Conclusion

Conclusion

My hypothesis was “Digital Revolution in Entertainment Industry, a much needed revolution”. For this I referred books and views of J.C.R. Licklider, Robert W. Taylor and Bernstein. The books contains the fact that actual digital revolution took place in several aspects and it also covered entertainment industry. We cannot ignore the fact that now-a-days we can watch more than 100channels on television, we can see the current scenario of different countries by internet or news channels. Through mobile we can get the update information about latest film release, sports, horoscope and many more. Digital camera also provides us better picture quality. Digital software of music provides us ample quality of sound and mixture of dialogues. Due to the digital revolution in entertainment industry, many creative directors feel much freedom and prefer to do experiments by using digital technology. So, from the above quotes and views, it is clear that digital revolution in entertainment industry is a much needed revolution.

Digitalization

Digitalization - Advances in digital technology are in the process of changing the face of the film business – the impact is expected to be as radical as internet and cell-phone technology changed the communications business (PWC & FICCI, 2007). Digitization impacts the entire value chain of the industry: (1) Digital technology can significantly improve film production by leading to efficiency improvements and higher control over the production process. (2) Distributors can benefit from more flexibility and substantial cost savings, which hinges on the idea of ‘digital cinemas’ (the projection of movies in a digital format without the need for actual film prints). (3) ‘Digital cinemas’ provide similar flexibility benefits (e.g. adjustments to timing of screening) and cost saving effects to exhibitors as to distributors, and it could also allow exhibitors to raise ticket prices given the better quality of the images shown. However, exhibitors also bear the highest investment costs in terms of purchasing digital projectors, facilitating the technology, and support services. Due to these high costs, only large (multiplex) chains have begun investing significantly. (4) Digitization helps to curb the problem of piracy. Digitization of both movies and cinemas would allow an almost instant distribution to rural cinemas and thus close the time window in which piracy is profitable. Moreover, digital films often include visual features that can deter the quality of an illegal recording of a movie (e.g. a large mark on the screen that is not visible in the cinema but on recorded copies). (5) Digitization allows charging higher prices thus increasing revenues, which translates into higher entertainment and income tax collections. Smaller cinemas can thus become more commercially viable (by facing less piracy and higher revenues), which translates to more employment opportunities and a strengthening of the rural exhibition industry. 6) General film quality improves also, especially because digital films (on contrast to prints) do not lose visual quality when shown many times. Thus, digitization is a promising trend in many ways, but certain challenges need to be overcome. Digitization has only happened to a small extent in Bollywood – regional Tamil cinemas are, for example, ahead in the game. Also, lacking technological standards impede the growth of one unifying and affordable technology (Naachgaana, 2008b).

Movies

Movies - Bollywood is inseparable from the music industry benefiting from its large pool of composer, poets and musicians. Through the highly developed ICT-sector, latest software, IT23 skills and favorable conditions such as reduced telephony rates, coverage of high-speed bandwidth connectivity are available. As for mobile telephony, penetration is still low (14%) but India is potentially the 4th largest wireless market in the world and already today non-sms data are the second highest revenue base for mobile phones. Consequently, Bollywood started producing short movies for mobile phones (Fitchard, 2007, Jayaram, 2007). A further weakness is at the level of the exhibition infrastructure. The total capacity is 13,000 screens, out of which only 9,500 remain fully operational per year and of theses only 700 are multiplex screens (Ernest & Young, 2007a). The demand for Bollywood movies is diversifying, and Bollywood needs to adapt quality and content its movies. The cluster’s success historically has been based on its ability to cater to a large and fairly homogenous demand: coming out of poverty, people demanded escapist movies with emotion, dance and singing: the typical “masala movie”. However, an attractive scale of domestic demand prevented the industry from developing other formats, such as movies for Western export markets, with larger revenue potential. The overseas market is currently estimated at Rs. 7 billion (approx. USD 180 million), and expected to grow at 18% annually. But Bollywood only captures less than 10% of its box office revenues abroad (PWC & FICCI 2007). In addition, with a growing middle class (300 million) there is also an increasing gap between urban and rural demand. The former now demands more and more Masala movies- a demand that cannot be met due to limited availability of talent (Shedde, 2006, Dwyer, 2006). Hence, international movies begin to penetrate the market to fill this demand gap. Although currently only 2% of annual revenues and 5 % of about $1 billion tickets sold are being captured by foreign firms (Naachgaana, 2008b), foreign movies present a challenge. Hollywood movies with better marketing (larger budgets) are gaining market share.12 Especially the large young population (more than 50%) is disillusioned with domestic music and cinema and are more susceptible to the arrival of Hollywood.

