Europe's online source of news, data & analysis for professionals involved in packaged media and new delivery technologies
An industry executive speaks
In a series of Q&As, frontline practitioners in all facets of the packaged media and digital delivery industry share their views of things past, present and yet to come. It's the turn of SETH HALLEN, CEO of Testronic Labs.
Where do you see your company's comparative advantage/uniqueness in this crowded market?
In addition to being the leading service provider for QA and testing services for the film industry, we are also known as the leading provider of testing services for the Digital TV, video game, software and consumer electronics industries. This scope of expertise and our global footprint of five facilities around the world, gives us a powerful and unique advantage as these industries continue to converge.
Amongst the range of services you offers, which one did grow in importance over the past 2 years and which one diminished?
Testing, related to digital distribution formats, has grown significantly through the past few years, and especially this year. There has been an evolution in the kinds of testing, as well. Today, it's not just about content and image quality, but there is keen interest from the market to ensure device interoperability, website and portal testing, and content streaming functionality. We have strong expertise in-house around UltraViolet and we've seen a significant increase in UltraViolet-related work as our clients are depending on us to support them in this initiative. We have also seen significant growth in our video game and digital TV business lines over the past year, as well.
Diversification is supposed to be the best way of staying afloat in the face of market uncertainty. How do you see your company's range of services evolving over the next 2 to 5 years?
We are on an evolutionary path, and one example of that is our emphasis on building a better understanding of the consumer and how and why they interact with technology. We will continue to enhance our offerings in user experience and usability testing to provide the valuable user data required to create great user experiences.
One keeps hearing alarmist opinion about the rapid demise of packaged media in the face of online delivery. What is your view as to how long discs will be around? And what could become its main target market?
We believe that packaged media will continue to be around for another decade. However, being able to earn revenues and profits from servicing into these supply chains will certainly be the primary challenge as services become more commoditized. This in turn creates the challenge of making sure we are innovative in making the process more efficient. That approach will continue to be an important focus for Testronic moving forward.
Given the apparently slower than expected take-up of 3D, do you thing 3D is here to stay or consumer interest in stereoscopy is temporary?
Starting with cave paintings, through to photography, then moving pictures, sound color, HD, and on?humans have an in-born, insatiable, often inexplicable need to re-create reality. Consumers will continue to demand "3D" in rich media and video games until the next iteration of virtual reality comes around. Is holographic projection next?
Cloud-based UltraViolet digital copy is making inroads. Do you see it as potentially increasing the sales of BD discs (as the studios intended) or be the death knell of packaged media?
The promise of UltraViolet is that it will support sales of packaged media and serve as a well-managed bridge to digital format, creating better consumer confidence in home entertainment in general. As a studio service provider and supply chain partner, we will do everything we can to support this promise.
How to you see Hollywood squaring the circle between the inexorable fall of high-revenue producing packaged media and the unstoppable rise of low-revenue generating online digital delivery?
This is the primary challenge the industry is facing as consumers associate online viewing with "low-cost" or even "free.? We believe that UltraViolet is a crucial part of the solution to get consumers to understand the value and pay for the ability to view content -- especially premium content ? online and off-line across multiple devices, and shared among multiple users.
If you let your imagination run wild, what system, format, application aimed at delivering content to the home would you like to see implemented in 10 years time?
More user-friendly ability to search, access, and catalog digital content; the ubiquity of everything, which will be available on-demand.
Contact: www.testroniclabs.com.
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On predicting the future
Predicting the future, let alone the future of packaged media, is a perilous exercise, and possibly counter-productive, as the exercise closes doors rather than keep them open, argues JEAN-LUC RENAUD, DVD Intelligence publisher. Consider that: Apple was left nearly for dead 15 years ago. Today, it became the world's most valuable technology company, topping Microsoft.
Le cinéma est une invention sans avenir (the cinema is an invention without any future) famously claimed the Lumière Brothers some 120 years ago. Well. The cinématographe grew into a big business, even bigger in times of economic crisis when people have little money to spend on any other business.
The advent of radio, then television, was to kill the cinema. With a plethora of digital TV channels, a huge DVD market, a wealth of online delivery options, a massive counterfeit underworld and illegal downloading on a large scale, cinema box office last year broke records!
The telephone was said to have no future when it came about. Today, 5 billion handsets are in use worldwide. People prioritize mobile phones over drinking water in many Third World countries.
No-one predicted the arrival of the iPod only one year before it broke loose in an unsuspecting market. Even fewer predicted it was going to revolutionise the economics of music distribution. Likewise, no-one saw the iPhone coming and even fewer forecast the birth of the developers' industry it ignited. And it changed the concept of mobile phone.
Make no mistake, the iPad will have a profound impact on the publishing world. It will bring new players, and smaller, perhaps more creative content creators.
And who predicted the revival of vinyl?
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