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Audio and Video on the Internet
"The Internet is...all software. And there just isn't any boundary to what you can do with software."
(Vinton Cerf, who is widely regarded as "The Father of the Internet" and co-developer of Transfer Control Protocol/Internet Protocol, the fundamental architecture of the Internet)
Not long ago it was primarily a medium for scientists, engineers and scholars to exchange arcane technical information. Now the Internet is being transformed into a true mass medium. Continued advances in multimedia chip technology, hardware and software are occurring so rapidly that real-time transmission of audio and video over the Internet -- once the stuff of future technology pieces -- is now fast becoming reality. In fact, Web sites can now "broadcast" multimedia entertainment to Web users and in doing so, could pose a real challenge to the traditional radio and TV broadcast industries.
Is Anybody Out There?
CEMA estimates there are 18 million on-line households in the U.S. which is 45 percent of all U.S. PC households. Among those on-line households, 72 percent of regular users report going on-line at least once a week, with 40 percent reporting everyday usage. On-line usage is roughly 8.6 hours, per week, per person, versus 5.3 hours in on-line households two years ago. Eighty-five percent of on-line time at home is devoted to personal use.
A 1996 CEMA survey found that 32 percent of adults reported watching less TV after getting a computer. On average, most adults watch about 17.5 hours of TV a week. That number has fallen from 17.8 hours in the last two years.
Music and Movies in Cyberspace
Until recently, user expectations for audio on the Internet were below radio-quality. Users anticipated interrupted or dropped transmissions and excessive static bursts of noise. Video was seen as particularly difficult, offering tiny 2-by-3-inch digital windows with jerky, chopped digital video along with poor color reproduction and distracting shadows. Both audio and video were available only to those with huge PC hard drives and plenty of time to download the massive data files required for audio and video files.
All that has changed. New compression techniques such as Dolby Net and improved "streaming" techniques have brought about major advances in real-time transmission of audio and video. Today, Web users can receive FM stereo-quality audio and "newscast" quality video. With future advances in hardware and software, it's not hard to imagine CD-quality audio and high-definition video providing a theater-like experience for the Web user.
Progressive Networks Leads the Way
Helping to make real-time transmission of audio and video possible in Cyberspace is Seattle-based software company Progressive Networks. Progressive, a major player in real-time "broadcasting" of both audio and video on the Internet with its RealAudio and RealVideo software, pioneered "streaming" media over the Internet. The company's Real Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP) technique, co-developed with Netscape, goes beyond the standard Hypertext Transport Protocol (HTTP) and into the next generation of Internet data transmission.
HTTP made it possible to standardize the electronic publication of text and graphic images on the Internet enabling the Net to become the powerful source of information that it is today. With this "old" method, the Internet transmitted information in tiny digital "packets" that had to be reassembled on the receiving end before a document could be read, a sound file heard, or a video clip viewed. For the Web user, this meant copying files onto their hard drives. Copying a five-minute digital sound clip with a standard phone line and modem could take up to an hour ¥ far too time-consuming and frustrating for the casual user.
With the new RTSP, packets of digital information can be "streamed" across the Web in a continuous transmission stream a little at a time, approximating instant playback, because it is viewed or heard almost as soon as the "stream" is received. Progressive's chief executive Rob Glaser thinks the ability to "stream" media, along with the public's fast-growing acceptance of the Internet, is transforming the Internet into a broadcast medium as real as television.
RTSP has become the de facto standard for streaming media on the Web. To become the dominant player in the business, Progressive's strategy has been simple. Give away free consumer software for playing audio or video, while selling the server programs that will be used by Web sites and publishers to store and play audio/video material.
Competition Heats Up
Progressive Networks boasts many supporters of its RTSP, but the company is not alone in offering "streaming" software. For audio, Macromedia Inc.'s Shockwave and Telos Systems' Audioactive are among others offering competing software technologies. Telos' Audioactive uses MPEG Audio Layer III coding and Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) lines to provide what Telos claims is FM stereo-quality audio over the Internet. For more information on Audioactive, visit Telos' Website at www.audioactive.com.
