Television is dead. The disc is dead. Broadcasting...dead. Cable? Satellite? Blu-ray? Everything you grew up with in terms of mass multimedia is dead; it just doesn't know it yet. Ten years ago, mass media meant multimillion-dollar corporations and networks. Granted, there were small advances in distribution in the decade, like DVD-Video and Blu-ray, but these were merely incremental changes; you still needed to transport a physical copy of your media to a compatible player. Today, anyone with a little spare time and a computer can make a movie that can reach an audience somewhere north of a billion people. That's more than any network can hit. That's more people than James Cameron could even dream of a decade ago. So a billion viewers is incredibly unlikely to happen without a surprised kitten, a groinshot and a babe or, preferably, all three at the same time, but the potential is there. And that potential reveals, with some clarity, the Future of Video.

The End of Standards

The first technical transformation that we've already seen is that the Dark Art of television broadcast standards, NTSC, ATSC, DLT to glass masters and other voodoo specs are history. Today, as we move forward through 2010, it's all irrelevant. Physical distribution and the Age of Standards are dead. Sure, we still have some constraints, but think about it: you can upload your movie at 640x480 or 1080p or in a long narrow strip 1,000 pixels wide by 300 pixels tall if you want. The best format for your production today...is the one that you chose.

Jetpacks, Flying Cars and 3D

One thing that this author predicts will not be big in the next decade is 3D. Like jetpacks and flying cars, 3D has always been a fanciful future fad that has never taken off. The primary reason that is that 3D is a gimmick. Why do we obsess over clarity, resolution and color and then ruin those three characteristics with 3D? Yeah, 3D is fun (I sure like it), but it doesn't look as good as 2D. And didn't we all just buy new thousand-dollar digital televisions last year? Didn't the TV we grew up with cost $300 and last 20 years? So do I really need a new TV already? Hum.

Cinematic Aspects

The history of camera technology, for example, reveals a direct and unmistakable future: SD to HD to 4K; smaller sensors to larger ones; film to tape to Flash memory; expensive to, well, less expensive; 4:3 to 16:9 to...cinematic aspect ratios. Look for digital anamorphic processes on 1920x1080 pixel image sensors and anamorphic glass in the immediate future. If you think 16:9 widescreen is cool, imagine true Academy Aspect camcorders, first at the professional level and then for us consumers. The marketeers convinced us that we needed 24p, they've made Depth of Field mandatory for True Artists and there's no reason to think that they won't convince us we need real movie screen aspect gear. Plus, this will give manufacturers an opportunity to sell us new television sets, which will drive the technology forward, whether consumers demand it or not.