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October 01, 2005
Real hi-def
Real hi-def: Musings on movie theatres ahead... This is a WIRED story by Xeni Jardin of "...the first-ever live, IP-based transmission of high-definition video from the bottom of the sea... 20-mbps MPEG2 video stream was projected in such high resolution that close-ups of tiny, translucent tubeworms the size of quarters filled the entire wall-sized screen. It was as if the theater itself became a gigantic microscope... live, high-def IP-cast beamed to shore by a satellite... IGrid included other "firsts" over fiber-optic links this week, including live international collaborations with streamed 4K (4,096 by 2,160 pixel) digital cinema content." A movie is more than its digitized file format, it's also the experience of watching it. Mobile TV, home theatre, movie theatre -- different experiences. Most movie theatres I've seen have been bad experiences -- the whole business oriented towards instructing large numbers of anonymous audience members, some of whom get in the way of the content -- no wonder so many prefer to watch the same content at home. But few homes have the high visual & auditory resolution & fidelity of a good installation. And now we also have content which can be both immersive and live, even two-way visual communication -- no longer takes months to process and distribute film. Commercial theatres don't have to have the same structure they did in the 1930s. And... we're more used to collective content creation now, the Flickrs, the weblogs, the eBays, the search engines... what would happen if a comfortable room with surround screens and great sound was filled with a bunch of smart, respectful people who were mutually combining the remote live content with their own internet archives all through their personal mobiles? What a way to experience the running of the bulls in Pamplona, for instance... choosing which cafe the remote camera goes into later, then the theatre's caterer serves the same dishes seen on the large screen... movie theatres can serve a much better experience than what they offer now.
Posted by John Dowdell at October 1, 2005 08:54 AM
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Comments
Well... being born in Spain, I can tell you... I'd rather see them bulls on my screen, quietly sitting in front of my desk ;)
I was amazed when I saw a documentary on the uses technology offers to medicine nowadays. Not only a surgeon can see from afar, he can actually perform the surgery through a special hi-speed connection, involving robotics and satellite telecommunications.
What was the old saying? "There's nothing new under the sun"?... hmmmm... I'm gonna think a lot before I use that sentence again.
It's great to see people (like you guys at Macromedia) leading others into the revolution/evolution of our paradigms, always pushing further to future improvements.
Keep up the leading-edge work ;)
Posted by: Alexandre Madurell at October 1, 2005 09:53 AM