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November/december 2008
CONTENT DELIVERY & STORAGE ASSOCIATION
Editor-in-Chief:
Storage Formats
[email protected]
+1-609-466-5448
20 SanDisk slotMusic: The Next Music Album Format
By Claudia Kienzle
Douglas Dixon
Art Director:
Michael E. Bevel
[email protected]
European Correspondent:
Elizabeth Toppin
Contributing Editors:
Thomas Arnold, Chuck Azar, Jim Bottoms,
Tom Coughlin, Dan Daley, Larry Jaffee,
Claudia Kienzle, Tom Moran, Bruce Nazarian
Contributors:
David English, Tim Gorman, James Wise
Advanced Blu-ray
30 Advanced Interactivity with BD-J: Independence Day
By Van Ling
38 Advanced Blu-ray Authoring for BD-Live
By Dan Daley
44 White Paper - The Other Format War
By 3rd I QC, Intellikey Labs, DIRECT QC
Digital Delivery
48 Digital Music Distribution
By Dan Daley
international Advertising Director:
Ellen Parker
[email protected]
+1-561-374-5959
Content Delivery & Storage Association
www.contentdeliveryandstorage.org
Suite 204, 182 Nassau Street
Princeton, NJ 08542-7500
Phone: +1-609-279-1700
Fax: +1-609-279-1999
General E-mail: [email protected]
President:
Charles Van Horn
[email protected]
Director of Communications:
Michael E. Bevel
[email protected]
Production
52 White Paper - Into the Blu: Process Optimization for Blu-ray
By dr.schwab Inspection Technology
columnists
6Media / Setting Music Free
By Dan Daley
10 Authoring / The Blu-ray Lockout
By Bruce Nazarian
12Digital / Ownership and Intellectual Property
By Tom Moran
16 Content / Riding Out the Storm
By Thomas K. Arnold
18 Analyst / The Demand for Flash
By David Miller
Director of Finance and operations:
Gail Muller
[email protected]
Director of Anti-Piracy
Compliance – worldwide:
Timothy Gorman
[email protected]
+1-301-941-0308
director – Anti-Piracy and Compliance
Programs – Americas:
Linda Dyson
[email protected]
Phone: +1-404-349-9600
director – Anti-Piracy and Compliance
Programs – europe/middle east/africa:
Peter Wallace
[email protected]
Phone: +44 (0) 7850 331033
director - Anti-Piracy and Compliance
Programs – Asia:
James S. Wise
[email protected]
Phone: +852-2290-9852
Entire contents copyright 2008 Content Delivery & Storage Association.
The CDSA logo is a trademark of the Content Delivery and Storage
Association (CDSA).
INSIDE CDSA
4 CDSA Board of Directors/Platinum Members
24 Anti-Piracy Certified Plants
54Plastic DVD Packaging Certification Program
On the Cover: SanDisk
slotMusic: The Next Music
Album Format
Daniel Schreiber, Senior Vice President and General Manager of the
audio/video business unit at
SanDisk, introduces the new
slotMusic format for selling
physical media for today’s portable
devices. Containing DRM-free
MP3 music in standard microSD
flash storage media, slotMusic
cards are playable on devices
including multimedia phones,
iPods and MP3 players, in-car
sound systems, and computers.
November/December 2008 - MEDIAWARE - 3
CONTENT DELIVERY & STORAGE ASSOCIATION
Executive committee
CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD
Frank Russomanno
President & Chief Executive Officer
IMATION CORPORATION
VICE PRESIDENT
Paul W. Scott
Executive Vice President
Sony DADC
EUROPEAN VICE PRESIDENT
Hans-Peter Huelskoetter
CEO
arvato digital services
Manufacturing EMEA
TREASURER
James N. Fiedler
Chairman & CEO
BENWOO, INC
CHAIRMEN EMERITUS
Bruce M. Allan
Scott N. Bartlett
Stan Bauer
Gordon W. Bricker
Samuel Burger
Alfred Markim
Richard F. O’Brion
John E. Povolny
Dave H. Rubenstein
Donald E. Rushin
Paul W. Scott
Louis P. Vaccarelli
Brian R. Wilson
Donald P. Winquist
LEGAL COUNSEL
Ronald D. Spencer, Counsel
CARTER, LEDYARD & MILBURN
Donna Murray
Director, Sales & Administration
CARTHUPLAS, INC.
Daniel Schreiber
Senior VP and General Manager
SANDISK CORPORATION
Morris Ballen
Chairman
DISC MAKERS
Tom Moran
Senior Director, Media and
Entertainment
WAM!NET, A DIVISION OF
SAVVIS COMPANY
Steve Gilbertson
President, No. America
KAMMANN MACHINES, INC.
Alex Wardell
Director of Sales
KYOTO AMERICA, INC.
Stephen Scherger
President, CSG Americas
MEADWESTVACO
Greg Burns
Market Manager - Media Packaging
MILLIKEN & COMPANY
Boudewijn van Dijk
General Manager Business Support
PHILIPS INTELLECTUAL
PROPERTY & STANDARDS
4 - MEDIAWARE - November/December 2008
Digital Media Technology PT
Bekasi, Jawa Barat, INDONESIA
Entertainment Distribution Company LLC
Blackburn, Lancashire, UNITED KINGDOM
Fishers, Indiana USA
Grover, North Carolina USA
Langenhagen, GERMANY
New York, New York USA
Reno, Nevada USA
Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania USA
Flash Cargo, Inc.
Jamaica, New York USA
IMS SpA (IMS Manufacturing SrL and IMS Logistics
SrL)
Caronno Pertusella (VA), ITALY
NEXPAK
Duluth, Georgia USA
BOARD MEMBERS
J. Bradford Springer
Chief Financial Officer
JVC AMERICA INC
arvato digital services Manufacturing EMEA
Gutersloh, GERMANY
JVC America, Inc.
Tuscaloosa, Alabama USA
PRESIDENT
Charles Van Horn
CDSA President
CONTENT DELIVERY & STORAGE
ASSOCIATION
Spencer Mott
Dir - International IP/IT Security
and Risk Management
ELECTRONIC ARTS LTD
The ADS Group
Plymouth, Minnesota USA
Louis P. Vaccarelli
Co-CEO
SHAPE MEDIA, LLC
Neil Brokenshire
President/CEO
SINGULUS TECHNOLOGIES AG
Gerhard Blum
Vice President Distribution
Services-Europe
SONY BMG MUSIC
ENTERTAINMENT INT’L, LTD
Brett Scott
Vice President
TEIJIN KASEI AMERICA, INC.
Rodney Jones
Executive Vice President - Operations
UNIVERSAL MUSIC GROUP
Shanghai Huade Photoelectron Science & Technology
Co., Ltd.
Shanghai, CHINA
Singulus Technologies, Inc.
Windsor, Connecticut USA
Sony DADC
Pitman, New Jersey USA
Terre Haute, Indiana USA
Sony DADC Austria AG
Anif, AUSTRIA
Sony DADC UK Ltd.
Southwater, West Sussex, UNITED KINGDOM
Summit CD Manufacture Pte.Ltd.
Singapore, SINGAPORE
Summit Technology Australia Pty. Ltd.
Silverwater, AUSTRALIA
Targray Technology International Inc.
Pointe-Claire, Quebec CANADA
Technicolor
Aachen, GERMANY
Alexandria, NSW, AUSTRALIA
Boulogne-Billancourt, FRANCE
Camarillo, California USA
Livonia, Michigan USA
Memphis, Tennessee USA
Mexicali, B.C. MEXICO
Mexico City, MEXICO
Mississauga, Ontario CANADA
Piaseczno, POLAND
Zapopan Jalisco,, MEXICO
WAM!NET, a division of Savvis Communications
Bloomington, Minnesota USA
up To
100% recycled
Le Parc Paumier 72600 La Fresnaye sur Chedouet -France / Tél. +33 - 02 43 31 12 62 / Fax. +33 - 02 43 97 52 95
Ms Maria Bissolotti - Sales Manager : [email protected] / Ms Catherine Garnier - Sales Assistant : catherine.garnier@ mip-packaging.biz
MEDIA
Setting
Music Free
There’s a lot of money to be
made in “free” music
Dan Daley has covered
the entertainment media
and related industries for
20 years. He also writes
for Wired, Fast Company,
the London Telegraph and
History Channel magazine.
He lives in New York and
Nashville.
We know all about the Long Tail,
but what about the Short Nose?
The front end, whether it belongs to a car or a consumer, is
the place where the first impact
generally takes place, where the
nature of the experience is determined. Western content companies have had mixed results with
their encounters with the digital
front end. Their obsession with
monitoring and monetizing every
pixel and audio sample has led to
a misplacement of priorities that
has hobbled the evolution of their
business models into fully digital
economics.
Take, for example the e-book, a decidedly
niche product at the moment, but one that
typifies the divide between what content
providers think is their primary mission (to
protect content, both before and after a
sale) and what knowledgeable consumers
actually are looking for (to access content
when and where they want it).
Copy Protection
Comments Benjamin Higginbotham,
director of new technology for the introspective geek site TechnologyEvangelist.
com, “How much money are these [content
distributors] losing in developing DRM that’s
6 - MEDIAWARE - November/December 2008
Michael Heller is Lawrence A. Wien Professor
of Real Estate Law at Columbia Law School
and author of The Gridlock Economy (Basic
Books).
cracked before it hits the streets, implementing the DRM, taking support calls on
DRM-based material, and lost sales because
users would not tolerate the DRM? Is it
really worth all the headaches to stop a few
pirates? Won’t the pirates find a way to steal
the content anyhow? Why not allow the
law-abiding consumer to do with the media
as they please? Now rather than protecting
assets, DRM seems to be pissing people off
while the content is still stolen. It appears to
me to be a lose-lose situation.”
Higginbotham is hardly alone in railing
that copy protection hinders commercial
progress, and the success of companies
like Apple (which is stripping
DRM from its music products
in stages) shows that the flaw
resides not in infinite flavors of
copy protection, but rather in the
increasingly irrelevant business
models it seeks to protect. That
suggests that the sooner new
attitudes towards content control
are implemented, the better.
The instinct to protect content
has become less organic and
increasingly institutional in the
digital era, from the ubiquitous
litigation that began against repli-
cators in the 1990s, and that has
since been extended to consumers via the RIAA, to seemingly
endless extensions of copyright
law that have the effect of limiting IP exploitation rather than
encouraging it. As author Michael
Heller has noted in his book The
Gridlock Economy, it took World
War I and Federal intervention
to get the dozens of holders of
aircraft patents from nearly 100
years ago to let loose enough of
them so there could actually be
an aircraft industry. The creation
of the same kind of patent pools
is what gave DVD its own astounding success.
The imperfect protection offered by anti-piracy technologies
– the notion that every lock can
be picked - is no reason to completely give up on them. Speed
bumps do work, and the implementation of anti-piracy technologies sends an important message. But Prohibition’s lesson
goes well beyond the whiskey:
Continued on page 8
November/December 2008 - MEDIAWARE - 7
Continued from page 7
Forbidding things that people
want will not stop people from
getting them, and when they
do get them, the losers in the
end are the entities that didn’t
want them to have it. The taxes
that government could have
collected on alcohol between
1920 and 1933 combined with
not having had to pay the costs
of enforcing the Volstead Act
could have offset some of the
effects of the Depression.
Going Free
Free music is no longer
economic samizdat -- a Google
search of the phrase turns up
over 127 million responses,
most of them likely completely
legitimate, from give-aways
8 - MEDIAWARE - November/December 2008
to library music for corporate
video productions.
Expect plenty
more hits of this
sort as various
“free” propositions
continue
to roll out.