VDOnet Corp., Vivo Software Inc. and VXtreme Inc. offer streaming software for video. VXtreme's Web Theater 2.0 features improved delivery of compressed video, large playback over modem bandwidth, and live broadcast capability. For Internet video demonstrations, check out VXtreme's Website, www.vxtreme.com, and Progressive's site at www.real.com.
Like Trying to Pump Enough Water Through a 1/2-inch Hose to Put Out a Forest Fire Speed and bandwidth of data delivery will influence the future quality of audio and video on the Internet. According to data from Progressive Networks, 75 percent of Internet users connect via modems between 14-28 kilobits per second (kbps). As improved modems come to market and new digital data lines boost the speed of data delivery, end users will reap the benefits of CD-quality sound and full-motion, television-like broadcasts over the Web.
Bandwidth is a measure of how much information can be sent down a wire or over a wireless connection. Limited information gets through over a low-bandwidth connection. At home, most people connect to the Net by low-bandwidth phone lines; many offices, on the other hand, link to the Net using expensive, high-speed lines operating at 1.5 million bits per second (mbps). Some lines which can operate at 10 mbps can grab a Web page in a blink and send through high-quality live audio and video.
How important is improving bandwidth? According to Microsoft CEO Bill Gates, "Anything that increases bandwidth just improves the popularity of the Internet." For streaming, you generally need bandwidth from 8-80 kbps for audio applications and 40-400 kbps for video. Currently, 90 percent of media streamed over the Internet is audio-based due to the bandwidth requirements of video. Given that most modems in use today fall short with respect to video capability, streaming video isn't as practical as audio. "At 28.8 kbps we think RealVideo works quite well for news, simple animations and slide show music videos," said Bruce Jacobsen, president of Progressive Networks, qualifying RealVideo's most suitable applications. "We're not saying you can throw up anything you want to and it'll look great at 28.8.O Progressive claims its RealVideo can provide "full-motion" and "broadcast-quality" video over higher bandwidths such as 56 kbps and above.
There is intense market competition to develop faster home PC modems. U.S. Robotics, Rockwell, Lucent and others have introduced 56-kbps modems recently. Cellular Vision USA in Manhattan is testing a wireless modem from New Media Communications that's said to be capable of downloading data over a high-frequency (28-gigahertz) microwave channel at a blazing 54 mbps to a small 6 x 6-inch antenna. Most PC processors can handle only 10 mbps currently, but as PC technology continues to improve (e.g., Intel's MMX¦ chips, 32-bit PCI bus), higher speed processing capacity will follow.
The most significant bandwidth developments are coming in three services: (1) ADSL (asymmetrical digital subscriber line); (2) cable modems; and (3) satellite links. ADSL turns phone lines into a high-bandwidth "pipe" and at 6 mbps is 25 times faster than ISDN, the fastest phone service available today. Bell Atlantic has tested ADSL as a way to deliver video-on-demand to TVs.
Cable modems are the fastest of the near-term solutions with speeds up to 10 mbps. Cable modems connect to a PC and split off part of the signal from the cable TV line for Internet access. However, cable systems do not follow the point-to-point structure of phone systems, so users share the line with anybody else using a cable modem in their neighborhood. The more people on the line, the more the connection slows.
Hughes Electronics, in a spin-off from direct satellite TV service, launched DirecPC, which can access the Internet at speeds up to 400 kbps. DirecPC uses a 21-inch elliptical satellite dish (different from the 18-inch round TV dish) to download data, however, the return is handled by a regular modem and phone line.
As bandwidth increases, not only will the quality of full-motion video improve, even multi-channel audio and surround sound will be possible. These improvements will lead to whole new categories of Web entertainment.
Nada Surf. Push!
Contrary to today's popular thinking, most people do not aimlessly surf the Net --particularly those lacking high-speed modem connections. For many, "Push" is the answer to getting the information they want quickly and easily. Push technology is a broad category of software that enables multimedia programming and text to be automatically delivered to people's computers without having to navigate the Web. With push technology, information can be sent non-real-time and saved by the user's PC and related software. Web broadcasters can, as a result, push tailored content directly to users' desktops. Push technology could dramatically change the way publishers and advertisers look at broadcasting on the Internet.
