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Real Strikes New Rhapsody Distribution Deals

By BetaNews Staff, BetaNews

January 8, 2007, 10:30 AM

Aiming to take on both Microsoft and Apple head on, Real on Monday announced several new deals to expand Rhapsody's presence in the music industry. Deals with Nokia, Reigncom (maker of the iRiver), and TiVo were some of the companies that announced support for the Rhapsody DNA platform. With Microsoft apparently abandoning PlaysForSure for the Zune, it appears that Real is stepping in to fill that void.

Nokia would support the service in its next-generation Internet Tablet, while Reigncom would produce several versions of the iRiver MP3 player compatible with Rhapsody. Also planned is the capability to play Rhapsody content through the TiVo set-top box, expected later this year. "Our vision for Rhapsody is to deliver seamless and personalized access to millions of songs, on-demand and from any device," music and video senior vice president Dan Sheeran said.

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By psycros

posted Jan 8, 2007 - 11:19 AM

They might do OK on DirecTV, since its the only thing available in rural areas like mine (over 25% of US has no cable last I checked). Being able to pull down tunes through TiVO and transfer them to PC and MP3 player would be nice. If the music was stuck on your TV, however, it would be completely useless.

Score: 0

By pafinator11

posted Jan 8, 2007 - 3:32 PM

what rhapsody does is streams unlimited music, it also allows you to purchase it if you want to put it on a cd or portable device. There are already set top boxes such as the D-Link DSM line of products that support rhapsody, what those boxes do is allow you to stream the music and play it on your stereo. I'm assuming that Tivo would do the same thing. If it did require you to buy the tracks it would become less useful but not useless . I think you're forgetting that many people have stereo systems hooked up to their TVs.

Score: 0

By rebradley

posted Jan 8, 2007 - 10:53 AM

R.I.P. Rhapsody signed it's own death warrant when it made a deal with Real. The only thing Real was good at is that they showed Sony how to alienate, if not destroy their customer base.

Score: 0

By crashoverride

posted Jan 8, 2007 - 8:27 PM

Quite honestly these days I trust Real Networks further than I do Microsoft. I would rather see Rhapsody using and pushing it's own platform than be associated with the likes of Microsoft.

Score: 0

By uberfly

posted Jan 8, 2007 - 4:23 PM

Guy, get over your old lame & tired outlook on Real Networks. All they did is survive years of Microsoft and others trying to kill them. Rhapsody has been named that for 6 years. BTW, the service is awesome. They've done nothing but improve it since buying it from listen.com. Rhapsody was the first service to offer streaming on-demand access. Yes, the first.