Universal Music
Group’s Total
Music plan
would charge
the cell phone
makers and/or wireless services providers
a $5 fee (which is rolled into
the device), that would pay for
unlimited digital access to all of
the label’s music. What makes
this proposition different from
previous aggregation models
is that phone users get to keep
the music.
Taking it a step further, Nokia,
which sold 146 million phones
in 2007, launched its Comes
With Music program this year
and, acting as the aggregator,
has lined up both Universal and
Sony BMG for content. Nokia
is being coy about exact terms
– if the phone maker is indeed
paying $35 per phone sold as
the licensing fee for the service, it could give the music in-
dustry payments significantly in
excess of the $2.9 billion that
digital sales posted last year. In
September, Sony Ericsson followed up by expanding its new
music distribution scheme,
called PlayNow Arena, by making 1 million DRM-free tracks
available from Sony BMG,
Warner Music and EMI vaults.
Phone service provider Orange
also has one on the way.
It should be mentioned that
these schema are launching
outside the U.S., mostly in
Europe, where cellular service
comes without the contractual
restrictions common in the
U.S., making the phone itself
(and the services it’s a hub
for) the focus of all marketing
strategies. But Europe is also
a place that’s considerably less
obsessive about IP controls,
making it a better place to test
and assess how it will work.
And if it does, expect to see
these models over here shortly
– The Wall Street Journal
reports that Sony Ericsson
expects to have 5 million tracks
available when it rolls the service out globally in 2009.
Film, video and game executives will be watching closely to
see how all this “free” music
will work out.
AUTHORING
The Blu-ray Lockout
As with DVD, enabling independent producers can help
drive the growth of the BD market
The Thin Blu Line: Why police who can create advanced content?
by Chris Brown, vice president, DVDA , CEO, Metabeam
T
echnology providers for the entertainment
industry often refer to market “tiers” -- Tier 1 is
typically Hollywood; Tier 2 is outside Hollywood.
Tier 1 is smaller, but more influential. To be successful, you need to garner at least one Tier 1 customer,
because then you can attract Tier 2 customers. If
you’re lucky, then you make it to the broader market
of Tier 3: the pro-sumers, amateurs and wannabes. Or
so the theory goes.
10 - MEDIAWARE - November/December 2008
A decade ago, DVD toolmakers did pretty well by
this theory. Because the DVD format was friendly to
Tier 2, the market for selling tools grew quickly. The
industry was fresh and open, everybody was welcome
to join. Industry fellowship was tremendous, innovation exploded, and competition grew, which resulted
in a lot more consumer choice: Tier 2 now represents
about two-thirds of the DVD titles market. Bigger market, more players, lower prices.
So, how does Blu-ray compare?
Since the Blu-ray format launched, Tier 2 producers have been stuck in a holding pattern, waiting for
prices to drop low enough so they can join the party.
Both production costs and consumer prices have
remained high.
Producers seeking to innovate are disappointed
to learn that an expensive AACS license is required
in order to replicate, and advanced content capabili-
As President of the DVDA,
I share Chris’s concerns on
the implications of current
Blu-ray Disc format and
license issues.
DVDA has surveyed and
had conversations with
Bruce Nazarian,
“the Digital Guy,” is
many DVD Tier 2 and 3 propresident of the DVD
ducers, many of whom are
Association (DVDA).
corporate or industrial authors. Many of these have
yet to create or burn their first BD, for a variety
of reasons.
Over half have expressed their opinion that
the cost of AACS licensing is “fiscally impossible for us,” and many have voiced their dismay
at being “priced out” of BD publishing due to
the mandatory AACS licensing for BD. Some of
these producers had already produced HD DVD
titles with success, and with far less fuss and
bother.
As a DVD developer, I have been actively involved with a large number of Tier 2 producers,
and we have seen many Tier 2-produced titles
emerge as DVDA Excellence Award winners
over the years.
The impact of Tier 2 and 3 creativity on optical
disc development cannot be overlooked, and
should not be discouraged. Yet it seems both
ties such as BD-Live and persistent storage are only
accessible through expensive programming tools, or
through time-consuming hand-programming.
BD promises true high-quality, interactive imagery
with connected potential. The Web is finally poised to
arrive in the living room… but how will the industry
grow if only major media can participate? Can you
imagine what the World Wide Web would be if only
Hollywood created content for it?
are happening at this point in BD’s young life.
The DVD format received tremendous benefit
from the influx of creativity provided by Tier 2
and Tier 3 producers that took to DVD’s capabilities, and “open access” approach to content
protection. If you wanted DVDs with CSS, you
could have it, without flipping cartwheels.
A big concern about the current state of BD is
that by “pricing out” Tier 2 producers with unaffordable AACS license and participation fees,
the BD format will not receive the benefit of the
creativity that helped push DVD into the mainstream position it occupies today.
We’re not discounting the tremendous input
of Hollywood, but we’re also not overlooking
the “grass roots” acceptance of DVD from Tier
2 and 3 producers. We fear this acceptance may
not happen in time for the BD format to firmly
establish itself as a viable option to the migration to online distribution, and in some ways,
might actually be accelerating that migration!
We would encourage re-thinking the AACS
licensing schemes in a way that allows greater
participation by the many Tier 2 and 3 producers who are anxious to being their creativity to
the Blu-ray format.
Locking pirates out of the format is the longrange goal – but locking producers out of the
format is not the answer.
November/December 2008 - MEDIAWARE - 11
DIGITAL
Ownership and
Intellectual Property
Tom Moran is Senior
Director, Media and
Entertainment, at Savvis
Communications ... but
the views and opinions
expressed here are
solely his own.
Thoughts from the Austin
Game Developers Conference
With the phenomenonal
growth of the video
gaming market over the
last few years, many of
us have turned our attention to this area of the
business looking for new
opportunities. To that
end, and in the interests
of educating myself a
little more about the
gaming industry, I
recently attended the
Austin Game Developers
Conference, the smaller
of two events held every American science fiction author & futurist Bruce Sterling
keynoted the Austin Game Developers Conference 2008.
year that bring together
Photo courtesy of the Austin Game Developers Conference
game developers, publishers and of course the
are indeed fascinating, considering the
vendors who supply the
audience I’ll stay here in the real world for
tools of the trade -- because somebody has
now.
to pick up the tab for all those wonderful
Tex-Mex meals.
Intellectual Property
Relative to other conferences, the Austin
One of the issues that I have become
GDC is targeted at a particular subset of
increasingly curious about over the last
the gaming industry, as evidenced by the
couple of years is the evolving definition of
fact that even keynote addresses cover topintellectual property. The gaming industry
ics like “next generation audio for console
and other types of Internet based compagames”. However it was abundantly clear
nies struggle with the common challenges
after spending a few days in the heart of
of managing and protecting intellectual
game country that the gaming industry
property, while at the same time having to
offers valuable insight into the direction
deal with issues of identity. Virtual worlds
of the entertainment industry as a whole.
create very real liability issues and chalWhile next generation audio and fractal
lenges around managing the behavior of
shape shifting avatar-based virtual worlds
users who are by and large anonymous.
12 - MEDIAWARE - November/December 2008
Considering that the very attraction of many role
playing games is the escape from the rules and
mores of the real world, it is no wonder that many
in the gaming industry are now struggling with
how to preserve the appeal of this escapist experience while at the same time ensuring it is safe
for everyone.
More than one discussion at the GDC surrounding identity eventually morphed into a discussion
of both identity and intellectual property based on
the common thread of “ownership.” Consider for a
moment how even those of us who take precautions to protect ourselves from “identity theft”
are not protecting our identity so much as we are
protecting our assets -- In this case the asset is
our access to credit and the financial wherewithal
to go about our daily lives. Within virtual worlds
players are now accumulating real assets that
have value outside the virtual world in the sense
that they are bought and sold with more traditional currencies such as uhhhh ... money.
Using the more generally interesting but by
no means mainstream keynote address of science fiction writer and futurist Bruce Sterling as
inspiration, I can see in the not so distant future
a monumental challenge that could make putting
the Napster cat back in the bag seem as complex
as a game of Pong by comparison. The issue of
adjudicating ownership of digital assets first came
to my attention in a meaningful way when I heard
that a judge in the Far East had thrown out a case
against someone accused of illegal file sharing,
based on the principle that he could not determine the actual ownership of a digital file because
there was no means of establishing either a chain
of custody or some other judicially accepted proof
of ownership.
approach has not been universally accepted, and
more importantly, it only works in cases where
ownership of the content has been established
prior or can be easily established. While many
of us think of “intellectual property” in relatively
grand terms, we are in fact creating and dealing
with intellectual property every day, and while
it may be somewhat easier to protect the big
assets, it is everyday ideas, what I will call “common intellectual property” that is potentially going
to be difficult or even impossible to protect sufficiently for the near term.
As a real world example, I recently had a
conversation with the legal representative of a
Continued on page 14
Protecting Assets
While U.S. judges in file sharing cases have
established ownership based on the contents of
a file, e.g. the music or the video it contains, this
November/December 2008 - MEDIAWARE - 13
Continued from page 13
rather large publisher who was troubled by the
fact that some of their employees had been using
the “Google Docs” service to share pre-release
drafts of manuscripts. These particular employees
had neglected to read the license for Google docs,
which clearly suggested that the service was not
suitable for the sharing of such content, and left
this particular publisher on very shaky ground with
regards to protecting their intellectual property
from being available to the general public prior to
them actually “publishing” it. These professional
people were essentially giving away valuable rights
to their company’s assets without even knowing it.
While I am very much a believer that it is the
ability to execute an idea successfully that is far
more important than the idea itself, I find myself
feeling that we have 10/29/08
not done nearly
ADS_MediaWareAD.qxd
10:20 enough
AM Pageto1
1.800.759.0992
www.theadsgroupdifference.com
Studio 120 is a division of The ADS Group
protect the very foundation of the Western economy by failing to come up with a way to protect our
ideas. Without a common way of “fingerprinting”
a digital file available to us, every idea we share
in digital form, whether it be a word doc, a storyboard or an email, is essentially being given away
the moment we hit the send button. And while
many of our ideas are not really worth protecting,
I am willing to bet that most of us have and share
ideas that are worth protecting on a regular basis,
and do not give a second thought to them being
stolen.
Now that you have read this you can’t say you
weren’t warned. Someday that new screenplay,
ice cream flavor, or cure for a previously incurable
disease that you thought of might make someone
very rich -- and that someone might not be you...
STUDIO PRODUCTION | DVD AUTHORING | DESIGN & PREPRESS
DVD & CD GLASS MASTERING | DVD & CD REPLICATION
SILK-SCREEN & OFFSET PRINT | DVD-R & CD-R DUPLICATION
USB FLASH DRIVE DUPLICATION | PACKAGING & ASSEMBLY
FULFILLMENT & DISTRIBUTION
© 2008, The ADS Group
14 - MEDIAWARE - November/December 2008
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More Storage than a
Speeding Network at the
2009 Storage Visions Conference
By Tom Coughlin, Coughlin Associates
Don’t go to the 2009 CES until you know about the convergence
of technologies including digital storage that are revolutionizing
the creation of digital content, its distribution and consumer electronics. The pre-CES 2009 Storage Visions Conference (SV09)
brings together technologists, vendors, retailers and users to
explore the pod-, web-, life-casting consumer revolution.
Participants will learn how to capture, preserve, protect, and
search their lives on Digital Storage. Conference sessions
explore key infrastructure supporting the growth of richer media
experiences including storage technologies, privacy protection,
power creation and management, search and indexing technologies, home and mobile storage, next generation user needs and
business opportunities.
The 2009 Storage Visions Conference will have the usual Visionary Product and Service awards, but in addition there will be a
new media center challenge using high definition audio and video
content from HD Giants. Media centers and media servers
are poised to be a very high growth area as rights management
issues are resolved, and as the technology and software to support sharing content in the home is resolved. This challenge will
match major players in this developing market.
