HD For Indies

I wrote this Friday night right after posting the "Hollywood Folly" piece.If you haven't read Friday's post about how screwy the high definition DVD thing is likely to be, go read that first otherwise this'll seem oddball.

So if HD DVD and Blu Ray are looking likely to be a minority play in the market, what's going to be some reasonable alternatives?

I see two possible viable options, one already on the market from Microsoft, and one from Apple that I think is on the way but I have no solid evidence.

The Here and Now: Microsoft's WM9 players

OK, the less exciting stuff first. Stick with me, the contrast between this and Apple gets interesting. As much as Microsoft irritates me, they've got a valid solution on the market, even though it has not been widely adopted. Microsoft's Windows Media 9 High Definition is so efficient at compressing HD down to DVD sized data, you can fit a full length movie onto an existing DVD's worth of data. In fact, Windows Media 9 High Definition is the basis of VC-1, one of three compression schemes to be implemented in HD DVD and Blu Ray (MPEG-2 and H.264 are the others). But it won't play on a standard definition DVD player since it's in a different data format. But, there are an increasing number of WM9 HD compatible players on the market. If, by some miracle, Microsoft could get more movies and more players out on the market, this is actually a decent solution for consumers and especially indie moviemakers. Here's why:

1.) The technology exists and works right now. These disks will even play back on a reasonably fast Windows XP system with Windows Media 9 installed.

2.) These players will, as I understand it, output a high definition signal on the analog component outputs. This is great for two reasons: 1.) this is the most prevalent HD connection on the market, and 2.) it's NOT this HDMI with HDCP crap required by the HD DVD and (presumably) Blu Ray players, since very few installed HDTVs have the HDMI w/HDCP feature.

3.) It's based on existing DVD disc technology, so no new manufacturing technology is required, just updated authoring tools. Great for indie distribution as well - it's cheap to author and manufacture.

However, it's still Microsoft. As good as they are at getting their stuff accepted in the computer world, this is a different market for them. It's still deep-geek territory at the moment, and the number of titles is very limited. Hollywood is looking to HD DVD and Blu Ray to make HD movies mainstream, and it's only at Hollywood's firm requirement are the HD DVD and Blu Ray manufacturers putting HDMI with HDCP (Hardware Device Copy Protection) as the ONLY high definition output on the players. So I don't see Hollywood playing ball with these WM9 HD players, since the still leave open "the analog hole."

But this is basically taking newish (and quite nice) technology and shoving it onto an existing platform and business model. Incremental rather than revolutionary. Personally, I think it's a very nice option, but there's something I'd rather see...

Option 2: Vaporware from Apple - HD movies to your TV at home over the Internet

Apple is rumored to be working on an iVideo Store, a place to download video content. Right now, they are just dabbling and testing - you can purchase music videos for a buck or two. Some in the press are getting all excited about this, I see it as merely a test that Apple doesn't really care too much about the music video market. It's practice for downloadable content of a SERIOUS size.

Presently, we have audio...

OK, a little background: presently, Apple already has a wireless streaming audio device on the market, you just may not have realized it. The AirPort Express will allow you to stream audio wirelessly from your computer to your audio system. It's tiny, easily confusable with a laptop's power brick it is so small. Just plug into into a power jack within audio cabling reach of your stereo, and you're golden. So all of your iTunes content will play back through your living room stereo. The Airport Express has analog and even digital audio connectors on it. It's great, I have one. I can stream music from my 50,000 song library (I own a LOOOOOOOOOOOT of CDs I've ripped to my server) into my living room. Because I'm extra geeky, I can use my laptop as a remote control to access content on my server and play it back in the living room. Geeky, but expensive and awkward. Most folks could use a laptop to stream to it, or start it playing from the desktop in their bedroom/study/wherever. This has it's limitations - there's no simple remote, and if you have a desktop, you have to hike into the next room to change the song. Hassle.

The rumor sites have been mentioning for some months that Apple is preparing a remote control to solve this problem. Whether it works by infrared, Bluetooth, or Airport (802.11g for the techheads) doesn't really concern me at the moment - it's a Media Remote Control.

