History, Trends and Digital Changes in Media

Digital Music News have taken RIAA data and produced an interesting animated graphic of the changes in music purchases over the last 30 years. We strongly recommend that you view this as it shows how transient some technologies are and how it’s not just the technology that changes but how people buy and relate to media.

It would be great to be able to step forward and predict what will happen in the next twenty years but many of us would be struggling to see further than the next five years.

What is interesting is that the base content hasn’t radically changed, a song is a song and a recording is a recording and music made decades ago now lives comfortable alongside that made yesterday. In some cases the technology actually impeded the quality of the recording and forced the extremes to be toned down to fit.

The other interesting thing is that emerging music format technologies cannibalised their predecessors. 

Cassettes replaced vinyl, CD replaced cassettes, downloads replaced CDs and now streaming is replacing even downloads. We are moving to music on demand which is either paid for through other means, or is on subscription. This changes the question of ownership, collections, sharing and of course the reward earned by musicians, writers and producers. It also can change how we protect or identify usage rights and copyright ownership and some would suggest that the new technologies are more secure than all the belts and whistles of the early music DRM days.

If we produced a similar graphic for books, newsprint, film, tv they all would be different and we need to understand why and what similarities there are. Film and TV are probably the closest to music in the technology step changes, but differ in many other upstream ways. Interestingly the original formats of books and to a degree newsprint aren’t going away and it is easy to see books as the most resistant to technology.

However, all bar newsprint, show very similar patterns to the consumer trend from ‘buying to own’ to ‘subscribing to access’. Yes, the sectors are often moving at different speeds and even different directions but the trend is clear. DRM as we know it today is transient and past its sell by date and will become increasingly irrelevant in a streamed world where it happens albeit less obtrusively.

Therefore some would suggest that the challenge for book publishing is not the latest tablet, ereader, smartphone, app, enhanced ebook, but how we accommodate subscribing to access alongside the traditional buy to own, enabling both to flourish and appeal and importantly reward creators.

   

3D Coming to Screens Near You?

Sony appear to have all the 3D bases covered. They are filming in it, developing it, providing devices to rum on it and distributing it. 3D is certainly going to change gaming and its going to change sport filming but will it really take over and become the next big digital change? Many like ourselves, were impressed by the cinematography of Advatar and less impressed with Tim Burton’s quick 3D fix on Alice, but 3D is coming and big money is waging on it win.



There are some interesting issues. First, the Eyecare Trust claim some six million people in the UK, or 1 in six, will not be able to view the 3D images properly. The claims relate to people who have poor binocular vision and will have difficulty processing and viewing the 3D effects. They may only see blurred images and could have side effects such as headaches. Glasses may be the cure but the health risks when increase when people are subjected to prolonged and close exposure, such as experienced by gamers. There is no real health warning with 3D and the effects of excessive exposure are not established, nor are they know with respect to age.

The 3D section of the PlayStation 3 terms states, ‘Some people may experience discomfort (such as eye strain, eye fatigue or nausea) while watching 3D video images or playing stereoscopic 3D games on 3D televisions… If you experience such discomfort, you should immediately discontinue use of your television until the discomfort subsides.'

Reggie Fils-Aime, the President and COO of Nintendo of America recomends, "Very young children not look at 3D images…. the muscles for the eyes are not fully formed... This is the same messaging that the industry is putting out with 3D movies, so it is a standard protocol.’

3D is coming and gaming powerhouse, Ubisoft’s UK marketing director, Murray Pannel predicts a 3D TV in every living room within three years and that 3D gaming will be at the forefront.

However we have the cost of production of content. Here we have two different approaches, one which shoots in full 3D and one that merely transforms to 3D. There are basic two technologies. First stereoscopic or full 3D, which is like in Avatar and costs around 70% more than normal and requires you to shoot in 3D from the start. It works by giving depth of field, enabling the viewer to see ‘into’ the image. The other is slightly cheaper, around 50% of mormal and is called dimensionalising. This involves taking a 2D film and in post production making it into 3D. The finished product may not be as good, but is a way to turn a back catalogue into 3D and capitalise on the 4 times greater revenue 3D movies are making over 2D. Tim Burton’s Alice used this post filming technology and is why some of the imagery is not focused. 2D depends on a focus point and is when it it is turned into 3D it can become blurred. There is also a contrast issue where 3D 'dulls' an image and light has to be adjusted to compensative. Images may appear different when the same original film is viewed in 2D and 3D. Finally, shooting has to be on the diagonal not face on and this can make original 2D film look weird.

Sport appears to be where TV production is cutting its 3D teeth and Sony filmed the whole World Cup in 3D.


NTT Docomo have just launched a 3D LCD display that can be viewed with the naked eye without those glasses at Expo Comm Wireless in Japan. It will display 3D images which can be viewed from eight viewpoints, each of which has an angular range of 15°. The display however cannot show 2D images but they claim, ‘We would like to equip mobile phones and smart phones with the display within a few years.’ 3D LCD displays can be viewed with the naked eye using either a lenticular lens or a parallax barrier, which provides a slit to partially block off light.