External storage demand is also growing as consumers accumulate ever greater libraries of digital content, especially user
generated photos and videos and expansion storage for DVRs.
Backing up data with external storage is another major trend and
one of the most significantly growing markets in the consumer
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exhibit area focusing on mobile and fixed external storage.
Conference Program
At SV09, keynote speakers from Panasonic and Warner Brothers
will explore digital storage developments in consumer electronics including Blu-ray optical technology and the developments in
display and entertainment technology will point the way to future
applications demanding ever increasing supplies of data storage.
Other speakers will include leading suppliers of storage and its
use including: NBC Universal, Seagate, STMicroelectronics,
Fujitsu, Silicon Image, iSuppli, IDC, Intel, Samsung, SanDisk,
Toshiba, Brocade Communications, Macrovision, HD Giants, Pinnacle Systems, Oxford Semiconductor, Pioneer Electronics and
Plasmon.
Returning again to the 2009 conference is the Young User Panel,
“I’m Your Future, Hear me Roar!” that will be composed of consumers in their late teens and early 20’s discussing how they use
devices, and what role digital storage will play in the products
that appeal to them. This was an extremely informative and well
received panel at the 2008 event.
Sessions will focus on digital storage for content creation,
editing, archiving and distribution as well as smart and secure
storage. There is a session with a panel of VARs and resellers discussing the trends and drivers for digital storage in
professional and consumer markets. Another session will
explore technologies enabling the next generation of rich
content consumer devices, as well as one on digital storage needs for social networking and remote access. The
expanding use and growing sophistication of metadata will
also be explored, including automated generation and use
of metadata to help organize and protect professional and
personal content.
With the rise of numerous flash memory storage options
the conference will explore all the different storage devices
and how each technology can be used most effectively. Optical storage developments will also be explored in an optical
storage session looking at the future of optical technology
and physical content distribution in general.
For more information on conference registration, hotel
reservations, and sponsorship and exhibit opportunities, visit
www.StorageVisions.com, call +1-408-871-8808, or email us
[email protected].
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Content
Riding Out
the Storm
Can home
entertainment
save the holiday
season?
Thomas K. Arnold is
publisher and editorial
director of Home Media
Magazine. He also is home
entertainment editor for
The Hollywood Reporter
and covers entertainment
for USA Today. He regularly
comments on entertainment for such broadcast
outlets as CNBC, CNN and
the G4 Network’s Attack of
the Show.
These are challenging times, not just for
the home entertainment industry but for
everyone. With the mortgage meltdown,
skyrocketing unemployment, and the Dow
an unpredictable roller-coaster, it’s beginning to look more and more as though we
are headed for a recession — if we’re not
already in one.
Three late-summer studio financial reports fingered home entertainment as saving the day. And yet DVD sales are flat, at
best, while Blu-ray Disc is taking off a little
slower than many had hoped.
So the mood in Hollywood these days
is to ride out the storm as long as it lasts,
with the expectation that better times are
ahead. Ultimately, the world will go Blu,
16 - MEDIAWARE - November/December 2008
and that will give packaged media another
five to 10 year ride.
But in the meantime, studio executives
can’t sit idly by and simply play the waiting
game. Keep in mind Hollywood’s dependence on home entertainment as its No. 1
revenue source — and, as recent financial
reports indicate, its savior in rocky economic times. Study after study has shown that
home entertainment is remarkably resilient
when the economy crashes; Buying a DVD
for $15, or renting one for $3, is a cheap
date in comparison to other entertainment
activities — including going out to the movies, where you’re going to be out quite a bit
of cash once you factor in the overpriced
popcorn and jumbo-size Jujubes.
Forward Thinking
So what’s Hollywood doing? Look for a flurry
of activity to lift home entertainment sales in
the weeks leading up to Christmas. You can see
it in the rash of ultra-ultra-ultra special editions
coming to market, like Warner’s recent How
the West Was Won package. You can see it in
the stampede to release high-profile titles on
Blu-ray, such as Paramount’s Godfather trilogy
and Disney’s animated classics. And you can
see it in the parade of big summer theatricals being rushed to home video, including
The Dark Knight, which Warner is releasing
right before Christmas — in part, sources
say, to prop up the studio’s bottom line for
the calendar year.
Then you can see stepped-up marketing
efforts such as Sony Pictures’ Emmy tie-in
for TV DVD collections, and a studio-wide
Blu-ray awareness campaign that should
be starting right about now, just in time for
the holiday rush.
The home entertainment industry also
is doing an unprecedented amount of
forward thinking, experimenting with new
technologies in the hopes that something,
anything, will stick. Studios are adding digital copies of movies to DVDs and Blu-ray
Discs in the hopes of beating the Internet
at its own digital-downloading game. We’re
also seeing all sorts of out-of-the-box
interactive features, such as video messaging and live on-screen chats, through the
Web-enabled BD-Live technology. And the
record companies, after suffering several
years of steadily declining CD sales, are
toying with putting albums on media cards
in the hopes of pumping up packaged media sales, at least for the short term.
If history is any indication, we as an industry
will ride out this storm with only a few bumps
and minor bruises, and then once again enjoy
sunny days ahead — at least for a while. But
that’s just the way this business is. And if you
start to feel sorry for yourself, just think how
better off you are than, say, the folks at GM,
who are trying to figure out what do with all
those Hummers!
Courtesy Warner Home Video
November/December 2008 - MEDIAWARE - 17
Analyst
The Demand for Flash
Flash memory storage
is accelerating
I
n both the consumer and professional
fields the demand for storage space
continues to skyrocket, with the three
key competing formats -- removable optical, flash memory, and hard disk -- battling it out on an ever-expanding landscape that continues to demand larger
and larger storage capacities.
At Futuresource Consulting, David Millar is an expert on the global storage
media market. His projects
also have included professional broadcast, optical
and magnetic storage
media, electronic distribution of entertainment, and
digital imaging.
In the consumer arena, traditional
optical media solutions such as CD
and standard definition DVD are becoming unsuitable for high volume
storage requirements, as capacities
fall short of the demands of many
users. Consumers’ changing attitudes to physical content also mean that
less removable optical media is needed in
order to share or store content. We’re also
seeing a continued migration from optical
disc to hard disk devices via PVRs, feature-laden set top boxes, personal media
players, and Media Centre PCs, with DVD
recording becoming a more peripheral
activity.
Looking to North America, like elsewhere, the recordable optical media
market has reached its peak, with annual
shipments estimated to hit just over 2.8
billion discs in 2008, a decline of nearly 15
percent compared with last year. Within
this total, the Mexican market is still
showing some signs of growth.
Increased competition from alternative storage devices, such as HDD and
Flash memory, remain a key contributor
to declining volumes in the optical media
sector. This is having an impact on the
professional sector as well as the con-
18 - MEDIAWARE - November/December 2008
SanDisk Cruzer Gator USB Flash Drives
sumer arena, as it is no longer critical for
professional end-users to receive content
on optical media. For example, the music
and movie companies are sending out far
fewer discs for promotional purposes and
are increasingly pushing more data filebased promotions, a trend we expect to
see increase as we move forward.
Despite the installed base of recordable
hardware continuing to increase steadily
- with many households having access to
more than one optical disc recorder - this
won’t stimulate demand for blank optical
media.
Flash Growth
Instead, the Flash memory card is one
of the fastest growing consumer storage
products of all time, with aftermarket sales
expected to reach over 100 million units
this year in Europe alone, representing
growth of over 20 percent from 2007.
Demand for Flash memory is being
driven by a widening range of suitable
applications including
photos, music, movies,
gaming, and sat nav,
as well as the storage
of data. The success of
Flash memory comes
not only from the applications themselves,
but also the way the
cards and USB drives
can be used to store
and move content from
one hardware device
to another. Regardless
of the primary storage
format used within
a particular device,
the USB port is now
becoming a ubiquitous
feature within the CE hardware universe.
The increasing demand for Flash is also driven
by the sharp price declines seen over the last year,
which is prompting many users to buy more than
one card per hardware device. Typically, in any given
territory, the previous year’s average 1 GB price
will become the average 2 GB price for this year.
Although with accelerated price declines this year,
Futuresource expects 2 GB cards to drop slightly
below this level by year end.
However, looking at the market as a whole, the
total average trade price is not falling as fast as the
price for individual capacities, and this is because
we’re seeing the lion’s share of the market being
taken by high-end cards.
In particular, sales of premium-priced cards for
video applications are growing, with the format proving attractive for both consumer and professional
applications alike. The card’s ruggedness – particu-
larly desirable in the field of electronic news gathering – and the fast transfer rates of material to digital
editing systems, is moving Flash memory to the
forefront of this market segment.
In addition, USB Flash ‘sticks’ have become the
‘sneakernet’ weapon of choice for transferring data
between computers. Additionally, their larger form
factor, when compared with SD cards and the like,
means that the primary constraint on capacity is the
cost of the memory.
Though the battle between hard disk, optical disc,
and tape has run for decades, Flash memory continues to emerge as a worthy contender. Initially
capacities were low and cost per megabyte was
very high, pricing it out of the marketplace, but this
has most definitely changed. In the brave new world
of Flash memory, price points have dropped to a
level that allows PC manufacturers to offer products
with hybrid Flash/hard disc drives and, increasingly,
Flash-only drives.
November/December 2008 - MEDIAWARE - 19
Storage formats
slotMusic: The Next
Music Album Format
SanDisk introduces music on a
flash card for portable players
By Claudia Kienzle
T
Claudia Kienzle is a
professional freelance
writer who has been
covering the digital
media market since
1988, including film,
video, broadcast,
multimedia, and the
Internet.
he need is clear: consumers want their media on
demand, and they want it
to go. No longer wanting to be
tethered to a playback device,
music aficionados have taken to
portable media devices, including
Apple iPods, MP3 players, and
multimedia-enabled cell phones.
Recently, Apple announced
that music fans have purchased
and downloaded over five billion
songs from the iTunes Store,
making iTunes the number one
music retailer in the U.S. The
iTunes music catalog now offers
Daniel Schreiber with the SanDisk slotMusic
over eight million songs, as well
card and Sansa slotMusic Player
as over 50,000 movies for sale
or rent.
too big to be popped into today’s compact
Yet as music downloads — both legal
playback devices like MP3 players or moand illegal — have grown in popularity,
bile phones.
music sales on CD have been sinking year
But there may be life yet in physical
after year. While music CDs have had an
media -- SanDisk Corporation of Milpitas,
impressive 30-year run, the optical disc
California is betting that there is still market
format is quickly being relegated to the
demand for music distributed through
sidelines by the burgeoning digital media
big-box retail channels, but preloaded onto
revolution. After all, optical discs just are
smaller media.
20 - MEDIAWARE - November/December 2008
Introducing slotMusic
Setting its sights on the mobile entertainment market, SanDisk launched
its new slotMusic product in October that combines the appeal of listening
to digital music files on a portable device with the convenience of buying
pre-packaged music on physical media. The idea is to distribute music albums
in DRM-free MP3 format on slotMusic microSD cards, which then can be
played back on mobile phones, iPods, MP3 players, and other devices that
have a microSD slot -- as well as on the new SanDisk Sansa slotMusic Player.
“There are hundreds of millions of mobile phones already on the market
that can play slotMusic cards,” says Daniel Schreiber, senior vice president
and general manager of the audio/video business unit at SanDisk. “Consumers already have the players, and the ability to play this media, so the technology to support this new business model is already in the hands of consumers. They don’t need to adopt any new technology to make this work.”
(Schreiber also recently became the SanDisk representative to
the Content Delivery and Storage Association).
This assessment was reinforced by market analyst Danielle Levitas, vice president, consumer, broadband, and new
media for IDC: “This year, more than 1.2 billion mobile
phones will ship globally, outstripping portable
media players by an order of magnitude—and this
trend is accelerating.”
