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January 09, 2006

CES 2006 - Video everywhere

Just got back from the 2006 CES show in Las Vegas. The big trend is video. Lots of video.

Video gets bigger - large screen TVs are coming down in price, and are getting bigger.

Video gets smaller - there were a remarkable number of video-playing MP3 devices. By years end, you should be able to get one for $99 from any Big Box Mart.

And more video becomes available over the Web. Read this story about Google entering the Online Video market. The curious thing is how Google decided to write their own copy-protection system. Kind of a smackdown to Microsoft, but Microsoft has the hardware relationships and Google doesn't. If Google wants people to be able to watch copy-protected video on anything but their PCs, they eventually will have to go to Windows DRM.

Or... people will just use Replay Screencast to record to WMV.

Video is great, but DRMed video sucks if it you can't transfer it to your favorite device. But will people really be watching a lot of video on those tiny-screened devices? It's gonna be an interesting year.

Posted by Bill Dettering at 01:36 AM | Permalink | Technorati Tags: ces video streaming google microsoft drm iPod itunes tv | Comments (0) | TrackBack