That’s Entertainment
While working with the BBC, it is terribly refreshing to hear people constantly harping on listening to the consumer, using the technology to create better programming, and competing with those damn Yanks who are always trying to culturally steamroll everyone else.
The Big Kahuna of Motion Video
True 1080i high definition television is coming down a pipe and through the atmosphere to you, and soon to a disc. Meanwhile, the studios can use some necessary post-production tasks to distract themselves from the blue laser disc standards politics. Check out this interview with THX’s Rick Dean by Jo Twist, science and technology reporter, on the facial make-up lines and back-stage filing cabinets that showed up in a high def viewing of Star Wars. According to Dean, video captured at 1.2 Gb/s in HD must be compressed to 5 Mb/s, about 98%. “I think if they see real HD [high-definition], not some heavily compressed version of it, there is such a remarkable difference. I have heard comments from people who say the images pop off the screen.”
That’s what entertainment should be all about. Creating a more realistic experience in which we can immerse ourselves and distract ourselves from politics is something we all could use.
Here’s another welcome voice whose parsing of the HDTV regulatory role has been a trusted source of input for me for over 10 years, journalist Joel Brinkley. Read his Defining Vision column based upon his definitive 1995 book of the same name. This column’s January title “And the Winner is…” refers to the trials of three different advanced TV services, multicasting, interactive TV, and HDTV, of which only HDTV appears to have legs. Of the Microsoft WM9 video compression deal with the Blu-Ray Association, Brinkley writes, “Even Microsoft, which lobbied heavily in the mid-1990s that HDTV was unnecessary, that 480p was good enough, now seems willing to pursue high-definition business.” With Fox and Sinclair both now embracing HDTV, widespread adoption appears more imminent.
Coming to an Eeenie Weenie Wahine Screenie Near You
On the other end of the spectrum, as it were, there’s a lot going on as well on the tiny screens of Dick Tracy’s legacy. Warner Music Group is among the daring content providers willing to invest in producing and marketing entertainment in the new and unfurrowed field of 3G mobile.
Verizon Wireless is the leader in creating the infrastructure and business opportunity for using up that broadband capacity by selling rich multimedia to make up for the shortfall in thin voice (95% of traffic and falling in revenues) and text messaging (5% of traffic and holding steadyin revenue). Vodaphone in Europe, where 3G is more established, is said to be launching something similar. Nippon, Sprint, and Cingular cannot be far behind, and Warner has left the door open to work with them as well.
The offer is structured both as a base subscription of $15 per month and a fee for premium content, in Warner Music’s case, $3.99 per music video download. In the case of game developers Jamdat and Gameloft, the fees range from $2.99 to $9.99 per month. News and sports programming initially by GE subsidiary NBC and News Corp. will anchor the basic plan. Walt Disney Internet Group and E! Entertainment are also in the opening line-up.
Reuters reports today that every week a different set of 12 videos will be available More of a top of the antenna hit parade than a celestial jukebox, but hey, it’s a beginning.
Average annual per user expenditures for the service dubbed V Cast will probably not add up to more than the kit needed to capture and play the illustrated tunes. LG Electronics, Samsung Electronics, and UTStarcom units starting at $200 after rebates will be the initial candidates for iPod killers, or at least viable alternatives for the kind of revenue iPod users are dishing out.
The 3G forecast for Europe is 5 million at the end of 2004, while DoCoMo in Japan is closing the gap on that figure, but the US is fragmented with half of all cell users on CDMA, about 50 million of which have “access to CDMA2000 3G”, and the rest on WCDMA, a form of the European GSM technology also known as UMTS at 400 kbit/s, or TDMA, which is at 100 kbits/s.
But the cycles of digital technology generations rule the mobile network, too, prompting Visant to forecast the next generation 4G to take off by 2007, sweeping 113 million users into its domain by 2010.
With WiFi’s future uncertain as incompatible fee-based services and bandwidth traffic jams cooled off the )war chalking( of hotspots signaling mobile data users could get a ride on the Internet while surfing the urban landscape, this market will be high on stakes, risks, and hopes. The BBC reports today that technophobia is one barrier stopping all the people who upgraded to a picture phone last year from actually using the network to send the pictures to friends and family.
But never underestimate the power of innovation among the content providers who do want to use new technology to generate new revenue streams, even if it is in a trial and error fashion. Several original soap opera serials forthcoming from Twentieth Television, a News Corp. TV production and distribution company, are on the way, and one of these “mobisodes” is improvisational and incorporates passer-bys in the drama, entitled Love and Hate. Oh boy, I can hardly wait.
posted by julia b schwerin