That is the challenge. Acceptable quality at lower costs will rise. Genius at acceptable costs will soar. Survival not of the fittest but the fit.

“But you can enhance talent and new ideas with automation.”

Kaching! This is The Deal: Automation cannot capture content. Rehosting is survival for those old stories. Wrappers are not owners. Otherwise, the artists get screwed.

Actually, the two are related in that both require knowledge engineering. KBE is used mostly for manufacturing and design, expert systems for the delivery of expertise, which is certainly related to what I’m talking about.

And I’m quite aware that AI has oversold and under-delivered. Like I said, without further brain analysis, since the brain is the only conceptual processing engine we know of, CP is unlikely to be resolved until we have more knowledge. But that is coming. But again, it’s irrelevant to what we’re talking about here in the short term. Knowledge engineering and computer-aided-engineering is more relevant.

Len: “There are two scarcities that you can’t automate out of the equation: talent and new ideas.”

How true. But you can enhance talent and new ideas with automation.

You can bottom feed a diet of old ideas and second rate performances but eventually you will be beaten by smart talent with business savvy.

The bottom of the market always finds a way to displace the top. It is a matter of persistence and survival. That is why smart money watches for the emergence of small art communities centered around a few very talented individuals. These will be the new “art dynasties”. The problem of the moment is the established power moguls believe they can buy these people for cheap and acquire all the rights to their products. To make that work in the face of savvy talent they have to create an atmosphere of desperation within that community.

That is the game the music moguls have played with bands for decades and it worked. The bands had to achieve three major selling albums and then renegotiate for the next release. Smart bands got good lawyers early and kept their nose to the production grindstone. That worked until the industry was able to create the hat acts typical of Nashville based on the A-list session players. Every decade at least one artist such as Garth Brooks will emerge who gets enough power to overturn that (can’t be replaced by a clone) but it is rare and it is fought. As a record producer told me once “We’ll never let the Beatles happen again.” He meant it.

Smart talent keeps the rights, keeps their lifestyle in line with their revenues, and jealousy guards access to and is careful to maintain their own social network apart from the powers that be. When the offers are finally right, they make the right deal. TCB, kids. TCB.

Artificial intelligence is the one field where technological advancement has always fallen well short of predictions. I’m not going to put any more energy into this pointless argument, we are never going to see eye to eye. I will point out that you are trying to apply the wrong branch of AI. The advancements you describe would fall under the domain of knowledge-based engineering (KBE), not expert systems.

“You probably believe nobody will ever solve the conceptual processing problem, too, right?”

Given that the “conceptual processing problem” is a Googlewhack with you hanging off of it, you might want to elaborate.

Your degree in computer science is completely worthless, then, since you have so little conception of what computer power we’re talking about. First of all, nobody is suggesting that the computer will “create art” – not yet, anyway. That requires conceptual processing which nobody has solved in the AI field – yet.

However, an artist will sufficient computer power and a database of components will be able to generate photo-realistic stuff far faster than one who does it by hand or using conventional computer art tools.

“Animators, modelers, matte painters, texture artists, shader programmers, lighting specialists, just to name a few.”

And every single one of them can be replaced by an expert system that knows how to do what they do, regardless of what you think. And that is what the sort of computer power I’m talking about can do.

“The answer will be never.”

Never is a very long time – and is always wrong as an answer to these sorts of questions.

You probably believe nobody will ever solve the conceptual processing problem, too, right? Wrong. It will require further brain analysis which nanotech will make possible. But in any case, that is irrelevant to what we’re talking about here.

We don’t need a true AI to do this stuff, even if we have the computer power to do a decent brain simulation in twenty years. All we need are decent expert systems with the relevant knowledge-bases and sufficient actual power to speed up the process so it’s cost effective.

Anybody who says this won’t be done is utterly wrong. The only question is the time table in play, and again, twenty years is very likely on track, and ten is possible, and thirty is a certainty.

Cuban: “bandwidth needs will expand to consume bandwidth availability. If the bandwidth is there and the marginal cost is zero, people will find ways to consume it. Which in turn creates congestion and impairs the ability to broadcast on the net even further.”

Uhm, what he’s ignoring is that broadcast IS what will be creating the congestion. That issue has been discussed repeatedly – there are solutions which nobody has tried yet, P2P being one of them.

He’s also babbling about WiFi signals? WTF? Who says anybody’s going to do this with current WiFi or even WiMax? Then he dismisses FTHM because some kid might stream something? He’s clueless about network design or about future bandwidth capabilities.

