Toshiba and Vongo Partner to Deliver Movies on the Go
By Joe Lozito
Toshiba's Newest Gigabeat PMC Media Players Now Support Vongo's Library of Video Content
At the
Toshiba "In Your Life" Show at the Essex House in New York City, representatives from
Vongo and Toshiba were on hand to discuss the partnership between the two companies that allows Vongo's extensive catalog of movies and video content to be viewed on Toshiba's newest gigabeat players.
Originally announced at the 2006 Consumer Electronics Show, Vongo is the online distribution channel for the Starz network. Based on either a subscription model or pay-per-view (depending on title), Vongo initially allowed movie playback on PCs only, via Vongo's proprietary media player. But now with the player embedded in Toshiba's new gigabeat portable media players, you can take your movies with you and watch them virtually anywhere.
The Vongo desktop client
The Starz connection means Vongo has access to a large array of movies and video content. For the monthly cost of $9.99, you can download any of their 1600 titles as well as stream the Starz TV channel directly (on the PC that is). There is also a $3.99 pay-per-view option for premium (re: not yet available on cable) content. Quality is said to be "near DVD" and average download time for a full movie over a typical broadband connection is around 30 minutes.
A quick browse through the Vongo catalog shows a plethora of films recent to DVD ("Stealth",
"Sin City", "Dark Water") as well as full length concerts.
Toshiba also has partnerships with eMusic, Napster and RealNetworks' Rhapsody for music content on the gigabeat players, but as a movie maven, I'm much more excited about the Vongo connection. I've been watching the CinemaNow and MovieLink offerings for a while and was interested to see how Vongo and Toshiba had sync'd up.
There were wireless problems at the hotel where the conference was being held, so we weren't able to see a live demo in action (though we did see some previously downloaded content on the player), but I think we all know how downloading works: click a link; wait a while; press play; repeat as necessary. Though the PC files download as Windows Media (.wmv) files, they can only be played via Vongo's specially tailored player software (which is their own custom version of Windows Media player).
While Vongo has access to High-Def content (which they broadcast on cable and satellite on StarzHD), bandwidth limitations make it less than feasible to offer that content online currently. In the future, though, as the download pipe gets fatter and fatter, HD content seems a certainty.
Through the Vongo download menu, you can select "Portable" as your download type and Vongo will download your content at a smaller filesize rather than the near DVD quality used for PC playback. The Toshiba gigabeat portable media player (available in 30GB or 60GB models) comes in black or white and features a simple PlusTouch™ button, which is like an up/down left/right toggle. The player has a sleek 2.4" (diagonal) screen with a 320x240 resolution. It runs Windows Mobile(R) Portable Media Center 2.0 and allows for playback in portrait (effectively 4:3) or landscape (16:9) mode.
Toshiba's gigabeat PMC in sleek black
Aside from storing movies, you can naturally use the gigabeat player for images and music - it even has a built-in FM tuner. With an Audio/Video output, you can download your favorite films, take the gigabeat on the road and plug it into any TV for your viewing pleasure. Of course, being surrounded by all that high-tech video gear at the Toshiba event, considering running a compressed video file off a portable player into an HD Widescreen TV seemed a like a step backwards. But it's nice to know it's possible.
In terms of movies on the go, there are other devices that make this possible, e.g., the Core Media player (TCPMP) for Palm Treo devices or Windows Media Player for Windows Mobile devices, as well as dedicated portable media players from Samsung and others, but getting the content onto these players has been the primary logisitical problem. The Toshiba gigabeat/Vongo combo makes it easy
and legal to download a huge catalog of first rate content and take it wherever you go. And that just may be the "killer app" that allows Toshiba to wrestle away marketshare from the mighty iPod.
Gigabeat Portable Media Players - MSRP
Vongo Subscription
14 day free trial
$9.99/month
$3.99 pay-per-view
