It’s Pesach time again.
And so, as tradition wants, here is a short video I uncovered the other day:
Chag Sameach!
Posts published in March 2010
With 24 being canceled and Lost ending its run next May, this season will mark the last year of so-called Appointment Television.
Everything is now available at our finger tips, and denying it is simply delusional.
It’s a given that people are currently watching television in a very different way than how they were used to for the past last 50-60 years.
Pure made-for-TV content is virtually gone. Networks are constantly thinking of new ways to use new media to promote a show on the air.
Appointment TV itself has gone through some changes throughout the years.
At its core, it can best be described as a can’t-miss show you have to see every broadcast week.
The reason you “can’t-miss” it is exactly what has evolved.
Appointment TV has been in existence since the early days of television at a time where only a handful networks existed. Everyone around the country would tune in to watch one of the few shows on the air, week after week.
When a finale aired, it was an event like no other that a majority of Americans would follow. M*A*S*H*’s series finale achieved a 77% share with 50.15 million households. Three years prior, the Dallas reveal of who shot J.R. attracted 41.5 million households for a 76% share.
To compare, this year’s Super Bowl, the most-watched television program in television history, “only” achieved a 68% share.
But don’t think this viewer problem is anything new.
Over twenty years ago, in 1988, LAT’s Peggy Zeigler wrote in an article entitled “Where have all the viewers gone?”:
And everyone has to figure out how to make network television back into a hits business. The buzzword is appointment television, industry shorthand for the kind of “can’t miss” shows that people make sure they’re home to watch — or they tape. Appointment television translates to hit shows: “Cosby” was appointment TV, so was “Moonlighting” and “L.A. Law.” Appointment television brings more viewers to the set; “The Cosby Show” single-handedly boosted Thursday night HUT levels when it debuted in 1984.
By the mid-1990s, NBC’s “Must See TV” brand was starting to die down, and so was widespread Appointment TV. Due to an increasing number of channels, everyone had their own little personal “Appointment TV Show,” but few were nationally-recognized as such.
A crazy storytelling form became at that point a bit more common: serialized narratives.
Though heavily-serialized shows wouldn’t catch on for another ten years, “softer” mythological ones would in the meantime not only become critical hits, but also cultural ones. Series, such as The X-Files and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, succeeded in keeping an episode format while creating arcs over a full season.
Appointment TV was at that point apparently dead, replaced by Cult Television.
Then something happened: the Internet.
People could share thoughts and discuss mythological components, dissect a show, relay tons of behind-the-scenes information. But it needed content.
No new series had appeared to fill the void since the end of The X-Files.
24 premiered in 2001 and was an instant hit. Many reasons were given, a major one is linked to its serialized format.
It wasn’t only made to enhance “the watercooler factor,” but more importantly allowed the show to introduce a brand new concept: addictive television.
At the other end of the box, people had started to proactively change their schedules to fit a given show into their lives.
You wouldn’t necessarily want to do a Hill Street Blues marathon, but we’ve all heard countless stories of people watching several seasons of 24 back-to-back in one sitting.
After that shift occurred, virtually no episodic Appointment TV remained. Friends’ finale became an actual Television Event (thanks to the show’s influence on pop-culture), but the show never actually reached on a regular basis the levels of 80s sitcoms.
In 2004, Desperate Housewives brought back soap-opera to primetime with much success.
The same year, Lost smashed the mythological show rulebook and paved the way for new forms of television-related transmedia storytelling. Its complex mysteries also brought viewers, who tuned in week after week, wanting answers, or at the very least more clues. For its six seasons, countless time has been spent talking about the series and its content.
The void was filled, and the ultimate form of Appointment Television was born. If only with a decade to live.
Slowly but surely, the tool that helped it resurface was causing its very downfall.
The shows had become so serialized that you couldn’t miss an episode, and needed to use technology to catch up on them. From there, it wasn’t much of a stretch for “can’t miss shows” to become DVRed and streamed instead of live-watched.
Ironically, Appointment TV had become a “must-see,” but not necessarily on television’s schedule.
What works best on television are episodic shows, and what works best outside television are serialized ones.
Meanwhile, Event TV (sports competitions, award shows, etc.) was emphasized as such thanks to Twitter, and other live-communities.
It now has grown into something new: Social Television.
Lost‘s series finale in May will be Event Television. Everyone around the country might not watch it, but they will surely talk about it. By that time however, Appointment Television will be gone forever.
Whatever the case may be, massive weekly viewings of a show are a thing of the past.
Welcome to the world of crossmedia.
Today I went to the 2010 French Book Fair in Paris which usually has great debates dedicated to new problems relating to e-publishing and eBooks.
This year was no exception with an incredible array of talks on the future of publishing (one even about Augmented Reality).
I went to a few, though the one that caught my eye and found most interesting was the last:
E-Readers, where are we now?
The panel was comprised of Jacques Angelé (Nemoptic Vice-President), Pierre Geslot (Head of E-paper and Digitization projects at Orange), Alex Henzen (R&D Vice-President at iRex Technologies), and Anthony Slack (Commercial Development Vice-President at Liquavista).
As you’d expect, it was mainly about the future of e-Readers, and as a matter of fact, not only were we able to see with our very eyes amazing prototypes (pictures below), but a couple of announcements were made.
I will go over what was discussed in a minute, but first, let’s check up on some basics.
What is not an eBook E-Reader?
I’m sorry to break it to you, but first and foremost, the iPad, and all other tablets of its kind, are not e-Readers (more on that later).
Neither is your iPhone for that matter.
