FW: Why Partners Need to Better Understand MTP
From ms monitor (jan/5):Tonight during his Consumer Electronics Show (CES) keynote address,
Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates helped demonstrate a Nikon D2X digital camera
supporting Media Transport Protocol (MTP). There is simply no way to
understate the importance of MTP to Microsoft's digital entertainment
strategy. If adopted as Microsoft would like, MTP would enable numerous and
disparate PC-to-device photo, music and video synchronization scenarios,
including rights-protected content.
Microsoft introduced the MTP concept
and in September released the protocol with Windows Media Player 10
Samsung Portable Media Players support MTP. Newer and some updated portable
music players are slated for MTP support. In September, Canon committed to
offering MTP in future digital cameras
MTP is a superset of Picture Transport Protocol (PTP), which is widely
supported on digital cameras. Anyone using Mac OS X and a digital camera
would know that picture transfer is little more complicated than connecting
a camera. No driver is required, and that's because of PTP on the camera and
the operating system. I got a lesson in PTP last weekend. For reasons I
couldn't explain, Mac OS X and iPhoto wouldn't recognize my Canon EOS 20D
digital camera, even though the manual said no driver should be needed.
Previously, I had connected to Windows XP after installing a Canon-provided
driver. Turned out that, unlike lesser cameras where PTP is turned on, I had
to manually enable the transfer protocol on the EOS 20D. Once done, the
camera launched Apple's iPhoto and pictures easily transfered.
Superset MTP seeks to do so much more. The protocol enables video, photo and
music transfer, and with some rights protection, what Microsoft calls
"indirect license acquisition." In that scenario, rights are managed by the
media player software and no access is required to, say, a remote Internet
server. The rights support could enable a number of in-home content
distribution scenarios, including recorded TV programming moved from one
room to another. In fact, MTP's flexibility creates quite a number of
eventual usage scenarios--hence the video, photo or music synchronization to
a Portable Media Center and picture transfer from digital camera to PC via
Wi-Fi.
Still, MTP's promise has yet to be realized. Device support is scant and
work needs to be done on what there is. The first time I connected a
Portable Media Center to a Windows Media Center PC, confusion followed. My
daughter wanted to watch recorded "Sonic X" episodes on the PMC while we
traveled to a friend's house. I plopped down in front of the computer and
attempted to transfer three episodes. After 10 minutes of trying and my wife
honking to go, I gave up. I tried to transfer the shows, but couldn't.
Windows Media Player 10 showed no transfer. Except it had. MTP worked so
well, the transfer quickly happened and with no notification either. Had I
actually checked the PMC, I would have found the three episodes, despite
Windows Media Player's lack of visual cues.
Partners seeking to understand Microsoft's digital entertainment strategy
must get up to speed on underlying technologies like MTP. To its credit,
Microsoft has created a dynamic, flexible architecture that could create
many exciting usage scenarios. But with choice, comes responsibility--and
that means partners taking responsibility to understand exactly what
foundation Microsoft has created for them.
Related...
http://www.microsoftmonitor.com/archives/005785.html
posted by Andrew MacNeill @ 7:59 PM
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