The video store will be forgotten by children one day. All movies and videos will be downloadable, making a trip into a video store obsolete. Don’t laugh. If you ask a kid to open the windows, they’ll understand what I mean. They’ll soon be the same when it comes to renting a film.
The benefits to the consumer are immense, especially in today’s age of high gas costs and bad traffic. When video content can be downloaded from their computer, who wants to drive all over the place to access it? It is much easier to just click a button. The days of the video-store are gone as more people consider their computer to be the centre of their entertainment system. Microsoft’s Vista operating-system, which features incredible integrated video/entertainment capabilities, is another step in the direction of the consumer adopting their computer to be the center of all their entertainment.
Millions of people have bought iPODs for mobile video viewing and, less frequently, Microsoft Zunes. They have grown accustomed to downloading their content instead of waiting for it or driving to get it. The 5th generation iPOD as well as the Zune being released in the last quarter (2006) have been incredibly successful. The 4th quarter 2005 saw the release of the video-capable iPOD, which helped apple sell 14,000,000 units. Despite the Zune’s larger screen and WiFi networking capability (two features that Microsoft should have had to catch Apple), sales are slower for this device.
Microsoft’s marketing strategy is a big reason why the Zune hasn’t sold on par with the iPOD. Microsoft has failed to properly communicate this fact to the purchasing public, even though the Zune comes with many colors. Microsoft’s propensity towards using marketing terminology to describe Zunes, instead explaining to consumers why they are important, is another reason Zune sales have been slow. Microsoft talks about the Zune as “it’s not a gadget.” It’s an entrant in the new connected entertainment market to create new shared and social experience based around content. ?
Microsoft launched the Halo 3 edition Zune in May 2007, hoping to reverse their previous failures to grab consumers’ imaginations. This special edition comes with Halo audio and visual content. The Zune 3 graphics can be found on its exterior. The Halo 3 edition Zune can only be purchased at Game Stop at press time Tubidy.
There are fewer technical reasons the Zune didn’t surpass the iPOD as the market leader in portable video players. One reason may be the Zune’s inexplicable exclusion of a scrollwheel from its feature set. Although it appears to be a scroll wheel control it is actually a 4-way cursor control just like on a TV remote. The 4-way cursor is not what most consumers want to use to control their portable videos players. So they voted with their dollars for the iPOD. The Zune is a superb player. Also, the video quality is amazing for a small handheld. If you have purchased your Zune with that in mind, you can download and enjoy all manner of videos, TV series, and movies on an extremely portable platform.
The iPOD will support Apple’s AAC codecs, MP3, Apple Lossless and WAV formats to audio downloads. H.264 video content is supported. Also known as MPEG-4, part 10. This standard allows for high-quality, compressed video. Microsoft’s WMA/WMV audio and video formats are used in the Zune. H.264 can be used for video and MP3 for audio. Both players are capable of storing JPEG images. To enable video in different formats and resolutions to work with portable players, there are many file converters that can be used with either player.
