The Deflation of Entertainment
For so many uncontested years, Hollywood studios have enjoyed top dog status in the hierarchy of entertainment companies. Over the past decade, and certainly over the past couple of years, this position has steadily eroded and one thing is becoming abundantly clear — from the million dollar antiquated 35mm camera rigs to the 50 million dollar failed marketing campaigns, Hollywood does not know how to compete or scale properly facing the digital future.
I’ve had many conversations with people about the state of Hollywood and how it will endure through our current financial crisis. Many cite the success of Hollywood during the Great Depression, but I always say, “yeah…but TV…AND…the internet did not exist back then!”
From iPhones to Blackberries to PSPs to DS’s, Wii’s and Kindles, the public now almost has too many ways to escape. I know, I play Fantasy Football. On November 19th, we will have the ability to stream unlimited HD film and TV content with Netflix subscriptions for $8.99/month. BitTorrent did not exist. Sling.com did not exist. Gears of War 2 did not exist.
In Hollywood’s heyday, stars worked under contract for the studios. As star iconography grew more powerful, their individual takes on films surged, and they broke away from the studio’s control. Ultimately stars have typically always been the reason to see the film, not the film itself. More often than not, getting a star to sign on the dotted line might be the only way a producer can get a film made! But just as the cult of celebrity surged, in most cases, the quality of the art and story declined. When stars are making 15-20 million a picture and the total budget is $50, it is very easy for people to make the argument that talent has bankrupted Hollywood. Still good films still get made, but more often than not, they’re smaller budgeted productions with great stories and superb acting by lesser known actors.
This obsession with stars has crossed over into our own lives and it seems we have become our own stars. The Me Generation has produced generations who are even more obsessed with themselves…the “MobileMe” generation…
These generations communicate through a combination of tweets, blogs, MySpace or Facebook postings, AIM, and Flickr accounts. One could say that each young American is becoming their own star…and some would say they are just as “affected”. They have their own likes, dislikes, favorite bands, foods, brandnames…just like Justin had in Tigerbeat! An example on Twitter, “I am going to the store. I love peanut butter!”
I heard a story of pre-teen girls having iChat parties where they would sync the party music playlists and stay up all night video conferencing with each friend on their 24″ iMacs. These L’il Tweeters are now becoming “stars”, like the integrity-oozing Perez Hilton or Nikki Finke. I blog and post, therefore I am. These same girls used to pal around together in malls, spending hard earned babysitting cake on Tom Cruise and Corey Haim movies. These girls now create stars a mile a minute on message boards.
With the deflationary combo of weak credit and poor demand, even a la carte VOD companies like Vudu and iTunes will likely have to switch to monthly or yearly subscriptions for an all-you-can-stream unlimited HD libraries.
What does seems clear is that we’ll have some sort of local servers at our homes which will serve as the landing dock for content we haven’t bought, but “licensed”. The content could be stored on central company servers — think Cablevision and the networked DVR – housing all of our content (or as the DECE would call it…our own personal little digital lockers…how cute) and we’ll theoretically be able to access it via any networked display device…for a price…and probably a window.
With the DECE, the studios are looking for a way to regain complete control of digital access. One thing is also clear, the public and market at large will always be looking for a way to take it back. It will be interesting to see how DECE unravels. It all seems too little too late.
With financial markets collapsing, even Digital Cinema (too little too late people) is suffering.
Today MGM announces full length films on YouTube via an ad revenue sharing deal.
Epson is also releasing a magnificently priced 720p HD projector with 2000 lumens for under $800.
Along wth Hulu, this MGM/YouTube venture becomes another major signpost along the path to digital media Perestroika.
Speaking of Perestroika, let’s all express our strong desire to the incoming Obama Administration. Along with the first U.S. CTO, if Obama can follow through on his promise to maintain net neutrality, we are due for a wonderfully creative ride.
…And So It Begins…Comcast implements bandwidth cap
We all knew it was just going to be a matter of time, as some Comcast users (especially lovers of the p2p) suspected, then confirmed Comcast had been thwarting their connections during bouts of heavy usage.