More than two dozen companies offering push services already compete in the Internet market. According to market research firm, the Yankee Group, push technologies will account for $5.7 billion, or over a third of the revenues generated on the Internet, in the year 2000.
PointCast was first with push technology in 1996. The PointCast Network allows "viewers" to receive information contributed by 45 big media companies, such as Reuters, CNN and MSNBC (a Microsoft and NBC joint venture). All channels are free. PointCast generates revenue by selling $50,000 advertisements displayed in the corner of each screen. Microsoft plans to offer access to the PointCast Network with next year's Active Desktop, which combines the Windows 95 operating system and the Internet Explorer browser in a single product. Active Desktop will display ever-changing Web content on a sort of virtual TV screen on the PC desktop.
Push vendors Marimba and BackWeb use a direct-delivery model rather than the approach used by PointCast. With the direct model, publishers can broadcast directly to any PC from their own Website. They charge publishers to install the "transmitter" software on their Web servers, while the "receiver" software is given away to the end user. Netscape's new push product, Constellation, is based on Marimba's technology.
Putting New Possibilities to Use
Right now almost anyone can incorporate sound into a Website. The list of Web sites with "cool" audio grows larger every day. Radio stations from around the world are now "live" on the Net. Video is growing. Here's a look at just a few of the many new Web ideas spawned by the advances in audio and video.
"The Station at Sony.com" is an Internet-based staging area for consumers to sample, play and even purchase Sony's inventory of television, film, music and video games. Introducing a new on-line multimedia music idea, Sony Music will enhance CDs retroactively by using Web sites to link multimedia content to existing discs. The user taps into the relevant Website and clicks on various screen options to access lyrics, video, etc. The Website will even "reach out" to cue up a CD and automatically play a relevant musical passage. Sony's approach, called Connected (based on Macromedia's Shockwave technology), can be made to work with any existing audio CD and may serve as a way to stimulate sales of older titles.
"Listening posts" on the Web are operated by all the major record companies and many smaller independent labels as well. A big advantage to record companies is that the Internet serves as a great way to offer consumers a taste of the latest products from all their artists without worrying about it being "filtered" through the play list of a radio station. Record companies, along with music clubs like Columbia House and BMG Music, offer potential buyers the opportunity to listen free of charge to sample works, sometimes even full versions of a song, from various musical artists and groups. In Cyberspace, you can "try before you buy."
JAMtv, an on-line company started by a Chicago music promoter, can turn your PC into a personalized jukebox. JAMtv broadcasts live concerts, links with radio stations for other programming, sells CDs and other merchandise, and, working with push technology company BackWeb, provides daily news and reviews. JAMtv hopes it will become the main source of music on the Internet, featuring contemporary and alternative rock artists. Howard Tullman, chief executive of JAMtv describes the site as a "network of one". "Anytime you go there, you can listen to what you want. You don't have to wait for someone to make these programming decisions for you. We will let you design your profile and what you want to hear," said Tullman.
The Future
As technology rapidly improves, it appears that it's just a matter of time before music and movies are sold and delivered entirely in digital form over the Internet. In doing so, users will be able to decide for themselves where they want to store the media for playback -- on a hard disk, rewriteable CD-ROM, DVD, or other storage devices. Phil Barrett, vice president for software development at Progressive Networks, envisions a new digital media receiver, a sort of "Netman," if you will. Web users could download audio or video selections onto a type of smartcard that could be played back on a Netman in the home, in the car or on the go. This playback system would have no moving parts per se, and all programming would be on a "pay for play" basis.
The Biggest Challenge of All
The only road to true mass media for the Internet is entertainment. At some point, the creative minds will start producing compelling content for people who spend time on-line, rather than just delivering a low-resolution facsimile of magazines. Howard Lieberman, president and CEO of ESCAtech Media Inc., believes "emotional relevancy" not "intellectual relevancy" is the key to creating Internet content and media. To realize the Internet's full potential rather than limit it to simply a channel for information, entertainment has the power to draw users to the Internet with the emotional engagement that only high-quality audio and video can provide. >>>> |
