Blu-ray Maybe Too Late

Sometimes the spoils of war are too late and surpassed far easier than they were won. Last year Sony appeared to have won a bloody video format war with Toshiba and everything seemed to be going Blu-ray. They had won the endorsement of Hollywood studios and major retailers and all that was now needed was for the consumers to buy Blu-ray players.That hasn't happened in the numbers expected. 10 million Blu-ray players have been bought but this is only 10% of the total US television market.

A number of factors have influenced the disappointing take-up. There is the credit crunch and consumer spending confidence, the fact that unless you are watching on a large screen the quality gain is not appreciable, there are cheaper alternatives and finally there is the library reinvestment which is not a small cost.

When we look at eink and ebook readers no one will dispute the quality of the technology to read in adverse conditions, no one will dispute the devices tick readers functional boxes. However the content still isn’t there, the devices lack colour, the prices of both devices and readers isn’t right and finally we have a recession. Maybe by the time the market really takes off we will be in the world of the mobile, content may be free of at least restrictive DRM and we won’t be downloading and buying libraries, but renting to read on demand and online.

Some would suggest that even an elephant has a shorter gestation period than an ebook reader.

'Open' or 'Closed' Depends on Where You Stand

Today we read the trade press and of much noise about open formats. Some would argue that defining ‘open’ is often hard and they would question whether a format by itself can ever be open without an open Digital Rights management and an open reader platform. Of course we would all love just one way of doing business, one way to hold a file, one universal file we can play anywhere and that no matter what device the file is loaded onto it will be able to read it and render it for all to see.

Then we hit the reality check.

Manufactures develop their own way of doing things for obvious reason. Industry bodies may adopt and or adapt these or start again with their own standards. However, the nature of all standards are that they are a framework, a common way of describing things and actions, and that there will always be options that are always exercised.

There are three elements to consider when we talk about ebook downloads; the format, the DRM and the reader.

Today we have a number of downloadable formats; Adobe ebook, Microsoft Reader, Mobibook the emerging ePub and others. Software developer Adobe has thrown its weight behind the IDPF and the epub format with its ADEPT service. What differentiates these from say a PDF, HTML or a word document is that they are constructed to work as a book or large document and have an associated digital rights management that can encrypt and enable the files to be securely transferred between platforms. However some may argue that these formats are more restrictive than XML and similar formats such as HTML, Plucker, PDF and others.

This new epub format came from the IDPF industry body and the same stable that gave us the OEB format. The epub format differs in that although it is an ‘open’ format today it does not have an ‘open’ DRM. If the DRM was open then anyone could effectively bypass it and effectively defeat the whole objective but when DRM is through one route then surely it is no longer 'open'. epub may well be adopted by a number of major players who in turn will develop their own DRM wrap. Does that mean the format is not ‘open’ – no. It merely means that the native file is open but the route to market is not.

Next we have the readers; Kindle, Sony, iRex and many more. We have seen the rise and fall of many readers over a relatively short period and will probably see more of the same in the future as the market starts to develop. Each has its associated format capabilities; Kindle and iRex the Mobibook and Sony BBEB or now epub with Adobe being rendered on a wide range of devices. The issue is that a mobi file will not be playable on a Sony device and potentially a epub file bought for a Sony device will not be playable on a Kindle, or currently on a iRex or a Palm or any other device today. When we get down to ebooks on mobiles the debate currently gets much murkier. Here the capability to free the pages and reflow them is seen as essentail and fixed page formats will not succeed.

The real problem is that consumers are confronted by conflicting formats and what could be best described as a DRM land grab from publishing and technology companies. Dr Greg Newby, CEO of Project Gutenberg is reprted in an article in PC Pro last year stating, "Fundamentally, eBooks are files, and having the file locked to a particular device or software that only runs on a particular device, or some other sort of protection or encoding, is unfriendly to readers."

We can’t comment on some of the conclusions drawn by some commentators but we can understand the term ‘land grab’ but believe that the PC Pro article, even though its out of date now, is worth a read and speaks frankly and openly about some of the relationships that are dictating today's landscape.

HD DVD RIP

Todate, about one million Blu-ray players have been sold with another three million integrated into Sony’s PlayStation 3 consoles. Interestingly, about one million HD DVD players have also been sold with Microsoft having backed the HD DVD standard and sold a compatible player to accompany its Xbox 360 video game console.

Although downloading of high definition movies face challenges the DVD is seen by some as a transient technology so the Bluray DVD victory may be as short lived as others before.

However, the defining moment of market capitulation once again shows us how sudden format wars can be finished. Today the ebook war is plagued with format wars, Mobibook, MS Reader, Adobe, epub and more. We already see the signs that Sony could be repositioniong itself away from its proprietary format. What is clear is that these wars will be decided like those before them by the adoption of those that count and in book terms that must be the retailers and the channel and not ereader technology or even publishers. Unless Amazon open up the Kindle its had its day of glory and Sony and Adobe are poised but who will make the difference?