Then he says there’s no such thing as broadcast IP. Partially true – doesn’t mean it will stay that way once there’s money to be made.

People who think the world will look like it does now ten years from now are the ones who are delusional.

And NN is right – the US might not be the ones to lead this revolution. With the attitudes I see here, I’m fairly sure of that. I suspect the Asian countries will lead shortly. As the late Dr. Richard Smalley points out in one of his lectures, by 2010 – that’s next year – ninety percent of the physics graduates in the world will live and work in Asia.

Better learn to speak Japanese and Chinese, oh, wait, never mind, they all speak English.

From a European perspective the english speaking countries with Hollywood in the lead sets the tone and produces quality tv, there are no guarantees though that’s the way it’s going to be in the future, maybe Hollywood needs to learn how to work leaner and smarter in the post-network environment ? Low budget but high quality shows will always find a niche and be profitable even in the era of internet distributed tv.

@Josh, “There is still a need for watercooler chat, and you need many eyes on the same program to create that. Witness American Idol”, The watercooler have gone online and so have the tv shows

There is still a need for watercooler chat, and you need many eyes on the same program to create that. Witness American Idol

“Boris, I actually used BitPass, did you? It was hopelessly clunky to use, micropayments have to be seamless to use: it is that usability problem and only that problem that has delayed their usage.”

Indeed I did, around 2003 or 2004. I don’t recall its being “hopelessly clunky.” (I do recall that I lost something like 40 cents when they went belly-up.) The interface was just password based, no?

In retrospect, I don’t think it was any clunkier than PACER, which is still around. Of course, PACER delivers fairly specific content at what I would guess is at least a break-even price. BitPass seems to have delivered pennies to those who would settle for them.

~Lanie~

I have a degree in computer science, and work with computer artists on a daily basis, obviously you have very little knowledge of either field, so here is a very basic explanation.

Computers don’t make CGI, artists do, and no amount of computing power is going to get a computer to start producing art. By your reasoning, we can expect computers to start replacing writers. Writers are no more replaceable than artists and it takes a lot of artists to produce CGI.

To achieve more realistic images artists need to focus on smaller details, which increases the work load, thus increasing the cost of production.

In certain citations, CGI can be much cheaper than live action. Filming a battle scene with 10,000 extras is far more expensive than using a crowd simulation, but you are trying to generalize that into an across the board cost savings and it doesn’t work that way. The process for animating an epic battle is very different than the process of animating a fight between 2 warriors.

Have you ever sat through the credits of a a Pixar film? Look at all the roles that you need to fill: Animators, modelers, matte painters, texture artists, shader programmers, lighting specialists, just to name a few. Every one of those roles is critically important to creating realistic imagery, and no piece of software ever replace.

Don’t take my word for it, go ask some people in the animation industry when you will be able to “produce ANY EFFECT WHATSOEVER that is INDISTINGUISHABLE from real for next to no money?” The answer will be never.

with all due respect, you are delusional henry

im willing to bet you cant get the wifi signal in your house to carry 2 HDTV signals of 8mbs simultaneously. Thats not going to change in the next 5 years. But thats not the real problem.

In an IP environment that exists today and for the next 10 years, there is no such thing as broadcast. There is only unicast. So your concept #fails. It fails because of the expense from the source, particularly if you want to eliminate the intermediary. It fails at the last mile even in a fiber to the home environment because of the ability of any network node to introduce any bandwidth hogging application . You can thank network neutrality for this. So if some kid doesnt want you to watch the Lakers vs the Magic because he is a Mavs fan, he just plugs a streaming host on the network and pushes out 100mbs or more of hoise to his buddies, There goes that segment. And once people realize the power they have over the ability of everyone they know to watch TV, they will use it. Power corrupts, power over everyone around you watching tv corrupts absolutely.

Then there is the inhome network. Want to distribute those terrabytes of content you have access to around to all your HDTVs , in HD quality, good luck. In your world, someone is going to make a boatload of money pretending to be able to maintain 100mbs of continuous, dropout free video around your home. What are you going to use, ultra wideband or ?? and how many times are you going to have to change out the wireless technology in your house trying to make it all work ?

your newspaper comparison fails because of the bandwith and delivery costs first, and then the business issues second.

your concept fails because you ignore the fact that just as processor needs expanded to use processor availability on the PC, bandwidth needs will expand to consume bandwidth availability. If the bandwidth is there and the marginal cost is zero, people will find ways to consume it. Which in turn creates congestion and impairs the ability to broadcast on the net even further

finally, the disappearance of video distribution from the cable model could be the best thing to ever happen to the cable companies. Why ?