E-offices

E-offices - For any office, the multifunction device (MFD) is a virtual genie. It prints, faxes, scans, copies and does much more. Apart from being efficient, it makes for less clutter The HP PSC 2410 is one such device. It is an all-in-one printer-fax-scanner and colour printer. It can copy and fax without a PC and gives vibrant photos with life-like colour. There has been a virtual revolution where PCs are concerned. Other essential office equipment are lightweight and sleek LCD Projectors with auto set-up which saves time on alignment and focus and has security features like the use of a password. With different CD-media available for burning, camcorders just can't stay back in this run-away technology lane. Smart phones always try and give something different from their counterparts. These digital gizmos have a digital camera, MMS, video, and Bluetooth capability as well as a WAP 2.0 browser to check your mail. Also in international level we can see the impact of digital revolution.

The reason why digital medium is becoming a popular mode of entertainment is that its cost-effectiveness allows one to make unconventional and out-of-the-box films, said Mr. Dibaker Banerjee, director of acclaimed films 'Khosla ka Ghosla' and 'Oye Lucky, Lucky Oye', at a seminar on digital revolution in India conducted at the Digital Movement, digital entertainment festival, held at Symbiosis Institute of Media & Communication today. Mr. Banerjee also pointed out that “Since the budget is miniscule, the filmmaker has his freedom to experiment without pressure from the producers”. The mobility factor coupled with the high resolution available on digital cameras is a great incentive for filmmakers. "You store the video in hard drives that can be strapped on your back and the cameras are so handy that it allows great leverage in setting shots and also, they are sensitive enough to be used in natural lighting conditions", said Mr. Kunal Roy Kapur, director of the digital film 'The President is Coming'. He recounted the aesthetic brilliance of the recently released 'Slumdog Millionaire' of which sixty percent had been shot on digital mode. The pace of the digital revolution has accelerated with New Media such as the Internet, mobile phone technology and devices such as I-pods. Mr. Rajjat Barjatya, the Managing Director of Rajshri Media, who was responsible for the simultaneous online release of Vivaah on the company's website along with the theatrical release, pointed out the possibilities of content creation, distribution and consumption on the Internet platform. "Besides the obvious lower costs, our audience spends more time on the Net and the mobile phone and hence we increase our reach through the digital medium", he said. Also, the on-demand viewing model in the Internet portals allows content and advertising to be more personalized, he added. The consensus for taking forward the digital revolution is that the digital medium deserves the same respect as a 35mm film and should not be used carelessly just because it is possible and cost-effective. Video and computer games now account for the greatest revenues worldwide, followed thereafter by television, sound recordings (phonograms), books and magazines, and then film. (Bernstein, 1990).³

The day is not far when sitting on a comfortable couch in your drawing room, you will see Keanu Reaves somersault through the air in The Matrix the same moment audiences in the US view it for the first time on their big screens. Nobody disagrees that digital cinema is to enter Bollywood in a big way, least of all the film distributors. Fun Republic, the entertainment company of the Essel group, is to add 1,000 digital screens to its existing bouquet of 90 digital and 50 analogue screens under Fun Cinemas in the next five years, Mr. Atul Goel, Chief Executive Officer, said. Cinemax will launch digital screens in the next two years, said Mr. Devang Sampat, Vice-President, Marketing and Cinemax. The company is in talks with producers for mutually sharing the cost of digital movies.

