16

Mar

TV3.0

OLEDs, Google TV, holographic displays, UDTVs and more will change the way we watch television

Television has long been the preserve of the masses and the classes for the last several decades. But only now is it coming into its own. The promise of watching 3D television is already rearing its protruding head. Now all one needs to wait for are TV programmes made in 3D. But for that to happen, all channels need to be in HD (high definition). In India, only Discovery can claim that. So while you might get to swim underwater from the comforts of your drawing room, you still have to wait awhile before you could get close with your favourite Hollywood hottie.

So what could very well be the face of Television 3.0? Well, two years ago, people wondered if Hulu was the future of television. Today, they are wondering if Google TV will change the way they perceive Idiot Box. While Hulu offered people to download their favourite TV shows, commercial-free, Google is taking it many steps further. Your TV will become your internet browser and your android phone will be your remote. You can even take a picture of your favourite film scene while watching a film using Google Goggles and you can bark the name of your favourite TV show and the Google Voice app will fetch it for you. What’s more, you can even conduct a video conference from the comfort of your drawing room using Google TV-enabled set-top boxes. What does all this mean? That what you were doing on your laptop and smartphone can now be done on a bigger screen like TV. From checking emails and watching YouTube videos to reading online newspapers and magazines and playing flash games, it’s a world that we will inherit sooner rather than later.

The history

The idea of TV3.0 was created by Philip Hodges. A journalist who focusses on media and production. He based it around store-and-forward, and RSS technologies – subscribing to content we are interested in, with several ideas on its monetisation. Imagine a new digital set-top-box, build with a linux OS operating a Flash-h.264 application layer. This device can act as your media centre storing media you subscribe to via RSS. Add the feature of URLS to specific content providers as our on-demand channels. These ‘channels’ or enhanced website, are simply a Flash application promoting content that channel specialises in and of which you are likely to also be interested in. Then, if interested, subscribe to hi-quality RSS feeds making the content available automatically. We can go directly to the producer to obtain the content we are interested in. Reducing the middlemen making it cheaper to purchase and more profitable to the producer all at the same time. Pricing will become very affordable negating the need for any form of DRM. If it’s only going to cost you Rs 50 to watch a TV show, can you be bothered trying to download torrents and all the time involved in doing so? The technology is upon us, however the incumbent players or middlemen will not move on without a fight. Request non-DRM content. Take responsibility and pay for the content you favour and watch. This will only improve your viewing experience and productivity. An hour show without commercials is only 40 minutes. You just got 20 minutes back of your life.

A new dimension

If 2009 was the year of LCD and LED TVs, 2010 was all about 3D TVs. But wait, Toshiba is changing the trend: Embedding 10x times power of PC into a TV. It is powering a new 3D LED/LCD TVs with Cell processor, the same processor that powers Gaming consoles like Xbox 360 and PS3. The processor will be used to upscale normal videos to 1080p video. Upscale 60hz to 480hz; convert normal TV broadcasts, videos and games from 2D to 3D; improve/fix pixels for superior video, and provide/simulate higher contrast ratio 50,00,000:1. In essence, the Cell TV will ultimately combine elements of IPTV, multi-source file compatibility (HDD, SD, USB, etc), DLNA support for remote file sharing/streaming, and full (and largely transparent) Internet support and possibly someone will hack-in a Linux OS to leverage its processing power to make a perfect HTPC. Importantly, it will record six HD streams to the drive or storage system simultaneously. This box should be able to serve an entire home full of HD displays and enable itself to be a potential AV hub for large amounts of content. And most of all, it can show eight channels on screen at the same time—and step through each without the delay common with rival HDTVs. With Real 3d broadcasts coming within 2010 via ESPN, Sony, IMAX the experience on Cell TV is going to be even better.

The next big thing could well be holographic displays. If you are a star wars fan, Holographic TV is no alien to you. Images are projected into air, space and its 3D. On a holo-TV, images will be projected into the middle of a room as a cloud that can be enjoyed from every angle without 3D glasses and still have its richness and depth. Holo-TVs, unlike current gen TVs, would not be mounted on walls. They would resemble a small (low height) table laid on the floor, out of which Lasers would project the cloud into the middle of the room. It may even be possible to broadcast concerts in other arenas around the world and to view live, life-size sporting events in stadiums thousands of miles from the real players. NHK, the leader broadcaster in Japan, has committed to creating the first holo-TV within six years. The research is led by Jun Murai, a scientist known as ‘the father of the Japanese internet’.