The slotMusic cards will be sold as a preloaded
music “album,” with roughly a dozen MP3 tracks
performed by top recording artists -- in much the
same way that music has been distributed on
CDs. With 1 GB of storage capacity, slotMusic
cards also can hold liner notes, album art, videos, and other creative content.
The suggested retail price is
$14.99, comparable to a music
CD.
Recognizing a global marketing opportunity, SanDisk
joined forces with the four
largest music companies to
Continued on page 16
’Consumers will be able to
walk into a Wal-Mart or Best
Buy, spot an artist or song
they like, buy the slotMusic
album, open the package,
and plug the card into their
phones. And, before they
leave the store, they can be
enjoying the music.’
Daniel Schreiber
SanDisk
SanDisk Sansa
slotMusic Player
with slotMusic card
November/December 2008 - MEDIAWARE - 21
Storage formats
Continued from page 15
launch the slotMusic format: EMI Music,
Sony BMG Music, Universal Music, and
Warner Music.
The first wave of slotMusic releases,
due in stores in the U.S. by the holidays,
has more than 40 albums from artists including Coldplay, Katy Perry, Leona Lewis,
Rihanna, Daughtry, Kelly Clarkson, Toby
Keith, Tim McGraw, Usher, Nelly, Connie Talbot, Sugarland, Weezer and Young
Jeezy. SanDisk also has created personalized, branded slotMusic players for popular artists such as ABBA and Robin Thicke.
Innovation in a Flash
As the inventor and leading supplier of
Flash storage cards and drives, SanDisk’s
Flash storage technology serves as the
platform enabling slotMusic. slotMusic
is based upon microSD cards—a compact, solid state Flash storage card that
was originally developed by SanDisk and
has become a widely adopted
industry standard.
As a result, slotMusic cards can be
enjoyed in a
wide variety
of playback
devices with
microSD slot
-- just plug
and play in most
microSD-enabled
multimedia phones, MP3
players, and a growing number
of in-car sound systems. slotMusic
cards are also packaged with a tiny USB
adapter so they can be read and played on
virtually all computers, including Windows,
Macintosh, and Linux.
22 - MEDIAWARE - November/December 2008
The music pre-loaded onto the microSD
cards is encoded DRM-free in MP3, at
up to 320 kbps, offering a high-fidelity
music experience. “There’s no DRM on
slotMusic,” says Schreiber. “Consumers
have paid for the songs; they own them;
and frankly they’re not the problem. It’s
the people who are downloading content
illegally that are the problem, and that
will happen whether or not you sell the
cards with DRM.” He adds that CDs have
never sold with DRM, and if people were
determined to rip them, and put songs on
the Internet, they’ve always been able to
do that.
Since the tracks are DRM-free, consumers also can move their favorite songs
from the slotMusic card to other portable
devices that have a microSD slot, or to a
computer. And since the slotMusic card is
a standard microSD flash device, consumers can load their own content onto
the slotMusic cards to create their own
personalized plug-and-play media library.
So, in a way, the format is a hybrid of the
pre-packaged and digital downloading
paradigms.
In addition, SanDisk has introduced the
small and inexpensive Sansa slotMusic
Player for $19.99, expressly designed to
play slotMusic card albums or a self-loaded microSD card full of music — without
any need for a PC, Internet connection, or
computer skills. At a little over 2 ounces,
the slotMusic Player has no display and no
separate built-in memory.
A New Music Paradigm
This holiday season, consumers will
see slotMusic products on the shelves at
Best Buy and Wal-Mart, as well as at their
respective online outlets.
slotMusic cards then are
expected to be available
in Europe in 2009.
“Consumers will be
able to walk into a Walmart or Best Buy, spot an
artist or song they like,
buy the slotMusic album, open the package, and plug the card into their phones,”
says Schreiber. “And, before they leave the
store, they can be enjoying the music.”
“This is a completely different experience from the iPod paradigm,” he says.
“To do digital downloads, the consumer
must buy an iPod, install special software,
have a broadband connection [ideally],
and a credit card handy to buy the songs.
If they’re comfortable using all of those
elements, then they can tap into that ecosystem. But for many people, some or all
of those elements may be unavailable, or
they may not want to engage in the timeand labor-intensive process of computer
downloads every time they want to put a
song on their players.”
Schreiber adds that there still are consumers that want to browse, own, collect,
and gift music on physical media, and this
miniaturized storage fits well with today’s
digital media lifestyle.
The slotMusic format is not intended to
supplant digital downloads from sources
like iTunes. “This just gives consumers a
new choice,” says Schreiber. “slotMusic
and digital music downloads will co-exist,
and they’ll satisfy two different needs.
Some consumers will want the creative
control of digital music downloads, while
others will want the immediate gratification and convenience of buying music
that’s pre-packaged on
physical media—and in
some cases these markets
will overlap.”
“With slotMusic, the
consumer cedes control
over the music choices,
but gains the simplicity and
immediacy of plug-n-play media,” he says.
“Rather than compiling single songs by a
variety of artists onto one player, slotMusic will feature a collection of songs on a
single card, largely from a single recording
artist-- to promote ‘album’ sales.”
Schreiber points out that the use of
flash storage has been happening at the
grassroots level for some time, but now
the entire music industry is embracing
the technology. Bands can market their
own music using flash drives, for example through MusicFlashDrives.com, an
independent website (not connected to
SanDisk) for musicians to promote and
distribute their music using branded flash
drives, complete with customized designs
and logos.
He adds that Disney also has been selling movies for kids on flash cards, since
the cost per gigabyte has been falling to
the point where it’s now a very cost-efficient and attractive distribution option.
With slotMusic, says Schreiber, “For the
first time in decades, the entire music industry is standing up behind a single new
format, and each of the four major music
labels and the physical music retailers—
Best Buy and Wal-Mart—have come out
in support of this. It’s a pretty big deal to
see such a unanimous vote of confidence
in a single new format—the microSD card,
and yes, slotMusic.” 
November/December 2008 - MEDIAWARE - 23
The Content Delivery & Storage Association (CDSA) and its worldwide AntiPiracy and Compliance Programs reduce the risk of intellectual property
being pirated, stolen or produced without authorization. Supply chain
sites providing post production, manufacturing, and physical and digital
distribution services are certified by ISO-accredited auditors to ensure
compliance with rigorous APCP content protection and security standards.
Your content is in safe hands when you use a CDSA-certified site.
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
• Timothy J. Gorman, Director of Anti-Piracy Compliance Program - Worldwide
[email protected]
• Peter Wallace, Director of Anti-Piracy Compliance Program - Europe/Middle East/Africa
[email protected]
• James S. Wise, Director - Director of Anti-Piracy Compliance Program - Asia
[email protected]
w w w. c o n t e n t d e l i v e r y a n d s t o r a g e . o r g
The CDSA Anti-Piracy Certification/Compliance Programs are supported by the following worldwide agencies:
• International Federation Of The Phonographic Industry (IFPI) • Business Software Alliance (BSA) • Digital Software Association
(DSA) • Entertainment Software Assoc. (ESA) • Software & Information Industry Assoc. (SIIA) • International Video Federation (IVF)
• Motion Picture Association (MPA) • Bureau International des Sociétés Gérant les Droits d’Enregistrement et de
Reproduction Mécanique (BIEM) • Bescherming Rechten Entertainment Industrie Nederland (BREIN)
We're proud to
protect your content
Copyright and Licensing Verification Certified Sites
Africa
South Africa
COMPACT DISC TECHNOLOGIES, Midrand
Asia/Pacific
Australia
ARVATO DIGITAL SERVICES PTY LTD, Chester Hill, NSW
www.arvatodigitalservices.com
SONY DADC AUSTRALIA PTY LTD, Huntingwood, NSW www.sonydadc.com
SUMMIT TECHNOLOGY AUSTRALIA PTY LTD, Silverwater, NSW
www.summittechnology.com.au
TECHNICOLOR PTY LTD, Alexandria www.technicolor.com.au
TECHNICOLOR PTY LTD, Braeside, Vic www.technicolor.com.au
China
SHANGHAI EPIC MUSIC MANUFACTURING OPERATIONS/SONY DADC CHINA CO
LTD, Shanghai
SHANGHAI HUADE PHOTOELECTRON SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY CO LTD, Shanghai
Hong Kong
ARVATO DIGITAL SERVICES LTD, Tai Po www.arvatodigitalservices.com.hk
SONY DADC HONG KONG LTD, Tuen Mun www.sonydadc.com
India
SONY DADC INDIA PVT LTD, Mumbai www.sonydadc.com
Indonesia
DIGITAL MEDIA TECHNOLOGY PT, Bekasi www.dmtech.web.id
PT. TAKDIR JAYA ABADI, Tangerang
Malaysia
GSB SUMMIT CD (M) SDN BHD, Kuala Lumpur www.gsbsummit.com.my
Singapore
ARVATO DIGITAL SERVICES PTE LTD, Woodlands www.arvatodigitalservices.com
SUMMIT CD MANUFACTURE PTE LTD, Singapore www.smsummit.com.sg
Taiwan
INFODISC TECHNOLOGY CO., LTD, Taipei www.infodisc.com
U-TECH MEDIA CORPORATION, Tao-Yuan Shien www.utechmedia.com.tw
Europe
Austria
KDG MEDIATECH AG, Elbigenalp www.kdg-mt.com
SONY DADC AUSTRIA AG, Anif www.sonydadc.com
Belgium
VOGUE TRADING VIDEO NV, Kuurne www.vtv.biz
Czech Republic
GZ DIGITAL MEDIA, Lodenice www.gzcdm.com
France
CINRAM OPTICAL DISC S.A./CINRAM FRANCE, Louviers www.cinram.com
CINRAM OUEST S.A., Gallion www.cinram.com
MPO FRANCE, Averton www.mpo.fr
Germany
ARVATO DIGITAL SERVICES MANUFACTURING EMEA, Gütersloh
www.arvatodigitalservices.com
CINRAM GmbH, Alsdorf www.cinram.de
ELSÄSSER GLASSMASTER GMBH, Horb an Neckar www.elsaesser.com
ENTERTAINMENT DISTRIBUTION COMPANY, Hannover www.edc-gmbh.com
INFODISC TECHNOLOGY GMBH, Renchen www.infodisc-gmbh.de
OPTIMAL MEDIA PRODUCTION GMBH, Röbel www.optimal-online.de
Italy
IMS MANUFACTURING SRL, ITALY, Caronno Pertusella (VA) www.imsgroup.it
Netherlands
docdata media b.v., Tilburg www.docdatamedia.com
Poland
TAKT Sp. z o.o., Boleslaw www.takt.eu
Russia
REPLIMASTER, Moscow www.dvdpro.ru
Spain
ARVATO DIGITAL SERVICES, Madrid www.arvatodigitalservices.com
Sweden
DICENTIA SWEDEN AB, Kista www.dicentia.se
United Kingdom
CINRAM UK LTD, Ipswich www.cinram.com
EDC BLACKBURN, Blackburn, Lancashire www.edc-blackburn.co.uk
ENTERTAINMENT DISTRIBUTION COMPANY (EDC) BLACKBURN LTD.,
Blackburn www.edcllc.com
SONY DADC UK LTD, Southwater, West Sussex www.sonydadc.com
North America
Canada
Q-MEDIA SOLUTIONS CORP, Richmond, British Columbia www.qmscorp.com
SONY DADC CANADA CO., Toronto, Ontario www.sonydadc.com
USA
AMERIC EVOLVED INC., Charlotte, North Carolina www.americdisc.com
arvato digital services llc, Weaverville, North Carolina
www.arvatodigitalservices.com
CINRAM INC., Huntsville, Alabama www.cinram.com
CINRAM INTERNATIONAL, Richmond, Indiana www.cinram.com
DELUXE DIGITAL STUDIOS, Burbank, California www.bydeluxe.com
DISC MAKERS, Pennsauken, New Jersey www.discmakers.com
DISCFARM CORPORATION, Corona, California www.discfarm.com
ENTERTAINMENT DISTRIBUTION COMPANY, Grover, North Carolina www.edcllc.com
JVC AMERICA INC., Tuscaloosa, Alabama www.jvcdiscusa.com
L & M OPTICAL DISC LLC, Brooklyn, New York www.dxbind.com
OPTICAL DISC SOLUTIONS, INC (formerly SANYO Laser Products),
Richmond, Indiana www.odiscs.com
OPTICAL EXPERTS MANUFACTURING (OEM), Charlotte, North Carolina
www.oemdisc.com
SONY DADC US, Terre Haute, Indiana www.sonydadc.com
THE ADS GROUP, Plymouth, Minnesota www.theadsgroupdifference.com
UNITED RECORD PRESSING, Nashville, Tennessee www.urpressing.com
VIGOBYTE DE MEXICO, San Diego, California www.vigobyte.com.mx
South/Latin America
Argentina
AVH S.R.L, San Luis www.avh.com.ar
EPSA FABRICACIÓN, Buenos Aires www.epsa.com.ar
LASER DISC ARGENTINA S.A., Buenos Aires www.grupolaserdisc.com
TELTRON S.A., Buenos Aires www.teltron.com.ar
Brazil
ARVATO DIGITAL SERVICES, Manaus www.arvatodigitalservices.com.br
ARVATO DIGITAL SERVICES, São Paulo, SP www.arvatodigitalservices.com.br
MICROSERVICE TECNOLOGIA DIGITAL da AMAZONIA, Barueri, São Paulo
SONY DADC BRAZIL, Manaus, Amazonas www.sonydadc.com.br
VIDEOLAR S.A., Barueri, São Paulo www.videolar.com
VIDEOLAR S.A., Manaus www.videolar.com
Mexico
ARVATO DIGITAL SERVICES MÉXICO, Atzcapozalco, Mexico City www.