“For a digital platform in cinema, producers need to make more films digitally,” he remarked. Adlabs, an Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group initiative, is working on a new model for its digital cinema chain that will be ready by December. Currently, the company operates 20 to 25 digital screens in Maharashtra while it operates 600 screens under its digital arm — United Film Organizers (UFO) Movies. An investment of Rs 15 lakh is required to set up a single digital screen, according to Mr. Manmohan Shetty of Adlabs. The cost per seat in a theatre is Rs 60,000 and hence the cost to set up a digital screen will not vary substantially from setting up an analogue projection system, he explained. Mr. Sudhir Mishra, who has directed films such as Hazaaron Khwaishay Aisi, said that the digital camera ‘Red’ is already available in the US. “The digital revolution is going to come to Bollywood as well and when it does, a person will be able to receive the film via satellite the same day of its release in theatres worldwide, assuming that he can afford it,” he said. This will also open up the market in B and C towns by saving on the print cost, which is Rs 60,000 plus. Mr. Mishra says the lack of proper infrastructure and low quality of digital technology in India today are restricting the production of such films. Apart from penetration in smaller markets, digital cinema is expected to bring economy in the production of films, said Mr. Sampat. “It will help cut costs by saving on the heavy printing expenditure.” Mr. Shetty feels that the digital revolution will help cut costs in a small budget film but not big budget ventures.

E-ntertainment

E-ntertainment - giving audiovisual delight a new meaning called e-cinema. The digital revolution has swept across to the cinema as well. And no, it is not for the urban cinema buffs only. Film aficionados in Amravati to Asansol and Jalandhar to Jamnagar can now enjoy the latest film releases on the same day as their metro counterparts. The e-cinema encompasses all aspects - digital projection, digital distribution and exhibition of cinema. Digital technology is still an evolving media and there are issues relating to quality of digital prints being used in India. However, since the economics of digital exhibition systems works favorably for producers, distributors and exhibitors, this is already on its way to popularity. Compare this: Digital prints are available at Rs 2,000 against the Rs 70,000 plus cost earlier. The digital prints can be encrypted to give producers full control over the number of screenings along with safeguards to prevent piracy.

Home entertainment will no longer be the same what with the coming of the plasma and flat TVs and state-of-art digital home viewing systems. As more and more people upgrade to HDTV to enjoy the benefits of digital television (DTV), the need for recording high definition content will rise. Time to throw out those dumb VCRs also; TiVo and Replay, two US companies, have started selling personal video recorders (PVRs) - the same sort of thing as video cassette recorders (VCRs), only these are digital and with a memory. People in the industry expect that it will change viewing patterns far more dramatically than the VCR did, by allowing viewers more control over what they watch and when they watch, thus loosening the network schedulers' grip on the audience.

For the shutterbug too, there is a lot in store. Cameras have developed from the 'aim and shoot' to a lot more sophisticated versions. The Nikon CoolPix 3700 digital camera gives the ability to create your own movies. It has 8 movie modes, voice recording function and a 256 MB SD memory card.

Internet

Internet - Today, the Internet (A world wide network that allows anyone to send and receive information all over the world) is allowing universities across America, international businesses, and individuals to collaborate with people across town and half way around the globe. As a result of the Internet, people can buy and sell things, learn, and communicate with others. Tomorrow, people will be able to do all of the things they can now, and so much more. The Internet was created in the 1960s by the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) in order to allow a few select universities in the U.S and the DOD (Department of Defense) to interact with each other over long distances. Over a very short time, approximately ten years, the Internet went from being a little idea to being a multi-million dollar system. During the 1970s as more universities and institutions used the Internet, it became necessary to create data transmission standards. The two standards that were developed were TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) and IP (Internet Protocol). In 1989 English computer scientist Timothy Berners-Lee introduced the idea of the WWW (World Wide Web). Businesses use the Internet to carry out e-commerce (electronic commerce) such as advertising, selling, and buying. Since 1989 the internet has been the most rapidly diffusing innovation of the internet in the history of humankind. By mid-2001, an estimated 400 million individuals were using the internet, and the rate of diffusion worldwide was increasing rapidly, especially in Asian nations. Home users use the Internet for both work, and educational research. Adults also use the Internet to communicate to their offices from their homes. Children in the homes use the Internet to talk with their friends, and to play games.

Media

Media - Definition of media: more than one medium. Before means postal services existed, before means of writing information down existed, man could only use one form of medium of communication i.e. vague drawings. Today, man has created more than one form of medium to get his ideas from one place to another, which ranges from computer disks to conventional paper books. Tomorrow, communications media will not only include the television and computer, but will also include the use of holograms and illusions. Media includes medium like radio which was invented by Guglielmo Marconi which allowed for information to flow to more people quickly. Television, soon after, was introduced by American inventor Philo T. Farnsworth and Russian-born engineer Vladimirk Zworykin in 1927. Then, the ultimate media invention was initiated: the computer, which affects the lives of millions of people around the globe.