"I've polled executives at various companies that make these gadgets, and they say the whole video player industry is in a learning phase. James Barnard, who oversees Microsoft's handheld video player business, points out that there needs to be a lot of compelling content before there'll be demand, which is one reason the company is focusing so heavily on content. "Without content, this category cannot grow," says Jonathan Sasse, president of iRiver Americas, which makes one of the more elegant devices on the market. Sasse sees 2005 as a year of education, after which demand will start to percolate in 2006."
Without it nothing happens. People were ripping and mixing CDs before the iPod became popular. Unfortunately it isn't as easy to do this with DVDs or your TiVo. It will be up to the content providers (the Time Warner's, Sony's and Viacom's of the world) to create this content in a form people can subscribe to and copy to their PMP. I still can't see people bothering to watch a movie on such a small screen, but I've been more wrong than right about what technologies will succeed.
And cheap screens.
And good battery life.
And big cheap hard drives.
Content comes first, without a doubt, but its not the end of the equation by any means; but if the hardware stays at current prices all the content in the world won't get this baby off the ground. :twisted:
I also don't like them, but I can see that they'd be great in a few cases (like watching that 4am broadcast of the football match).
OTOH, I've seen the PSP's screen, and it's a sight to behold. It'd actually make a decent PMP, if not for Sony's insistence of using the UMD, which is anything but Universal. :roll:
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Baka. Soku. Zan. - The justice behind the dysORDer.
Video2Go, but Not Until 2006
Linear Mode
