Before i pick up from where i stopped in the previous post , let me tell you about this incredible site called -' Paleofuture ', this site has ideas of future predicted by various 'experts' in previous century in 1920's , 30's , 40's etc of world 50 yrs henceforth . Needless to say most of the so called experts got it wrong. Which just proves nobody is qualified enough to make accurate predictions about the future . So i guess i can easily stick my neck out and make a prediction for future without much worry !
Why are we always visualizing all these home entertainment ideas with TV in the centre ?
So what i feel is when convergence arrives , TV will not survive . Internet revolution has touched us all and Computers have managed to integrate themselves into our lives and has managed to enter a huge number of homes and the growth in the coming years is expected to shoot up exponentially .
Now why will people continue to back TV as the central medium in a convergent era , its fairly obvious that the mantle will be passed onto Computer (with a wide LCD screen if u may ) DVD player/ set top box might become redundant
I guess its bound to happen sooner or later ... now ubiquitous television set will get replaced by its more powerful nerdy cousin which can not only display visual images but can also do processing and various other activities.
Already this is slowly happening around us , some of my friends no longer watch TV they download their favorite programs on laptop and watch at their convenience without any commercial breaks in between to bother them ! In last 2 years i have watched 5 TV series but i didn't watch any of them on TV. I had downloaded the episodes and had watched it on my laptop whenever i was free. A friend of mine recently told me he had set up his house with all electronic gadgets except TV which he felt was not needed at all if you have a broadband connection. Yes he sure misses the odd live sporting action , but then most of the other stuff can be viewed with internet , live online feed for sporting action also wont be so difficult i guess. Life without conventional TV doesn't seem all that difficult !
This is fairly easy prediction to make , one of the harbingers of this new wave is 'you tube' . the day wont be far when there is a channel on your tv/computer which allows you to search and watch videos you want - movies/ songs / concerts / college fests / video shot by a friend , or any random stuff ! Given the way reality shows dominate the programming in normal tv channels of today , going forward we would have more and more content featuring ordinary people , prepared by users , circulated among groups ... reality TV driven by us / featuring us .!
In short we might move from 'Broadcast' where channels create stuff they think people want to see and beam it to everyone , to an era of 'Multicast' , in which we move away from one size fits all idea of Television channels , idea would be to simultaneously make many things available and user is given much more power to choose what he/she wants to view.
Come to think of it the most popular videos could be the ones shot by people like you and me wont it be funny it were to be a song like "Television Ga Ga" or even a "Internet killed the Video star"
Friday, June 26, 2009
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Television ga ga !
Im a trivia lover and since childhood was an avid quizzer , so would start with a piece of trivia which is in a way relevant to this post -"Video Killed the radio star" was the first video to be aired in MTV in North America and it was about singer whose career was cut short by television.
This refers to the changes in Home entertainment industry in 1960's ... till about 50's radio was the medium and voice was everything , when TV arrived it changed the whole game .
But it was in early 80s that TV became popular in our country , Doordarshan ruled the roost in 80s . We watched what they deemed fit and whatever time they chose . Infact for a long time many activities in life revolved around the timings of our favorite programs on TV. For instance 8pm in the evening meant English news on DD national . Wednesday evenings had Chitrahaar and in late 80s every Sunday at 9:30 am all activities used to come to halt across the country as religious epics used to be beamed on Natl Television !
But thankfully in early 90s before cable era ushered in unimaginable variety for the viewer and spawned a whole new industry. Late 90s brought a flurry of news channels soon they were beaming news 24x7 , democracy received another major boost !
In a few years public started getting more and more involved with the content that was being provided , shows like KBC set the dice rolling as it required public participation over phone and later through sms. Inspite of having charismatic and popular icons from acting world as hosts these shows were hit because of the involvement of 'aam junta' and the vibes shared between the host and the participants who the viewers felt could have been one of them.
This gave away to more and more game shows/ reality shows involving public , but again very minuscule proportion of the population managed to make it on screen . Along with the popularity of TV in Indian middle class , other electronic gadgets also started making their entry. The one with the biggest impact was mobile phones and in no time most of middle class Indians had a phone in their hand.
Next masterstroke from TV was to draw these people to participate in the shows , instead of a celebrity judge deciding which contestant stays in the show / gets booted out , general public were given the chance. Suddenly the ordinary viewer who was enthralled by all that was happening in this wonderful box started feeling important , now he had the chance to decide and control the show.
We have slowly moved on to era of user centric content ( a la Web 2.0 if you will )
Last couple of years has seen a whole new industry called Digital home entertainment sweep into households. Now the Indian television viewer has lot more options as a famous movie star tells during a service provider's Ads , he can pause live action , attend those phone calls , can be nice to relatives , can entertain guests , need not tussle with wife over remote without feeling he will miss the match/ she will miss the serial . The digital set top box with hard disk solves all the problems.
The next revolution slated to hit homes is called IPTV , we will have what is called Triple play.
Let me pause here as the aim behind this post was to talk about change that is happening in home entertainment ; So whats gonna happen next ?
(to be contd in another post)
This refers to the changes in Home entertainment industry in 1960's ... till about 50's radio was the medium and voice was everything , when TV arrived it changed the whole game .
But it was in early 80s that TV became popular in our country , Doordarshan ruled the roost in 80s . We watched what they deemed fit and whatever time they chose . Infact for a long time many activities in life revolved around the timings of our favorite programs on TV. For instance 8pm in the evening meant English news on DD national . Wednesday evenings had Chitrahaar and in late 80s every Sunday at 9:30 am all activities used to come to halt across the country as religious epics used to be beamed on Natl Television !
But thankfully in early 90s before cable era ushered in unimaginable variety for the viewer and spawned a whole new industry. Late 90s brought a flurry of news channels soon they were beaming news 24x7 , democracy received another major boost !
In a few years public started getting more and more involved with the content that was being provided , shows like KBC set the dice rolling as it required public participation over phone and later through sms. Inspite of having charismatic and popular icons from acting world as hosts these shows were hit because of the involvement of 'aam junta' and the vibes shared between the host and the participants who the viewers felt could have been one of them.
This gave away to more and more game shows/ reality shows involving public , but again very minuscule proportion of the population managed to make it on screen . Along with the popularity of TV in Indian middle class , other electronic gadgets also started making their entry. The one with the biggest impact was mobile phones and in no time most of middle class Indians had a phone in their hand.
Next masterstroke from TV was to draw these people to participate in the shows , instead of a celebrity judge deciding which contestant stays in the show / gets booted out , general public were given the chance. Suddenly the ordinary viewer who was enthralled by all that was happening in this wonderful box started feeling important , now he had the chance to decide and control the show.
We have slowly moved on to era of user centric content ( a la Web 2.0 if you will )
Last couple of years has seen a whole new industry called Digital home entertainment sweep into households. Now the Indian television viewer has lot more options as a famous movie star tells during a service provider's Ads , he can pause live action , attend those phone calls , can be nice to relatives , can entertain guests , need not tussle with wife over remote without feeling he will miss the match/ she will miss the serial . The digital set top box with hard disk solves all the problems.
The next revolution slated to hit homes is called IPTV , we will have what is called Triple play.
Let me pause here as the aim behind this post was to talk about change that is happening in home entertainment ; So whats gonna happen next ?
(to be contd in another post)
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