dcinput daily for Fri 25th Jan, 2007
I just bought my own private television station: marksmith.tv. I guess you guys aren’t ready for that, yet. But your kids are gonna love it.
The Future of TV
This past week I’ve been following a conversation that started with Mark Cuban and later added to by Dave Winer. The penny didn’t drop however until this evening when I read this article by Doc Searls.
Mark suggested that the recent push to get your computer hooked up to your TV so that you could display internet content on it was actually the wrong way around: let people use the internet to upload content to satellite and cable companies and these then send it to our screens using their networks.
His point was that sending data over the internet requires one stream per person, per video (unicast) whereas traditional TV methods only require one stream to deliver to everyone who is subscribed (unicast). Streaming over the internet is way expensive.
Dave suggests is that set top boxes will have HTTP servers in them aswell as the decoders used to make sense of the satellite or cable signal. TVs themselves will have HTTP clients inside them that will act as viewers. You’ll be able to subscribe to marksmith.tv no sweat.
With equipment comming out soon like the Red Camera which allows you to digitally shoot the same quality as 35 mm film and with a price tag of $17,000, it won’t be long before the price is driven down even further. Young film makers are getting really excited about this. Home cinema projectors are cheap and extremely good quality. I have an HD one in my flat and it is incredible.
As the barriers of production and distribution are erroding, the reality of fully digital film making pipelines is getting closer than some realise. The next few years will be all about indie film making.
Doc Searls: “The marketplace that emerges in that flat new world will be many times larger than the old pyramids it replaces”.