As I recall, Comcast initially responded by denying the reports…until they finally confessed to doing so after getting sweat from the FCC.
To give this act some context, back in January, Time Warner Cable went the way of the Dodo and implemented a cap in test areas. Not much feedback has been reported from these victims yet, but that makes sense, as the new billing in those select areas only went into effect this month.
Ladies and gentleman, it would seem the bandwidth restriction arms race has officially started. While TWC is testing caps of 40GB/month, Comcast is starting off by offering their users a monthly cap of 250GB. Hmmm…by comparison to TWC, Comcast’s cap sounds rather generous and perhaps innocuous, right?
Au contraire. Some folks who practice the ancient art of critical thinking have some very strong opinions on the idea of bandwidth caps altogether, especially considering we’re in the dawn of streaming HD video.
There are serious questions such as, how are customers expected to meter their bandwidth so that they can make sure they’ve budgeted their usage accordingly? As I understand it, Comcast offers no current solution.
Will Comcast start their own VOD/PPV IPTV based service wherein it will be exempt from the cap, thereby giving you the incentive to only buy content through them? Would that be even legal? Ah, so many questions.
Comcast claims the majority of their users use less than 3G per month and that this tactic is soley designed to target the pirates and prevent abuse by the “torrenters” and “matroska hounds”.
Well, as online video continues to explode and stream into our homes, were going to need the Nile and not a tolled, filtered conveyer belt. For folks prone to using file sharing apps and networked household HD video hardware (i.e. Slingbox, Roku, Xbox 360, Apple TV), that 250GB is not so good.
It would seem this move is a pre-emptive strike by Comcast to implement the cap now in what will surely become a bigger war down the road. By planting this seed now, they can take advantage of the current low bandwidth usage (as it inevitably continues to grow exponentially), all the while marketing the 250GB cap as ridiculously high (knowing full well that we will all be inevitable data hogs very soon).
If we don’t fight back, ultimately we’ll all be coveting monthly ISP rollover GB’s soon…what a joke. Heck, before you know it we’ll have to buy virtual stamps for email.
Guru Om Malik of GigaOM has compiled his top ten reasons as to why bandwidth metering should be taken out back and shot dead like Candy’s dog.
So get out there and voice your protest.
To conjure more inspiration for your candlelight vigil signs, here are a couple of great graphics I discovered when I searched Google Images for “Comcast” and “evil”:
The Digital Home in 2013
Superb new site, “The Industry Standard” has published a great series entitled, “The Digital Home in 2013″. It covers everything from networked garage doors to cloud computing to IPTV anytime, anywhere on anything.
Here’s the introduction:
“It’s 2013, and you’ve just come home from work. As you pull into the driveway, you reach into your pocket and swipe the screen of your smartphone with your thumb. Your garage door opens and the lights in your house turn on. The TV queues up the shows you missed while you were working late. Your favorite songs are following you from the living room to the kitchen. Then you stop. The phone blinks and warbles at you. The fridge says you forgot the milk.
It’s the HD/wireless/automated/streaming/sych’d/ready-to-entertain house of the future, and you’re living in it.
Welcome home.
In the following pages, you’ll be treated to a glimpse of the toys and technologies that will grace your home in the not-so-distant future. If you are like most people, you probably have already sampled some of them, but others — such as automated home control and personal applications of cloud computing — haven’t made it into people’s homes … yet.
In a few cases, you may be forced to reconsider some of today’s popular consumer technologies which will be headed toward obsolescence five years from now. To that end, there’s a summary of technologies that are destined for the scrapheaps of 2013, including Blu-ray and standalone desktop operating systems.
So sit back, strap on your sense of imagination, and get ready to step into the digital home of 2013.“
Are Digital Downloads the Winner of the Format War?
Ah, the spoils of war.