arvatodigitalservices.com
CINRAM LATINOAMERICANA, S.A. DE C.V., Mexico City www.cinram.com.mx
SONY DADC MEXICO S.A. DE C.V., Tlalnepantla, Edo. De Mex. www.sonydadc.com
Digital Download Supply Chain Certified Sites
Europe
France
OPENDISC, Paris
Post Production Anti-Piracy Security Certified Sites
North America
USA
DELUXE DIGITAL STUDIOS, Burbank, California www.bydeluxe.com
CONTENT DELIVERY & STORAGE ASSOCIATION
28 - MEDIAWARE - November/December 2008
November/December 2008 - MEDIAWARE - 29
Advanced Blu-ray
Advanced Interactivity
with BD-J
A Creative Designer/Producer’s
Perspective
By Van Ling
A
fter working on several Blu-ray titles using
the more rudimentary HDMV format, I
was extremely aware of its limitations in creating compelling and often complex navigation
Independence Day Blu-ray images courtesy
Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment
30 - MEDIAWARE - November/December 2008
systems of the kind I had done in the DVD
format. As a result, I was very much looking
forward to trying out BD-Java to see if it lived up
to the promise of being touted as HDMV’s more
advanced and capable brother. So I took my first
baby steps into designing for BD-J authoring on
Independence Day for Fox Home Entertainment
(also known by its promotional abbreviation ID4).
We authored the disc at Panasonic Hollywood Laboratory (PHL) under the production supervision of Paulette Pantoja and Lisa
Casella at PHL and Sven Davison and Gina
Vadnais at Fox Home Entertainment. I made
it a point to work closely and directly with the
BD-J programming team of Bhani Srikanth,
Juan Reyes, Nathan Epstein and Walter Mor at
PHL because they were my direct partners in
making sure that my designs and features are
realizable.
Once the team realized that I was serious
in learning how the programming worked and
that I was willing to revise my graphics delivery and instructions in order to make it easier
for them to program, they put in extra effort to
try new ways of getting me the functionality I
wanted. On ID4, Fox and I made a conscious
decision to design for the faster, most current players like the PlayStation 3, because
we believe that the players will evolve in their
speed and graphics power. This way, we can
encourage manufacturers to build players with
bigger buffers and processing power, which
may be the key to showing off the format’s capabilities
and accelerate consumer adoption.
Coming to Blu-ray from DVD as a menu designer as
well as disc producer, I was initially concerned by what
seemed like a series of particularly strict graphics limitations in using BD-J: a limited buffer size, only so much
complexity due to processing times, and no guaranteed
synchronization of the graphics and video elements when
working with the admittedly “asynchronous” interactive
layer for pop-up menus.
Even without sounding the bells and whistles of BDLive Internet connectivity and video picture-in-picture
(PiP), it is possible to design and execute creative features just using the less processor-intensive BD-J graphic
functions like translation and scaling of elements. For
example, I wanted to have a full HD video first-play where
an alien destroyer from the film (a giant saucer 26 miles
wide) comes in over New York City and hovers, and a
portion of its surface seamlessly becomes the interactive
menus. My extensive experience in feature film visual
effects made it possible for me to design my graphic
elements to create the illusion of dimensional perspective shift using only the scaling and translational moves,
without resorting to multi-frame animation elements that
would have used up all the allotted graphic buffer space.
Similarly, the transparent green energy beams that emit
from the underside of the saucer to display the various submenus were done with a single graphic file that
was used in multiple instances and animated over time.
By using minimal graphic elements and providing the
programmers with transformational data over time in a
spreadsheet, I was able to achieve the desired result.
Continued on page 32
November/December 2008 - MEDIAWARE - 31
Advanced Blu-ray
Continued from page 31
Subchapters
There is also a physical limitation in creating menus
in BD-J, and that’s the buffer size for active graphics. When the player loads a set of graphic elements to be used in a BD-J menu system, there
is a limit to the amount of graphics that can be
buffered at the same time. It’s roughly equivalent
to five HD frames worth of elements (5 x 1920 x
1080 pixels). Since menus should react quickly to
the viewer’s remote operations, the general goal
is to try to fit all of the menu graphics into that 45
Mb buffer. If you have complex menus or a lot of
chapter thumbnails, this can be a challenge.
I’m a big believer in nonlinear access via granularity, so I like to include a lot of chapter stops; on the
32 - MEDIAWARE - November/December 2008
original ID4 DVD, I had included 52 of them. For
Blu-ray, I went a wee step further and effectively
had 432 chapter stops (!) using a combination of
BD-J and metadata tagging. From a graphic standpoint, I had only 52 thumbnails, but each chapter
had a submenu that listed anywhere from 2 to 17
subchapter points that could be jumped to in the
feature. Arrowing down from the currently selected
chapter thumbnail would display the subchapter
menu for that chapter, which included both the
elapsed time from the start of the film plus a full
text description of the scene. This feature allows
the viewer to locate a particular place in the film
with much greater precision.
Detailed Keyword Search
One of the most powerful capabilities of Blu-ray is that
you can use the primary video timeline as a base structure for invoking and displaying metadata. Any point or
points in a video feature can be tagged with nearly any
sort of information and commands in BD-J, which allows
the viewer to access data in different contexts or search
for specific items in the film.
Creating a search function involves taking a list of
desired keywords and building a timecode-based list of
instances in the film where that person, action or item
is seen. In this instance, I took a standard “keyword
search” function a step further by providing a full text description of the action taking place at any given keyword
instance, providing the viewer with the detailed information they need to locate 120 of their favorite scenes and
characters.
The graphic interface design for this feature was critical,
in that it had to be intuitive as well as themed to the film.
I used a scrolling columns design that went from general
(an alphabet column on the left) to specific (keyword
instances in chronological order with scene descriptions
on the right). And since HD is higher resolution than SD,
text can be smaller onscreen and still be legible in Bluray, allowing for a denser, more detailed array of information on the screen.
Continued on page 34
November/December 2008 - MEDIAWARE - 33
Advanced Blu-ray
Continued from page 33
Detailed Personal Bookmarks
Similarly, a “simple” feature seen on many discs
-- the user-defined index marker -- can be made
more useful and compelling by adding an informational component based on a database stored
on the disc. In this instance, the normal ability for
viewers to “bookmark” any point in the film and
display a custom list of timecode points that could
be jumped to was augmented by a text description of the exact scene and screen action that they
had marked. This provided a “smart” interface that
proved much more useful to the viewer than the
standard “numbered-marker with a chapter number
and abstract timecode” display often seen with this
feature.
34 - MEDIAWARE - November/December 2008
In addition, I added visual interest to the marking process – usually indicated by a static pop-up
graphic when you hit the designated “add a bookmark” button on the remote — by creating instead
a quick animation of an alien fighter swooping in,
hovering for a beat while displaying the new marker
number, then flying off the screen. This 3-second
dimensional animation was achieved using only
seven actual graphics (with pre-rendered motion
blur) that were animated using the standard translational capabilities of BD-J. Furthermore, these
user-defined bookmarks were stored in the player’s
persistent memory so they were not lost when the
player was shut off or the disc ejected.
Presentation Graphics
Even with indexed color graphics, it is possible to take a
capability that often is relegated to carrying simple subtitles and use it for more creative features. Rather than
simply doing “pop-up” style text-only graphics, I used
the presentation graphics plane to create a dense trivia
track that sometimes included both images and animation, all in sync with the film.
There were over 250 graphics that consisted of informative text wrapped in one of three different high-quality
spaceship image frames: an alien “mothership” frame
for real-world research-related trivia; an alien “destroyer”
design for film production-related factoids; and an alien
“fighter” background for in-story, narrative-related notes.
These graphics backgrounds, themed to the film and the
rest of the menus, not only added visual interest to the
trivia info but gave a subtle cue as to the type of information that was being presented at any given point. In addition, supportive photos were sometimes incorporated
into the graphics as well, and in some instances, an
animated box would flash over a specific area of frame
to draw the viewer’s attention to something the trivia
graphic then explained.
Continued on page 36
November/December 2008 - MEDIAWARE - 35
Advanced Blu-ray
Continued from page 35
Alien Scavenger Hunt Game
The idea of a movable cursor is a familiar one to
anyone with a computer, but for set-top home
entertainment, it tends to evoke images of joysticks
and first-person shooter games. Indeed, this cursor
technique had been previously used for such shooter
overlays on Blu-ray. However, I felt it was possible to
tie such an interface to a game of observation, rather
than a shoot-em-up, so I designed the “Alien Scavenger Hunt” to allow the viewer to pay attention to the
feature itself and locate a wide variety of items seen
throughout the course of the film.
A list of 12 items (a pitcher of orange juice, a bust of
Lincoln, Ron Howard’s dad, etc.) is presented to the
viewer in an unobtrusive interface at the bottom of
the screen, and it is their task to find these
36 - MEDIAWARE - November/December 2008
items during the film and use the movable cursor to
click on them while they are visible on screen. This
necessitated the ability to designate moving, active
areas on the screen in sync with the feature video,
which meant tracking dozens of objects throughout
the course of the film. These bounding-box locations
in both time (via timecode) and space (via XY coordinates) were provided to the programming team, along
with the control grid for the “targeting reticule” cursor
itself, which could be manipulated using either the
arrow keys on the remote or the joystick controls on a
PS3 game controller.
Other enhancements included the randomization of
the game (the 12 items to be found were randomly
selected from a list of 36 items, so almost no two
plays of the game
would be the same),
the saving of the
game progress even
after player shutoff
(by writing data into
the player’s persistent memory), and a
reward for finishing
the game (a hidden
video clip of outtakes
that only became
available if the game
was completed).