They make about 50 bucks to delivery you 20mbs downstream and maybe 2mbs upstream of broadband internet

On the tv side, they make about 60bucks to deliver multiple GIGABITS of video data to you. Not only is tv a bandwidth suck, but its a capital suck as well. Switch the network to 100pct IP and make it a 100pct broadband pipe and they make far more money than they do now.

That said, we will see far more sponsorship of programs. Probably not in “official” titles, but the press releases and interstitials will mention the sponsor, and the actors will do pre-filmed ad bits. It will be amusing when actors prefer to be cast as villains – because they won’t have to do the sponsor spots!

There will also be continued pricing stress on showrunners. As networks realize that 4.0s are the new major hits, per episode costs will be more of a factor than ratings for existing shows in deciding renewals. And expect the producer-only corps (Sony, sorta WB) to see additional pressure from networks as they try to financially shield themselves from flops (see the 6-episode Fall season orders ABC was trying to get).

Also, all this talk about “All content will move to the internet! Total freedom!” ignores that unlimited bandwidth is either becoming more expensive or flat out unavailable. Cable/Internet providers don’t have to worry about their cable revenues dying off, when they will simply deploy uglier access/bandwidth rates. People are completely missing that something like the 20GB/month “standard” plans that are developing only equate to, what, 3 or 4 weekly one hour HD shows? And $deity forbid if you want to download a movie or game on top of that.

I expect to see Congressional hearings on network pricing in a couple years. Probably summer of 2011/2012. Not that they will account to much, but they will encourage more communities to create their own “internet as utility” deployments.
And oh, the fun that will bring. Censorship, scheduling of inner-city vs. suburb vs. high-tech sectors of the city installation/upgrades, budget battles over upgrades vs. low-income programs, etc.

In any case, expecting shakeups over the content creators in 5-10 years? Sure. But expecting the distributors to fall apart (as opposed to reorganizing)? Not so fast….

a. the TV business were actually shrinking

b. the author hadn’t been barred from the securities industry for publishing fraudulent analysis

But it isn’t and he was.

This makes zero sense. When you can produce ANY EFFECT WHATSOEVER that is INDISTINGUISHABLE from real for next to no money, how is that going to raise the cost of production?

“CGI does allow the creation of scenes that would be prohibitively expensive in real life, but that is not the same thing as saving money.”

WTF?

Look, I’m not saying that just because you can cut costs via computer power that it automatically means people won’t spend the same money on SOMETHING ELSE – like star salaries or whatever. My point is that if there is less profit to be made due to free distribution, then the constraints on profitability will affect those efforts to JUST SPEND MONEY. Meanwhile, the same QUALITY can be produced by not spending money on real effects but rather on computer generated effects that are indistinguishable from real but are cost-effective given the lower profitability of the product.

I really can’t comprehend how people are so totally unimaginative – or ignorant on where computer power is going – that they can’t comprehend how twenty years from now, NOTHING is going to look like it does now with regard to what you can do.

And the notion that nobody will ever make any more media once it’s all free is such horse hockey that it’s embarrassing that people still bring up that canard. It’s never been true in human history and it will never be true, and even if it WERE to be true in the future, it wouldn’t change the FACT that this is what technology does to markets. It DESTROYS THEM – and creates NEW ones. This IS the relationship between technology and the market.

Forgetting that last is where everybody goes wrong when they claim there won’t be any more media content unless we lock down every bit.

In a few years someone will claim to “invent” flow after reading Raymond Williams, (Caldwell notes the last example of this in Production Culture) and the formula will look like this, new media + flow = profit. This would mean, perhaps a thousand channels a few more if a more reliable auto-programmer could be produced.

It is all about users and they need flow. Business journalism is fun, ethnographic field work on the uses of television isn’t, but reading it might prove extremely profitable.

Right now I’m rigging an older toughbook with XBMC Media Centre and that will drive a neighbors media collection and interface with his legacy stereo and TV, plus he connects into a video server thru wifi in the building, surfs using his touchpad on his couch hooked into his big ole panasonic projection tv, a franken HTPC if I ever seen one but it works great and didnt cost anything to rig up, the pc was going to be thrown out at his work instead it has a new life.

