The biggest buzzword in the audio/visual (A/V) industries today is "digital convergence," which means that we can do away with many of the buzzwords of the past. They are all joining forces under a nice, new, umbrella term to bring you the future of everything from home entertainment to national security. Essentially, everything "audio" and everything "video" is going to place nice together now that they all speak in 0's and 1's.
Well, that's the idea, anyway -- and it's a good one that a lot of smart folks are working on. It encompasses a whole lot more than A/V, including supercomputers, particle accelerators, telecommunications, even rocket science. Our concern in this article, though, is with those things that most people would be likely to use most often. We will discuss digital convergence as it affects music, TV and video.
Music systems
Throughout the postwar years, home audio components went through various evolutionary phases - from slate to vinyl records, from reel-to-reel to cassette tapes, etc. - but they were all "analog" technologies. The general idea didn't change much until the late 1990s. Until then, it was a simple matter of hooking up a record player and/or tape deck to an AM/FM receiver/amplifier combo, wiring the speakers and cranking up the volume.
In 1998, however, all that changed when a Korean company introduced the first device for playing compressed digital music files. These files were called "mp3" as they occupied the third "layer" of the MPEG file, whose standards are overseen by the Moving Picture Experts Group. The actual developer of the "codec" (for "compress/decompress") was Fraunhofer, a German company that licenses the technology to others.
Of course, "digital music" had been around since the introduction of the CD in the early 1980s. However, later advances in computers, plus the advent of the Internet, created pressure for the creation of files smaller than those of CD-Audio, which take up a hefty 10MB of space for every minute. With mp3 files taking up one-tenth that much space, it became feasible to build devices with memory chips in them to play the new music format. Smaller, downloadable from the Internet and easily stored (and copied) with computers, mp3 files-and the players that followed their development-revolutionized home audio.
Today, the question when shopping for a new component or whole new home audio system is what generation of devices to get or keep. If you have a record player that still works, and you like vinyl, you can stick with them. If you have cassettes and a decent tape deck, those will work too. If you want to upgrade but price is a consideration, you can also buy any number of high-powered boomboxes or "bookshelf size" mini-stereos.
But without a doubt, the buzzword for audio is "convergence," meaning that the new digital devices will work with your computer, and all your other digital devices, to bring the "digital entertainment emporium" into your home. Not only can you buy commercial releases for download, and download many "indie" bands' music for free, you can also go all the way and install a wireless audio/video network for the ultimate in home A/V systems. For music lovers, the future is now.
Television grows up
Despite the speed of progress in audio technology, nothing has changed any faster in the past few decades as television. Among the greatest changes have been with various display technologies that have made the old "tube TVs" obsolete. TVs now come in all sizes but mostly with one shape, the new, movie-theater-like 16:9 ratio. The people who bought the first televisions in the 1940s wouldn't even recognize some of the new TV sets.
Today's most popular, most desirable TVs are the flat panels, which can be based on a number of different display technologies such as plasma, LCDs (Liquid Crystal Displays), rear projection and LEDs (Light Emitting Diodes). In just about five or six years, the cost of a 42-inch plasma display, for example, has fallen from about ,000 to under 0. Price reductions are just as common among the other types of TVs, too.
The main trouble with TVs today is the proliferation of special terms about the display resolution and the type of programming that can be displayed. Terms like "HD" and "hi-def" and "1080i" are tossed around advertisements and commercials without so much as an explanation. Essentially, the numbers refer to the horizontal lines of resolution and having 480 or more qualifies as "HD." But the fact is, the most important features to understand are the ones you are buying.
In other words, when shopping, buying and installing new TVs, you need to study up on exactly those options and features that are built in to the sets you've selected. There may be special connectors, cables, etc., that are required for your television. Some TVs are actually just monitors and don't even have the channel tuners built-in - they have to be added on as an option. There are also things to learn about integrating the new generation of TVs into home theater systems, so do the appropriate research on Google (or at your local library) and get the information before you pull out your checkbook.
