Putting It On The Web, Keeping It Under Control: DVD Pro Reevaluates Interactivity
This yearís DVD Pro conference kicked off on a cautionary note, as keynoter Laura Buddine warned attendees that consumers have a relatively low ""tolerance"" for interactivity. ""Interactivity in itself is not valuable,"" said Buddine, General Manager of Iacta, which publishes Net4TV, an online portal and newsmagazine for WebTV users. Citing her experience with WebTV users, who are so eager to interact with others that they create their own content for the service, Buddine argued that what consumers really want from interactivity is a connection with like-minded people over the Internet. Buddine didnít spell out ideas for DVD-specific applications, but implied that DVD publishers should be connecting their titles to the Web and figuring out how to form online communities around their content. Buddineís address set the mood at DVD Pro, held in August in San Francisco, California, where conference speakers were often found noodling on big-picture technology issues that werenít directly related to DVD, from the future of streaming video to the potential market for computers catering to elderly consumers. The lesson was that DVD has quickly become just one facet of a bigger technological world that will be driven by MPEG-2 video, multichannel audio and Internet connectivity. This Way To The Web Following on Buddineís keynote, Web-connected DVD was the dominant topic at DVD Pro ñ a session covering three different products in the field was jammed to capacity. Todd Collart, CEO of InterActual Technologies, introduced the PCFriendly architecture used by several major Hollywood studios by citing New Line Home Videoís study showing that 20 percent of all Lost In Space purchasers accessed the discís Web-connected content. With an estimated 400,000 units sold, that means that about 80,000 PC users have dialed in to date. ""Thatís a phenomenal number for on of the worst movies of 1998,"" Collart noted with a grin. SpinWare President Tony Knight showcased his own product line, which includes software allowing content owners to unlock DVD files in exchange for demographic information or payment of an extra fee. Morgan Creekís SpinWare-enabled animated title The King and I, for instance includes 10 quizzes, but only one of them is released each week - theoretically driving traffic back to the Web site on a regular basis to unlock the next installment. The disc also offers ""deep hooks"" into the Windows operating system; for example, users can select an image from the film and have the disc automatically configure it as their desktop wallpaper. Meanwhile, HyperLock COO Ken Park admitted that his companyís ambitious DVD plans were scaled back to CD last year in a bid to perfect the technology before marketing it to DVD publishers. As it stands, over 3.5 million CDs have been pressed with the HyperLock technology, which involves removing crucial bits of a file that can only be replaced when a user logs onto a Web site, where the content appears as an embedded object in an HTML page. Park pitched HyperLock as a vehicle for gaining added revenue from DVD extras. ""Giving away content for free is stupid. It is a dumb thought,"" he said. Divx Is Dead; Long Live Divx! Speaking of vehicles for gaining added revenue, Divx was finally given a proper burial at one DVD Pro session, where moderator John Barker, editor of DVD Report sister publication Inside Multimedia, hailed it as ""the worldís first connected DVD."" Wearing an ""Ask Me About Divx"" pin, Jeff Segal, former Divx director of interactive services, revealed that some ambitious plans were underfoot when Circuit City finally pulled the plug on Divx in June. ""We were a month away from the first game system allowing persistent data and [online] scoring,"" he said. Also on the way were interactive catalogs for previewing and purchasing movies and other products, as well as plans for industrial DVD and training applications. And, according to former Divx Entertainment President Geoffrey Tully, Zenith was set to debut a new Divx player for just $225, an aggressive price point by any standards. With a total of 513 discs authored and replicated in less than a year, panelists said that Divx made an invaluable contribution, not just to the bottom line of the replicators and production facilities involved, but to QA tactics and the experience of the industry in general. Randy Berg of Rainmaker Digital Pictures said that Divx had uncommonly rigorous quality-checking procedures and recalled the whirlwind experience of turning around the Divx version of The X-Files in just four days. ""Our game is a much better game today, now that weíve gone through that process,"" he said. Look On The Bright Side And James Lance, general manager of Cinramís Anaheim, California plant, noted that the Divx discs replicated were worth about $12 million to the industry, and the players manufactured were worth about $30 million. ""Even though everyone thinks the Divx experience was a failure, in terms of the experience it offered the industry, it was a success,"" Lance said. ""Four or five replicators invested in Divx capacity. That now leaves capacity for game developers, ROM developers, and other studios to build the catalog."" How Divx Stuffed The DVD Pipeline In 12 monthsÖ 200,000 Players 6,000,000 Discs 513 Titles 18 Authoring Facilities 6 Major Studios 5 Hardware Manufacturers 5 MPEG-2 Encoders 3 Premastering Systems Source: Geoffrey Tully, former Oresident, Divx Entertainment Even as the panelists trumpeted the success of Divx on a technology level, they acknowledged that the productís marketing was lacking. While there was some debate about whether consumers would have embraced Divx on a large scale even with a proper