Upcoming Trends in Rich Multimedia - TAPES & FILMS are BEYOND DEAD

If one looks back the oldest form of music recording that one can remember would be a Gramophone record. Today things look quite different. 'Digital Music' or 'Digit Format' is what they call it. Why Digital? Unlike tapes, records and magnetic media digital music is recorded in data format. i.e. patterns of '0's and '1's. Digital formats are crystal clear as distortion levels are minimal. Unlike traditional media it doesn't fade on excessive usage. Each copy of a digital format is as good as the original. The revolution is happening at both ends. While better and better digital compression techniques with quality retention are coming out every day, the storage space revolution is also on a speedy path. More over inexpensive broadcasting quality equipments have changed around production and distribution! The mediums of music, music videos, films, and television are being redefined on the internet by a new generation of technology-savvy media artists.

Currently a CD can hold 150 and a DVD (12 GB) can easy hold up to 4300 (240 Albums) quality rich MP3 songs. Div X the new Standard in Audio/Video compression can take a complete DVD movie (9 GB) and can compress it to be stored on 1 or 2 CDs (700-800 MB) and is on its way to mpeg 4 standardization. "This is hard to believe, it has grown all by itself!" - Div X creator Jerome Rota. Nine companies namely, Hitachi, LG, Matsushita, Pioneer, Philips, Samsung, Sharp, Sony and Thomson have developed a single 30 GB single sided layer disc called Blue- Ray. The technology incorporates a short wave length 405 nm blue violet laser to record, rewrite and play back data from the disc. The high fidelity discs can store up to two hours of digital high-definition video or 13 hours of TV quality video. The videos are recorded in the mpeg2 format and the audio can be recorded in AC3, mpeg1 layer 2 or any other format of your choice. Toshiba in fact has gone ahead and unveiled a next generation storage disc of 110 GB capacity based on the Blu-Ray disc technology. The new twin sided DVDs incorporate double layer construction that enables more data packaging onto the discs. The creators of Blu Ray are planning to manufacture devices that can take full use of the storage capacity of these discs by using multiple layers and both sides of this new DVD. This is just a glimpse of the revolution that's going on out there. Many companies like Hitachi, Sony are with Video camera, recording and playback units that can write audio, video directly to a DVD type media and fits in the hand!

What Word Processors did for writers two decades ago and what Image Editing software's are doing today for the Print Media-that's what the Digital Audio and Video are going to do to the music and broadcasting industries. Just like the power that was felt by writers - no more typos, grab a para from here and move it there, amateur moviemakers and professional dj’s will feel just the same - easy sound mixing , no negative cutting, special effects at low costs.

The main problem in this revolution is standardization. While everyone is working towards a common goal there is still a lot of un-coordinated redundant research that takes people in different direction. The music industry has been much better than the video industry in this respect from day one (since the magnetic/analog revolution). While Records and music tapes/cassettes were universal, Video standards varied in different Continents, VHS, PAL, Secam, Secam (B), NTSC. The main reason for this is that while music has no boundaries, the Videos and their rights are more regional. The same has happened in the Digital Revolution. The Digital Audio revolution has somehow been accepted and has acquired Standardization much faster than the Digital Video. In the music industry we have CD (Compact Discs) , MD (Mini Discs) and MP3 , mp2, WMA, wav formats accepted widely around the globe. On the Video Side we a mix of LD (Laser Disks), VCD( Video Compact Disks - mpeg-1) - Singapore, DVD ( Digital Video Discs)- North America each famous its own continent. Unlike CD's which became a universal music industry standard long time a ago DVDs (More famous in North America) seem to be now getting there for Video. Even in the movie theaters the Audio revolution has been a speedier one. With digital audio recording standards like Dolby, Dolby Digital, Ultra Stereo, DTS the sound is recorded in optical or digital media while the movies still run on 35 mm/70 mm reels. With more and more companies joining hands and sharing a common vision all this can and is becoming a thing of the past.

The "Digital Format" of Audio and Video is much more than just a digit version of ordinary analog (Tape/magnetic media). In overall sound and image quality, resolution, bit rate, sample rate, sharpness and color reproduction they far out perform older consumer and industrial formats. The applications of Digital Audio, Digital Video (DV) and the internet are limitless: Music/Music Video Management in Bars, Security Video Surveillance, Video Mixing, Video on Demand - Pay per View, eLearning. The results of all this is difficult to Quantify but what is clear is that the Audio and Visual Media are undergoing a dramatic revolution. This revolution is going to touch the entertainment industry, law firms and courts, TV and broadcasting industry, movies and theaters, consumers, corporate communications, Education and any and every industry that need to record or play any form of Music/ Video. THE FUTURE IS HERE its we who have to get ready for it.

"If you legally acquire music, you need to have the right to manage it on all other devices that you own." - Steve Jobs , accepting the Grammy award to Apple for outstanding Technical contribution to music industry and recording field."

Sajeel Khanna - Technology Head

Rems Entertainment. ED - Software that Manages Your Digital Format For you.