BPN 1686: Packaged bandwidth

Presentation of the audio CD by Mr Sinjou holding up a vinyl record and a CD (© J. Sinjou)
On August 17, 1982 the first audio CD, Visitors by Abba, was pressed at the Philips factory in Langenhagen (Germany). The invention of the CD marked a step for the music industry, but a larger step for the information industry. For the music industry, the introduction of the audio CD was a switch from analogue to digital and a quality step with superior sound quality, scratch-free durability and portability of the product. But the audio CD also meant innovation in the digital entertainment industry, which ultimately led to the launch of the DVD and Blu-ray successor. And along the way, people were  taught multimedia skills.

 

Philips CD player  (© Philips)

Philips and Sony were voluntary partners in the CD project. After the videodisc was rejected in favour of the VHS videotape by the consumer, the two consumer electronics manufacturers sat together with their engineers to design and specify a new optical audio disc. The initial storage capacity of the disc targeted a hour of audio content and a disc diameter of 115 mm. Eventually a span of 74 minutes was set, enough to listen to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. Regarding the size of the hole in the disk the engineers easily agreed: it would be as big as a Dutch dime coin. In 1980 the new standard of the CD was recorded in the Red Book.

Box cover (©  photograph Collection Jak Boumans, CD property of Collection Jak Boumans)

In the wake of the success of the optical audio disc Philips and Sony developed in 1984, a compact disk for data, the CD-ROM (Compact Disc - Read Only Memory). The disk had a storage capacity of 600Mb and became an attractive substitute for online. The CD-ROM was in fact packaged bandwidth on the one hand and a mega book on the other hand.

CD-ROM technology proved to be a temporary disruptive technology. In particular, the scientific online information viewed the phenomenon CD-ROM with the necessary suspicion. These services consisting of primarily textual information, especially ASCII databases, saw the optical disk as an attack on their services. Would online be for latest information and CD-ROM for less timely information?

Cover (©  photograph Collection Jak Boumans, CD property of Collection Jak Boumans)
But more happened between 1985 and 1997: multimedia was first introduced in 1988. Of course, there were already opportunities to bring graphic work, photographs and music online, but there were no standards and in many cases the capacity of the telephone line was very limited. The CD-ROM appeared to be the new carrier for a combined stream of text, image and sound. The CD-ROM just filled the lack of bandwidth. Thus, the CD-ROM played a key role in the introduction of multimedia and interactivity. Then in 1990, a multimedia standard for PCs (MPC) was adopted, making CD-ROM the carrier for a combined stream of text, image and sound.

This led to a technological format struggle within the data compact disc world. About the CD-ROM format the industry was quick to agree; in an unusually short time for standardization procedures an industry standard was created (High Sierra), followed by ISO standard 9660. But with the potential of multimedia consumer electronic manufacturers saw market opportunities for living room products. Most had little chance of survival.

Box cover (©  photograph Collection Jak Boumans, CD property of Collection Jak Boumans)

The greatest confusion in the multimedia formats was created by Philips. Philips started to develop the compact disc interactive (CD-I) as a format that was to bring living room entertainment such as movies, games and documentaries. Philips CD-i set up even a publishing company for consumer titles. At the same time Sony created the electronic book, consisting of an electronic reader and a mini-disc of 200Mb. But the interest worldwide was not great and by 1966 the product was off the market again, except for Japan.

 

A prototype DVD as movie carrier with The Netherlands, a movie by Bert Haanstra, 1996 (©  photograph Collection Jak Boumans, CD property of Collection Jak Boumans)

The CD-ROM, however, did not really disappear from view. The commercial CD-ROM products, text or multimedia did as the bandwidth did increase fast.  CD-ROM is still a carrier of software and personal archive material. The CD-i eventually became the forerunner of the Digital Video Disc (DVD). By 2000 CD media tapered off as online came back into full force with the introduction of the Internet for consumers. Interactive games, movies and music were distributed through internet.

 

 

 

BPN 1594: Digital entertainment market in the Netherlands improves

The Dutch entertainment association (NVPI) has published figures on the entertainment industry in the Netherlands. It concludes that consumption of music, television series, movies and games was higher than ever in 2011. However, as the average price for digital products is lower than those for physical CDs and DVDs, the total turnover was lower. Expectations for 2012 are positive, but the fight against piracy is still needed.

Music. Physical music products turned over 180.2 million euro, which is 10,3 per cent less than in 2011. Downloads scored 25 million euro. Downloads and streaming make up for 15 per cent of the total turnover of the music products sector; this is low in comparison to the US with 50 per cent and worldwide 32 per cent.

Audio-visual content. The physical market for products as movies and television series slowed down with 8 per cent. The slowdown can be blamed on the price lowering. However the digital market of video-on-demand is rising fast. In 2011 the turnover is estimated on 53 million euro, a rise from 2010, when the turnover was estimated to be 35 million euro.

Games en interactieve software. The turnover of games is estimated 28 million euro, which means a drop of 24 million euro in comparison to the year before. These games are sold through networks like Xbox Live, Playstation Network and PC portals like Steam. New is the sale of games for tablets, smartphones and social networks. No concrete figures of these are available. It is observed that these games are lower in price than the console games, but their consumption is larger.

NVPI expects that the turnover of digital distribution will increase, but will not be able to compensate the sales of the physical products.

Figures for 2011

Source: Dutch language press release by the NVPI on 23 February 2012

My museum of content related artefacts (23)

1978: Video discs

I have in my collection a few video discs. I never worked with them, but they have a special place in the collection. It is the beginning of the optical disc series of video discs, CD-ROM and DVD. But they were also part of a media carrier war between discs and video recording tapes. Besides the medium was intended for the consumer market, but ended up in a niche market.