marketing effort, panelists agreed that the core Divx technologies, which includes robust encryption as well as a patented system for serializing individual discs in the burst-cutting area, will return. Three replicators (Nimbus CD, Pioneer, and Panasonic) are now equipped for BCA replication, and Robi System and Matsushita both offer BCA equipment - now that Divx has helped them perfect the functionality for DVD-9 discs - according to Tully. One potential application for the BCA is on offer from VM Labs, whose interactive Nuon architecture is set to be the next major attempt to introduce Internet-connected DVDs to the set-top. The Nuon box will read unique serial numbers in the burst-cutting area, which VM Labs Vice President of third-party development Bill Rehbock said could allow publishers to track users online. First Nuon Boxes Shipping To Hong Kong Rehbock confirmed that Hong Kong, where Category-5 wiring for interactive TV is prevalent, will be the first market for Nuon, with Motorola already shipping Nuon-enhanced set-top boxes to Hong Kong Telecom. The North American market will follow in 2000, when Toshibaís Nuon-enabled DVD player will ship. Many questions about Nuon went unanswered, due to a variety of non-disclosure agreements that were in force among the panelists, who included InterActualís Collart and game developer Fungus Amungus president John Spinale. Pressed on the costs of adding Nuon interactivity to a video title, Collart said they could range from as little as $500 to as much as $40,000 for a high-end movie. (Together with Panasonic Disc Services, InterActual is creating tools for authoring Nuon content.) Creating a Nuon game would be considerably more expensive, Spinale said, with a ""very small, simple game-ette"" running about $100,000, and a full-blown game costing in the $1,000,000 range. Explaining that his companyís first Nuon title is ""very small,"" Spinale added that Fungus is ""looking at moving into the downloadable software business,"" prompting questions about exactly how much memory is available for Nuon games, anyway. While Rehbock acknowledged that the amount of system memory available is standardized, he wouldnít say how much memory there is, exactly. He did note that with pipes as wide as those in Hong Kong, local storage isnít a priority, and Spinane said ""plenty"" of RAM is available for games. ""3DO Started Pure, Too"" Session moderator Ted Pine of Norwich, Vermont market research firm InfoTech expressed some concern over the VM Labs business model, which is almost entirely based on royalty streams from non-exclusive licenses with chipmakers and consumer electronics manufacturers, especially in relation to VM Labsí promise not to publish its own software for the platform. Pine said the business model echoed that of failed videogame console 3DO. ""3DO started pure, and when the going got tough, they became a developer/publisher,"" Pine said. But Rehbock argued that models from the gaming industry donít apply to Nuon. ""We are assured that players will be sold with or without gaming content,"" he said, noting that Nuonís enhanced DVD playback features, such as improved trick modes, should move players off store shelves. ""We expect many consumers will take them home with no idea that they can be used for games."" DVD-Audio was viewed with some enthusiasm at DVD Pro, although anticipation of the launch is mitigated by fears of a nasty collision between DVD-Audio and SuperAudio CD. Tully cited the competing audio configuration from Sony and Philips as a key challenge facing DVD in the immediate future and dismissed Sonyís insistence that the formats are being marketed to different consumers. ""If you thought Divx was a format war, kids, I want to see you explain how DVD-Audio and Super Audio CD can look exactly the same but wonít play on the same players, without it being a format war,"" Tully said. Audio: DVDís ""Ragged Third Wheel"" Once DVD-Audio launches in October, itís thought that few software titles will be available. Even AIX Media Group CEO Mark Waldrep, who remains a big booster of audio on DVD, seemed to acknowledge that DVD-Audio is resigned to a slow start, calling it, ""the ragged third wheel of the DVD Triumvirate,"" after DVD-Video and DVD-ROM. (With savvy marketing, Waldrep said, DVD-Audio will eventually be ""a home run."") Tracy Martinson, director of DVD production at MasterVision, the video division of Nashville mastering facility MasterMix, described some of the authoring and production issues still facing DVD-Audio, including questions about the combination of DVD-Audio and DVD-Video content on the same disc and the fact that authoring tools and encoders for the Meridian Lossless Packing scheme are still early in development. ""The mastering tools for surround right now are very rudimentary,"" Martinson added. Finally, Yuki Miyamoto from Sonic Solutions offered an update on activity at the DVD Forum, which is set to approve version 1.1 of the DVD-Audio spec, adding a new user interface function for DVD-Audio menus and more information on CSS and copy protection. The so-called 4C Entity of companies (IBM, Intel, Matsushita Electric and Toshiba) recently said it decided, in conjunction with the five major music labels, to adopt digital watermarking from Aris Technologies and Solana Technology Development for use in copy protection for various formats, including DVD-Audio. It wasnít an encouraging sign that, two months before DVD-Audio players are slated to ship in the U.S., the speakers at DVD Proís panel on the subject couldnít secure a demo player. Finally, the date and venue for next yearís DVDPro Conference & Expo were announced ñ it will be held July 17-18 at the Hyatt Regency San Francisco Airport (Burlingame, California). Source: DVD Report