So what could be next? Thinner and more efficient TVs. LG has invented one that is 6.9mm thin while Samsung’s is 7.3mm. Sony has sold an 11-inch organic LEDs and LG is selling a 15-inch OLED TV in Korea, with plans to bring it to the rest of the world later in the year. But it is still going to take some time before OLED TVs are priced competitively enough for the mass market. At this year’s CES, there were also some demos of transparent OLED displays, which let you see through them.

That’s not all. One day, you may be able to obtain customised information directly from your television’s LED backlights, thanks to a talking TV technology called ‘Visible Light Communication’. The LED lights transmit information by flickering at high frequencies; a device with a photodiode like a cell phone later picks up the transmitted signals. Next are Ultra-Definition TVs. Display sets with 240Hz refresh rates and Internet connectivity are becoming increasingly common, and 480Hz sets are slated to arrive later this year. Farther down the road, ultra definition (with 3840-by-2160-pixel resolution in place of HDTV’s 1920-by-1080-pixel resolution) could make its way into your living room. Ultra definition (UD) will become more critical as display sizes get larger. With these, viewers can zoom in to get a close-up view of the action.

Monetisation

Another area gaining momentum is TV commerce. With the click of a mouse or the touch of a screen, we’ll be able to buy products directly from video content. Imagine reserving airline tickets directly from an ad or buying clothes worn by the TV characters within the episode. In the not-too-distant future, we may start to really see TV advertising getting more targeted. Which has long been the medium’s biggest downfall. People often record shows simply because they don’t have to watch the commercials. What if the ads were targeted at the individuals watching the TV? What if they were relevant? Search advertising paved the way for this kind of relevancy, and may just be a key to the future of TV advertising in a world where viewers want their programming on demand.

So that’s what awaits you in the future of television: an immersive viewer experience, personalised content, and huge screens. It looks as though Google, Samsung and its fellow TV producers are out to make movie theatres obsolete. Sure, we still have a long way to go before our home entertainment systems look like something out of Minority Report. But some of the new technologies are pretty impressive. 3D TV that approximates what you’d get in a movie theatre, multiple monitors designed to present a wall-size picture, and ultra-definition resolution are just some of the innovations you can look forward to.

802 days ago Short URL Comments

Movies

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23

Mar

Cool, cooler, coolest!!!

Here are a few cool websites that I came across just this morning. There were many, but these won my heart more than the others. They are utilitarian. And that’s what is cool about them.

Happy surfing!

COUCH POTATOES

Are you a TV enthusiast? Watching TV online has become very tangible these days yet searching for the TV show of your choice is usually still a requirement. No worries, SURF THE CHANNEL has done the work for you. They have searched the internet and made available a commendable repertoire of shows which are played online using Divx. And yes, they also have movies, cartoons, music, documentaries, sports and much more… Worth a visit!
The only spoiler could be your low-speed internet connection.

MUSIC CALLING

You so happen to hear a song on the radio that conquers your soul and you hum it to yourself all day. However, you have no idea who is the performer, nor do you remember the lyrics. So you hum it to your friends in the hopes of salvation but no one gets you. Does this frustrating feeling seem familiar? Well no more heartaches. MIDOMI offers the ultimate solution: hum into your microphone and Midomi will search and hopefully locate your groovy track. The database is quite impressive. Try and see if it works for you. It did, to me.

PUBLISHING ONLINE

If you are looking at converting your PDF files into interactive online publications, ISSUU could just be the free application on the Net that you are looking for. And the best part of it is that it only takes a minute to do so. After this you can view your document in a neat magazine-style viewer, that other people can bookmark, share and comment on. Finally, you can also post (embed) your Issuu documents on any external site, profile or blog.
It’s kinda like flickr for magazines where you could upload magazines, catalogs, documents, and stuff you’d normally find on print. It’s the place where you become the publisher. What’s more, you can find and comment on thousands of great publications. Join a living library, where anyone finds publications about anything and share them with friends.

RECIPES, ANYONE ?

Internet. Internet. Internet. If you have a question and don’t know whom to ask. Just Google. One such cool website is SUPERCOOK. It is a new recipe search engine that finds recipes you can make with the ingredients you have at home. To begin, simply start adding ingredients you have. The more ingredients you add, the better the results will be. I am hungry, therefore I decided to test the site and entered the stuff I have – chicken breast, mushrooms and white wine. The result – Chicken with Mushroom Gravy. I didn’t prepare it yet but it seems that the preparation is simple and the outcome would be tasty. This site is perfect for uncreative food cookers, asking themselves what can we cook from basic ingredients. Enjoy the unexpected dish!
I typed the following ingredients into the search engine: “mashed potatoes, cucumber, tomato, onion, green chillies, water, salt.” I got 2000 results, one of which said that if I had lemon, I could make a refreshing cucumber lemonade and if I had grape, I could make a mock grape, and so on…
Check it out. If nothing else, it’s good fun, and could give you newer ideas of how to tweak your recipes and have a good time with the available ingredients.

