Video Streaming Technologies At The Forefront Of DVD-Quality Electronic DeliveryBy Gary Reber

With growing Wall Street sentiment that Internet access to music on the Web is the replacement future for CDs, it is, despite the universally exponential growth in DVD, only a matter of a few years before DVD-quality digital video will be delivered via Web downloads. While the downloading technology wonít mean that we will never buy a DVD again, it certainly will result in a slip in volumes of DVDs sold and rented long term. At present, issues surrounding copy protection is what is holding back the advent of video downloading at DVD-quality. The copy protection and watermarking schemes being discussed for online music are intrinsically the same technologies being developed for DVD-Audio. These same technologies will be applied to the electronic distribution of video, and to future DVD packaged media. For example, a DVD through a Web link could unlock special supplements in a subsequent transaction, as enabled by technology developed by InterTrust Technologies. New business models are certain to provide new opportunities for cross-promotional scenarios for traditional packaged media and electronic delivery of video. The impact of this inevitable future is that technologies will allow people to watch an unlimited supply of movies with the push of a button. Whether imagined or not there is no doubt that creative technologists and businesspeople will push for such a future and not surprisingly, it will be here in a flicker of time.