Sony, Amazon Said to Be Prepping Media Services
As if things weren't already crowded enough with today's Apple TV announcement and rumors of Google's possible movie and TV streaming service, Sony and Amazon are being ushered onto the bandwagon.
Word on the street is both Sony and etailer giant Amazon have plans to start their media services. The Financial Times cites sources in the media that say Sony's new subscription service will launch on the PlayStation 3 first (we assume via the PSN), before creeping across to the company's other devices, such as its Vaio computers, Sony Ericsson phones, Bravia TVs, Blu-ray players, and Walkman PMPs.
Though Sony phased out its Connect music service in 2007, FT cites Sony boss Sir Howard Stringer who last year said 90 percent of the company's devices would be connected to the Web and each other by 2011. The paper also points to Sony's $260 million acquisition of Gracenote in 2008 as further evidence that the company could be prepping a content service. Gracenote tracks and identifies music files across devices, and FT says it could play a significant role in Sony's new media service, which has been two years in the making. The service is not expected to go live until next year, after Sony has cut all the necessary deals with studios and labels.
It's not immediately clear if Sony's service will be similar to iTunes, in that you pay for what you want, or if it will be an all you can eat subscription that streams content to the user's device.
Also said to be working on a media service is Amazon. Reuters reports that the etailer has approached media companies for a subscription service that will rival Netflix. The company has reportedly spoken to Time Warner, CBS, and Viacom about the service, though people familiar with the discussions say it's unclear whether the media companies have agreed to anything just yet.
Amazon already offers TV shows and movies via its VOD service, but Retuers reports that this new service will differ in that instead of paying for content by the episode, or movie, customers will pay a subscription fee. A Wall Street Journal reports that Amazon may choose to bundle its subscription service with its Amazon Prime service that gives customers free, 2-day shipping (and other perks) for just $79 per year.
Would you subscribe to a service with either Amazon or Sony? Let us know in the comments below!
Source: Financial Times, Reuters
- Mercedes Luxury Machine Applefied by Brabus
- Canon Develops 120 Megapixel CMOS Sensor
- Check Out the New Improved Xbox 360 Controller
- Unhappy Digg Users Flood Site with Reddit Links
- Nintendo Drops the Price of the DSi and DSi XL
- Samsung: 1 Million Galaxy S Phones Sold Already
- Gmail Rolls Out Awesome Priority Inbox Setting
- The HumanCar: Bedrock Hotrod, 2010 Edition
- Froyo FRG22D Hitting Verizon's DROID By Sept. 4
- Prepaid DROID, BlackBerrys, Palms to Hit Verizon
- Pictured: First Look at the T-Mobile G2 Android
- PlayTime Allows Android & iOS to Play Together
- Samsung Unveils Galaxy Tab
- Verizon Teases Android Skype Users with Wi-Fi
- TV Networks Not Keen on Apple's $0.99 Rentals
- Augen Says It's Working on Next-Gen Tablets
- Samsung Reveals New Android ''Honeycomb'' OS
- Microsoft Officially Unveils the Arc Touch Mouse
- Windows Phone 7 is Finally Officially Finished
Wonder how $ony will get people to pay for things that they will just want to take away in the future...I will keep putting MY content on the hardware I bought and stay DRM free.
$80 a year for unlimited 1080p/720p content, which only compresses as much as it needs to, because on a 16mbit line, you can stream 7GB/hour.
I'd be in.
While I do like the Sony Playstation 3 console, I find the games I have (got it for Sony exclusives only) aren't played. I've just used it to stream movies from my network.
Can we finally have a decent, affordable streaming service in Canada though? Or must I use a VPN?
its not 7GB/hour
16gb = 2GB
so it would be 120Megabytes an hour or 960 Megabits
i dont know where you got the 7GB from
16mbit/s / 8 = 2Mb/s
2 x 60 x 60 = 7200Mb per hr
Times that by about 0.7 for the actual data = ~5Gb per hour???
i see i must still be tired i only worked it out in mins
but you forget becasue of throtling internet conection you will be lucky to get that
for example im with bt and have got 20GB in quiew
it is going to take 15 hours or 1.3GB/hour that is on 8mb connection
i feel you are hopelessly optomistic and everyone near me is at work so its about as fast as it is going to get
so your real world speeds are more like 1-8MB/sec at average
Subscription service, much better. Lines it up against the established models set by big TV companies like HBO and such.
I like the idea of this, now if we can only find a way to make this international.
By the way, if I watch a streaming movie and at the end there is a link that says "Like this film? Buy it now!" followed by a couple of clicks then the BluRay disk comes through my door in 2 days this will be perfect.
back_by_demand
so bassically you want an internet service to replace over the air/satalight tv like sky and cable
i think this is a good idea but will make some poeples internete bills go through the roof becasue they won't realise how much they use and people like bt charge you if you go over your allowance if you are not on option 3
I wonder if Sony is going to force out Netflix or allow a competing service? Sony needs to take note this could end in a lawsuit they cant win. Those using Netflix being Sony's own customers could bring suit. Even a win for Sony by law can be a lose in this case.
back_by_demand so bassically you want an internet service to replace over the air/satalight tv like sky and cablei think this is a good idea but will make some poeples internete bills go through the roof becasue they won't realise how much they use and people like bt charge you if you go over your allowance if you are not on option 3
Maybe, if you look at how internet speeds vs file sizes have rocketed over the last few years it seems like a natural progression. Also, its not like the TV companies aren't already doing it in a similar fashion like the BBC iPlayer or the Sky Player, both allow you to stream the respective TV companies content. Networks are constantly being bolstered to support the inevitable rise in traffic both mobile and ADSL/Cable. BT are spending billions getting fibre optics down around the country and there are plenty of ISPs that have unlimited and dont even hint at a fair usage policy. I currently use O2 on a 20mb service, the exchange is all of 200m from the house so I pretty much get the full whack and regularly get torrent speeds around 2000kbps.
They haven't bothered me once regarding my downloading, despite regularly hitting big DLs like Stargate SG1 at over 70 gig.
It wont happen over night but it will happen and convergence is already underway, Sky offers ADSL and BT offers TV, there are never huge leaps only excruciating increments but in 5 years you will see some people as Sky TV subscribers who dont have a STB anymore and have all their 3D-HD content piped down Sky Broadband.
Bearing in mind that in the UK today there are already some cable suscribers who are using 100 meg braodband, we are not far away. If someone could work it out, just exactly how fast would your home broadband have to be to fluidly stream a full 3D-HD movie, TV show or football match?
http://forums.highdefdigest.com/hd [...] trate.html
Just answered my own question, peak bitrate for any of the USA HD providers is under 20, so I think having a broadband service above 200 meg should do the trick and seeing as places like Hong Kong have gigabit services available now then we are not talking science fiction here. It's all totally do-able in the UK and the USA within 5 years.
Its got FAIL written all over it!
yes but bt's limit for option 3 is 100GB a month and they throttle you tremendously the only one i can find with no fair use policy (they should be illegal) is suprisingly sky
which is trully unlimited