Luciferjones

I see an increasing number of books and associated discussions emerging of late about the transformation of the broadcasting industry to digital high definition and the management of that process. Having looked at a number of these books and perused the discussions I find I am somewhat disappointed, even bemused, by the strangely static thinking that permeates discussion of broadcasting in the digital high def age.

It would seem that the focus of this dominant discourse in regard to broadcasting is geared around ‘transitioning’ rather than ‘re-thinking’, about shifting on a technical level but not really re-evaluating on a broader conceptual level. The transition itself seems to boil down to a move from ‘traditional broadcasting’ to ‘traditional broadcasting in a larger screen size’. Zeros and Ones instead of waves but what otherwise boils down to not much more than technical evolution. And for me the fundamentally problematic element here is the consistent reference to the term HD itself.

There’s a lot more to digital broadcasting that simply a change in technology - its as much about a change perceptions and expectations on the part of the viewer as it is about image quality. Any broadcaster with a forward thinking perspective must be talking about digital and HD in the context of a YouTube and MySpace generation of viewers. The much touted idea of the viewer wanting to watch, what they want, when they want, is certainly true but pro-activity is just one part of the equation. As any good marketing company will attest Perception is everything superseding any potential facts. (the creative tech sector developers being prime criminals in this regard: Apple, Avid, Sony, Panasonic - I’m looking your direction!)

In the context of Perception the concept of something being ‘broadcast quality’ is an absurd idea. The notion that a there is some sort of bench mark for what we will and wont watch is farcical when broadcast mobile phone news footage is a staple of people’s nightly viewing and hours a willed away watching overly compressed YouTube videos that despite the compression artefacts can be thoroughly engaging and totally viral in their viewership penetration.

This is where the idea of referring to the future of broadcasting being ‘all about HD’; or as Steve Jobs verbosely put it two years premature ? the ‘year of HD’ - is fundamentally flawed. For me, a holistic understanding of what Digital Broadcasting is needs to encompass both ends of the spectrum because whilst viewers expect their Discovery Channel docos to be sharper than sharper, brighter than bright and pixel packed to the gills, those same viewers will also happily not question mobile phone video and ultra low res on their broadcast channels.

You could say that we’re Not going into the HD age but rather the AD age ? Not High-Definition but All-Definition. Where once there was just SD with clear and predictable acquisition and delivery formats - the future is all All Definition where all definitions and acquisition technologies have the same broadcast potential and viability. Context of course is king, but from a technical standpoint broadcasters are going to need to be prepared, willing and capable of dealing with an absolutely unprecedented array of formats, codecs, file types and frame sizes. This is of course driven greatly by the viewer-driven content scenario that has become a staple of modern media conceptualisation. The point in time when the percentage amount of content sourced from and produced by viewers and amateurs is equal to, or even exceeds, that sourced from and produced by professionals is very quickly approaching. Thus the predictability of broadcasting is gone and the idea of a benchmark of Broadcast Quality is long dead. What we have instead is a highly fluid and hybrid media delivery environment that embraces enormously diverse channels of acquisition, production and delivery not to mention technical specifications, forms, formats and codecs.

On a practical level the future of employment in broadcasting technology is going to be about Content Wrangling as much as content acquisition and delivery. The conforming, matching, transcoding and preparing content for broadcast. The lack of predictability and uniformity, coupled with a near infinite fluidity as new formats change like your underwear, will mean the roles functions and skills required of technical-based jobs in broadcasting are going to fundamentally change well beyond simple transitioning to HD. High Defintion is just one part of the equation, the future is All Defintion.