On November 5, industry leaders representing the tech community in Silicon Valley and content creation community in Hollywood gathered to prognosticate on the future of entertainment in the living room. Which technologies are "hype" and which will become real?
Projectors an Emerging Trend in the Home
The panel discussion was introduced by topic. The first topic centered around High Definition TV. Everyone agreed HD-TV was here to stay and bound to become a success. The revolution is nearly won! Many of the panelists described how they use high-def projectors to produce wall-sized video entertainment as opposed to relying on LCD or plasma TVs.
The panel discussion was introduced by topic. The first topic centered around High Definition TV. Everyone agreed HD-TV was here to stay and bound to become a success. The revolution is nearly won! Many of the panelists described how they use high-def projectors to produce wall-sized video entertainment as opposed to relying on LCD or plasma TVs.
The discussion turned to the Blu-Ray disc format. Will it be adopted at the same pace as DVD? The consensus was "no", DVD will continue to be the ubiquitous, most portable format for the time being. However, as consumers replace their living room DVD players, they might choose to buy a BD player - to give them the choice of playing a Blu-Ray disc as well as a DVD disc, since BD players are backward compatible. While BD players may eventually outsell DVD players for this reason, there does not seem to be the same prospect of BD discs outselling DVDs - for the portability reasons mentioned previously.
What about 3D entertainment?
3D has been a huge success in movie theaters - will it enter the home any time soon? The consensus seemed to be "no" - TV is mostly a passive and multi-tasking sport - so who will want to wear 3D glasses or move into a 3D TV's narrow "sweet spot" while watching TV *and* doing their knitting, or Twittering, etc? There also seems to be a huge cost burden on producing 3D content, not to mention the bandwidth costs for transmitting this content. 3D will continue to play a successful "niche" role in movie theaters - not all movies will be produced in 3D, but every year we should be able to view a few spectacular 3D productions. Don't look for it to become ubiquitious in our homes, though.
For more pictures from this GABA event, please click here.
What is the future of the set-top box, which had its start as a cable TV "channel shifter" but has recently evolved to become a digital video recorder and more - allowing both time and place shifting. An interesting comment was made that time and place (e.g. the Sling Box) shifting are essentially temporary solutions. If we had had true video on demand, there would be no need for recording or transmitting shows from your home to another location. Another key challenge in this area is the user interface. It's all about the software - enabling the consumer to quickly discover the entertainment they desire. Note also that the Blu Ray player may have a role here as an emerging "set top box" platform with similar capabilities as other hardware devices.
Much Enthusiasm for Internet Delivery - Little for Smart TV
Nobody on the panel seemed very enthusiastic about the Smart TV concept. Who needs gadgets showing you the weather or your Facebook page when you just want to lounge on the sofa and watch some mindless TV? There does seem to be a generational "gap" however - younger viewers love to multitask while watching TV - but would they want to interact with their TV - or maybe they will just continue to use the laptop that is open while the show is running on the TV?
There seemed to be a good amount of enthusiasm for the concept of Internet delivery of our favorite shows and movies. Technological challenges related to network bandwidth and ISP capacity restrictions did not seem to worry anyone - the key issue here seems to be content licensing and developing an economic model that allows everyone in the food chain to create a profitable transaction for a given movie rental. Current models don't seem to work very well.
Will Apple take over home video entertainment in the same fashion as music? Panelists don't expect this to happen. The same economic model issue comes into play and Apple is no further at solving this problem than its competitors. But there is one big worry here - Apple has over 100M consumer credit cards in its iTunes database - that's a powerful platform for transactions!
Special thanks to our panelists - Jeff Klugman (TiVo), Jim Taylor (Sonic Solutions), Roland Vlaicu (Dolby), Todd Collart (Deluxe Digital Studios), Michael McGuire (Gartner), and Jerry Pierce (AZEC).
This summary was provided by our moderator for the evening, GABA's Software Industry Group co-Chair, Steffen Bartschat.
The Moderator's Powerpoint Presentation is available for Download.
We have another upcoming event about Media technology and innovation on December 10, 2009. For more information please click here or visit our website at www.gaba-network.org and open the event calendar.
Much Enthusiasm for Internet Delivery - Little for Smart TV
Nobody on the panel seemed very enthusiastic about the Smart TV concept. Who needs gadgets showing you the weather or your Facebook page when you just want to lounge on the sofa and watch some mindless TV? There does seem to be a generational "gap" however - younger viewers love to multitask while watching TV - but would they want to interact with their TV - or maybe they will just continue to use the laptop that is open while the show is running on the TV?
There seemed to be a good amount of enthusiasm for the concept of Internet delivery of our favorite shows and movies. Technological challenges related to network bandwidth and ISP capacity restrictions did not seem to worry anyone - the key issue here seems to be content licensing and developing an economic model that allows everyone in the food chain to create a profitable transaction for a given movie rental. Current models don't seem to work very well.
Will Apple take over home video entertainment in the same fashion as music? Panelists don't expect this to happen. The same economic model issue comes into play and Apple is no further at solving this problem than its competitors. But there is one big worry here - Apple has over 100M consumer credit cards in its iTunes database - that's a powerful platform for transactions!
Special thanks to our panelists - Jeff Klugman (TiVo), Jim Taylor (Sonic Solutions), Roland Vlaicu (Dolby), Todd Collart (Deluxe Digital Studios), Michael McGuire (Gartner), and Jerry Pierce (AZEC).
This summary was provided by our moderator for the evening, GABA's Software Industry Group co-Chair, Steffen Bartschat.
The Moderator's Powerpoint Presentation is available for Download.
We have another upcoming event about Media technology and innovation on December 10, 2009. For more information please click here or visit our website at www.gaba-network.org and open the event calendar.
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