DVD creatives launch META
Media Experience Trade Assn. to coordinate technology development
By Susanne Ault -- Video Business, 2/9/2007
FEB. 9 | Hoping to improve consumer acceptance of emerging formats, DVD producers and software developers have launched the new Media Experience Trade Assn.
Metabeam CEO Chris Brown (l.) and META steering chair Scott Bates at META's conference.
DVD creatives hope to coordinate the technology’s development, as studios push to fill larger-capacity high-definition discs with interactive bonus features.
Because digital extras for both HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc are still in nascent stages, META members hope to ease consumers through any hiccups.
The organization bowed with the conference Media Experience 2007 on Feb. 2 in Manhattan Beach, Calif., in order to detail its upcoming agenda.
One goal of the group is to prepare seals of approval for disc packages certifying consumer usability. The markings, dubbed META Seals, would assure customers that high-def discs include certain helpful features, such as instant playability and browse navigational buttons. These labels should be available for studio use by the end of 2007.
Also, META members hope to create digital media standards that could speed up the advancement of interactive technology, branded iHD for the HD DVD format and BD Java for Blu-ray.
“There are so many more complexities” as developers wade through HD DVD, Blu-ray and other new media forms, said Chris Brown, META president and CEO. “As a group, we are going to be fighting for the consumer. We want to make sure it’s useable and that normal people aren’t intimidated.”
META member and DVD producer Van Ling hopes the group can contribute to the completion of the BD Java specification. He is not expecting fully realized BD Java to be integrated into studio releases until late this year.
Picture-in-picture technology, already featured in HD DVD discs, is one such BD Java element still under construction. The option allows viewers to see video commentaries while watching the feature film at the same time.
“Our hope is that members develop the processes to use this stuff better,” said Ling, who worked on Lionsgate Blu-ray releases Terminator 2 and The Devil’s Rejects, among others. “When we were dealing with DVD, it was a limited video format. Now it’s like [computer] software, and you’re talking about being programmers,” Ling said. “The kind of things you can do have multiplied exponentially, but the bad news is that you have to code everything from scratch and that can be done in 10 different ways.”
He believes many Blu-ray studios have delayed releasing their biggest titles because interactivity is still limited in the format.
Ling and Brown hope META also can address the conflicting Hollywood interests surrounding the high-def marketplace. That was the subject of the Media Experience session “Culture Clash: Media Design vs. Software Developers.”
Eager to see financial returns on Blu-ray and HD DVD, studios want interactivity enhancements now. However, filmmakers do not want to see their movies unnecessarily destroyed by fans getting the chance to interact.
“The natural reaction from filmmakers is they don’t want to lose their point of view, seeing it potentially diluted through user control,” said panelist John Harrington, founder of Internet software developer NetBlender.
Studios are risking upsetting fans by rushing interactivity to market before its ready, said Ling.
“It might look great for the bullet points that you can list [on the back of a package], but just because you can do something like [favorite scene] bookmarks … doesn’t mean that people will find them useful,” he said. “We need to come up with ways to make [interactivity] useful.”