CHECK YOUR TYPING SPEED

The Internet is the biggest boon anyone could ever have… ofcourse there are those who are quite oblivious to its many charms. One such charming website that I have come across is THIS. Not only does it give you more than just a second chance. The increasing competition you have against yourself, be it in speed or accuracy, eventually makes you a typing expert. I tried it out myself. I top scored at 92 words per minute. Now my target is to reach 100 words per minute with cent percent accuracy. With practice, I can get there!
Why don’t you try it!

1889 days ago Short URL Comments

Technology

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20

Nov

Dude, where’s the news?

I mimic, therefore I am. This seems to be the credo of TV anchors and news readers today. If some are bad at what they do, others are good at imitating their channel founders. If it’s not Prannoy Roy’s accent on NDTV, it’s Vinod Dua’s Hindi inflection on Aaj Tak. Will people ever find an identity of their own? What’s worse are slip-a-thons. Not a minute passes and there goes the slip. If it’s not the pronunciation, it’s the anchor’s persistent lack of knowledge. If that isn’t all, it’s their awkward pauses and grammatical errors galore.

The regional news isn’t any better. Tune in to any language channel, and you will find half-baked anchors trying to ‘fit in’. Some sport a frenchie, some speak with a heavy accent, and a few others belong to the staid Doordarshan variety – no spunk, no attitude, no nothing. This species is worse off because their credo seems to be: ‘We are like this only’. Which means, you can never expect them to improve and move with the times.

What bothers me even more is that all the good anchors on TV pretend to be Mr and Miss Know-it-alls. That’s fine, so long as there is no abject disregard to every celebrity being interviewed. After a point, the anchor’s superiority complex just gets to you. I know the dude sitting next to the anchor is known to be the most corrupt, but by turning an interview into a one-sided slang match doesn’t prove anything, does it? Can’t the anchor be more neutral and let the viewer decide who is the villain of the piece? Isn’t this a democracy? Can’t there be fair play? Take Karan Thapar’s famous court martial with advocate Ram Jethmalani. In taking on Manu Sharma’s case, has Ram Jethmalani betrayed his principles and scattered all morality and ethics to the winds? This was the premise of this interview that made for some spectacular viewing. However, there was this niggling doubt that the whole thing could well have been staged. How else can you explain Jethmalani threatening to storm out of the interview several times and not doing it? What about the super calm composure of Karan Thapar in the tensest moments during the interview? Does that mean even interviews and news chat shows are being staged in the race for maximum eyeballs? Is ‘shock and awe’ the only way to tell news today?

Just when I thought I had heard the last of it, Yahoo announces that it will soon launch a news service where the anchor will sing the news for you. Does that mean, if it’s to do with someone’s assassination attempt, the music will be hip hop? And hymns, if it’s an obituary?

If this isn’t a parody of news, what is?

PS: Perhaps we are also to be blamed for this trend of ‘shock and awe’. How else will you explain the survival of the seven-year-old nakednews.com that has its anchors shedding clothes while reading out the news?

2013 days ago Short URL Comments

Movies

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20

Nov

Saffronisation of Indian television

Ekta Kapoor and her counterparts like Dheeraj Kumar and Aruna Irani seem to be intent on saffronising television. Pick any soap on Sony, Star Plus or Zee, and you will see some or the other pooja being telecast into drawing rooms across the country. Agreed, it’s a Hindu-dominated country and such rituals are part and parcel of the majority, but the frequency of such rituals has gone beyond tolerance levels. Remember, this is on national television and therefore needs to be tailored to every other religion in the country. What’s more, much of the customs and rituals shown in these serials are predominantly North Indian and find no resonance to South India. The TV channels seem to be happy overdoing one religion and ignoring the rest. If this isn’t a sign of national disintegration, what is?

