Category: virtual reality

The shake-and-bake state of the media landscape…

Increasingly, the means of digital content distribution are being revised, altered and shuffled. As this article reports, cable providers are facing reductions in subscribers, and the outlook is not good. So what does this indicate?

It seems that, with every passing day, there is another video platform, phone app, or HDMI plug-in device that promise to wean you off of the exorbitant cable fees that you pay every month. First, it was telecoms, then it was Netflix, Hulu and Amazon, then it was the Roku stick and Chromecast. We are seeing a rapid fragmentation of how we receive video content, and that bodes ill for the traditional distributors.

A few things have transpired recently that hammer this point home. AT&T acquiring DirecTV, ESPN being a drag on Disney stock, Netflix and others producing more original content, and Twitter getting into a content deal with the NBA. This doesn’t even take into consideration the growing popularity of live-streaming, altered-reality gaming, and real virtual reality. As old-timers like myself become less important to the subscriber bases of legacy providers, and advertisers scramble to reach the youth demographic, money and eyeballs will migrate to new means of content delivery.

This is just the end of the beginning, if that. Things are moving very fast in this segment of the media, and a new, transformational technology is likely just around the corner. For now, I’ll go back to my DirecTV and watch some reruns…

One look at the future of digital media… on the sports page!

Being an almost-native Los Angeleno, I have adopted the Los Angeles Clippers as my hometown NBA team (sorry, Lakers). But in this LA Times article from the sports section of the newspaper, I was genuinely surprised to read about their negotiations and plans for airing/streaming their games in upcoming seasons. Their contract with Fox Sports has come to an end, and the new landscape of mobile viewing, digital streaming, and augmented screens have made it potentially much more complicated than in days past.

You really should read the article closely for mention of these considerations, but here is an excerpt which exemplifies the nature of what is involved:

Another possibility would be video streaming the game and the analytical data individually. A third alternative would be integrating the data onto the screen as part of the game feed.

What is conspicuously absent is any mention of virtual reality, which in light of recent acquisitions and investments, lead me to believe will be coming sooner than most expect. And if Time Warner’s awful experience with exclusive deals for both the Dodgers and the Lakers is any indication, I would expect all parties to be very sensitive about unnecessarily restricting viewership.

Finally, the quote I found particularly intriguing is this:

The content for the streaming feed would be produced independent of Fox through a third party.

It’s been my opinion that it was just a matter of time before the professional sports leagues and their owners realized that their share of the advertising revenue would increase substantially if they could provide it without the aid of a middle man. With companies like Facebook and Twitter providing live streaming, the necessity of a Fox or Time Warner falls to the wayside. Granted, at this late stage before the start of the 2016-17 season, it probably doesn’t make sense, but it is most certainly on the horizon.

In fact, the bigger question is whether the leagues themselves, or the owners individually, will become the producers and distributors of games and data. This explains much of the recent stock woes of Disney, which owns ESPN. Stay tuned.

The latest on VR (Virtual Reality) – is it the next media platform?

Depending on how you define a media platform, some experts are calling the impending arrival of mass-scale virtual reality technology as its next incarnation. Having only cursory first-hand experience with it, I can only speculate how it will play out, but the chatter among the technophiles would certainly indicate that it will be very important and a potential game-changer.

With this in mind, I just saw a fantastic discussion about its promise and future on the Charlie Rose PBS show, which you can watch here.

What do you all think?

 

Is this the start of true VR content?

With the Oculus Rift now hitting shelves, and competing headsets either already here, or on the way, what is the future of virtual reality? Ever since seeing VR5 on Fox in the mid-1990s, and “The Lawnmower Man” with Jeff Fahey in 1992, I’ve longed for a story that matched the promise of virtual reality. And, according to AdAge, so are others out there.

You’ve probably seen the “Hardcore Henry” trailer recently, and I am fearful that this is the start of content specifically designed for virtual reality. In the same way that writing for video games differs from interactive television, which differs from sequential storytelling, there needs to be a compelling reason to see a story told via a special mechanism or appliance. I can’t tell you how often I was lured into 3-D movies with the red and blue glasses, only to be bored silly with the inane plots and exaggerated movements. Many of you will recall the “Choose Your Own Adventure” books, too, and they all point to the faddish nature of these efforts.

There is a lot of money invested, and at stake, in the next iteration of tech-based storytelling, and the first to crack that code will likely become very wealthy. But with the recent history of these kind of efforts, I will not hold my breath, because the many will try, but few will succeed – at least, for a while.