I was in Cannes on Friday, at a panel session organised by Wired mag, on the effects of broadband on the entertainment industry. Wim Wenders made the same points (more thorough writeup at www.59tv.com). Directors who are not slaves to the machine are starting to point out the obvious - that the status quo doesn't necessarily suit everyone, especially when the MPAA and other organisations like it are using their power and position to artificially maintain the status quo.
Digital Cinema, in particular, offers a way to break these bonds and open up distribution - if cinemas can be brave enough to install digital screens, and accept for viewing tapes from people off the street.
Even though we're based in the UK, the company I work for
has HDTV production facilities. This might seem crazy given that the UK has no intention of broadcasting HDTV, but there are other reasons to be involved.
For those of us who are used to PAL, the increase in quality that HD gives you is negligible in the home.
For those of you used to NTSC, it's huge. Progressive scan helps as well, but it's the stable colours and the resolution that make the difference.
However, the one thing we have been involved in has nothing to do with HDTV, it's to do with HD in the cinema. And the trend there is to cut the costs of making a movie by doing it all digitally. The nice people who make film stock rake in a small fortune every year on stock; in comparison, HD tapes are free! HD provides close to 2K resolution (a film industry term) and anything you see that has been into a computer for effects work will have been scanned in at 2K res.
So, HDTV is certainly not a technology looking for a market, it's just that in the US, the need to replace the awful quality of analog NTSC transmission with something better is much more pressing than in the PAL world. Hence the heartache.
Any transition is painful, but the real crime in the USA is that you're going to be saddled with an off-air transmission system that is not up to the job. The FCC, in it's infinite wisdom, has decided that rather than fall in with the rest of the world - and the laws of physics - it will mandate the 8-VSB
specification as the only modulation standard for the US Digital TV broadcast transition (rather than the more recent and just plain better COFDM standard). The FCC seems to have almost completely ignored the technical arguments - instead, it has followed the advice of various industry groups - like the ATSC - who's members control the 8VSB technology. So don't forget to blame the FCC is all this mess!
However, having spent some time in the US, I will also say that the thought of getting the crap that goes out on TV in sharper detail makes me shudder....
As I understand it, the Chinese are just victims of the rampant capitalism of everyone's favourite superpower. US spammers take advantage of lax system management in foreign countries to promote their products and services using spam.
Thus, surely a more effective way to elimiate spam would be to cut the US off from the Internet. Fight the problem at it's source!
This would have a number of other side benefits for the rest of the Global Internet as well.
Slashdot Mirror
I was in Cannes on Friday, at a panel session organised by Wired mag, on the effects of broadband on the entertainment industry. Wim Wenders made the same points (more thorough writeup at www.59tv.com). Directors who are not slaves to the machine are starting to point out the obvious - that the status quo doesn't necessarily suit everyone, especially when the MPAA and other organisations like it are using their power and position to artificially maintain the status quo. Digital Cinema, in particular, offers a way to break these bonds and open up distribution - if cinemas can be brave enough to install digital screens, and accept for viewing tapes from people off the street.
For those of us who are used to PAL, the increase in quality that HD gives you is negligible in the home.
For those of you used to NTSC, it's huge. Progressive scan helps as well, but it's the stable colours and the resolution that make the difference.
However, the one thing we have been involved in has nothing to do with HDTV, it's to do with HD in the cinema. And the trend there is to cut the costs of making a movie by doing it all digitally. The nice people who make film stock rake in a small fortune every year on stock; in comparison, HD tapes are free! HD provides close to 2K resolution (a film industry term) and anything you see that has been into a computer for effects work will have been scanned in at 2K res.
So, HDTV is certainly not a technology looking for a market, it's just that in the US, the need to replace the awful quality of analog NTSC transmission with something better is much more pressing than in the PAL world. Hence the heartache.
Any transition is painful, but the real crime in the USA is that you're going to be saddled with an off-air transmission system that is not up to the job. The FCC, in it's infinite wisdom, has decided that rather than fall in with the rest of the world - and the laws of physics - it will mandate the 8-VSB specification as the only modulation standard for the US Digital TV broadcast transition (rather than the more recent and just plain better COFDM standard). The FCC seems to have almost completely ignored the technical arguments - instead, it has followed the advice of various industry groups - like the ATSC - who's members control the 8VSB technology. So don't forget to blame the FCC is all this mess!
However, having spent some time in the US, I will also say that the thought of getting the crap that goes out on TV in sharper detail makes me shudder....
As I understand it, the Chinese are just victims of the rampant capitalism of everyone's favourite superpower. US spammers take advantage of lax system management in foreign countries to promote their products and services using spam. Thus, surely a more effective way to elimiate spam would be to cut the US off from the Internet. Fight the problem at it's source! This would have a number of other side benefits for the rest of the Global Internet as well.