This Blu-ray BD-J game was the recipient of a 2008 DVDA Excellence
Award, but for me the key creative element is not necessarily the game
itself – some folks enjoy such games, while others do not — but the
creative possibilities that this application represents. Imagine such an
interface applied to an entirely different type of movie and application: a
romantic comedy about fashion, in which the viewer could use the cursor
interface to select outfits on the screen and then be taken to a new page
on the disc (or even on the web through BD-Live) -- to not only find out
more about the clothes, but also purchase them immediately. The possibilities are endless, as it can
be applied to any genre of
In Conclusion
film for any variety of comIn all, the ID4 Blu-ray disc afforded me
mercial or educational puran opportunity to explore the possibiliposes. Moreover, this “point
ties of BD-Java and provided a glimpse
and click” hyperlink paradigm
at the future of interactive media. And
is already familiar to anyone
even though this disc was designed
who has used a web browsand created in early 2007 and released
er. The labor-intensive portion
almost a year later in 2008, many of its
of creating such applications
features still remain unique, and hopeis the tracking of items in
fully will inspire other Blu-ray designers
the feature footage, but
and producers to further build upon the
there would be specialized
capabilities of Blu-ray and BD-J to carry
companies (such as my own
and harness the power of metadata to
division, called lingKedge) to
create compelling content. 
provide such services.
Van Ling is a
freelance DVD/
Blu-ray producer,
visual effects supervisor, consultant and digital
artist whose film
credits include The Abyss, Terminator
2, Twister, Starship Troopers, Doctor Dolittle and Titanic. A veteran of
ground-breaking feature productions
with James
Cameron’s Lightstorm Entertainment,
Ling has brought the same envelopepushing spirit to the home entertainment arena, producing in-depth
special features on titles from Field of
Dreams to Titanic and often creating
innovative menu systems, including
those for The Abyss Special Edition,
Independence Day, Terminator 2 and
all six of the Star Wars films. His work
on many of these titles have helped
define and inspire the DVD art form,
garnering multiple awards and nominations from various home theatre and
industry trade organizations, and is
widely respected by both DVD professionals and consumers.
November/December 2008 - MEDIAWARE - 37
Digital delivery
Advanced Blu-ray
Authoring for BD-Live
by Dan Daley
Blu-ray’s second
generation
technology
poses creative
challenges
Advanced authoring at
Giant Interactive
A
s the Blu-ray disc format takes on its hard-won mantle as the future of the
physical media industry, the transition for the entertainment business has
just begun. “It’s like going from driving a car to flying an airplane,” says Timur
Insepov, digital content services manager at the Sony DADC DigitalWorks facility in
Los Angeles. The metaphor is indeed apt: the introduction earlier this year of BD-Live,
which makes Blu-ray network connected via a Java-based authoring environment, is
not an incremental step but a quantum leap.
BD-Live effectively takes the twodimensionality of DVD and adds a
third dimension, in which scores of
interactive applications are added in
authoring that will await instructions
from the player and from an Internet
connection, as opposed to DVD’s prerendered MPEG elements and preset
menus. This connectivity will allow
Blu-ray discs to be updated, adding
content such as additional subtitle
languages and promotional features
that are not included on the disc at
the time of replication.
So is BD-Live a creative boon or
creative nightmare? It’s a bit of both
-- The process of authoring these socalled BD-J titles is radically different
enough that it calls for a completely
different type of specialist. “The ideal candidate for BD Java authoring is someone
with a background in programs like Macromedia Director, rather than conventional
DVD programs,” says Jeff Jewett, account executive at the Sony DADC DigitalWorks
authoring technology center. Rather than DVD’s integrated bag of pre-processed elements, each Blu-ray title is a landscape of discrete elements that will be called upon
randomly by the processing in the BD player. Some of these take the form of on-disc
games, which are becoming a popular add-on for early Blu-ray discs, such as the
38 - MEDIAWARE - November/December 2008
’There’s such a range
blackjack game integrated onto Sony
Pictures’ film 21 and a trivia game
with Men In Black. Picture-in picture
(PIP), which allows animated storyboards or interviews with cast and
crew to play simultaneously with the
program elements, is also a Blu-ray
feature. These can be programmed
to pop up automatically at appropriate points in the film, but also can be
disabled by the viewer. “Using these
features presents a moderate [authoring] challenge,” says Insepov.
“It’s not as easy as adding a
drag-and-drop plug-in onto a
standard DVD disc, but PIP is
a standard type of BD features and doesn’t require Java
engineering ability. There’s such
a range of possibilities that
we have to learn to be technically creative before we can
just focus on being esthetically
creative.”
Most studios have BD-Live
titles already in the pipeline;
some, like Twentieth Century
Fox Home Entertainment, plan
to make all of their Blu-ray
releases BD-Live titles starting in later this year or in early
2009, though Java content will
not necessarily accompany
them immediately. “All titles released
to market after November 1, 2008
will be BD-Live-ready, but they will
not have specific features on them,”
states Sven Davison, vice president,
worldwide product development and
production at Fox, who declined to
discuss which specific features the
studio is including in the BD-Live
releases. “We have a very long list
of features we’re working on, but we
of possibilities [with
BD-Live] that we have
to learn to be technically creative before we
can just focus on being
esthetically creative.’
Timur Insepov,
Sony DADC
DigitalWorks
Continued on page 40
Courtesy Twentieth Century Fox
Home Entertainment
November/December 2008 - MEDIAWARE - 39
Digital delivery
Continued from page 39
could certainly add content to [the titles] anytime
we see a reason to do so. This is based on if a title
merits a specific BD-Live feature or not.” Davison
acknowledges that BD-Live authoring is both laborintensive and time-consuming, but says Fox plans to
stay on its release schedule. “We have to work a lot
harder, but it will not affect release dates,” he says.
Complex New World
The complexity of BD authoring contributes to
concerns caused by a still-ramping-up manufacturing base about the ability of Hollywood to produce
enough product to support Blu-ray’s necessary
big push at this year’s end-of-year selling season.
Insepov says the creation of more third-party
drag-and-drop authoring environments, as well as
programs like Biddle, from Korea-based Dreamer,
which streamlines the addition of new content to
the player via its Internet connection, will help bring
more authoring capacity to the business and help
facilitate the creative process.
But BD’s connectivity means that as complex
as the format may be, there will still be aspects
beyond the control of authoring that will impose
artificial boundaries on the creative process. For instance, the speed of the user’s Internet connection,
which will largely determine the kind of experience
the user will have with BD-Live’s post-purchase use,
is a key concern but one that Hollywood has no
control over. Another issue is the compatibility and
processing power of the set-top player in the home.
“For BD-Live, it’s still a challenge figuring out how
much to push through the pipe at any given time,”
says Insepov. “Blu-ray is presented as a revolutionary technology that can do anything, but the reality is that there are limits on creativity in the form
of interoperability concerns, Internet connection
speeds and so forth. The programming may have
to be scaled to the lowest common denominator
to avoid these problems, at least in the beginning.
And we don’t have all the players that will be on the
40 - MEDIAWARE - November/December 2008
Courtesy Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
market yet, so in testing the discs we have to work
on assumptions to a large extent.”
Player compatibility is among the issues that Pi
Waller, vice president of digital operations at Giant
Interactive, ponders. The New York City authoring
facility, which does catalog film titles and television
series work for clients including HBO Films, started
experimenting with BD-J last winter, drawing expertise and base knowledge from an array of sources,
including Java-savvy new hires.
The studios are in the loop on these matters. “We
are cognizant of these issues, but we go out of
our way to push the envelope, not dumb down our
features,” says Fox’s Davison. “So, no, at the end of
the day this is not a factor in what we deliver.”
On the other hand, Waller is seeing some of the
ways that BD-J discs will actually make the authoring process a bit more streamlined, such as the
ability to rectify mistakes or missing content after
the fact by updating titles in the field via the Internet
connection. “The studios are going to have adjust
their way of thinking for this,” he says. “The creative
decisions [for BD-Live] are not all going to be made
before the disc is done. The creative process could
potentially be an ongoing process for every title.”
Todd Collart, senior vice president for new media at
Deluxe Digital Studios in Burbank, California, says this
all argues for achieving an efficient work methodology
as soon as possible. “With DVD, the creative aspect
was encapsulated within the authoring process –
when you delivered the finished product, you were
done with it, you put the SKU on the shelf and moved
on to the next one,” he says. “With BD-Live, the
creative is ongoing, before, during and well after a
title is delivered for manufacturing.” Collart says that
Deluxe is integrating its recently expanded technical
and creative staffs so that both understand the needs
and the limitations of the other. “We want what gets
presented to the studios to be what’s feasible and
doable, to have already gone through player compatibility testing and QC,” both capabilities that Deluxe
has as part of its “microplant” – a pair of Blu-ray replication lines to test disc performance. “The marriage
between technology and creative has to be accomplished as quickly as possible.”
Another way of accelerating that is the development of third-party applications developers. Keith
Prokop, CEO of Radius60 Studios, which has authored several BD-Live titles for Sony Pictures and
other studios, says that developing code templates
can accelerate the workflow, as for the trivia game
they created for the Sony Pictures Men In Black
BD-Live title. “They become like game engines that
can be updated as you go along for future use,” he
explains.
In fact, workflow is part of the creative proposition.
“With any pure code like Java, there’s more than
one way to do most things,” says Waller. An example
of this intersection is how Giant has developed its
menus to have the disc query the player to see if
there is an Internet connection; if not, menu buttons
relating to connectivity will remain hidden. “We don’t
want to frustrate users who have Profile 1 players or
who don’t have Internet connections,” he says.
Given the cost of new software, testing systems, additional
human resources and the extended time frame it requires,
“It’s rare that you make a profit on BD-Live authoring at this
point,” Prokop says. But he’s not feeling particularly pressured
by this. “We’re all in the same boat at the moment – if everyone working on BD-Live doesn’t do what it takes to get it to
take off, no one’s going anywhere.”
Studio POV
If the authorists are still feeling their way around BD-Live,
so are the studios. “We’re at the ‘Pong’ stage of the video
game world in terms of BD-Live,” is how Tracey Garvin, senior
vice president of worldwide marketing at Sony Pictures,
JVC REVISION_2.pdf
10/23/08
Continued on page 42
12:02:09 AM
Mapping the Perfect Experience
REPLICATION
VMI
PACKAGING
POP
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DISTRIBUTION
DIRECT TO STORE
EDI
CM
SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT
MY
WAREHOUSING
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America Inc.
www.jvcdiscusa.com
November/December 2008 - MEDIAWARE - 41
Digital delivery
Continued from page 41
’BD-Live authoring is
going to be working on
a kind of time line that
home entertainment is
just not used to. There
is a real potential to
have the workflow back
up, jeopardizing deadlines.’
Austen Teofan
Director of Blu-ray,
Java and New Format
Development,
Blink Digital
describes the moment. Garvin is at the
nexus of a complicated universe, trying
to parse the results of numerous polls
and surveys – some even taken online by
BD-Live-connected users – as to which
features they like best and why.
At the same time, Garvin’s team is
ramping up an aggressive marketing
plan that will use the Internet connection
feature to send trailers and other promotional materials to users; Sony will also
extend its Sony Points customer reward
program through BD-Live later this year.
Garvin even senses BD-Live as a social
networking proposition. For instance, the
trivia game included on the Men In Black
title can be played solo or can take the
user to a game lobby to play with others
elsewhere in the world.
This all suggests that a huge new
infrastructure will need to be built out
behind BD-Live. Garvin says it is in the
process of being assembled, bit by bit,
right now. She also is establishing protocols for directors and other creatives to
have input into their BD titles’ feature sets
and trying to manage all of that on the
extended workflow timelines that BD-Live
demands. “It’s not easy,” she says. “But
we’re in the process of building a sharedexperience community based on Blu-ray,
and that’s a major undertaking. There are
a lot of things to worry about, like player
interoperability and consumer connection
speeds. But the value that the connected
Blu-ray disc can bring will make it the ultimate packaged media for entertainment.”
