Old article about the potential and hurdles of internet digital video....
bloomberg.com
Is Internet Video Ready for Prime Time? Technology Focus
New York, April 24 (Bloomberg) -- Imagine sitting at a
computer, dialing up the major Hollywood studios and watching
clips from the latest films. Or connecting to Major League
Baseball's Web site and watching last year's World Series -- or
Don Larson's perfect game in 1956. Or sitting at a trading desk
on Wall Street and viewing an instructional video on new
investments or procedures.
An emerging technology known as ``streaming video'' makes
these things much faster and more practical. A handful of
privately owned companies as well as giants like Microsoft Corp.
and News Corp. are betting that such services will appeal to both
the corporate and consumer markets.
``Video extends our reach tremendously,'' said Scott
Ehrlich, director of Fox News Internet, which runs the online
operations of Fox News Channel, a unit of Rupert Murdoch's News
Corp.
When Fox News opened its Web site in October, it carried all
the audio from the 24-hour cable news operation and some video
clips, using technology from the VDOnet Corp. of Palo Alto,
California. Ten weeks ago, Fox switched to live, 24-hour
streaming video, through Real Video, from Progressive Networks of
Seattle.
Would-be viewers can obtain the software ``video player'' at
the Fox or Real Video web sites and watch the Fox service without
charge. The Internet allows Fox to be viewed in Manhattan, where
it has been blocked from the major cable system owned by fierce
rival Time Warner Inc.
Hundreds of others, from companies hawking wares to
corporate training divisions to the Jewish Orthodox Union
(``Cyber home of the Torah'') and educational institutions, are
experimenting with streaming video.
Rosy Forecasts
Jae Kim, an analyst at Paul Kagan Associates, a media
research firm in Carmel, California, predicted that 33.5 million
consumers would be using Internet streaming video by the year
2000, compared with 4.5 million now.
Similar audio technology has been commonplace on the
Internet for two years. Progressive Networks' Real Audio is the
best known -- allowing computer users to hear a variety of
programming, including ``simulcasts'' of hundreds of radio
stations around the world. Progressive does not release financial
figures, but analysts estimate its 1996 revenue at $20 million
and say perhaps 9 million people have tried its software.
Until streaming video emerged, watching a video clip from
the Internet was like waiting an hour for television to warm up
each time you wanted to see a show. A viewer would choose a clip
(``Click here to see John Lennon singing'') and the computer
would request the video from the host Web site. Downloading a one-
minute clip could take up to an hour over a typical modem and
phone line.
Breakthroughs in streaming video come at both the serving
and receiving ends. Video clips can be compressed into small
bundles, then transmitted over the Internet to individual
computers. Viewing begins as soon as the first few images arrive,
even while the rest of the video is being delivered. It's like
being able to water your garden with a hose, instead of going
back and forth with bucket after bucket.
Standards Still Unresolved
But there's no agreement yet on what type of hose to use, or
who will create it. Besides VDOnet and Progressive Networks,
competitors include VXtreme of Sunnyvale, California; Vivo
Software of Waltham, Massachusetts; Xing Technology of San Luis
Obispo, California; and InterVU of San Diego, all privately
owned. And Microsoft is now aggressively marketing its streaming
product, NetShow, from the Microsoft Web site.
``It's still early days yet for streaming video,'' said
Patrick Keane, an analyst at Jupiter Communications in New York.
``It's not much more than a slide show right now. But you can
certainly see its potential.''
Most companies in streaming video sell the software system
-- the servers -- that hosts the content and then supplement
their revenue in other ways. Some, such as Vivo Software, sell
``developer tools'' for content developers. Others, like Xing
Technology, derive revenue from selling video compression
encoders that prepare video for Webcasting.
InterVU has a different approach, charging the content
provider a fee for each video clip downloaded by visitors to its
site. Major League Baseball's Web site, for example, has several
historical as well as current video clips hosted by InterVU.
Baseball turns over videotapes to InterVU, which digitizes them
and provides them on the Web. Another potential source of revenue
is advertising that appears on Web pages, incorporating short
video clips.
A Tool for Training
In the corporate market, superior technology at a much
higher price is already in use. Using their own internal
``intranets,'' free from having to make their images available to
the global universe, companies distribute training videos and
inspirational speeches from top executives to employees.
Companies competing in the intranet market include Tektronix
Inc., of Beaverton, Oregon, with its Spotlight system, and
Starlight Networks, of Mountain View, California, with StarCast.
Both offer full-screen, full-motion video. The brokerage house
Smith Barney recently announced it would use StarCast to deliver
real-time video to 11,000 employees' desktops across the company.
In February, Lotus Development Corp., the Cambridge, Mass.-
based unit of International Business Machines Corp., began
widespread testing of Domino Player, a video player that enables
its popular Lotus Notes program to incorporate streaming video.
For years, Lotus offered Video Notes to its 12.5 million
users, but for the first time, streaming video is being
incorporated for browser clients. ``It's an additional feature
that our customers use to make their Web sites accessible to
those who are not using Notes,'' said Bruce Poduska, Lotus
product manager for streaming technologies.
The consumer market is more fragmented, because software
video players from one company aren't compatible with those from
another company.
`It's a Pain'
``It's a pain to decide which player you already have, which
you need to download, which works with your system,'' said
Benjamin Compaine, chairman of the Center for Information
Industry Research at Temple University.
Other hurdles are that the video window that opens on-screen
is usually only a fifth of the screen size; the number of viewers
who can connect simultaneously is limited, and bandwidth -- the
electronic pipeline that carries the information-laden video
signals needs to be increased to provide less jerky, more
realistic images.
``No one watching on the Web is going to mistake us for our
TV version right now,'' said Ehrlich of Fox, whose Web site
provides video at three to eight frames a second, compared with
broadcast video's 30 frames per second.
`Out-of-Sync Blur'
``Most streaming video is a jerky, shaky, out-of-sync blur.
It completely takes away from the storytelling experience,'' said
Joan Friedenberg, the editor of ``The Online NewsHour,'' the Web
version of the Public Broadcasting System's ``NewsHour with Jim
Lehrer.''
In the past six months, several streaming video companies
have demonstrated their wares to Friedenberg, but she's still not
convinced. ``Down the road, this will be extremely important for
us -- when I can see a piece of video that looks like a piece of
video's supposed to look, without a lot of excuses.''
Others are more optimistic.
CNNfn, the financial news network CNN launched in November,
offers two hours of video programming a day and plans to increase
to 14 hours in June, using a product from VXtreme Inc. Court TV
has used streaming video to broadcast clips, but not live
coverage, of trials.
``Superior technology is not what's going to win in the
end,'' Professor Compaine said. ``Marketing and market share
is.''
--Joshua Mills and Sreenath Sreenivasan, through the New York newsroom (914 478-1403).blk |
