Video Nirvana: So Close, Yet So Far Away

August 1st, 2008

I’ve had a dream of “digital video nirvana” for several years now.

• Digital video nirvana: Any movie or TV show you can think of, available on demand within minutes, on your television. For a small fee.

Digital music nirvana has existed for a few years now, via MP3s (or AAC) distributed over the internet. Pretty much any song you can think of, you can find online, listen to it, and purchase legitimately through several online retailers. This instant access combined with the iPod makes for a very awesome and immersive audio collection at anyone’s fingertips. Some complain about the quality and prefer CDs, but the “instant access” afforded by a huge music library trumps quality in my mind. Many of us have collected tens of gigabytes of music, and any song we don’t currently have, we can get in digital form, amazingly quick.

I basically want the same thing for video: movies and TV shows.

The dream is increasingly, technically feasable. Storage prices continue to plumment. Computers are totally capable of playing HD video, and ripping and compressing video to several formats is increasingly not time prohibitive. There are “media extender” solutions to get video from a computer to the television (Apple TV, Netflix Roku Box, PS3, XBOX). Broadband is available to the home, placing gigabyte-sized video files within reach. Then, there’s always the option of cable companies setting up huge video libraries and placing tons of content on demand. Eventually, I feel that conveneince and depth of content will trump piracy (for all but the most clinical digital cheapskates) as has largely happened with music.

Apple is trying with the Apple TV, but Netflix has suddenly appeared as a contender. They’ve already provided the wide-selection part of dream using DVDs as the distribution method. They’re removing that bottleneck with their “Watch Now” service and the Roku box hardware that hooks up directly to the television.

But while the technology has arrived, a huge bottleneck has formed in a predictable place — the pesky studios keeping a tight fist on their content. Both the Apple TV and Netflix box are very far from “any movie or TV show you can think of.” Using both puts me in the same situation as old-fashioned broadcast television — a small selection of content that I must choose something from. On-demand cable is equally sparse. That’s why TiVO still has its place.

I want to have a choice in my mind and have the content just be there.

Then there’s Blu-Ray, a cool technology that like TiVO, doesn’t have a place in my dream. Just as I eschew CDs in terms of music, Blu-Ray is YADF (yet another disc format) that is a barrier to “on demand.” Yet I’m sure the studios would prefer everyone adopt Blu-Ray.

So it seems my “digital video nirvana” won’t arrive anytime soon. The content rights holders — the studios — have a vested interest in holding back the goods for years to come. Here I am, with a dream in mind that is technically feasable, ready to pay for content, but old media is still playing the same game, providing Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine in a variety of cool formats while all the good stuff is locked up. Sigh.