From...

March 13, 1999
Web posted at: 11:03 a.m. EST (1603 GMT)

by David Needle, special to PC World

INTERACTIVE: Have you used your computer to view video 'footage' from the Internet? Yes No View Results

(IDG) -- If you're among the millions of users who occasionally get audio and video broadcasts on the Web even though the quality is poor, just wait--things can only get better.

"Today is the worse it will ever be," says Mark Cuban, chair and co-founder of Broadcast.com. Compression technology is improving so rapidly that in the next few years, users will get much better quality requiring less bandwidth, Cuban said in his keynote at the MultiMediaCom conference in San Jose, California.

"A user with a 500-MHz PC on a [high-speed network] will not be happy with just text and pictures," says Cuban. "If you have a business that runs on the Internet, you'd better be adding audio and video or you lose."

Bandwidth issues are a key concern to Broadcast.com, a leading provider of audio and video programming. In a videotaped introduction to his talk, Cuban said his company runs 700 video servers that accommodate as many as half a million simultaneous users. Indicating his company's growth, Cuban noted that in the three months since he made the video, the number of Broadcast.com servers had expanded to 1100.

Where is broadcasting over the Internet headed? Cuban reeled off a number of controversial predictions, including "the death of network television" in the next seven years. "TV stations won't need networks with so much digital content available over the Net," Cuban says.

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Content explosion

Streaming media is becoming so important that Cuban predicts one of the technology's biggest facilitators, Real Networks, will be acquired within a year by a major telecommunications company looking to hop on the multimedia Internet bandwagon. The Real Networks Player software is the most popular format for listening to audio and viewing video on the Internet. Cuban predicts that if the company is bought, a raft of smaller streaming-media software vendors will emerge with new ideas and ways to improve the multimedia experience.

Cuban also predicted "an explosion" in content creation by 2001. "Everyone will be able to create their own media--for better or worse," says Cuban. "Creation tools are dropping in price, and you'll see users create zillions of hours of content."

He also expects advances in PC interfaces, such as 1394 (also called Firewire, adopted by Apple) which can easily and quickly transfer video from a digital camcorder to a computer.

"I think Mark is right on the money when he talks about how fast the Internet is growing and all the new media being adopted," says Ken Hostetler, sales and training director at Verio, an ISP based in Englewood, Colorado. "But there will be bumps in the road."

Companies aren't evaluating new technology and planning its implementation as carefully as they have in the past, Hostetler says. "For example, I don't think most people have a good way to find stuff on their hard drives today. That's only going to get way more difficult as you get bigger hard drives and new types of content coming in off the Internet."

Dusty content

Not only will waves of original content wash over the Internet, but millions of hours of "dusty content" will find new life, Cuban predicts. Broadcast.com already posts many old videos, ranging from a 1963 Tai Chi instructional tape to the first three episodes of I Love Lucy. In a play on the "information wants to be free" slogan of open source software advocates, Cuban says, "Content wants to be seen."

When an old TV show doesn't draw the ratings to warrant syndication, it ends up collecting dust unseen. But thousands or even millions of people might be interested in seeing the vintage footage.

Cuban argues that providers like Broadcast.com have the best chance to attract viewers to such programming because it is a one-stop shop. This makes it easy for consumers to start at Broadcast.com instead of hopping all over the Internet looking for specific content.

Media-asset management is a major challenge as the Internet grows, Cuban concedes. "Aggregators must learn how to manage content, simplify access, and improve the infrastructure," Cuban says.

Broadcast.com is exploring an "all you can eat" subscription service. Consumers pay, for example, $2 per month to get every new single or video a specific performer is sending out over the Internet.

"You could have a Barry Manilow community or a Pearl Jam community and those subscribers get it all," Cuban says. Conversely, searching for and downloading specific music and other content "is a bust," Cuban says. "There is just too much out there for people to search through."

Finally, Cuban says his biggest fear on the horizon is what he calls "The Little Kid Effect"--that some 15-year-old will think up a new media type we can't imagine today.

"That's what I'm most scared of," says Cuban. "Just like Amazon.com spanked Barnes & Noble."