Authoring companies are essentially
doing the same. Austen Teofan, newly
appointed director of Blu-ray, Java and
new format development at Blink Digital’s
Burbank facility, says that creating a viable
42 - MEDIAWARE - November/December 2008
workflow will be critical to making BD-Live
authoring profitable. “[BD-Live authoring]
is going to be working on a kind of time
line that home entertainment is just not
used to,” he says. “There is a real potential to have the workflow back up, jeopardizing deadlines.”
Teofan says that it’s inevitable that some
BD-Live titles will hit the street even as
their connected content is still being
developed. That buys the still-evolving
BD-Live authoring and creative processes
some time. “But the extra content will
be advertised on the packaging, so we
don’t want to wait too long,” he says. “It
has to be transparent to the user. That‘s
critical to ensuring the format is accepted
by consumers.” To that end, Blink Digital’s
BD-Live crew is being cross-trained in
Java as well as standard BD and DVD.
Tools of the Trade
If authoring BD-Live is more like writing software code, then its current
toolsets reflect that focus. Sony’s own
Blu-Print software kit has been scaled to
cover BD-J; Technicolor released its initial
version of its BD Jive software late last
year. Sonic, the major independent supplier of authoring software, announced
the release of Scenarist BD Version 5 in
September. While not a BD-Live authoring
kit, per se, it adds functionality focused
on the creation of titles that fully leverage
advanced interactive features, and also
streamlines data exchange with third-party
interactive programming applications for
BD-J - such as those available through the
Sonic Extended Developer Group (EDGe)
- to enhance and simplify the workflow
in the production of cutting-edge BD title
releases.
Initially, these new products will range from $5,000
to $15,000, and hope to do what products like Dreamweaver did for website building years ago: create templates that minimize or eliminate the need for the user
to actually write his own code. “This will open up Java
creation tools for nonprogrammers,” says Simon James,
Sonic’s senior marketing manager in the U.K. “But you’ll
still need to have a degree of programming expertise to
integrate the Java elements into the finished title.”
BD-Live presents the authoring world with a rare
creative proposition: a format with virtually no inherent
technical limits but one with plenty of external ones,
ranging from bandwidth limitations to the need for
facilities to rethink their knowledge base. Despite having won a protracted and costly battle to become the
successor format to DVD, Blu-ray’s interactive iteration
is essentially in a neonatal stage. “We are in the early
stages of technical development and know-how for
interactive Blu-ray,” says James. “It’s like web programming was years and years ago. The knowledge base
had to be built one day at a time then, and that’s what’s
happening now.” 
November/December 2008 - MEDIAWARE - 43
Whitepaper
The Other Format War
Comments on developing the Blu-ray format from
three independent Quality Assurance houses
by 3rd i QC, Intellikey Labs, and Direct QC
Blu-ray is the undisputed victor in the war for the winning high-definition format. But there’s been another format war underway. One that
was overlooked while the winning format battles took center stage.
The other format war is the one between Blu-ray and Standard
Definition DVD (SD). One could say that the installed base of SD is in
large part responsible for the delay of the mass adoption of the Blu-ray
format. From a consumer perspective, there’s nothing wrong with Standard Definition DVD. It’s affordable, it is compatible with most TVs, image and
audio quality are satisfactory, and usually it delivers on its promises. From a content
owner perspective, production of Standard Definition is practically rote.
Looking at Blu-ray from those same two perspectives, the consumer is required to make a substantial financial commitment to experience what Blu-ray has to offer. And to the content owner, Blu-ray
presents daunting development and production challenges that the less complex format of SD will
never be expected to address or even compete with.
Recently, three independent Quality Assurance houses -- 3rd i QC, Intellikey Labs, and Direct QC
-- met to discuss the subject of Blu-ray; how well the technology is working, the consumer attitudes
towards it, and how the testing houses can best help Blu-ray get from where it is now to where it can
be. Each of the testing houses has been on the front lines of Quality Assurance for high-definition DVD
since its inception in early 2006, servicing the major movie studios and testing hundreds of Blu-ray
discs from concept to delivery. Following is a selection of the discussion highlights from each of the
QA participants:
From Al Limón, President
3rd i QC, Culver City, California
“The challenge to bring about the
adoption of Blu-ray is a complex one.
As a result of strong Blu-ray marketing efforts, consumers have been
educated to expect more from Blu-ray
than they do from SD. They want the
spectacular image, the crystal clear
audio, but they also want the same
speed, connectivity, and basic intuitiveness that SD players exhibit.
44 - MEDIAWARE - November/December 2008
When we test the newest Blu-ray bell or whistle,
we are often faced with a compromise in player
speed, and intricate functions which confuse intuitiveness -- along with a less than optimal number of discs on which to test and too little time
to complete what we’re being asked to test.
“One of my Blu-ray mantras has become
‘A fast QC is an oxymoron.’ I have enormous
respect for the programmers, designers, and
everyone working in the Blu-ray trenches! We
do everything we can to support their efforts so
that Blu-ray and BD-J technology can realize its
full potential. But the necessary time to develop and
test these great ideas isn’t there--and may never be.
Consumers don’t yet appreciate the capabilities that
Blu-ray has. They only see what’s in front of them
at the moment. It’s too early to expect Blu-ray to be
perfect, so when a consumer compares Blu-ray to
their standard DVD player at home, Blu-ray can come
up looking inferior, even though in theory, it’s not.
“Some titles put a lot of effort into added value
that becomes very complicated to test. Things like
extensive indexes, real-time tracking locators, and
additional film footage made available during the
feature. Testing reveals the potential of the programming--the good and the bad. And sometimes that
reality check can be too risky to the content owner.
They may end up pulling the entire VAM (Value
Added Material) because the risk of a failure is too
great.
“There are some Blu-ray applications that do work
well. Like something as simple as including themed
menus for each of the titles. Consumers already get
this on every SD title, so it’s logical to expect it on
Blu-ray. But it’s not a given, and this is so easy to do.
Taking small technological steps is okay—isn’t it better to try new Blu-ray ideas incrementally, rather than
over-program, which means over-testing, which can
also mean ‘over budget.’ If every Blu-ray title would
incorporate something a little different than what’s
expected, but maintain the simplicity of the idea and
the implementation of it in the disc, it would create
less stress on everybody in production.”
From Lauren Evers, President
Intellikey Labs, Glendale, California
“The demand for a substantial number of Blu-ray
titles requires an accelerated
production of all the titles
in the pipeline. This in turn
limits the time and resources to
markedly differentiate a Blu-ray title
from an SD title. Other than the
obvious image resolution and audio
enhancements, however, the average
consumer may see little or no difference between
the SD title and the Blu-ray one. When an innovation
does make its exclusive way to a Blu-ray title, it is
often under-tested or overly technical--too complex to
be practical.
“In answer to the need for immediate and firsthand evaluation of how consumers are responding
to digital technology, Intellikey began conducting
independent Usability tests in concert with the conventional QA testing. (Last holiday season, Intellikey
provided the world with the first ever Buyer’s Guide
to Blu-ray, generating an inundation of interest from
consumers, publishers, and content owners alike.)
“In a recent survey of potential Blu-ray buyers,
Intellikey demonstrated the Bonus Content which
was exclusive to Blu-ray (not available on the SD
movie version) on the top-selling Blu-ray movie titles.
Participants were asked to list the five Blu-ray exclusive features that were the most appealing and would
contribute positively to their decision to buy a Blu-ray
About 3rd i QC:
Since 1982 from VHS to Blu-ray, 3rd i is a collaboration of talent and expertise, pioneering procedures in
quality control for the Home Entertainment software
market. In 1996, 3rd i established a quality assurance
procedure for the launch of the then new DVD format. 3rd i prides itself in delivering the most detailed
and intensive 3rd party independent quality control
and assurance that offers hands on support from
Digital Master to Blu-ray test disc. To date 3rd i has
worked on over 400 Blu-ray projects for both Domestic and International markets.
Continued on page 46
November/December 2008 - MEDIAWARE - 45
Whitepaper
Continued from page 45
system. Interestingly, no one participant could
come up with five.
“In a separate Blu-ray study, Intellikey made
a surprising correlation: The more Functionality
testing that is required per Blu-ray title, the less
intuitive and/or engaging the title tends to be. A
Blu-ray menu design can look absolutely gorgeous, but be tricky as hell to navigate. You have
to ask yourself: What will make the consumer
more satisfied: If they perceive the navigational
menus to be broken (when they’re just overly
complex)? Or is it smarter to create and program
a menu that is less stunning, but ease of navigation is assured?
“In one Blu-ray survey, we cringed when a
participant stated: ‘BD-Live does what we can
already do, only worse.’ It’s almost heart-breaking
From James Richardson, President
Direct QC, Studio City, California
“SD DVD has had more than
11 years to shape the technical
expectations of the DVD consumer. So now, it’s like Bluray is being marketed to the
technically elite. You really have
to have the technical know-how
to navigate the vastness of the
Blu-ray landscape. It’s a process of
educating the consumer so they
can understand why it’s important to
have the latest BD profile and how the varying decoding capabilities will affect their Blu-ray experience. I can’t tell you how many friends who have
seen the ads for Blu-ray, still want me to explain
the requirements of Blu-ray, the TV, the sound
system, the receiver, and why it’s all necessary.
Some people may not be able to see or hear any
difference between SD and Blu-ray until it is actually pointed out to them.
46 - MEDIAWARE - November/December 2008
to hear comments like that, when we know that
the best of Blu-ray is just getting started. We
believe that when the full potential of Blu-ray and
especially BD-Live is fully realized, it will excite
consumers enough to tip that tenuous balance.”
About Intellikey Labs:
In August 1997, Intellikey Labs became the first
independent testing facility dedicated to quality
assurance for DVD technology. Since then, Intellikey has been widely recognized for its unique
expertise in combining technical quality assurance for digital media with consumer experience
testing. Intellikey provides services for the major
movie studios, as well as corporate and educational content developers for digital consumer
technology, and has tested over 300 Blu-ray titles.
“One of my friends had a Blu-ray system for
several months, but didn’t flip the switch to activate high-definition. For 3 months he thought he
was experiencing Blu-ray, but it was just his bigger TV screen. It’s not going to be easy to simplify
something as complex as Blu-ray.
“The number of active Blu-ray players within
each Blu-ray region is still well under 50; many
hundreds of players less than SD. Even so, some
studio clients reluctantly eliminate several first
generation and other problematic Blu-ray players
from their compatibility tests. They lack the time
and resources to debug the technical challenges,
which forces a dramatic compromise of Blu-ray
compatibility.”
About Direct QC:
Before he founded Direct QC in 2003, James
Richardson spent more than six years overseeing
domestic and international production of optical
media content for home entertainment divisions
of major movie studios. Specializing in testing for
SD DVD, Hi-Definition DVD, emulation, electronic media,
hardware, authoring, telecine, video and down conversion services, Richardson has established himself as an
invaluable partner to the entertainment sector, testing
hundreds of thousands of optical media products.
In October, the QC facilities of Intellikey Labs and
Direct QC merged their operations to form a single entity,
THE TESTING GROUP.
The three QC houses concluded their meeting with the following consensus:
technology for the masses. It’s a thrill to experience-at times even downright spectacular. The efforts of the
content owners and production houses know that this
technology is capable of more than the average consumer realizes. The QC houses, those of us who see the
disappointments, the stumbling blocks, and the setbacks,
see these things because that’s what we’re being asked
to do, and because that’s what we’re good at doing: We
point out the flaws because we know about perfection.
It’s only a matter of time before we really start to experience the uniqueness and perfection that is truly Blu-ray.