If they were, then your current computer, or even your TV, would be considered eBook Readers.
The truth is they do not contain the one key component to it all: e-paper.
What is e-paper?
As the name implies, it’s basically a display imitating to the fullest and ordinary piece of paper (with ink).
That also means it does not use backlight (unlike, say, LCD/LED screens). Given that, it doesn’t strain the eye.
E-papers actually act like a normal piece of paper, meaning they reflect ambient light.
In addition, once an e-page has been set, it remains static and can’t be changed, simply because it does not at this point need any electricity to sustain (it’s in stasis).
You could set your e-Reader on a specific book page and theoretically leave it like this for months (years?), and it wouldn’t switch off.
This of course sharply contrasts with any other battery-based devices that barely can stand a day without a charge.
The only time a Reader needs electricity is when it needs to change the screen (like when you turn the page), but even then, you’d have to do about two weeks of continuous change for the battery to drain.
It might shock you to learn that not all e-papers are using E Ink (yes, it’s a brand).
Different technologies are used, each with their advantages, and disadvantages.
In fact, although last year it controlled about 90% of all sold e-Readers, it is expected that, by the end of 2011, E Ink will only be carried on 50% of displays.
As for the actual technology involved, I won’t bore you with how this stuff works, as it has been detailed much better elsewhere.
Suffice it to say that E Ink is part of a bigger group named Electrophoretic Display, or EPD. Such displays use charged pigment particles (pixels) that get rearranged based on an electric field: black or white.
The two main problems with E Ink are its response time, and its lack of color.
Ironically, E Ink was originally tested using other bi-colored pigments:
Constant R&D is able to increase each year the E Ink refresh rate by about 30%.
As for the color, that’s a different problem entirely.
iRex‘s Hanzen did however announce that colored E Ink would be arriving later this year (albeit at a different company).
For now, it’s not in their priority as colors on E Ink are simply not that efficient at the moment.
At best, you would get a sombre screen, since brightness would be limited. RGB additive color uses a third of the available pixel space, so you would only get a ninth of available brightness for “true white”.
Reflectivity would also be pretty limited.
Nemoptic presented prototypes of its BiNem (Bistable Nematic) Displays (manufacturing starts at around end of 2011):
Display size: 6.1 inches (73 x 107 mm)
Resolution: 300 x 400 x RGBW (QSVGA), 100 ppi
Color depth: From top to bottom, 16 colors, and 32,768 colors (32K for real)
Contrast: 12:1
Perhaps the most promising new tech are what’s called Electrowetting Displays (EWD), represented at the panel by Liquavista.
Like E Ink, it works via electric fields. However, instead of pigment particles, it uses colored oil and water. The liquid therefore becomes wettable.
EWD has been described as “the most versatile,” with multiple use going from reflective applications to transmissive and transflective ones.
The tech can also go from low refresh rates (less than one frame per second) to super-high ones like 200 frames per second!
Liquavista presented three of these EWDs.
One was B&W:
Display size: 6 inches (92 x 123 mm)
Resolution: 800 x 600, 166 ppi
Grey levels: 16
Brightness: 60% higher than standard EPD
Contrast ratio: 2 times higher than standard EPD
The other was color:
Display size: 6 inches (92 x 123 mm)
Resolution: 800 x 600, 166 ppi
Color levels: 4,096; 30% more reflective than standard EPD
They were both announced as being released in Late May/Early June of this year (no price tag yet), and named Liquavista Pebble.
We also did get to see a prototype of a functioning touch-screen colored EWD, with such a high-refresh rate it could do video (let alone be able to handle an iPod Touch-type interface).
Although still a prototype, Liquavista‘s Anthony Slack did say the touchscreen could be compatible to both Projected Capacitive Touch (fingers) and Resistive Touch (stylus).
By June, the prototype should achieve at least a 24-bit color depth.
Later this year, manufacturing will be announced, with a release date slated around mid-2011.
The presentation on the touchscreen e-Reader was not unlike the one used here (right-side; the one on the left is Sony’s PRS-600BC).
When talking about the (currently) sole competitor in the color e-Reader market (Fujitsu‘s newly-released FLEPia), all the panel guests unanimously bashed the Reader, stating it was “too slow” and had “washed colors.”
The panel then shifted to the iPad, discussing if it was going to be a big e-Reader competitor.
This is when Orange‘s Geslot stepped in.
He talked a bit about several focus groups his company had recently made around the iPad.
The tablet had been pitted against major e-Readers (Kindle, Nook, etc.), not for a spec comparison, rather to see which one the various users (of all ages) would feel more comfortable reading books on.
He disclosed the results which were, as he puts it, “surprising.”
The focus groups revealed that two core opposing sides were emerging:
– Half the people loved the idea of a multimedia platform that could also let you read while still being connected (therefore preferring the iPad)
– The other half, in total opposition, considered that reading was sacred and a private journey that shouldn’t be interrupted by ringtones, pop-ups, or IMs (therefore preferring a dedicated e-Reader)
Geslot was keen to point out that the latter group actually wasn’t made up of only seniors but actually youngsters too.
At the end of it all, the panel agreed that there would probably be two kinds of usage that would call for two different devices.
A dedicated e-Reader, that has perfected its sole function, will be preferred for heavy-reading. Multimedia tablets (with or without e-paper), will offer more flexible use than their counterpart, but will only be used for quick reads here and there.
The moderator concluded by asking the guests what they thought an e-Reader will be like in ten years.
One jokingly replied: “I’m betting on a flexible 3-D e-paper display that can play Avatar.”
James Cameron would be so proud.