It's tucked away in a warehouse down a dead-end street in Burnaby, but Hugh
Dobbie's mediaontap broadcasts around the world.
In downtown, Vancouver's Coal Harbour, futurist Frank Ogden runs his
global television show from his houseboat.
Dobbie and Ogden are among the early adopters of streaming media -- a
technology that facilitates the sending of audio and video across the
Internet. By doing so, it takes television and radio production from the
realm of huge networks and multi-million dollar budgets and puts it online
at a fraction of the cost.
It's still early days for the technology, which should probably be
called "streamed media," but is universally termed "streaming media." For
one thing, it certainly doesn't duplicate television broadcast quality, but
improvement is measured now in days and weeks -- not months and years.
Skeptics may have scoffed at its poor quality, but with its growth far
outpacing that of early television and radio, there's every indication
streaming media will prove them wrong.
"We took it on the chin everywhere we went," said Dobbie, president and
chief executive officer INSINC (Interactive Netcasting Systems Inc.) that
owns mediaontap and mediaontap. "Quality was so bad at first, but it has
evolved.
"Criticism of the technology was harsh at times, but you only have to
think of early radio and television to know it's only going to get better."
Early streaming video was hardly bigger than a postage stamp in the
corner of your computer screen and the action had a choppy, delayed look of
a bad home movie. And much of the streamed video viewers are seeing today is
still like that. However, depending on your Internet access speed and the
broadcast you're watching, you can get close-to-television-quality streaming
video to fill your computer screen.
The technology is now being taken seriously.
"Over the last four or five months, it was like a lightbulb has gone off
in the world," Dobbie said. "People have stopped laughing and they're trying
to get on the boat."
Bandwidth is a perennial issue when it comes to pushing more data --
whether it's video or audio -- over the Net.
The increasing number of users turning to such high-speed access as ADSL
(Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) means that more Net surfers can take
advantage of high quality streaming video, unhindered by slow modems and
dial-up connections.
Dobbie is counting on this shift to fuel the trend to streaming video
over the Internet.
"The magic piece of this whole formula that's somewhat out of our
control is the last mile," said Dobbie, whose company was the first in
Canada to stream RealVideo -- with David Chalk's computer show -- and the
first to deliver programming to radio stations over the Internet.
"As broadband capabilities start servicing the last mile to the home
that's when we'll see this technology really explode. Right now it's
expanding within businesses that have broadband capability."
Video and audio applications now account for two per cent of Internet
traffic, a figure that's expected to increase to six per cent by 2003. Some
200,000 streaming players are downloaded from the Web daily, according to
the International Webcasters Association.
It's a medium that fine tunes audience targeting. In one mediaontap show,
European Connections, host Chris Lindgren attracts viewers all over the
world who tune in for his mix of Scandinavian/Canadian news and culture,
music and guest appearances.
Steve Dotto, a Net Works columnist and host of his own show Dotto on
Data, broadcast through the Knowledge Network, has also expanded his show to
the Web through mediaontap.
"It has given us the opportunity to reach places we weren't reaching
with our broadcast signal," Dotto said. "For me it is a question of
augmenting my reach."
Unlike television viewing, visits to the online show can be tracked in
detail and the viewers can interact with the show. A host can track whether
a viewer joining the audience is from Chetwynd or China.
Shows are delivered in real time and they can also be archived, so
viewers can watch on their own schedule without the headache of programming
the video recorder.
The average time a surfer spends at a mediaontap site is more than 10
minutes -- an eternity in terms of Web page viewing. The Internet also allows for a
level of customization that is impossible with television.
"When someone is watching TV, it's impossible to get them to interact,"
Dotto said.
"Now we can put a contest on and get people to interact with the show."
Dotto isn't concerned about the video quality that is delivered online.
It's the potential that has drawn him to the medium.
"It's improving, we're still at such as embryonic time," he said.
"I'm sure when Alexander Graham Bell first listened to a telephone
connection, it was crap.
"The fact we have lousy video coming over a tiny window doesn't bother
me a bit, as quality improves more and more people will come on.
"We have fairly high expectations today but I don't think we have any
other medium that will give us this ultimate interactivity and
customization."
Ogden, also known as Dr. Tomorrow, is parlaying this ability to
customize content into tightly targeted shows. Currently he has eight shows
running on his network, including his own.
One example of audience targeting is a Chinese-language broadcast
scheduled to debut this weekend that will coach would-be emigrants to North
America on cultural and business differences they can expect to find here.
Ogden says streaming media will bear out his earlier predictions of a
broadcast universe that won't be limited to 500 traditional channels, but
will explode in growth to include alternate broadcasting that's available to
anyone with a camera, computer and limited investment.
"This is the first time in history that a global soapbox has been made
available to anyone with relatively little investment," he said.
"I think the creativity this will unleash among the digerati will be
phenomenal."
While the television and radio stations are the part of Insinc's
operations that are most visible to the Internet public, it's the delivery
of streaming media for corporate events, such as annual general meetings,
trade shows and other presentations that pays the bills. Dobbie's company
has broadcast such events as Rogers' annual general meeting and the Banff
Television Festival '99.
Dobbie sees the future in a host of applications that can take advantage
of relatively low-cost broadcasting to targeted audiences -- from distance
learning to electronic commerce and sporting events.
"That's where the business model is today," he said.
Such broadcasts can cost from $2,500 to $25,000 depending on the event
and the requirements.
Dobbie's company can deliver a start-to-finish solution complete with
hosts and camera operators or it can simply provide the network delivery for
the broadcast, as it does with Ogden's shows.
Dobbie said the next step is to expand the business in the U.S., where
the company already rates as one of the top 10 streaming media companies on
the Internet.
His company currently has a staff of 12 and is expanding its Burnaby
studio.
The technology doesn't likely have network executives losing sleep at
night yet and Dobbie says it won't. He doesn't see it replacing traditional
media.
"It's a completely different medium," he said.
"This in an interactive medium -- you can get into a dialogue with your
listeners and viewers. Why pay to broadcast to 50,000 viewers, when you can
focus in on the five that really want to buy?"
Gillian Shaw has been a guest on Steve Dotto's Dotto on Data show and
Frank Ogden's Dr. Tomorrow, both on mediaontap.
She can be reached at gshaw@pacpress.southam.ca.
