Warner Bros. Online Breaks the Bandwidth and Business Barrier; DVD
Meets the Internet in 'Drive-On,' New Broadband Interactive Show
LAGUNA NIGUEL, Calif., June 23 /PRNewswire/ -- Warner Bros. Online, the Internet's leading entertainment destination
(Relevant Knowledge, May 1998), revealed at David Coursey's Digital Living Room that they have blended DVD and
Internet technology with their entertainment expertise to simultaneously break through the online bandwidth barrier and create
a completely new breed of entertainment. WebDVD enables Warner Bros. Online to create "broadband interactive
entertainment" and deliver it to those consumers who don't yet have broadband online services which will be the vast majority
of online consumers for years to come. This breakthrough makes the potential audience for this new type of entertainment
large enough to make a successful business out of online entertainment.
The first incarnation of broadband interactive entertainment will arrive in the Fall when Warner Bros. Online offers its first
original WebDVD show entitled "Drive-On," a weekly mixture of Hollywood-themed content, community and commerce,
including a 20-minute TV-like segment, revealing the secret behind-the-scenes stories of the historic Warner Bros. Studios.
Viewers will get a virtual "drive-on" pass to see the inner workings of the studio, featuring exclusive interviews with the stars
and creators of the world's most popular film and television productions. The show will also showcase the work of film
directors, special effects designers, animators, costumers and the creative and technical talents who create movie magic on a
daily basis.
"Broadband has always been the 'holy grail' for entertainment companies on the Internet," said Jim Banister, Vice President of
Warner Bros. Online. "But broadband online households alone will not be numerous enough to amortize the costs of
world-class production for many years. Now we have a way to create broadband entertainment and deliver it to BOTH
broadband and narrowband homes. Over the next 18 to 24 months, we can turn this new form of entertainment into a
business."
Bandwidth and scalability have been two major problems holding back pure entertainment on the Internet. While bandwidth
promises to be solved with the proliferation of broadband access, Forrester Research estimates there will be only 17 million
broadband and midband households online by 2002 -- yet there will still be 60 million narrowband households online in the
same timeframe. Entertainment companies need a large enough mass of potential viewing households to economically create
entertainment programming of the quality of cable (over 60 million households) or broadcast television (100 million
households)."
To bridge the gap, Warner Bros. Online has taken its parent company's commitment to DVD to a whole new level. There will
be approximately 1 million DVD Video players in the marketplace by year-end 1998, but 15 million DVD-ROMs in
computers. "This has caught the media industry by surprise," continues Banister. DVD ROM is rapidly supplanting CD-ROM
-- and that opens up incredible opportunities for us." By year-end 1999, there will be almost 50 million DVD-ROM-ready
computers in the marketplace, and by year-end 2000 as many as 100 million. Of those DVD-ROM equipped computers,
virtually all of them will be online.
While web-connected CD or DVD is not a new idea, the penetration of DVD- ROM and Online, combined with the massive
storage capacity of a DVD and web- based time-release technology finally makes it economically viable to deliver a
broadband experience through a DVD-Narrowband hybrid delivery system. Warner Bros. Online is introducing WebDVD to
accomplish the task of delivering high-quality broadband interactive entertainment programming over narrowband Internet.
More...............
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