[Editor’s Note: This is a guest column by Marty Shindler. Shindler is an expert in film & TV production, studio operations, visual effects, post production, video game development and database software and resides in Los Angeles, CA.]
While the world of content creation and distribution is going through a major upheaval, it is the way we interact with it that will signify the most profound change in the coming years.
If the proposed Comcast — Time Warner Cable or the AT&T — DirecTV deals are approved or if what may occur between Sprint and T-Mobile moves forward, it will affect the way we access and store content in the cloud.
Voice and gesture technologies are going to continue to grow in their ease of use and reliability as the world moves closer and closer to a ubiquitous internet of things. Eyewear with built-in features that enable all manner of interactions with the world is on the horizon for broader consumer use.
It was not that long ago that the movie Minority Report presented images of moving content on the screen via hand gestures. And it is indelible in many of our minds that the images of HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey “talking” seemed to be a fantasy, which it was at the time.
Today, both of those technologies are commonplace in our smartphones and tablets, with young children swiping across the display screen to get to another page.
Voice recognition is playing a larger role in our device interface, too, with our ability to send commands verbally, whether to change the channel on the TV or to send a text message, a task that many of us can accomplish faster speaking than using our thumbs on the virtual keyboard. Similarly, the ability to decode from text to voice is becoming increasingly popular.
There are a lot of viable uses for the technology all across the media and entertainment industry. <<<Continued at iShindler.com>>>
As For The Shindler Perspective
It has been a busy few months since the post NAB newsletter.
Many concepts are timeless. Two of the articles that were written many years ago, Budgets, Not Just for Accountants and Understand Before You Sign have recently helped clients in their daily work. I hope you find them informative and helpful, too
The various companies with whom we have been involved through our many years of consulting across the industry as well as our prior management roles comprise the foundation our knowledge base. That knowledge base has been expanded by the many speaking engagements in which I have been involved that include executives from all segments of the industry and in some cases, in areas beyond those in which we have worked.
Of particular note as it relates to the subject of this newsletter was a panel that I moderated at the Society for Information Display (SID) conference known as Display Week. My panel, Eyetracking and Facial Recognition: Enabling Direct Interactivity was a part of the Touch Gesture Motion Market Focus conference. Executives on the panel were from Emotient, Fraunhofer Comedd, Meko, Microsoft, Tobii and Sensor Platforms. It was a very future thinking discussion.
As file sizes continue to grow and the number of end users increases, moving content through the Internet is often challenging. There are many opinions as to how the future of content transport will evolve and my Trekking to the Cloud panel at the Creative Storage Conference discussed them. ICYMI, the panel is available for streaming.
Also at the Creative Storage Conference, I hosted a keynote discussion with Steve Canepa, GM Global Media and Entertainment for IBM. Topics covered the gamut of the many points on the entertainment technology value chain that impact both IBM and the diverse group of attendees at #CStor14.
Two forthcoming panels at the Fall Digital Hollywood Conference on October 21, 2014 are in process.
The Future of TV: From Primetime to MultiPlatforms: Wall Street Analysts Meet Entertainment Executives at 7:45 AM that day.
At 10:45 AM will be Hollywood Strategies – The Multi-Platform Brand – Theatrical, Video, TV & Mobile – Multiple Screens are the Future – the 360 degree.
Follow my Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIN and Google+ posts as panelists are confirmed.
Trends in the Marketplace and Other
Trends – Monitoring trends is fundamental to those of us who are regularly involved in providing insight and analysis to our clients. The recent announcement by Netflix that it has stopped delivery of packaged discs on Saturdays is noteworthy. While discs are still a significant revenue factor for studios and others, it is on the decline.
We previously commented on Deluxe Laboratories closing their Hollywood Lab and noted Celluloid RIP. Indeed as we are preparing this newsletter for distribution, several studios, Disney, Paramount, Universal, Warner Bros. and The Weinstein Company have announced that at the behest of Christopher Nolan, J.J. Abrams and a few others, that they are supporting film in a special arrangement to keep the Kodak manufacturing plant open.
Comics reflect reality — Posts on social media on this topic continue to generate both comments and chuckles. This Argyle Sweater comic is a concept that we can all relate to.
And in keeping with the theme of this newsletter, the ways we develop, distribute and interface with content is a concept that stems from the dawn of time according to this Non-Sequitur.
