Viewfinder: Video Newsletters

Before we know it, video will accompany every kind of written text available, from newspapers to junk e-mail. In the next few years, video editing software packages may come bundled with Microsoft Windows or perhaps as a module within Microsoft Office. In that same time frame, new PCs will come with recordable DVD drives as a standard option. The Internet connection to the average home will be fast enough to provide high-quality streaming video that rivals or exceeds current broadcast standards. Once these events take place, people will be as free to communicate via TV as they now do via text.

Every published newsletter will have a video counterpart. I personally subscribe to a newsletter for Jack Russell Terriers because my dog (Deen) is of that breed. The pictures in the newsletter are small, black and white and very grainy. The newsletter includes stories about recent competitions in which these dogs run through a maze or compete to find things hidden in tunnels. I have never attended one of these dog competitions, so the text and photos are all I have to help me imagine what it must be like. I am trying to determine if I should train Deen in these areas so he can compete someday. Soon the video counterpart to the Jack Russell Terriers Newsletter will better enable me to engage in this highly specific pursuit. (Unfortunately, Deen can't appreciate the newsletter at all, but the video counterpart might work for him.)

I might receive the video counterpart of the Jack Russell Terriers Newsletter from the Internet, streamed to my computer on demand, or I might receive it via the Internet as an e-mail attachment. If the JRT Videoletter is over 1 gigabyte, I might receive it via the US Postal mail on a DVD. This hardcopy option would allow me to store the JRT Videoletter for later reference without consuming any storage space…