Dell scraps MP3 player encore, will focus on music service

Dell's plan to chip away at Apple's iPod+iTunes iceberg have apparently melted. After purchasing media portal software in 2007 and announcing plans this year for a new player that would tie into it, Dell has reportedly scrapped the media gadget in favor of building the software into every machine it ships.

Dell first tipped the industry off to its plans for re-entering the media player market when it purchased Zing in August 2007. Zing builds software for streaming music and radio to portable devices, as well as downloading, discovering, and sharing songs and photos with friends. Considering that Dell discontinued its ill-fated DJ Ditty MP3 player just one year earlier, purchasing Zing was a bit of a head-scratcher until the computer maker confirmed plans to introduce a new Zing-based media player back in July.

Now, however, Dell is said to have backpedaled on these plans and shelved the player "indefinitely," according to the Wall Street Journal's anonymous sources. Instead, the company will focus on competing with software like iTunes, Windows Media Player, and many others by delivering Zing software that organizes downloaded music and movies. Once finalized, Dell may bundle this software on its desktop and notebook computers, which is sure to put smiles on faces at Microsoft.

This Zing software is only one component of Dell's new push into media and software services. Last month, the ailing computer maker introduced bundles of movies and music that could be added to any computer. Movies are encumbered with Windows Media DRM but music tracks, available for as low as 50 cents each, are DRM-free MP3s.

If Dell is focusing on media management software, though, it's going to have to bring something truly compelling to the table. Last time we checked the market, it wasn't exactly hurting for a good media management app. But if Dell goes one step further into store territory, it's really going to have to hit one out of the park with a unique business model or, at the very least, something that isn't just another MP3 store.

Regardless of the choices Dell makes with some sort of Zing-based media player or store, shelving the gadget looks like a smart move. Apart from Apple's dominant position, the current rocky economic climate doesn't seem favorable for another MP3 from a company not known for succeeding with them.

Resource - Ars Technica

Coloratura on demand: Met Opera adds HD streaming

Opera tends to be a love it or hate it form of artistic expression; I fall strictly into the latter camp, since I tend to feel the vocals ruin what otherwise might be a fine piece of music. That should provide some useful background for the following statement: I have watched online streaming of opera in HD, and I came away impressed.

Next week, New York City's Metropolitan Opera will launch a service that allows opera buffs to stream performances to any computer with a broadband connection and enough horsepower to handle the HD.

The Met Opera has always been interested in getting its performances out to the opera-loving public that exists far beyond its New York City environs. It has broadcast live performances on PBS stations for years and, two years ago, it started offering HD recordings as well. These recordings, as well as historic, audio-only broadcasts (one dating from 1937), will be made available through the service. The Met plans on adding both archival and new recordings as time goes on. Those performances will be sold for both ad hoc and subscription viewing. A single performance will cost $4-5, while the monthly subscription fees will run in the neighborhood of $15.

"I am delighted that the Met’s incredibly extensive archive of video and audio performances will be so easily accessible to opera lovers everywhere," the Met's Music Director, James Levine, said in a statement. Opera lovers may have easy access to the streams, but that doesn't mean they'll actually be able to do anything with them. The HD video comes in a Flash wrapper, but the recommended system requirements for HD are pretty hefty: multicore processor, a gigabyte of free RAM, and 32 MB of video RAM. Most computers sold within the last two years should fit the bill, but I have no idea of what the Venn diagram of opera lovers and owners of current hardware looks like.

The Met offers the curious a preview site where users can see how well their setup will work out. In my case, additional software was needed before the stream would play, but the service quickly popped up a window that tested the new code before it launched into the preview clip. They were apparently not kidding about their minimum hardware requirements; my 2.3 GHz Core 2 Duo devoted much of its attention to keeping the clip running, and my disk has been thrashing ever since, as most of the programs I use seem to have been pushed into virtual memory. Maybe installing Flash 10 would help here.

The network was even more problematic, as the stream pretty much saturated my DSL connection, resulting in some stuttering and sporadic screen freezes the first time through. A second viewing went completely smoothly, however, suggesting that hitting pause at the start and letting the download run for a while ahead of viewing would eliminate any trouble. What that didn't eliminate was the CPU requirement, which kicked my laptop's fan into an audible spin; not the sort of thing an opera buff is likely to tolerate.

But live opera is as much about the visuals as the sound, and here, the service really impressed. Switching to full screen mode was, in a word, stunning. And remember, I don't really go for this stuff.

Some people clearly do and, with a price that's in line with various movie services, the Met Opera's video streams are likely to find some takers. How many is hard to judge, given that the audience will need a combination of initial interest, hefty hardware, and significant bandwidth.

Still, the fact that we're considering the size of the audience says a lot about the status of online video, which has shot from curiosity to cultural phenomenon in a few very short years. I will ponder that as I hunt down some decent music to listen to, like Beethoven's 7th.

Resource - Ars Technica