Week of January 20, 2006

CES Review, part five

Monday, January 16, 2006

On the HDTV front, the more technologically advanced 1080p displays (which are capable of showing every detail included in today's 1080i and 720p HD broadcasts, and potentially even the full 1080p capability of the new generation of DVD players) are slowly replacing the older 720p displays. As a result, 720p HD prices have been plummeting, and the Consumer Electronics Association estimates that 25,000,000 homes in the US will own an HD set by the end of 2006.

The big news in flat screens this year was that bigger is better, as virtually every major manufacturer revealed larger picture sizes. Biggest by far were the huge 103" plasma screens displayed by both Panasonic and Samsung, as well as the 102" model plasma on view from LG. These beautiful screens effectively demonstrate the technical advances that have been made in the engineering and production of these sets, but none of them is even projected to become available to consumers at this point. Slightly smaller (but still big) plasmas will be for sale soon, although at what are expected to be astronomical prices, from Samsung (80" at $150,000), LG (71" at $70,000), and Panasonic (65" that is on sale in Japan now at around $10,000). Not to be outdone, Samsung also displayed an 80" LCD flat panel (at $150,000) and Sharp showed a 65" LCD screen that is for sale now at $20,000. Meanwhile, competing HD technologies like rear-projection sets using DLP (from Samsung, LG and Mitsubishi) or LCoS (from Sony, Hitachi or JVC) can provide big, bright pictures at very reasonable prices ($2500-$4000).

For viewing on these HDTV sets, manufacturers displayed the two new competing versions of high-definition DVD players, with Panasonic, Pioneer, Dell, Samsung, LG, Sharp and Phillips all behind Sony's Blu-Ray system, while Microsoft, NEC, HP and Sanyo are all backing Toshiba's HD-DVD system. Unfortunately, neither side appears willing to back down and agree on one basic format, meaning that a VHS-Betamax type battle is likely once the players (with pricing expected between $500 and $2000) actually ship, starting in June. In fact, this kind of intense battle between manufacturers really typifies exactly what the 2006 CES was all about, namely some great new technologies and rapidly falling prices that dazzled the 150,000 attendees, but offering no real clues yet as to what type of product the consumer will ultimately end up choosing as the gate-keeper for all their beloved entertainment and information content.

E! Online Launches Broadband Channel

Tuesday, January 17, 2006

Our company recommends that content companies become more platform agnostic, and the E! cable network becomes the next one to do so, as they launch a broadband channel call The Vine @ E! Online. They're being smart about it, too, using some high profile content (their highly rated awards show coverage of the Golden Globes) to kick things off.

The end of the college football bowl games earlier this month signaled that once again, it was time for me to make a trip to Las Vegas to visit the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Rather than any single one "big thing" at this year's show, the hot pursuit of "convergence" continued. The 2,500 exhibitors covered a wide range of product categories, with most trying to become the single dominant conduit through which consumers will consume their entertainment and information content.

CBS Launches Mobile Content Soap Opera

Wednesday, January 18, 2006

In our New Media Landscape report, we stated that one of the key trends of 2006 will be "divergence," which means that traditional content providers will provide content that diverges across multiple distribution channels. The latest example is CBS, which just announced they would be launching a soap opera designed for mobile video viewing.

The details are still being worked out, but expect episodes to last 3 to 5 minutes and new episodes to be released roughly five times a week.

A Significant Newspaper Announcement

Thursday, January 19, 2006

While newspapers have been suffering dramatic readership losses, their response has been to simply duplicate their content on the web. In what could be the first shot across the bow for newspapers, the Chicago Tribune announced that their stock and financial tables would be no longer published in the paper but would be available online.

This is the first time that a major newspaper has made tacit acceptance that what was a major part of their paper (stock prices in the financial section) is no longer relevant in the new media world.

XM Goes Interactive

Friday, January 20, 2006

XM satellite has joined forces with VoiceBox, a company specializes in speech navigation and search, and Via Voice, a voice recognition engine created by IBM, to create a radio that will enable drivers to search and control XM channels, change the volume, or ask for things like traffic reports or sports scores simply by talking to their radio.