The Vapor (for today)

Now, scale this idea up to include video. If I had an Airport Express, and added an H.264 decoding chip (and they're out there in commercial quantities, believe me), and added some kind of HD video output (unprotected analog component and more likely protected/secure digital HDMI with HDCP), then I could stream movie content. Where would that movie content come from? The iVideo Store. (Too bad iMovie is already taken as a name, it'd make more sense). If you had broadband, I'm convinced DVD watchable content could be streamed over DSL or cable modem in real time (with a reasonable buffer) to your computer, then to this little box, and into your TV or AV receiver. Realtime streaming could help address security concerns of the studios. Or, download it and watch at your convenience. 24p HD content could be entirely watchable at around 6-8 megabits - not realtime streamable, but watchable after about 5-40 minutes of progressive download, depending on your connection's speed, the movie's bitrate, the length of the movie, blah blah blah.

Based on some very quick and dirty research, Apple could have this kind of a product out on the market for under $400. Actually, under $300 if they were aggressive (so drop it to that by Christmas kind of a thing).

Why would this be so cool?

Because we could skip the whole "Who's flavor of shiny plastic disk do I risk purchasing?" that I made evident in my last post

Instead of hoping it's released on the flavor of player that you have instead of the other, if Apple were as successful dealing with Hollywood as they were in dealing with the music industry, everybody'd be onboard.

So movies on demand, in high def, in a flavor that you could (hopefully, or at least optionally) store for repeated viewing on your own playback stuff, would be a cool thing.

And suddenly, you're not reliant on a $500-$1000 player, just to your small, transportable, playback widget.

And unlike the Home Theater PCs that Microsoft is advocating, you don't need a super fast PC to do all this, you just need a broadband Internet connected computer of SOME sort (obviously Macs only to start, Windows boxes to follow), not some $2000-$3000 monster box. So any reasonably semi-modern computer would do. And hey, a Mac mini would be just fine now that Bluetooth (think remote) and Aiport Extreme (think streaming audio/video) are standard features as of a week or two ago. That opens the market up TREMENDOUSLY. I don't have stats handy about the percentage of US households that have broadband, but I guarantee it is higher than the number of households with HDTVS, or with $1000 to spare on a high def DVD player of dubious future compatibility, or $2000 to $3000 to spend on a home theater PC.

Just buy this little box, not much more than DVD players were 4 or 5 years ago, and start downloading from anywhere with broadband. Watch it in your living room. Want a remote to control the computer in the other room? Fine, we can do that for you too. Control and play back your movies with it. And oh yeah! Play back all your audio with it, and your home movies, and watch slideshows of all your pictures...you get the idea.

I also think that Apple's move to Intel chips over the next couple of years is related to all this as well. Early complaints about IBM's inability to deliver a low power laptop capable G5 chip were followed a month after the Intel announcement by an IBM announcement of....a low power laptop capable G5 chip. So that wasn't the reason for the switch. (I'll skip the whole "Where will computer speed be in two years when the transfer to Intel is complete." speech, suffice it to say I hope Apple will be happy with Intel's chip speeds at that time.)

Intel has some hardware based security stuff that would allow for the kind of limiting control that Hollywood wants. Hollywood wants tight control over who can play their movies how often. If the music industry was tough about DRM, Hollywood is MUCH tougher. While CDs and DVDs aren't that different in cost these days (that's a whole other issue for me to bitch about), the production costs of the content and marketing are QUITE different for those two industries. But if Apple could give a reasonable guarantee that casual copying by consumers would be limited to a few authorized playback devices, perhaps they could get Hollywood to back off on their "digital output only for HD" requirements. (Nah, on second thought, probably not, the "analog hole" would still be open - but it's a fun dream.)

I have zero Special Knowledge or connections to Apple about any of this, just my own thoughts and reading Bob Cringely's columns for the last few months, and a few emails from some readers thinking similar thoughts.

If Apple is NOT developing this kind of technology (even though I think they are), then I think they sure as hell should be.

-mike

-pricing? Probably same or a little less than DVDs - think iTunes pricing a la CDs