The video disc was developed by MCA, a technology and amusement holding, in 1969. The disc was under development by several consumer electronics manufacturers. Within Philips Mr Klaas Compaan was involved in the development. By 1978 the disc was out of the laboratory and the first copy of the movie Jaws marketed. MCA had an extensive movie library and was ready to start the manufacturing of the amusement discs.

But at that time the video tape technology was also being developed. The video disc had sharp image, but the video tapes (JVC, Video2000 and Betamax) did not. But on the other hand video disc were only playable, while video tapes were payable and recordable. Besides the video discs were heavy and sluggish with 30 centimetre diameter. By 2000 the video disc, named laserdisc by that time, was taken off the market, mostly due to the heavy costs of marketing and the rise of the new DVD technology.

The discs I have are professional information discs. They are basically photograph albums with by-lines. The photographs could be retrieved and located through searching the texts of the by-lines. And the disc could be set in a loop for exhibitions.












I only have a few video discs in my collection. The one I like most is the Royal Dutch Library disc which contains 7000 illustrations, all from the mediaeval books in the possession of the Dutch Royal Library. Th disc is complete with a box and booklet. I have never seen the miniatures as I do not have a video disc player. But I saw fabulous illustrations on internet later on. They can be looked up with English language by-lines and classified with ICONCLASS.

I worked from 1970 till 1973 for the Great Spectum Encyclopaedia. This was a revolutionary encyclopaedia in as far as many illistrations and artwork were used. When the encyclopaedia was completed in 1979, the database held no less than 45.000 illustrations. They were put on a video disc for fast retrieval and rights matters. I have seen the system work in Paris during an exhibition in 1985.












The VNU New Media Group explored the opportunities of the video disc and got into contact with the company CAT. Together they developed an interactive medical disc with 30.000 slides for diagnosis and training. Some more medical videodiscs were produced by CAT and the VNU New Media Group, amongst others with the Erasmus University in Rotterdam. But the VNU New Media Group never got a convincing market share.

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Blog Posting Number: 832

Tags: digital heritage

Going back in time

Holiday in the Netherlands has started for some time now. But last night it was officially kicked off. It was Friday 13th of July and it will be 11 months on before another Friday will be on Friday. Reason enough for Arko van Brakel of the Nieuwe helden (New Heroes) to throw a party, complete with music. For the party he invited people he had worked with in the past, which makes up a nice group of internet experts.

Arko (see photograph) and I got to talk about I told him about my Bahrain trip and he was very interested, more than a casual listener. It turned out that Arko had been to Bahrain in 1995 to talk about internet. He would be completely surprised to find out that internet is now part of life, also in Bahrain. He should see all the government systems such as the electronic visa application and the hospital information system. But he has never been back in Bahrain since.

I had also taken my text iPOD iLiad along and showed it to him and other people. They were very impressed with the immaculate and beautiful screen. They toyed around with it and leaved through some books on the iLiad.

So the holiday can start. I will not be on holiday now. So I will continue this blog. Tomorrow I start with a mini-series on content artefacts from my museum. I will go back in time starting with the iLiad and going back to 1977, stopping to commemorate DVD, CD-ROM and CD-I, but also the three waves of electronic books, my first portable PC, the videotext executive terminal, but also the first PC software. I will end the series with the Apple IIe. Main focus will be on the content side and my personal recollections. So go with us back in time.

Blog Posting Number: 812

Tags: history

Toshiba sells movie and dvd division

The Japanese consumer electronics company Toshiba sells its movie and dvd division to the advertisement bureau Hakuhodo. No financial details have been published.

Toshiba will withdraw from the entertainment industry and focus on the manufacturing of consumer electronics, chips and nuclear technology. Last year Toshiba already ended its co-operation with the British music company EMI.

Toshiba follows the example of Philips. In 1996 this company did a strategic study into the future of the company. The company decided to withdraw from the entertainment industry as it was impossible to develop content devices which need for example DRM. As a consequence Philips sold off its music company and it’s CD-I publishing company. In 1998 the Canadian company Seagram acquired Philips music division Polygram. CEO Boonstra decided in 1996 to sell off the CD-I publishing company Philips Media to Infogrames.

The news item of Toshiba’s sale of its movie and dvd division did not get much attention in the press, but I think that it will have implications, especially for the dvd world. Toshiba has been the leader of the HD-DVD consortium, a promoter of one of the two second-generation DVD technologies.

It was not the first time that Toshiba pushed for a different DVD standard. When in the late nineties the CD-ROM technology had matured and the necessity to store movies on a DVD came up, Philips and Sony formed a consortium of technology and movie companies, while Toshiba brought also a consortium of software and movie companies together. Sony had an audio and video division just as Toshiba had. As interested party in the movie industry Toshiba had direct interests in developing an own standard, saving its subsidiaries license money. When the fight came to a head in 1998 IBM stepped in and Philips CEO Jan Timmer played the mediator role. After some head banging, the companies worked together towards one common standard.

But with the development of the second generation DVDs, the same division showed up again. Philips and Sony developed Blu-Ray on the basis of their pallet of licenses. Toshiba reeled in Microsoft for the development of HD-DVD. Now the companies let the people choose; and they do not choose yet.

But with the sale of the movie and dvd division, the immediate interest of Toshiba in the HD-DVD technology might be over, as there is no longer a world to win with HD-DVD technology and content. It could mean that Toshiba might loose its appetite to push the HD-DVD. It would not surprise me if in a few years time HD-DVD is a passed station.

Blog Posting Number : 731

Tags: CD-ROM, DVD, Blu-Ray, HD-DVDCD-ROM, DVD, Blu-Ray, HD-DVD