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QuickTime Player embedded into Web page

Standalone RealMedia Player offers

exclusive streaming coverage of 

Major League Baseball

Standalone QuickTime Player displaying Favorites  drawer 

Users can acquire these and other  skins  to personalize their Windows Media Player:

    A nostalgic skin resembling an old fashioned radio

    A futuristic silver ball with sliding elements and hidden features

Standalone Windows Media Player

displaying portal mode

    A cute penguin named  Melvin  who plays your music and videos 

RealNetworks, Apple, and Microsoft each offer players that are available via free down 

load from their Web sites (although the Windows Media Player comes pre installed on 

 The issue for consumers will 

PCs shipped with the Windows operating system, while the QuickTime Player is pre 

be the irritation of having to 

installed on the Mac OS platform). All three of these major competitors sell download 

able player upgrades, offering premium models that can enhance playback controls 

download the player and 

with such features as video contrast and color adjustment, audio graphics equalizers, 

fi guring out which one is going 

the selective recording and saving of streaming content (if authorized by the content 

provider), and more. 

to become the default player  

While the three major architectures' media players will all play back some competitive 

Streaming media content 

formats, they do not always support the newest releases of a competing format. This is 

a complication that makes it diffi cult for consumers to decide which player to choose 

almost certainly requires 

as the default in their Web browser. Meanwhile, content providers who want to reach 

media companies to convert 

as many eyeballs as possible are forced to support all three players.

to multiple formats. 

With competition between the three big players heating up, the contenders have begun 

 Jeremy Schwartz, consultant

18

to incorporate portal like functionality into their players to add value, offering catego 

namic Medianamic Mediay

rized content choices such as movie trailers, news, and other vertical content, as well as 

y

allowing end users to add conveniently clickable access to their own favorite  channels.  

One of the ways in which the big three streaming media contenders compete is by vying 

for exclusive rights to broadcast popular content especially sports, entertainment, and news only 

obe Dobe D

via their own portal player. As a primary means to generate revenue, portal players offer advertisers 

dd

the opportunity for sponsorships, streaming commercial messages prior to playing user selected con 

AA

tent, and making the experience of streaming video on the Internet more and more like traditional 

broadcast radio and TV.

14

14

18  As quoted in   The Impossible Stream,  by Ken Kerschbaumer, Broadcasting & Cable Magazine, December 11, 2000