Handheld video players: survey shows people aren’t interested
Kudos to Crawford for pointing to this new survey in his comment to an earlier post here: the BBC reports Consumers ’snub portable video’, reporting that according to Jupiter Research only 13% of Europeans want to watch video while on the move - whereas nearly one-third are interested in listening to music on a portable player.
Just 5% wanted a player for both music and movies; only 7% wanted something for both games and video.
Actually, given that video hasn’t been available in a portable form for very long, you might think that 13% isn’t a bad start, and that one-third for people wanting portable digital music is pretty low. But I think this is where marketing desire and reality part company. The market for portable music is proven: count how many people you see wearing headphones on public transport or in the street.
Now, consider how many people have the leisure to sit down and watch a handheld video (because you can’t walk and use it) yet not enough leisure to do it on a TV or laptop. Kids in the back of cars, yes. Bill Gates is correct there. But who else? Geeks? That’s not what you’d call a mass market, even if Robert Scoble has plenty of mass.
Irrelevant note: storming piece by John Gruber on the iPod’s sales, and in particular his patient picking apart of Eeyore’s claims about what was going to happen to the iPod. Yes, whatever did happen to the “iPod-killing” Dell DJ?
- These posts might be related (the database thinks..):
- Well, that about wraps it up for the Portable Media Center (or Centre) (12 July 2004; score: 80.87%)
- That's funny, I thought the answer was 'an iPod' or 'Robosapien' (7 December 2004; score: 75.71%)
- But hang on, if they're phishing.. (9 April 2005; score: 66.43%)
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November 3rd, 2004 at 8:43 pm
The largest obstacle is plainly the lack of content for these devices, and Jobs understands this. The problem of DVD decryption even prevents the obvious solution- a simple to use AutoGK-alike program (iMovieLibrary, or some such) to reencode dvds to a portable format. With the illegality of that solution, content has to be either recorded or bought; meaning not insignificant hardware outlays, or downloading content, possibly a second time, if you have the media already. Portable video has no real cheap, legal media source yet…
November 3rd, 2004 at 10:38 pm
I had a hand-held, pocket-sized video player device back in 1983. It had an endless supply of free (well, sorta) programming, was genuinely portable, and also incorporated the ability to deliver streamed real-time news, sports and entertainment. It was cheap enough for an impecunious near-student to afford, and had reasonable running costs.
It was not a success, despite attracting a lot of interest. Later models from other manufacturers, despite increased sophistication, have only found a small and rather low-rent market - minute in comparison to that of the audio-only device that was its direct antecedent.
R
November 4th, 2004 at 12:26 am
I think once portable video advances far enough to the point where they will be interfaced with a pair of glasses which would work similar to the auto cue devices as used by tv presenters and news readers etc, ie you can still see through the glasses so you know where you’re walking. It’s very difficult to walk and watch a video device otherwise. (Or are they already available????)
November 4th, 2004 at 9:50 am
Further thoughts on this pending a really good chinwag I had with a media lawyer friend…perhaps it is cultural issue within the content industries: to explain - there is the reasonably logical jump from just sound to sound and pictures, ingrained in the media and culture industries - radio to TV is the obvious comparison. However mobile devices and the (so far) v tentative steps they have taken may suggest a competely different path: music, then games, then possibly video…portable music is now as old as I am, and games have been as portable as humnas since day one so they both seem better candidates for mobile technology than pictures, which are largely based upon bigger, fixed installations. Or we could have had too much to drink and got a bit carried away reminiscing about studying film as we both did…
November 4th, 2004 at 1:12 pm
Yeah, it would be sweet if we could download movies, take them over to friends houses, and play via the tv.
I guess that’s why, historically, DVD may be seen as a really dumb format. “Oh, great, lots more shiny discs, just a couple of years before we realised we could get all this stuff digitally.”
The intellectual property market looks to be in trouble, and is fighting with all its might to keep profit margins.