Is 3D TV the next Wave?

Could 3D TV be the next thing after HD TV. Existing 3D camera set-ups use two-camera systems to capture the left and right eye of the viewer, but Sony have demonstrated a new single-lens camera able to capture 3D images. Sony claim that the new camera takes a single image that is split by mirrors and recorded on two sensors, resulting in a "smoother" picture. The camera will enable viewers to watch the 3D images using special polarised glasses.

The technology has been used with three fixed cameras, each covering a third of a football pitch, to record the and create a 3D view. 3D is not new to film but is new to TV and sport coverage may once again be the pioneer.

Sony is leading the TV trail and hopes some of the bigger broadcasters will follow. The BBC are already planning to capture some of the 2012 Games in 3D, Sky has stated that it will would launch "the UK's first 3D channel" by 2010 but only 15% of European broadcasters believe that 3D is really on the horizon with another 20% said they were looking at it as an option.

Personally, we don’t fancy sitting in front of the TV with 3D glasses.

Watch TV and MySpace Together

MySpace has developed the Widget Channel, which enables users to keep abreast of MySpace's social-networking activity, such as e-mail and photo browsing while watching TV. The widget sits at the bottom of the TV screen and is set of development tools developed jointly with Intel and Yahoo. The aim of the Widget Channel is to develop mini-applications that complement TV viewing with Internet information.
Users can receive instant updates of friends' activities directly on their TV screen and will also let them view their friends' profiles.

The MySpace Widget will be available on Internet-connected consumer electronics, such as set-top boxes, Blu-ray players and TVs and are designed to work with Intel's Intel Media Processor CE3100 system-on-a-chip platform for consumer electronics devices.

YouTube TV Shows

It great to be able to go out knowing you can always watch that TV or radio show you missed via the Internet.

Now YouTube has started to run full-length TV shows from CBS's archive and is now talking to other networks to sign similar deals. A mix of shows, including "Star Trek," and "Beverly Hills 90210," will now be available in full-length episodes and will have a full-length badge to distinguish them from shorter clips.

Its competition will be Hulu, owned by News Corp and General Electric's NBC Universal. However the size of YouTube’s audience with its 330 million users in August compared to Hulu’s 3.3 million poses some interesting opportunities for Google to cash in on adverting revenues. Apparently CBS will sell the advertisements around the shows with both companies sharing the revenue.

The increased convergence of broadcasting and the Internet is yet another example of the broadband revolution and of the movement towards online. Music, film, games, audio and books just make more sense online and away from this ‘must own ‘ mentality from poor or no bandwidth.

The World is Definately Flat!

Sony will stop making rear-projection televisions and focus on liquid crystal display (LCD) and organic light-emitting diode (OLED) technology in the flat-TV market. This follows similar moves by Seiko Epson Corp and Hitachi.

Demand for rear-projection TVs, which were once dominant in the large-sized flat-TV market, has been dropped as consumers switch to the flat screens and cleaner design living. Sony expects to sell more than 10 times as many LCD TVs: 10 million LCD TVs this fiscal year through March, up from 6.3 million the previous year.

Manufacturers are all working on LCD technology for TVs, as well as another technology called Plasma Display Panels, or PDP. Earlier this month, Sony began selling a small 11 inch TV that uses a relatively new but expensive flat-panel technology called OLED which we wrote about earlier this year. Sony's XEL-1 measures just 3 millimeters, or 0.12 inches, thick and delivers clear vivid images.

However the market is very competitive with many collaborative deals similar to the one where Sharp provide Toshiba with all their LCD screens. What is clear is that Flat is the only way forward today and the race is on for both the large and small screen market.

Kazza, Skype and now Joost

There are two people who more than most helped shape the Internet ‘free’ world we live in today. It was definitely not Jobs and Gates or those Google guys Page and Brin nor Napster’s Parker and Fanning but Niklas Zennstrom (pictured)and Janus Friis. This Scandinavian team not only gave us Kazza and arguably the second generation of P2P music but went on to create Skype and redefine how we all communicated. Now they have appeared again with their latest venture ‘Joost’.

But this time they are not pushing the legal boundaries but doing everything by the book. Revenue-sharing agreements have been signed and licenses have been granted.

Today Friis and Zennstrom work out of Skype’s offices in London. Although they sold Skype for $2.6billion to eBay in 2005, they remain active in the company.
Joost has struck a major deal with Viacom which gives Viacom a degree of control over its programming that it has not enjoyed from the likes of YouTube and also a platform they claim is piracy-proof. Only this month , Viacom demanded that YouTube, remove more than 100,000 clips of its programming due to the lack of licensing and revenue sharing agreements.

Joost replicates channel swapping television, streaming full-length programs in full-screen format and allowing users to flip through channels that offer everything from documentary news programs to videos.

Technology convergence between the various video, TV and visual platforms is certainly coming fast but because is built with this in mind it could present the ‘tipping point’ that changes how consumers watch TV and videos on the Web in the same way the Skype redefined voice over internet.

Certainly one to watch!