MovieBeam Could Fake Movies-on-Demand

Image © 2006, New York Times
For readers looking for a guru upon which you can rely, I can reveal that I worked for one year in the OCLC (Ohio College Library Center that became Online Computer Library Center) Office of Technical Plannning (1984-1985). Libraries were looking at local versus "distributed" databases back then and OCLC was investigating to see which made sense when. And I was there. Not your uncle's communication professor.

Fake movies-on-demand? Ah, this reminds me of the old library (as in "place where lots of books are shelved") "battle" between CD-based databases and dial-up databases. I suppose we go back to the late 1970s and beyond for that debate. Which was more cost-effective and, in the case of libraries, would deliver search results the fastest. There were other considerations:

1. One time cost for a CD versus "cost per dial-up" (of course, the CD might require a similar license)

2. Horizon of topics (i.e., limited on CD versus virtually unlimited, in theory anyway, dial-up databases)

3. Most current information (static CD versus constantly updated online databases)

4. Media for display (OK, let's check the "Shifted Librarian" link on this page to see if this is an issue or not)

5. This one is huge: response time from keyboard entry until reply. Research has shown that people get annoyed after just 7 seconds of waiting. This is probably one of the reason that CD-based databases hung on as long as they have. They also make a decent medium for archiving information.

So if you are in a clever mood today, you can see the similarities with consumers' getting movies "on demand" by static media or by accessing a "database" of digital movies. That is, right now we have a choice between buying a DVD (wuth high definition DVDs now becoming available if you are brave enough to purchase an expensive player for a format that has not yet clearly established itself as the future winner (remember VHS versus Beta? Sorry, kiddies, if you don't remember that one you need to email me or do a little reading. ;-)
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You may use this content (better still, argue with me!), but please cite my ideas as © 2006, Dr. Bruce Klopfenstein. Find any typos! Don't smite me, let me know!