It’s not likely the QA houses will be given the time or
budgets that a format as new and significant as Blu-ray
requires. Even setting aside the strength of Standard
Definition’s installed base, Blu-ray faces more contenders
in the other format war, as alternative entertainment options like On Demand and Download-to-rent/own vie for
consumer dollars.
That said, Blu-ray is still far and away the greatest
distance we’ve come in terms of home entertainment
Lauren Evers, Founder and CEO of Intellikey Labs and Direct QC Founder and
President James Richardson announce that the companies have
merged under the newly formed corporate entity:
the testing group
1265 los angeles street
glendale, ca 91204
818-241-7373
thetestinggroup.com
November/December 2008 - MEDIAWARE - 47
music distribution
Digital Music
Distribution
by Dan Daley
Internet music
begins to fragment
as iTunes rivals
get busy
M
usic has been the point man
for the larger entertainment
industry’s evolution into the
digital distribution model. Movies and
later games learned from the music
experience in its ongoing transition
from a purely physical media to one
that is distributed across a wide range
of formats. So new developments in
music distribution are of interest well
beyond the walls of the Capitol Tower
in L.A. and Sony’s Manhattan Blackrock
redoubt.
Apple’s iTunes and its iPod carrier
remain the dominant force in digital
music distribution. Citing data from
The NPD Group, Apple CEO Steven
Jobs recently told the media that the
iPod has a 73.4 percent market share,
followed by other MP3 players at 15.4
percent, SanDisk at 8 percent and the
Microsoft Zune at 2.6 percent. And
the iPod remains a purposely incompatible device with other digital music
carriers, locking its users in via its protected AAC format, versus Windows
Media Audio (WMA) used by most
other players.
But iTunes, which since it launched
in 2001 has sold 5 billion legal downloads
at about a buck each, is beginning to experience some blowback against its position
as the 600-pound gorilla of digital music.
48 - MEDIAWARE - November/December 2008
Pandora on Sprint
Upstage by Samsung
During that period several major record
labels and artists have held back content
from iTunes, most notably the Beatles
(whose Apple Corps brand management
company has had regular litigious skir-
mishes with computer maker Apple over branding and
markets). Other notable holdouts include Led Zeppelin,
Garth Brooks, Radiohead and Kid Rock.
However, newer digital distribution paths are beginning to draw some of the holdouts out of their protective shells, such as the V CAST music and video
service from cellular service provider Verizon Wireless,
and in the process are creating a map of a digital distribution landscape on which iTunes may not seem as
dominant.
New Distribution
For instance, the band AC/DC says it’s bypassing
Apple’s iTunes and has brokered an exclusive arrangement with Verizon to sell its music through Verizon’s
online music store. In addition, content owners are
finding that they can use their own portals to distribute
unique content and thus avoid the approximately 30
percent vig that iTunes reportedly charges its vendors.
For instance, BBC Worldwide is reportedly working on
an ad-supported music service that would offer free
streaming or paid downloads of songs and videos from
the BBC archives, including live performances from its
“Top of the Pops” and “Live Lounge” programs. That
service is expected to launch next year with at least
1,000 tracks, and the BBC is reportedly negotiating
rights with record labels including EMI, which was the
last and most vocally reluctant of the four remaining
major labels to license content to iTunes.
But these mavericks are not simply recreating the
iTunes model on a different street, and how they are
reconfiguring digital distribution could suggest some of
the new wrinkles that other digital content distributors
could pattern after in the future. For instance, Verizon is
not allowing customers to buy individual AC/DC songs,
Verizon V CAST Music
on Samsung Glyde
but rather compelling them to buy entire albums – those
who want to download Shoot To Thrill will have to buy
the entire Back In Black album, which will sell for $11.99,
compared to the CD of the same album on Amazon for
$9.97. (One track available as a single download is “You
Shook Me All Night Long,” but it’s only available to Verizon Wireless subscribers on their mobile phones.) Garth
Brooks made a deal to distribute his new product and
back catalog titles (which were ceded to him contractually by his erstwhile label, Capitol Records) exclusively
through Wal-Mart. The Eagles made a similar deal with
the store for their new recording.
Seeking Change
At the heart of these moves lies Apple’s dominance
of the digital music distribution business – it reportedly handles over 70 percent of the legitimate music
download transactions globally, and that dominance and
ubiquitousness has allowed Apple to set the terms of
Continued on page 50
November/December 2008 - MEDIAWARE - 49
music distribution
Continued from page 49
those transactions. Labels and artists have bristled
at Apple’s refusal to up its 99-cent per-song fee and
Apple CEO Steven Jobs’ demand that labels furnish
more DRM-free tracks (which Apple currently sells at
a slight premium cost of $1.25). Universal reportedly
hesitated before renewing its deal with iTunes for
those reasons.
That sets the stage for deals like the AC/DC/Verizon pact, and the variations on the terms that come
with it. But so far, the latest iterations of digital
distribution recall many of the problems that iTunes
solved in the first place. Radiohead famously made
their most recent album available through their own
website at whatever price buyers wished to pay, but
most wished to pay less than the $12 the band had
suggested (if they paid anything at all). And pundits
wonder if raising prices for music or limiting its distribution to configurations like albums that implicitly
cost more will make it harder for fans to get what
they want legitimately, thus encouraging more illicit
downloads. A study by U.K.-based Entertainment Media Research indicates that music piracy in the U.S. is
down this year, at least in part due to the easy availability and affordability of iTunes.
Ed Ruth, Verizon Wireless’ director of digital music,
says his company isn’t trying to challenge iTunes, but
does see music distribution as a way to grow the
market share of its core communications business,
as well as create new sticky points between it and its
80 million cellular subscribers. To that end, Verizon is
pursuing a format-agnostic strategy, using DRM-free
files and streaming MP3 (versus the strings-attached
AAC files of iTunes) from aggregators like Rhapsody
to maximize content and access. Music distribution is
highly competitive, Ruth agrees, but he says Verizon
Wireless would not pursue it even as a marketing
strategy for cellular service if it weren’t able
to be profitable on its own. “That’s a prerequisite for anything we do,” he says, “so it tells
you there is profit to be made from music
distribution.”
Unique Content
Apple’s entry into the cellular phone business two years ago might at first seem only
peripheral to music distribution, other than
the fact that the phone can download, store
and playback music files. But the entry of
other cellular service providers more forcefully into music distribution and the imminence
of both new “4G” wireless broadband service
(with LTE and WiMAX) and GPS capability in
phones ties into a range of music-related tangents. These include Sprint’s newly rolled-out
Eventful service, an API created by a thirdSprint Digital Lounge Music Store
50 - MEDIAWARE - November/December 2008
more comfortable with
party developer of the
music on their phone,
same name and part
and the usage curve
of Sprint’s new XOHM
increases, much like it
WiMAX business unit,
has for earlier data apwhich will offer listplications such as text
ings of local events like
messaging, then we
concerts displayed in
will continue to review
a map view. Customother music-related
ers can select suboptions to offer our
categories of interest,
customers.”
search for events and
Music distributed
click through to Eventthrough cellular phone
ful.com to get more
networks will be a slivevent information and
er of the larger content
purchase tickets.
collections that these
Like Apple, Sprint is
wireless providers will
pricing music downultimately channel.
loads at 99 cents, but
Market research comhas broadened its aupany NSR estimates
dio offerings to include
that mobile TV and
ringers, call tones,
mobile video services
video, and streamoffered over broadcast
ing radio applications
and unicast distribution
from partners such as
are projected to grow
Pandora and SIRIUS.
almost ten-fold, from
It also is offering
an estimated user base
unique content -- Sprint
Verizon V CAST Music with Rhapsody Store
of over 57 million at the
Exclusive Entertainend of 2007 to 566 milment, the only netlion users in 2013. Global service revenues comprising
work of original content produced by a U.S. carrier,
subscription, advertisement and transactional revenue
includes music news about artists, album releases and
are projected to reach $9 billion by 2013. Cellular providupcoming tours. The carrier’s Sprint Radio streaming
ers also could benefit from the dwindling Internet radio
radio application also is included in some form in every
sector, which has been squeezed by the Federal deciconsumer data plan – the entry level $15 plan includes
sion to compel them to pay performance royalties that
10 channels, and the other plans include 50 channels
satellite and cellular providers have thus far avoided.
as well as 100 more local channels. “Sprint’s music
But if the future of mobile entertainment is video, the
strategy is to make mobile music as easy to use and incanary in the coal mine is music, which is creating the
expensive enough for all our customers to enjoy,” says
template for revenue and operating models for cellularAaron Radelet, corporate communications manager
distributed media.
for Sprint. “As customers gradually become more and
November/December 2008 - MEDIAWARE - 51
Whitepaper
Into the Blu: Process
Optimization for Blu-ray Discs
Dr. Leonhard Schwab, CTO and managing director, comments on the latest
technical developments from dr.schwab Inspection Technology
Dr. Leonhard Schwab,
dr.schwab Inspection
Technology
New PTM processes for Blu-ray mastering
and the ´Art of Coating´ within the limits of
BD specs are still demanding tasks for every manufacturer. Focussed on 3rd generation media, dr.schwab Inspection Technology
is supporting the industry with new features
and enhancements for process control and
optimization, including inline environmental
control and climate chamber test.
PTM Mastering
As one of the most relevant enhancements to the diffraction order measurement system DOMS XEblu, it offers now
the integrated functionality to fully control
the Phase Transition Mastering (PTM)
processes for Blu-ray Disc. A high-precision
spectrometer measures the thickness of
phase-change layers for all types of PTM
Mastering, two layers at a time, on Si-wafer
and glass-masters.
Spin Coating Layer Thickness
The spin coating process is very sensitive to changes of temperature. This is of
particular importance in case of Blu-ray Disc
cover layer application due to its thickness
with tight variation limits. dr.schwab offers
200th Blu-ray Scanner from dr. schwab
On Monday, 18th of August 2008, dr.schwab Inspection Technology delivered the 200th IQPCblu to Singulus
Technologies, one of the leading manufacturers of production lines for Blu-ray Discs.
Stephan Hotz, Head of Product Management Optical Disc at Singulus Technologies, comments the reasons
for his commitment to dr.schwab solutions: “Singulus is
pleased to have a competent and reliable partner with
dr.schwab as provider of inline scanners for our Blu-ray Disc
production systems. The IQPCblu is a technically mature
product and widely accepted throughout the optical disc
industry. A significant number of renowned replicators rely
on this system.”
Ceremonial presentation of the 200th BD scanner from
dr.schwab. From left to right: Oliver Großenbach - Service
Manager dr.schwab, Jürgen Sperfeldt – Director of Sales
and Marketing dr.schwab, Stephan Hotz – Head of Product
Management Optical Disc Singulus AG, Serverine Josun –
Operational Procurement Singulus AG).
52 - MEDIAWARE - November/December 2008
a solution for in-line CLT layer thickness measurement
directly after coating process with immediate feedback to the production line. This allows to quickly and
automatically adapt process parameters in a closed
loop process. Measurement is possible while the disc
is moved from one station to the next by the disc
handling.
Particle Counter & Temperature Sensor
Inline measurement and monitoring of the ambient air are an essential enhancement to control and
optimize the production process. Measuring size and
count of particles as well as temperature and humidity
inside of production lines is made easy. Integrated in
our Trend and Analysis software this offers the ability to
monitor production yield and environmental conditions.
Climate Chamber Test
The asymmetric layer structure makes Blu-ray
Discs highly sensitive to environmental changes. Tight
specifications require ensuring the accuracy under all
climatic conditions. Therefore dr.schwab IT has developed a special off-line version of IQPCblu for Tilt measurement inside a climate chamber.
November/December 2008 - MEDIAWARE - 53
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Health of Consumers
and the Environment
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Carthuplas
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