Streaming media, interactive television, DTV and HDTV were prominent during last week’s National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) convention in Las Vegas, which drew a turnout in excess of 113,000. There were nearly 100 exhibitors touting streaming media. Despite this abundance, attendees left with some key questions unanswered. For example, while the consensus is that streaming media will eventually be of broadcast quality, opinions vary as to exactly how long it will take for that to materialize.
Among those eyeing that timetable are production house executives, agency creatives and producers. Production companies are beginning to eye DVD for their directors’ reels. Many executive producers believe that agency creatives and producers will at some point be able to access high quality imagery over the Web, meaning they could call up directorial work of sample reel caliber immediately on demand. This would circumvent the need for shipping reels and/ or DVDs. So should a company invest in DVD authoring tools at this juncture? Several guesstimates on the NAB convention floor ranged from three to five years before the Web would be able to replace the transport of DVDs and cassettes.
Ad agency artisans are also intrigued by using the Web to make remote editing and post sessions a reality. However, many agencies contend that the current image quality isn’t good enough to facilitate the proper collaboration.
Some familiar names entered the Web and streaming media arenas at NAB. Tewksbury, Mass.-based Avid Technology, for instance, unveiled its AvidProNet.com, a business-to-business Web services portal for media professionals, and Avid ePublisher, a streaming media publishing tool for Web-enabled media production. Of the latter, Paul Henderson, Avid’s VP of new media business development, observed that "new media producers want to use video to enhance existing Web content and, even more significantly, to use the interactive information, graphics and commerce to enhance the traditionally passive video experience." He claimed that the ePublisher would enable media creators rather than programmers to produce Web content that combines video and information into a single interactive experience.
Meanwhile, AvidProNet.com is slated to provide content, community commerce and services targeted at media creation professionals. Avid’s chief technology officer, Mike Rockwell, said that the company "believes that the Internet will fundamentally change the way media professionals work." Through agreements with leading stock footage and sound libraries-including Getty Images, The Image Bank, Energy Films, Sound Dogs, Beatnik and M2-AvidProNet.com will provide direct links to Web-based media, enabling users to search for, select and purchase stock footage, production music and sounds through their browsers. Avid also previewed its AvidProNet Production and Distribution Services, scheduled to be available within 90 days. This will include review and approval functions whereby clients, via their browsers, can connect, review, comment on and approve projects anytime and anywhere. There’s talk of this being the beginning of a toolset that could facilitate remote editorial and post sessions that meet agency criteria.
Montreal-based Discreet, a division of Autodesk, is also adding to its toolset with neptune, a content creation and Web-streaming technology. Discreet’s goal is to deliver varied media (animation, graphics, effects, 3-D animation) from a user-friendly, desktop-based content creation environment, while preparing that product for secure delivery over the Web. Initially, neptune will be integrated with Discreet’s NT-based nonlinear editing system, edit v6, which is due for shipment in fall 2000. Discreet is exploring other applications for neptune, including teaming with the firm’s newly introduced visual effects system called combustion, enabling East Coast agencies and clients, for example, to preview effects work done that day on the West Coast.
Phil Price, former president/ creative director of Click 3X New York, who recently left the company to embark on a soon-to-be-launched broadband content venture (SHOOT, 2/25, p. 7), described Discreet’s streaming technology as being "much more than an aggregate set of encoders that prepare Web video in streaming formats. … Discreet is creating a create-to-publish pipeline that takes many of these complexities out of your hands, while automating them so you can concentrate on creating different, exciting streaming media for all the different bandwidths."
Audio has availed itself of the Web on myriad levels as well-an example being the strategic partnership between San Francisco-based LicenseMusic. com and Hollywood-headquartered Soundelux Entertainment Group. Per the deal, which was announced as NAB got underway, Soundelux becomes a provider of audio and sound effects for clients of LicenseMusic.com, an Internet site that licenses and delivers music and sound online to the audio-visual production community. Soundelux’s Modern Music division-which handles editing and music supervision for feature films (i.e. Mission Impossible, Music of the Heart)-will additionally use LicenseMusic.com as a preferred music licensing source. The LicenseMusic.com collection currently contains more than 30,000 pre-cleared online tracks, with access to over one million tracks, through its network of providers (SHOOT, 10/8/99, p. 9).
Streaming media and the Internet have other implications for the advertising industry (SHOOT, 2/25, p. 1). Streaming media technologies are launching services that can insert spots into Web content. Additionally, Web entertainment sites are becoming a medium whereby short films and other directorial work can gain meaningful exposure (SHOOT, 3/24, p. 1). In fact, some production house and ad agency players have begun scouting the Web for filmmakers who could transition successfully into spots. Also, bicoastal/ international Propaganda Films recently entered into a co-production and licensing distribution relationship with Seattle-headquartered Atom Films, a known player in the online short film entertainment market (SHOOT, 3/31, p. 7).
Underscoring the convergence of entertainment and the Internet is Beverly Hills-based Lynx Technology Group’s multimillion dollar equity investment in Internet products and technology company Play Industries, Rancho Cordova, Calif. The deal was announced during NAB. Lynx is owned by former Creative Artists Agency and Disney executive Michael Ovitz. Play invented GlobeCaster, an Internet broadcasting system distributed and marketed by Play Streaming Media Group (PSMG), an Internet broadcasting service and solution provider. GlobeCaster has been licensed by several video content sites, including Yahoo!, DEN and Pseudo.com. Play also maintains an Internet TV network, PlayTV.com.
Also at NAB, several leading companies-including Marlboro, Mass.-based streaming media production tools firm Media 100, Lake Success, N.Y.-headquartered Canon USA and Northern California interactive music/sound design shop Beatnik-unveiled plans to form a strategic streaming media alliance. The alliance intends to develop and launch iCanStream. com, a Web site designed to educate the industry about shooting, editing and streaming video over the Internet.A SHOOT STAFF REPORT
