Introduction
Convergence is a term that has gone in and out of favor in the media business. Many people in the media and technology worlds, from Emperor Gates to Steve Case, have envisioned a world where all content was consumed on a single do-everything device available over a single delivery channel. One faction saw the PC as the only device anyone would ever need for entertainment, work, and communication. Naturally, the Internet would be the only delivery channel necessary. Such was conventional wisdom in 1995.
That dream of realizing a PC-centric media world came face to face with the real world, and the meeting wasn't pretty. The broadcasting industry wasn't about letting the PC take the place of good ol'TV. The 1995 EIA/IEEE Conference in Philadelphia described a three-device scenario. In this world, consumers, in a lean-back mode on their living room couch, would always want their entertainment supersized, with the highest possible audio and video quality. After all, this was, at least in part, the motivation behind the recently proposed DTV terrestrial transmission standard that included HDTV and 5.1 surround sound—to bring a theater-like experience to the living room, a communal event.
PCs were thought of as lean-forward tools for work. Remember, in 1995 the Internet was not the ubiquitous consumer “appliance” that it is today. Although it was growing, it was still primarily a communications link between government, corporate R&D, and educational entities. Besides, network bandwidth was miniscule and PC modems operated at 9600 baud. Transfers of large file (1 MB) were time-consuming, and audio and video compression codecs were not adapted to the consumer domain. CRT displays were 15 inches. PCs were certainly one-person consumption devices.
All of these devices ran on house power, 110V AC provided from the power grid on its own wiring to a residence or business. Enlightened, worldly minds, even pre-9/11, realized then the need for lifeline, emergency communication capabilities. Hence, the third device category would be a telephone. The telco infrastructure of landlines provided power independently to phones and operated even if all AC power was lost.
Time and technology marched on, and what was cutting edge and visionary in 1995 gave way to the realities of the marketplace and to emergent technologies. PCs got faster and memory got cheaper; the Internet became a consumer phenomena. Cable TV challenged and then surpassed traditional over-the-air audience numbers. Cellular phones went from a novelty that only the rich could afford to a necessity for all, replacing the landline as the third element in the triumvirate of devices.
Yet through all this change, the three-screen model still remains valid today.
SOME THINGS DO CHANGE
Media consumption practices and habits have evolved. A frequent mantra at media industry conferences touts how today's media consumers want their content on any device, at any time, and in every place. Watching the Super Bowl on my cell phone may not be my first choice, but if there are no other options, a loyal New York Giants fan like me will put up with reduced video and audio quality, just to watch the game.
Consumers have become very comfortable with using the Internet for all kinds of daily tasks. Checking the weather, making dinner reservations, and shopping online are easy to do; a few clicks and the information is at your disposal. Two-way communication is taken for granted.
Cell phones and PDAs are beginning to offer many of the features of both television and the Internet. Photo albums, ring tones, and other personalization features build an emotional attachment between a person and their phone.
And what about broadcast television? It has been pronounced dead many times. MSOs were the first assassins, next the Internet, then telcos, YouTube, and on and on. But television is here to stay in one form or another. No other medium can reach so broad an audience with such high-quality production values and immersive presentation.
ONE FOR ALL
The disruption of traditional media consumption patterns is fueled by the transition from analog to digital technology. With the exception of radio frequency modulation, every phase of the content life cycle and every process in media production and distribution is digital.
Fragmentation of media companies based on distribution channels has given way (within the limits of FCC and Congressional regulations) to integrated businesses with a presence on television, radio, Internet, cell phone, and print. AOL's 2001 merger with Time Warner was not ill-conceived; it was simply mistimed.
One factor that was overlooked during the height of the dot-com frenzy was the fact that the explosive growth of the Internet was based on an instantly accessible, pre-existing infrastructure: landline phones. No one (apparently) took into account that in order to deliver rich mixed media, bandwidth greater than 56 Kbps to the consumer was required. Hence, the boom busted when the delivery channel choked.
Internet distribution channels have increased their bandwidth by an order of magnitude or more. However, just as a disk drive will fill to its capacity, sooner or later available bandwidth will be consumed because of consumer desire and demand for new applications.
Fortunately, thanks to the technical innovations developed by the research community, channel capacity has increased while the size of files transferred has decreased. Compression technology, such as JPEG and MPEG, has become household words and enabled rich multimedia, including broadcast-quality audio and video, to be delivered to consumers over channels that could never accommodate uncompressed content.
With the capability to deliver repurposed content, media production has entered a new era: the era of a converged production infrastructure and distribution channel diversity. The conversion that was predicted for consumer media devices has actually occurred at the other end of the media life cycle: production and distribution.
Initially using brute-force, dedicated, linear production workflows for each delivery channel, media organizations are beginning to see the light and are moving to integrated production workflows and infrastructure in support of multiple delivery channels.
WHAT THIS BOOK IS ABOUT
Numerous books have been written about each of the many delivery channels now available to content providers. Each hot topic has its title: Video over IP, IPTV and the Internet, Mobile Broadcasting, Wi-Fi Broadcasting, and (my own) HDTV and the Transition to Digital Broadcasting, among many others.
Similarly, production has its share of books that describe and detail every aspect of production from the creative, technological, and business perspectives.
Some books have addressed technologies that are new to the digital broadcast operations infrastructure and broadcast engineering. Books that discuss methods used in IT infrastructure design—such as Service Oriented Architecture—are available to get media industry professionals up to speed on the latest developments and trends.
This book ties them all together tightly into a real-world framework. Many broad-casters, equipment manufactures, and system integrators already have deployed systems and commission facilities that are creating and distributing content over numerous channels to multiple platforms. As important as it is to understand each production and distribution technology, it is perhaps most important to understand how they all fit together.
WHO SHOULD READ THIS BOOK
When legendary golfer Bobby Jones purchased Fruitland Nurseries in Augusta, GA, in the 1930s, he had an inspired vision for the golf course that was to occupy the acreage. His goal was to create a course that would require a professional golfer to carefully plan and execute a round of golf in order to score well. But recognizing that Augusta National is a golf club, he wanted the members to be able to enjoy a lei-surely round. He succeeded, and only the application of advanced technology to golf equipment and the increased training regimen practiced by modern golf pros have forced modifications to the course that better suit modern golf.
I have attempted to apply Mr. Jones’ philosophy to this book.
The primary audience for this book is broadcast technologists, engineers, information technology professionals, and software developers. In order to write inspired code and design-efficient media systems, a thorough understanding of how all the technology pieces fit together is imperative. True, a global view is not a substitute for expert knowledge and experience, but a global view helps in system design and fosters cooperation.
However, I've tried to present and explain the material in such a way that non-technologists such as graphic artists, editors, business managers, and executives will find this book readable and informative. Much like a Project Apollo moon rocket, digital media systems are deceptive: simple looking in functional drawings but infinitely detailed in their engineering.
I've also attempted to give technologists a better understanding of the creative and business motives behind production and distribution methodologies and plans. This is an era of unprecedented interdependence of all facets of the media industry, one in which—more than ever before—survival is dependent on looking beyond the confines of functional areas or narrowly defined disciplines to gain an understanding of how all the pieces fit together.