bruceb news

Napster has been reborn as a subscription service. Here’s an article about the new Napster. It might not be quite the right service at the right time but you are seeing a glimpse of the future, where our relationship to our music and movies will change dramatically.

The “Napster” name was purchased by Roxio in 2003; Roxio proceeded to sell its Easy CD Creator business (and the Roxio name) in order to focus on the Napster service. To be clear – the current service marketed as “Napster” has no relationship whatsoever to the pioneering peer-to-peer software that brought file sharing to the forefront. […] continued

A followup to my notes on moving music around the house.

The Netgear MP101 fit my needs, but knowing that doesn’t simplify your shopping. I wanted something (1) dirt cheap, (2) wireless, (3) music only, (4) no TV display required, and (5) able to work with my preferred music software, J River Media Center. Some or all of those concerns may be different for you.

A trusted friend just wrote about his success with the Roku Soundbridge M1000 – a very stylish looking device. I’ve seen other people raving about it online. The Streamium and Squeezebox devices also have loyal supporters. […] continued

The Linksys WMLS11B Wireless Music System has been boxed up and returned after a few more fruitless hours of testing.

The replacement is the Netgear MP101 Wireless Digital Music Player. There’s no built-in speakers but powered speakers are cheap and easy to come by. Netgear’s server software is far friendlier and less buggy than the lame version of MusicMatch required by the Linksys. I had the Netgear device up and running within fifteen minutes. Your mileage may vary.

The Linksys WMLS11B Wireless Music System fit my needs perfectly. I have an existing wireless network and a large music library on one computer; I wanted to play that music in the garage. There are lots of devices to play music over a wireless connection, but the Linksys is the only one that includes built-in speakers.

It’s cheap – under a hundred dollars – and I went into it with eyes open, since it’s easy to find complaints online about various problems with it.

But I was nonplussed that the instructions for setting it up were just . . . wrong. […] continued

HP has introduced a device for the living room that comes closer to a vision of the future than anything else on the market. The HP Digital Entertainment Center z545 ($1,999) is a computer at its heart, but that’s almost incidental. It’s a 480-line progressive scan DVD player, mp3 jukebox, dual-tuner DVR with free program guides, digital photo player, Web browser, and a moderately high-end personal computer with ultra-quiet cooling fans and a wireless keyboard. You can record two TV programs at once while watching a third recorded video, at the same time sending video, photos, or music to other rooms. […] continued

Kazaa is the old stalwart for file sharing – it has the best-known name, although it’s been under such relentless attack from the recording industry that savvy kids are switching over to eDonkey and Shareaza and even more obscure options.

The bad news for Kazaa is that a trial begins today in Australia over the responsibility that Kazaa’s parent company has for copyright infringement by its users. The case is coming to trial before any of the similar actions in the United States – and potentially could have some precedential value here. Australian authorities allowed the movie and recording industries to do surprise raids to gather evidence on company offices and its executives’ homes, as well as universities and ISP offices. […] continued

The iPod costs three or four hundred dollars, and completely dominates a rapidly growing market – currently claiming an 82% market share. The market for portable music players using hard drives for storage, like the iPod, will grow five-fold this year. Even if Apple’s market share slips as competitors like Sony, Dell, and Creative take aim, there’s lots of growth to go around.

Normal, non-tech people are beginning to accumulate music on their computer hard drives. It’s not unusual to run into people who buy a CD from Amazon, rip it onto the computer, and put the CD in the closet. […] continued

Aging baby boomers will soon be unable to recognize anything handling media in the home of an affluent 25-year-old. The convergence between the computer world and the audio/video world is happening faster than anyone can follow.

There are dozens of devices hitting the market for moving photos, video and music from your home’s computers to the living room audio center or TV. There are simple devices for moving music (Netgear’s Wireless Digital Music Player, for example). There are slightly more complex devices that also display your photos on your TV (for example, the Linksys Wireless-B Media Adapter).

Microsoft has rolled out Windows XP Media Center 2005, a souped-up version of Windows XP running on computers optimized for use in the living room with a remote control. […] continued

This article from Wired Magazine is essential reading. We are watching the creation of an entirely new economic model for the media and entertainment industries, with far-reaching consequences for our world. Amazon, Netflix, and online music services are discovering the long tail – the market for books, movies, music in a world where everything can be made readily available to everyone, regardless of their physical location.

Our entertainment world is shaped by hits – driven by the need to find local audiences.

“An average movie theater will not show a film unless it can attract at least 1,500 people over a two-week run; that’s essentially the rent for a screen.

[…] continued

The kind of service that you knew somebody had to offer – www.cassettes2cds.com converts old cassettes into audio CDs or .mp3 files. Presumably there’s a company somewhere converting videocassettes and camcorder tapes into DVDs, right?