Uhm… Oh for the day when things aren’t television translated into internet. Instead we hear, “I’m information or entertainment. I’ll be translated into any format that gets me to the audience.” It certainly would fit into the single sponsor advertising format.

The late nights should be able to do this now. Interviews and commentary that is recorded and then edited for distribution. First broadcast the audio on radio as a teaser, then later on cable uncensored, on broadcast on television with edit, streamed on the networks sites, released again on a week end up date, released onto Youtube and the chat sites, and then finally packaged in a dvd. Some might think that this is over saturation but to me it’s simply formalizing of what the fans have already been doing.
I’m hoping to see Craig Ferguson’s show try this. His fans do this already.

One correction: Xena cost $1 million an episode to produce in 1995, and this is with production costs lowered for being filmed in New Zealand.

Right now my company is preparing for the future by looking to the past. During TV’s Golden Age, all shows were sponsored by a single advertiser. “Firestone Theatre” being one such example. This is what I believe is the future for video entertainment. My company will be rolling out four sponsored shows (three reality shows and one game show) and distributing them over YouTube.com (and clones) and peer-to-peer networks (which will be how we’ll distribute the HDTV-quality completely-uncensored versions of the shows). This based on what I laid out in a white paper I wrote in 2003 (http://miketurco.com/library/p2prev.pdf). If we get a good return on these shows (shown not with ratings [which have ALWAYS been just bs] but at the bottomline and bodies through front doors), we will expand the number of shows we will sponsor. Our competitors will quickly follow suit.

However, personally, I now don’t think the future of TV is reality shows but cartoons. The key is computer programs that produce them. This month, I have had an animation production house come and show what is the cutting edge of animation. It isn’t CGI of Pixar but how computer programs can make traditionally looking cartoons in a fraction of the time they used to make and at a fraction of the cost. One of the biggest advances is synthetic voices that sound like real voices and even the voices of famous people. No more voice actors. They had a very mind-blowing demonstration by a team of seven. They produced a ten-minute cartoon right before my eyes. How they did it wasn’t how cartoon are traditionally made but by how you would play Halo3 or World of Warcraft. The characters became alive right before your eyes. Two characters took me for a tour of the show they were pitching. They interacted with me … or rather the two typists did that were giving the characters their lines and the two other staffers that were acting out the lines. The other three handled the background, “props”, and such. No more armies of penny-a-day animators in India and China. In fact, they then showed how one person do could it all by himself. It was simply amazing. And the cost was microscopic! For what my company currently pays to make a half-minute ad, you could make a number of half-HOUR cartoon shows. It is all about cost vs benefit. They walked out with a contract to make a pilot.

Because I like this blog, I hope Robert and Bill don’t do an Ahab and tie themselves to TV network’s Moby Dick but follow where trends lead. The experiments that are currently being rolled out and the more that will be coming. I do not in any way think my company is the only advertiser that is experimenting. I know I’m not. And I know us advertisers are watching each other. We always have. If one of us hits on something good, we all jump on it and jump on it fast. And any method that shows how we can cut our costs while still getting the same or better results will be acted upon at once. No need for consensus. No need for a mandate from Daddy Obama. We’ll individually act. My company is still advertising on broadcast and cable TV networks … for now. If my experiments succeed, I will stop TV advertising with a stroke of the pen.

CGI does allow the creation of scenes that would be prohibitively expensive in real life, but that is not the same thing as saving money.

What they don’t get is that the day of the networks telling folks what they’ll like and what they won’t — well — I’m thinking the internet has been saying different.

9

There is no business plan than can support this vision of tomorrow – outside of productions that are pure propaganda for a religious or political unit. Micropayments and all this other talk isn’t going to cut it.

Ultimately this vision of tomorrow is nothing more than a view into an entertainment apocalypse. The only shows that will survive will be broadcasts from megachurches and Fox News.

“The key is micropayments, it’ll happen within 5-10 years of micropayments being deployed.”

Ah, Usenet and micropayments in one evening! So why did Bitpass (where one at least paid in advance) fail, again?

“There is a completely free system in place amongst the various torrent sites listing every show, movie and what ever from around the globe, and its basically free. I don’t see anything stopping it for the next 5-10 years either, it’s atleast 10 years old now, not torrents specifically but video sharing on usenet….”

Ah, Usenet. My local newsfeed went the way of the quagga last week, a victim of mismanagement and subsequent disuse. Farewell, NANAE, AFW, Monster Truck Neutopians.

I find it hard to imagine a worse platform for “video sharing,” though.