NewTeeVee thinks so. so does microsoft…people who own DVRs, Slingboxes, AppleTVs or 360s might also have an idea. it started with time-shifting…you mean I can ENJOY my favorite content WHENEVER?! sign me up. then, it became place-shifting…you mean I can watch my hockey playoff game at my mother-in-law’s at Easter or wherever I want? You mean, I can ENJOY my favorite content WHENEVER and WHEREVER! Ssssssmokin’!
Now, logically we should moving on to…yes, you guessed it…WHATEVER and HOWEVER.
WHATEVER — we should really have access to everything — first run movies (after 2 weeks theatrical exclusivity perhaps…and that’s GENEROUS), TV shows, Music Videos, Short films, Independent, Studio, UGC, Cartoons, News…all at variable, but “democratized” pricing).
HOWEVER — interoperable, HD + 5.1 standard (contingent upon sources), and scalable. the technology exists and there’s no reason for sacrifice in quality or interoperability.
The LA Times recently published an article on sony’s plans to launch a xbox live marketplace clone service on the ps3 by summertime ‘08. methinks it will have “classic” (aka “clunky”) sony proprietariness written all over it.
But it also begs the question – does Sony want to steer themselves down the digital download route when it just won an unbelievably costly, albeit politically bloody next-gen optical media format war?
How will or can they 1up apple and MS?
Full 1080p support? added value? faster downloads…more interoperability????? (ha, yeah right!)…
If there’s one thing i’m sure they’ll need…a hyper-efficient process from mastering to file viewing.
I’m at 10mbps with Time Warner Cable and I can be watching a HD feature from either xbox 360 marketplace or appleTV 1-2 minutes within selecting the download.
Don’t get me wrong, blu-ray will have a nice life, but I believe it comes down to one simple fact:
It is cheaper and more efficient to innovate CODE than HARDWARE.
On a sidenote, albeit completely unrelated…where’s Sony’s HD audio codec like SDDS-HD?
Cinetic Media, Will it Work?
New models? Heck, we love new models! will be interesting to see what Cinetic Media will do…content is king, that chestnut remains the same…
[from cinematech.blogspot:]
“SXSW Film Festival head Matt Dentler is heading to New York to help run the rights management division of Cinetic Media. Here’s the Variety coverage and here’s IndieWIRE’s report. Dentler posted just a short note about the new gig on his blog.
Cinetic Media, founded by attorney John Sloss, is one of the best-known rep firms in the independent film world. They’ve handled the sales of titles like ‘Supersize me,’ ‘Bowling for Columbine,’ ‘Little Miss Sunshine,’ and ‘Napoleon Dynamite.’
Dentler and Cinetic have an interesting challenge ahead of them. Their mission is to find the best indie content and sell it to portals, VOD services, and other aggregators who’ll produce revenue through advertising, subscriptions, or paid downloads. (A deal with iTunes, which Cinetic doesn’t yet have to my knowledge, would be key.)
But they’re also gonna keep 50 percent of the gross receipts from those deals, according to a Cinetic contract given to one filmmaker I know last fall. That isn’t a bad deal if Cinetic is creating eye-popping revenues from a film that wouldn’t have otherwise had them, but some download sites and DVD-on-demand services will pass along 70 percent or more to a filmmaker, if a filmmaker chooses to go the do-it-yourself route. Through Cinetic, that same take gets split in half. And Cinetic’s contract — at least the one I saw — appoints Cinetic as the “sole and exclusive agent” for the work for ten years…“
Virgin CEO says Net Neutrality is, “Bullocks”
Oh yes…he did…NEIL BERKETT, everyone:
The talkback comments below the article are absolutely priceless, the first few being a hilarious little ditty between two posters. what’s with the lack of comprehension these days with regards to our constitution and our bill of rights..?
Johnny Lee Achieves Jedi Status
judging by the coos in the TED2008 audience, Johnny Lee has secured his role in history as one of the greatest lifehackers around. check the link for the his recent demo where he shows off a multi-touch digital whiteboard and an extremely impressive 3D viewer. EA will be using the technology on a game within the next 6 months. His site is also worth checking out:
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