Introduction

 Last update: 2008/06/10

Digital technologies have been in use for millennia but here we are concerned with the special use of digital technologies that enable the representation of signals with discrete (typically binary) values -  as opposed to a continuous spectrum of values - for a variety of purposes such as processing, storage and transmission. We call Digital Media Technologies the digital technologies that deal with signals that have a direct significance to human beings.

Starting from the seminal work of Harry Nyquist in the late 1920s, thousands of researchers have worked dreaming of the day the results of their research would become real. Companies have invested in those technologies looking forward to the day they would reap the result of their investments.

Overall Digital Technologies have been a very successful venture because the industrial landscape has been positively affected in a substantially fashion. After 50 years of Information Technology (IT), there exists a huge and profitable industry engaged in hardware, software and services. After 40 years of Integrated Circuits (IC), huge and profitable companies have been created whose products are applied by other industries such as IT, Consumer Electronics (CE) and Telecommunications. After 20 years of Digital Communication huge and profitable companies have made their fortunes making products other companies eagerly seek.

Digital Media is a particularly important case. Visionaries expected that, with Digital Media Technologies creators would be given new ways to express themselves and end users attain new levels of satisfaction. A multitude of old as well as new business players in the value chains would benefit from a range of new opportunities. In other words everybody expected that Digital Media Technologies would trigger a "Digital Media Revolution" with untold benefits to all. Today, some 15 years after deployment of Digital Media has become possible, can we say that this Revolution is happening?

There is no doubt that a lot is happening. Much of that is in terms of revolution, in the sense that the past is destroyed, but a lot is also happening in terms of creating the new. However, and with the exception of device manufacturing, it is hard to find economically successful examples of digital media.

I can understand the argument made by some that it is not fair to compare the Digital Media industry with other Digital Technologies industries. Transforming Digital Media into businesses has required at least three steps. First there was the development of a range of individual technologies, such as compression, modulation, integrated circuits, digital networks, protocols, computing devices, software, to mention some of the most important elements. Then the different technologies, typically developed by different and competing industries, had to be integrated. Lastly there was the need to convince media companies, some of which have been in existence long time before people even started thinking of Digital Media Technologies and have had a varying record of rapport with technology, to accept them as a suitable vehicle to run their media businesses. 

The last step has had mixed results that can be classified in three groups that I will call: "more of the same", "new, but who gains?" and "great, but it's my thing you take away!". To the first group belong those cases like Video CD (VCD) and Digital Versatile Disc (DVD) where considerable commercial success has been achieved by improving the scale, if not the substance, of the offer. To the second group belong those cases like pay TV or media streaming over the Internet where some level of new user experience - basically, a lot more choice - does not correspond to good business on the part of those who run the service. To the third group belong those cases where a really new user experience - access to an almost infinite repository of content and more - corresponds to a net loss for rights holders.

A degree of disillusionment had to be accounted for. It was naïve to expect that converting the world of analogue media into digital with the support of a range of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) should simply end up like a fairy tale with "... and henceforth they lived happily until the end of their days". But what has actually been realised so far is too remote from what had been envisioned. It is not possible to stay happy and just wait for a better future. Something has to be done.

I feel copelled to do something because much of what has happened in the last 20 years with Digital Media has been originated by the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG), the body that has provided some of the key technologies that have triggered the digital media revolution, but also in other initiatives in which I had a role, such as the Digital Audio-Visual Council (DAVIC), the Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents (FIPA), the Open Platform Initiative for Multimedia Access (OPIMA), the Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI), the Digital Media Project (DMP) and Digital Media in Italia (dmin.it). But these pages will also present basic information on other initiatives, even though in many cases I have not been an active party in them, because the picture would not be complete without if information on other environments.

The purpose of these pages bound by the title "Riding the media bits" is two-fold: the first is to disclose the views of those who have developed a great part of digital media technologies and to what results they have led, and the second to show the actions designed to rebalance the digital media landscape.

The target reader of these pages is non-technical, but this does not mean that technical people would not benefit from being exposed to the breadth of issues laid down in these pages. Non-technical people are warned that, since these pages deal with matters that are strongly influenced by very sophisticated technologies, some understanding of them will be required, if knowledge is not to be reduced to thin air and tool building to apodictic statements. In order not to scare these readers, I guarantee that efforts have been made to reduce technical explanations to the minimum necessary to provide baseline knowledge about the issues considered to substantiate arguments. They are advised to exercise a minimum of perseverance (not very much, actually), when they see themselves confronted with technical descriptions, if they want to reap the results promised. As a last resort, they may skip the chapter that is challenging them beyond their desire to understand.

There is one last thing I would like to say before taking the reader with me for a ride on the media bits. You will find that personal pronouns are rigorously kept in masculine form. I know this is politically incorrect, but I do think that if a language forces people to use personal pronouns in a sentence, like English does, they should have one of two choices: either to change the language and to make the use of pronouns optional, as in other languages like Italian or Japanese, or the people who expect to see a constant use of "he or she", "him or her", "his or her" etc., become less prudish. Neither of these options is within my reach so I will do as I said. After all I would rather look like a male chauvinist and use masculine pronouns, than be a male chauvinist but use politically correct expressions.

The only promise I can make is that I will use all personal pronouns in feminine form on the next occasion (if there will ever be one J).

This page would not be complete if I did not acknowledge my English mentor - Philip Merrill. Of his own initiative he has reviewed all the pages, providing countless invaluable suggestions. If the pages are more understandable - and readable - the credit goes to him.

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