PlayStation3 users to get 'free' music videos

Kiwi artists like Ladyhawke are included in the 10,000-plus free high-definition movies available on PlayStation3's new Vidzone application.

PlayStation3 users will have access to high-def music videos when the new Vidzone service goes live tomorrow.

Vidzone - an on-demand music video service developed by London-based New Zealander Adrian Workman - will be a free downloadable application for PlayStation3.

The videos are supported by advertising so the service is free, but users will be stung for bandwidth by their ISP.

Around 10,000 songs - at high 1080 resolution - are available from hundreds of artists.

There are already dozens of New Zealand artists from Ladyhawke and Nesian Mystic through to rock from the Bleeders and Concord Dawn's drum and bass genius.

Workman, who "sadly" grew up in Hamilton, is CEO of Vidzone and has worked in the music video world for the thick end of 25 years. He sees console delivery of vids as a more effective medium than the internet.

"It's really fantastic - once it's loaded, you suddenly have 10,000 music videos sitting there at your disposal," he told nzherald.co.nz.

"You can create your own playlists or use the pre-programmed playlists that we've got. You can fast forward, skip, rewind - it puts you in control. If I want to sit there and watch all of U2s videos I can create a playlist and watch back-to-back videos and skip anything I don't like.

Workman started out by setting up a music video company for BMG.

"Off the back of that I suppose I learned everything there was to know about video and music video," he told nzherald.co.nz.

"Then for me the distribution format was video cassette and then it turned into laser disc and then DVD. I then went into the distribution of music video on the internet and now I'm into the distribution of music on consoles.

"I set Vidzone up in 2001 and it started out distributing music videos in the online arena. In about 2005 we got involved in the distribution of music video plus audio and ringtones on mobile.

"Then about two and a half years ago we were considering what we be the new format. We wondered if the consoles would ever take to music video considering that a lot of people were playing games on widescreen TVs."

This thought set the ball rolling, and culminating in a seven-country launch earlier this year.

"I strolled into the offices of Sony PlayStation - lo and behold they had five or six people sitting in a room eagerly awaiting what I had to say. It went down incredibly well and, to cut a long story short, it took about nine months to get everything done contractually and after that we went into about a one-year build.

"It was quite a complicated build because we had to figure out how it would look and how the ads would appear - it was a complex build. We launched it six months ago and it's been a tremendous success in the seven countries we've launched in. Now we're launching in 11 more. "

Workman believes that console delivery will out-perform internet and mobile phone music video.

"I think it's quite difficult monetise music video content with advertising through the internet, through the PC. The rates are quite low, and that's always been problematic.

"I'm not sure that there's a lot of room in that market. On mobile, we're not really seeing the growth in that sector that we expected - it probably peaked in about 2007 and it seems to be fairly cyclical.

"It took a kicking when the iPhone came out and I don't think that the devices from the other hardware manufactures really competed very well with it.

"We're now witnessing some Sony Ericsson and Nokia devices that are really beautiful with touch screens. They offer a better user experience and touchscreens etc, and we will probably see the mobile market come back a bit more.

"But one of the things we're particularly excited about with the consoles is the real drive from Sony with PlayStation3 is to put the console in the centre of the living room, play it through large screen TVs. A big proportion of users are on 32-inch screens or greater. That really lends itself to the distribution of music video. "