There is more to this. When the odd serial does have a storyline involving members of other communities, it’s only by name. There are no rituals being shown, no pilgrimages being captured on film and no recitations of their sacred texts. Why these double standards? Why can’t an equal emphasis be paid to all the other religions and showcase their customs and rituals as well? And by this, I don’t just mean Muslims (sunnis and shias) and Christians (catholics and protestants), but also the Jains, Sindhis, Punjabis, lingayats, vokkaligas, Brahmins, vaishyas, shudras – each of them have their uniqueness, be it in the way they conduct marriages to the way they eat and dress. If the media is a mirror to society, then why is the mirror not functioning like one? Why can’t we show what is real and leave the interpretation to the viewers? There are numerous cases of inter-religious marriages of the famous and the not-so-famous. And like everything else in this world, some work out, some don’t. But the reality today is that there is more of an integration of cultures than ever before, and barring the fundamentalists, several others are co-existing in a multi-religious environment. Why isn’t this being reflected on the small screen? Why is their a bias not only towards non-Hindus, but also towards different regions, creeds and colours? Why can’t a real India be shown on national television?

Films are worse off. They of course represent the minorities, but only to reinforce stereotypes. A Muslim crops up if it’s to do with terrorism, a Sikh is in the picture to convey colour and variety and a Parsi couple figures if it’s to give a comical touch. This is particularly predominant in films, language no bar.

Thankfully, our regional TV channels are much more rooted in their portrayals. If there’s a pooja, it’s rare and it’s only because the script demands it. What’s more, they use non-Hindus to take their story forward. There isn’t any perceived religious bias. And even if there is, it isn’t so in-your-face like the Ekta Kapoor serials. Will she and her ilk drop their regional bias and become truly national and stop furthering the RSS agenda?

2013 days ago Short URL Comments

Movies

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20

Nov

Weapons of mass distraction

There’s a looming threat of misinformation in the Indian subcontinent. Most media houses are either run by businessmen with strong links to politicians or worse, run by the kurta-clad themselves. If it was a covert operation earlier, today the ownership is out in the open. Every political party worth its salt is trying to gather as much media steam to envelop the country. Knowledge is power, but when the power of disseminating it is at the hands of netas, you have to take every information from their media vehicles with much introspection.

Experts attest that many communal riots would not have taken place but for the false stories deliberately planted in news papers. Editors beholden to their employers and often to politicians regularly dissuade younger journalists from pursuing awkward stories, preferring instead to print safe plants and handouts from politicians. Such freedom tends to be confined to the editorial pages, which have now become the unique preserve of a select menagerie of wind-bagging superannuated bureaucrats, and pious academics.

A few years ago, the debate was about whether the media controlled politicians or whether politicians controlled the media. Now TV news channels are lining up along political lines and have become more in-your-face. NDTV is owned by Radhika Roy, who is CPI leader Brinda Karat’s younger sister and Prannoy Roy’s wife. The Times Group is partly owned by an Italian, Rabritio Mindo, who happens to be related to Sonia Gandhi. Hindustan Times is no more with the Birla’s and is now controlled by the Times Group. Andhra Jyoti is owned by Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM), a Muslim political party. The Statesman is controlled by the CPM. Mathru Bhoomi is funded by the Muslim League and the Communist Party of India. Kairali TV is controlled by the CPM.

The situation isn’t any different in Tamil Nadu. If Jaya TV is owned by AIADMK supremo J Jayalalitha, Kalaignar TV is run by the DMK while Mega TV is funded by the Congress. The Dalit Panthers of India have floated the Tamizhan channel while the PMK have set up their own. The political equation is as polarised in Kerala. There’s Jai Hind TV owing its allegiance to the Congress. That places it in direct opposition to Kairali owned by the CPM. New entrant, Sudarshan TV is backed by the RSS. Karnataka hasn’t remained untouched either. JD (S) leader Kumaraswamy has launched Kasturi channel and is also the proprietor of Amogh, one of the largest cable distribution networks in Karnataka. Udaya TV is part of Sun Network and the Maran brothers who are related to the DMK. Rumour is rife that Ramoji Rao’s ETV Kannada could be bought by a rival outfit. With the Lok Sabha elections scheduled for 2009 and the Assembly poll in 2011, things could get quite convoluted and muddy. The viewing public wouldn’t know whom to believe as they are clearly media vehicles for their political masters.

The solution lies in community radio, community newspapers, video and audio cassettes. Internet is another medium, which can contribute to free and speedy dissemination of information and usher in ‘digital democracy’ and creation of ‘netizens.’ Folk media like Harikatha, puppet shows and street can also be revived and used as vehicles of effective social communication.

The question is, are we discerning enough?

 

(This piece has appeared in my Media Watch column that runs in Agni every week)

2013 days ago Short URL Comments

Movies

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