Jim, this may be of interest to you and others here. I'll post it in LMT, as well, for anyone wishing to track the discussion there.
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FAC: It's not VOD, exactly. Instead, call it download and save, or download and play. I.e., DAS, or DAP. You saw those TLAs here first. (c) smile
Depending on your access method and prevailing network conditions at the time of the download, you can have a movie the length of Gladiator shipped to your hard drive anywhere from under a half hour to 45 minutes or so, and then view it. Or save it for a later time. How do I know?
I asked the experts: A couple of kids who I just finished Bar-B-Q-ing with told me so. I swear: I don't know their names.
They tell me that they've downloaded many, many DVD quality movies, and that they are able to connect their laptops to their wall-sized television sets with the proper bus connection, and can view them "like the real thing."
This p2p service is called: Music City's Morpheus.
musiccity.com
Scanning through googles, I came up with this blurb from TechTV, which covers all of the Napster Clones:
"The ultimate Napster Clone Guide"
techtv.com
From the larger piece on the clones, here's the blurb on Music City's Morpheus:
"Music City's Morpheus"
techtv.com
An excerpt:
"Now, the Morpheus-KaZaA network brings an average of 45,000 users together sharing over four million music, video, and image files -- among others."
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The kids tell me that average download times, when using cable modem (in each case they spoke of R/R), runs between twenty minutes and a half hour for these DiVx-compressed files, with larger files taking up to three quarters of an hour (unless there is congestion on the network, which they also acknowledged could cause disconnects and longer download times, but not often) for file sizes up to 600 MB or so.
Let's see. 600 MB would equal roughly (600 * 8 bits per byte) 4.8 Gbits. At 2 Mb/s, that would be 2400 seconds, or 40 minutes. About the time it would take me to go to the video store and back, and indulge in a little bit of schmoozing, as would be the case for most. That sounds about right.
Here's the complete article that I referenced above on MCM:
Music City, once known for its far-reaching Open Nap network and client, has crossed over to the proprietary world with Morpheus, its new downloadable file-sharing client. To some, it's the best thing since KaZaA. To others, it's a nod to the "dark side."
There's a reason why Morpheus looks and functions exactly like KaZaA. The makers of the Europe-based KaZaA have licensed its proprietary peer-to-peer technology to the Nashville-based Music City. Hardcore file sharers remember that Music City's Open Nap servers numbered in the dozens and brokered millions of files (it was a default server for WinMX). Now, the Morpheus-KaZaA network brings an average of 45,000 users together sharing over four million music, video, and image files -- among others.
Unlike Open Nap or Gnutella protocols, the KaZaA technology can easily accommodate throngs of new users. It's scalable because it designates the more powerful computers on its network as SuperNodes. These "alpha-PCs" serve as search portals for the rest of the community. The user can check off a box in preferences if they don't want to act as a SuperNode. This may be beneficial to some because word on the street is that the KaZaA client can be a drain on system resources. So far, we haven't felt the drain.
Users like Morpheus for its intuitive user interface and its relatively quick search results. For most searches, results pop up on the screen in a couple of seconds. For instance, our search of everything Radiohead (including audio, video, images, documents and software) resulted in 106 files. Unfortunately, Morpheus limits search results to a maximum of 100 (plus a few stragglers) and there isn't a separate title and artist search area. Contrast that to Gnutella-based BearShare, which can yield hundreds of sortable results.
Of course, the Morpheus interface allows sorting by Title, Artist, Media Type, Category, Download Time, Size, etc. - an integral part of searching for say, the shortest download (many results' download times are in hours!). Unfortunately, the Windows Explorer-type interface (borrowed from Microsoft's Internet Explorer incidentally) is in need of constant adjusting. In other words, we needed to drag the download time column into sight every time we searched for a new item.
Still, fast and hearty results speak volumes and with over forty thousand users, it's easy to find almost anything. Highlighting the interface is the "My Shared Folder" tab. It breaks down all your files by type so it's easy to view or play images, music or video in the built-in Theater media player. Only problem is that some files have a difficult time playing in the theater.
Other features include a Napster-like traffic window where right-clicking on the mouse will help play, cancel, clear or resume a download, and the default placement of a My Shared Folder shortcut on the desktop. Unlike Napster or WinMX 2.5, it lacks community features such as chat or buddy lists.
Many file sharing purists shrug at the notion of the new Music City. Some users have experienced bugginess in the client; others don't appreciate the drain on system resources. Still others hope that Morpheus doesn't follow KaZaA's lead when the latter morphs into a subscription service sometime this summer (also, don't forget the application's banner ads). Regardless of what happens, KaZaA and Morpheus are top-tier destinations for those looking for an alternative to the sickly Napster network.
We gave KaZaA four stars for its technology. Morpheus isn't anything new although it has a dense content and user base. We give it three stars.
Download report
AudioFile used these search terms with other Napster clones. The purpose of this search is to get a feel for the availability of widely used search terms as well as more obscure bands and song titles.
45,000-50,000 users online on average sharing approximately 4,500,000 files
Results: 2-30 seconds depending on file popularity
Number of Apples in Stereo songs found using four servers: 120 (maximum 100 results)
Number of Radiohead songs found on four servers: 106 spanning the group's entire career
Number of results for harder-to-find songs on four servers: The Beatles' "Yellow Submarine": 121; Dr. Dre's "The Watcher": 113; Metallica's "Enter Sandman": 118
Company: Music City
Phone: 503.221.2371
Price: Free Preview Version
Available: Now
Category: File Sharing
Platform: Windows
Requirements: Windows (all), Internet Explorer 4.0, Windows Media Player 6.4
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Continued...
Ultimate Napster Clone Guide
BearShare
KaZaA
MyNapster
WebNAP
Newtella
Gnute
Gnutella
WinMX
Music City's Morpheus
LimeWire
Rapigator
Neo-Modus DirectConnect |
