles the same H.264/AAC file format as an iPod or PSP games portable but, like the PSP, plays only files recorded with a resolution of 320x240 and 768Kbits/sec bit rate. Higher resolutions give ‘unsupported format’ error messages. Motorola’s Moto Z10 multimedia phone has the same limitation.

The same files try to play but freeze and glitch on a Sandisk Sansa. An Archos player pops up a message telling the user to purchase the H.264 Video/AAC Podcast software plug-in for £15. It costs £15 to play MPEG2 video with AC3 audio.

It’s not just the file format and resolution requirements that are a mess. The converter software that came with one Sony Video Walkman refused to convert MPEG2 files, even home TV recordings made with Sony DVD recorders. The reason given was that Sony Pictures was worried about DVD piracy. When I recently asked if this was still the case Sony UK said that paying an extra $12.95 would buy an MPEG2 conversion upgrade. So much for piracy concerns.

The industry is sleepwalking into a situation where different players are needed to play different movies. People with stored video won’t dare change to a different brand of player. So the early winners in the mobile video marketing game will take all. Wake up Sony, before it’s too late again.

This article appeared in PCW's September 2008 issue.

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