It is important, when investing in any kind of new technology such as plasma TVs, to read all the literature, from the manufacturer as well as independent reviewers, to ensure that you understand how the sets operate. Once you have everything you need, you can tune in, turn on and drop out for some great viewing with those big, colorful new TVs. And, being digital creatures, they will work nicely with your other digital gear, bringing that long-awaited convergence ever closer.
Video for work and play
From the 1970s through the early 1990s, "video game" meant either a Pong unit connected to a television or a bulky arcade monstrosity. Watching "a video" meant popping a book-sized tape cassette into a player that connected to the TV. And "making a video" meant lugging a 30-lb. VHS (or 20-lb. VHS-C) camera around. There still are arcades, and there are still people with VHS (even Betamax) tapes and cameras, but with home theater audio and 60-inch LCD panels now available, you can have state-of-the-art arcade gaming and movie watching in your own living room, surround sound and all. And it's all digital now, of course.
Today, the game side of video is all about the "consoles" - meaning the Nintendo Wii, the Sony PlayStation and the XBox 360 from Microsoft. They are all fairly small, have powerful CPUs, advanced graphics subsystems and the full range of CD and DVD compatibilities for music, audio, video and compressed multimedia files. Hackers have even found a way to install computer operating systems on some of these devices, and use them as gaming machines, word processors and even Web browsers.
Of course, video arcades are still around, too, and the newest models have "feedback mechanisms" installed so that, for instance, in a race-car game the "driver" feels engine vibration, hears the tuned exhaust note and gets a nice, throaty squeal by stepping on the brakes. Enclosed game structures promise better and more realistic action all the time as the holy grail of "virtual reality" draws closer all the time through the march of technology.
Computer gaming has matured, too, although entry-level computers are not up to the challenge. Gamers either "soup up" their own computers or buy from specialist PC builders, because the software makes tremendous demands on the CPU, the graphics processor and the display. Game manufacturers have the market covered, though, as their titles are usually released to all the major platforms and computing environments.
Video cameras have undergone a serious metamorphosis, too. From bulky, tape-based devices, recording-type cameras have evolved into small, powerful, solid-state marvels that capture full-motion video onto flash memory or hard drives. The digital files they create can be uploaded to computers for editing and playback, then copied to VCD or DVD for viewing in disc-based players. Compressed in the proper way, they can also be transferred to websites such as YouTube.
The new generation of "live" or broadcast cameras is also most impressive. Most people will have little contact with the professional broadcast cameras used in television studios, but they can acquire the same technology in low-cost but high-tech webcams, miniature "spycams" and sophisticated surveillance/security video cameras. For very little money, one can buy surveillance cameras that pan, tilt and zoom by remote control, or that detect and follow motion in their field of view.
These new digital security cameras can be either wired or wireless, and connected to TV monitors, video recording devices and/or computers. The PC-based systems are perhaps the most impressive, as there are sophisticated software applications for scheduling, controlling and recording input from one or a dozen cameras. The capabilities are astonishing, especially considering the ever-lower prices as time goes on. Better technology for less money? Quite a deal.
Convergence is coming
We've been hearing this rallying cry for a few years now, and perhaps "is coming" is not the right way to put it. The digital data streams carrying music, TV, movies and live action camera images can all "converge" today, right on your PC or Macintosh (or Linux-based computer), as well as in your home theater system. It is more accurate to say, "Convergence keeps coming," just as technology keeps getting cheaper, better and more widespread.
The road is not without speed bumps, of course, and there will always be people who don't quite get it, can't understand the concepts and are unable (or unwilling) to learn to use it. Unfortunately, these people will not be able to keep up with the rest of us who are getting our news at lightspeed over the Internet, posting home videos on the family website, "ripping" music CDs into mp3 files for a matchbox-sized player, setting up a surveillance camera at the company warehouse or streaming an HD movie straight from the computer to the flat panel TV. There are an infinite number of possibilities, now that all these devices are speaking (pretty much) the same language.
It's the digital language, a robust and limitless range of expression that can be constructed, as stated previously, out of strings of 0's and 1's. It's an exciting thing to be a part of, this convergence. And just as that Energizer Bunny keeps going, and going, and going, the digital convergence just keeps coming, and coming, and coming.
