New video handhelds are narrow on content

Three handheld devices optimized to play video were launched during two days in early October. They're the leading edge of a trend to put more media in the palm of one's hand. But what media will play on them? That's the billion-dollar question.

Each device supports different video options, has its own content deals, and charts its own future, and little of it involves movies or video programming you already own.

The story involves Hollywood, encryption, pirates and the law. There isn't a happy ending, but the show is far from over.

Let's start with the cast.

The players

• Apple Computer launched its fifth-generation iPod ($299 for 30 GB model; $399 for 60 GB, www.apple.com), which can play user-created movies or content purchased from the iTunes Music Store. It's primarily a music player that plays video on a tiny, crisp display.

• EchoStar Communications, owner of the Dish satellite television network, released the PocketDish series ($599 for the high-end AV700E, www.pocketdish.com), handhelds made by Archos for video, music and games. Dish digital video recorder (DVR) owners with a USB 2.0 port can transfer recorded content to the player's hard drive.

• Palm announced the Palm TX ($299, www.palm.com), a Wi-Fi-enabled, general-purpose digital assistant that can play video on a relatively large screen. No video content has been designed for it, but Palm TX buyers can subscribe to MobiTV to stream content from stations operated by that company.

Content and restrictions

EchoStar has the richest set of content available, but only if you're a Dish subscriber. Subscribers can transfer up to 40 hours of programming from their DVRs to the unit. The transfers take about five minutes per hour of stored content.

The transferred content can be played only on the PocketDish. "Basically, you can't get digital-quality content out of the PocketDish," said Mark Cicero, an EchoStar spokesman. That restriction has allowed EchoStar to introduce the product without complaint from media owners or network programmers.

Appropriately encoded digital video, such as home movies, can be copied directly from a computer. Most video, however, will require conversion to a particular type of the Divx media format.

Media available for the iPod is more limited at present, but industry experts expect the pool to grow. The iTunes Music Store has a deal with ABC and Disney to sell individual episodes of five popular TV programs, including "Lost." Also available are Pixar movie shorts and thousands of music videos.

Early statistics are impressive: a million music videos, TV episodes and shorts were purchased in the first two weeks, said Eddie Cue, Apple vice president for iPod. This content plays on new iPods and within iTunes, but nowhere else.

"We've focused on things that we can bring to customers that they haven't really been able to get before," Cue said, noting that most music videos aren't available for sale.

Unlike music purchased from Apple, videos cannot be burned to ordinary DVDs.

Meanwhile, the Palm TX has no native content and very little onboard storage. However, a separate subscription to MobiTV will let the Palm stream video from several TV-station-like broadcasts over Wi-Fi to the screen.

On the music front, all three devices play MP3 and other formats for unprotected or ripped music. The PocketDish handles protected, downloaded WMA files; the Palm requires a $34.95 software upgrade to handle downloaded WMA files; the iPod plays protected iTunes Music Store audio.

Your media

You can't move your digital media efficiently now — or at all in the future — to these handheld devices without explicit permission and licensing from the copyright holders.

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) is worried about the piracy that perfect digital copies could foster.

It and the recording industry require digital rights management (DRM) protection on DVDs and other digital media. This software encrypts the media, with only licensed devices and software having the keys to extract the contents. Trying to crack the encryption is illegal under a law passed in the U.S. in 1998 that the MPAA and recording industry strongly supported.

At Apple, the iTunes Music Store sells music and video that allow buyers to play the purchased content on up to five registered computers, for instance. Licensed standalone devices have keys built in.

While there is free, widely available software on the Internet that can rip DVDs into files that could play on a Palm, EchoStar or Apple handheld, it's illegal to use the software.

Meanwhile, although you can't copy digital-media files directly or rip them, you can record an analog show — using a DVD recorder to capture a TV show, for example. But more and more devices won't record programming embedded with a "don't copy" signal. Digital television programming, which is becoming more widespread, can't be directly recorded at digital quality.

The future

If events continue the way they're headed, only movies and video programming specifically licensed for handheld playback and paid for separately will be available.

Three years ago, I was part of an Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) lawsuit, along with four other plaintiffs who owned ReplayTV DVRs. We were trying to establish that an existing lawsuit by 28 media companies against the ReplayTV manufacturer would remove two important personal uses of media: commercial skipping and "space shifting," or moving programs in digital form from one device to another.

ReplayTV's owners went into bankruptcy, and the new owners settled the suit by agreeing to never offer these features again. Today, there's no enshrined right to space shift digital-media files, and Hollywood and other creative producers have moved toward even more restrictive protections on how video may be played.

The MPAA did not make a representative available for comment.

At the EFF, senior staff attorney Fred von Lohmann said: "The whole goal has been to lock as much video as possible in a whole world where [federal laws] can police it."

Rick Riccobono, a longtime digital-music licensing consultant with his company RightsBridge, explained that the fear of peer-to-peer networks such as Grokster has short-circuited several attempts to make it easier for an individual's own devices to exchange media freely.

There will clearly be hundreds of thousands of hours of television, film and video previously unavailable for rental or sale that will play on Palms, PocketDishes and iPods in the next year. But little or any of it is likely to come from your own collection.

Glenn Fleishman writes the Practical Mac column for Personal Technology and about technology in general for The Seattle Times and other publications. Send questions to gfleishman@seattletimes.com. More columns at www.seattletimes.com/columnists