Connect Video (Sony @ CES 2006)

Hidden away in a circular booth on a Vaio laptop I found myself staring at what will most likely be Connect Video (aka ‘Vongo’), the recently announced service that is a joint collabrative effort by Sony, Microsoft and Starz. It looks like it will be a monthly fee based service at $9.99 and initally cater only to the PSP. Pictures and some hard specifications after the jump.

Connect Video will launch in March 2006 in the United States. The video codec of the movies is H.264/MPEG-4 AVC, with bitrates between 768kbps/1000kbps and the audio codec portion will be 128kbps AAC. The only device that will be initally compatible with this service is the PSP and it will require firmware 2.6. Resolution of the videos will be standard PSP size — 480×270. So, with a 1GB MSDuo card at the 1000kbps video bitrate we’re talking about 1 hour and 50 minutes; 2GB at 3 hours and 50 minutes; 4GB 7 hours and 20 minutes; 8GB 14 hours and 50 minutes. Yes, I did say 4 and 8GB MS Duo — those will be released in 2006.

The Connect Video main portal.

A closeup of some of the genres, titles, and pricing.

This is not a program, strictly a web interface. All transfers go through the web browser, which was a very steadfast process akin to saving a file on your hard drive. Very quick, and quite impressive.

Closeup of an actual title. They only had extreme sports available at the time of viewing, and you can see the button in the middle labeled “Download to PSP.” It was not clear if any further devices would be supported, but it’s becoming more and more obvious that a Video Walkman will debut this year.

The finished product.