Richard Doherty

Director, Technology Strategy

Microsoft Corporation

www.microsoft.com 

      DVDA (Bruce Nazarian)
This is the DVDA interview with Richard Doherty and this is Bruce Nazarian, the new DVDA president!

    RICHARD DOHERTY
Hello, Bruce.

     DVDA 
Hi, Richard. Thank you very much for, by the way, being one of our featured speakers at the DVDA Day Of Excellence in June. Your presentation was most excellent and the videos are pretty popular online at DVDA.org. 
So, Richard: a lot of us in the DVD business come to it from somewhat unexpected beginnings.    I wonder if it's the same for you? Maybe you'll tell our readers a little bit about your background and how you got to your current position at Microsoft?

    RICHARD
Sure. Well, originally I have an electrical engineering degree and did that for about 10 years, I have a strong engineering background. And then, I took a right turn in my life and went to film school, and was actually on the creative side of filmmaking for quite some time. And (since) then, I have    managed to merge those interests into something where I can continue to help the future of entertainment and the technology of entertainment moving forward.

    RICHARD (CONTINUED)
I was doing some post-production, some high-definition video editing software for a while. I have also worked at Panasonic on their high-definition and, and, incidentally, on their Blu-ray efforts, and now, with Microsoft. Primarily, I focus on HD DVD but also the future of what we're doing with entertainment delivery.

     DVDA 
Yes. And we'll get into that a little bit later on, 'cause I've got some questions for you about that. 
It's interesting that you are one of many people who I've seen in this industry who combined both the technical overview and an artistic overview. And I find it fascinating that pretty much all the time, those kinds of people have a more unique and a more full appreciation of how the entertainment and the arts and the technology combine together.

    RICHARD
Well, it certainly has been a fun life. I can tell you that. As to which efforts are being or which backgrounds are being leveraged most effectively that changes on a day-to-day basis but I'm certainly  happy to be where I am and, and have had some good times. And I’ve really gone from one extreme to the other  - hard core software development and also I was a screenwriter and did that for a little while. So  yeah, I enjoy it.

     DVDA 
There you go. Well, with today's HD cameras and if you could knot a couple of nanoseconds of spare time together, you can always go back to being filmmaker in your spare time.

     RICHARD
I'm sure.

      DVDA 
And I can speak on that, that we never lose the love for it, right?

     RICHARD
Absolutely right.

      DVDA 
So, I'm curious… your title, Director Of Technology Strategy, is a very interesting title and one that I don't think I've run across before. Tell us a little something about what that mission is for you at Microsoft?

     RICHARD
So, the mission is to  explore the future of entertainment delivery and to some degree, even HD DVD is the future although it, it's sure today. But how are we going to enjoy our entertainment? What is entertainment even mean in the future? And so, I'm tasked  as, as part of the mission of my job to try and figure out what we're going to do 10 years from now in terms of  Microsoft being able to help people enjoy the entertainment moving forward.

      DVDA 
Now, when you say entertainment, it's a very large tent into which a lot of different topics can be poured. Obviously, one of the first topics that comes to mind for everyone is movies because they're clearly one of the most logical first exploiters of all of the new optical disc technologies. But are there niches of information that you think are gonna fall into entertainment? you know, news or those kinds of things – (will they) ever go into that region?

     RICHARD
…   if only we could completely predict the future. Certainly, we have some knowledge of what entertainment means now. We've seen a pretty big crossover in terms of people who prefer to surf the Internet or play videogames rather than watch broadcast television. And that has informed a lot of the strategic decisions even here at Microsoft where, as you can see, we focus on Xbox…

     RICHARD (CONTINUED)
(and) we have new Zunes coming out for Christmas, so we have music entertainment. We have Windows Media Center Edition for both broadcast and recording, but also for your home videos and videos that are shared on the Web. So there are a lot of forms of entertainment coming together and part of the job of a technology guy is to make all of them relatively easy to use and fun to use so that it's not a  confusing mishmash.   Even today, especially in the U.S., you either go into your living room and sit down to watch film, (or) you go into your computer room to surf the Web, and nobody quite yet has successfully brought those two together.

     RICHARD (CONTINUED)
Certainly, Microsoft has a big initiative and things - we have some fair amount of success moving forward with Windows Media Center but there's still a lot of confusion on that market as we're trying to workout which is the best way to move forward. Certainly, me personally in this group, we are focused on  movie entertainment largely (and) television comes into it as well, which is sort of a different market and how are we going to enjoy that and merge that with other forms of entertainment moving forward?

      DVDA 
Yes, it is interesting that we seem to have two parallel tracks of methods in which to enjoy content. It's either the two-foot experience, when you're sitting there in front of your computer or the 10-foot experience when you have the movie way away from you. And it does seem like it's been a little bit difficult to find a nexus point between those two approaches to it, and perhaps it'll be that they'll stay separate for a while… although the idea of blending a computer as the driving element for the 10-foot experience is certainly something that is gaining a lot of focus these days.

     RICHARD
Yeah. Certainly here at Microsoft it is.

      DVDA 
Right.

     RICHARD
And then even though I know we're gonna talk in the future a little bit about HD DVD, even that  with some of its advanced interactivity and Web-enabled kinds of connectivity and features are  certainly blurring some of those lines, - you’re something to do with community kinds of activities, but, from your living room, from your consumer electronic player.

      DVDA 
Right. Without going far afield from some things that I do want to ask you in the near future,  do you believe that the entertainment paradigm will migrate more and more towards an online experience or a downloaded experience rather than a packaged media experience like HD DVD?

     RICHARD
…are you talking about the delivery entertainment, are you talking about the experience? I think you're asking about delivery, but there's also a question of, of experience. Do we expect connected and community forms of entertainment versus  Hollywood? But I think your question is about how we actually get the entertainment to the consumer.

      DVDA 
Correct. First, it's about the delivery, and then we'll go into those other sexy topics that you just broached. So, how do we get it to them?

     RICHARD
So, the shiny disc has proven to be a terrific source of delivery for some time. And we firmly believe that that's going to continue for quite some time as well - as long as 10 years, easily.    There's a number of reasons for that. One is, it's a very simple consumer experience. You go buy the disc, you put it in the slot and you watch a film…    and that's something that a lot of people enjoy, I think we all enjoy that. But it's something we want to preserve, moving forward with entertainment, is that kind of simplicity.

     RICHARD (CONTINUED)
And also it's good for the retail market.  You can put it on a shelf and you can purchase it, and it's a transaction we understand. How other forms of distribution factor into the retail market is something that's still being looked at and worked on and so forth.    At the same time, of course, Microsoft is very interested in how we keep other forms of entertainment delivery moving forward. And we have a number of initiatives looking at that.

     RICHARD (CONTINUED)
I think people who own an Xbox 360 are familiar with Xbox LIVE Marketplace where we’re delivering both television features and, television and theatrical features, both in standard-def and HiDef through a complete digital delivery. That's also kind of a settop box experience because
all you have to buy is the game machine. You don’t have to have a computer or know anything about computers and as well as a number of online services as well. Windows Media Center also integrated with some online services like Netflix and CinemaNow to download those movies. So there's a number models being looked at and it is a very hot topic right now  both among studios and among technology companies like Microsoft.

     RICHARD (CONTINUED)
About what's that gonna look like, which ones work well, where the people enjoy using it, so forth. So, that's a fun time and I think a lot of our time is spent on, on looking at that. But  I certainly would never feel comfortable saying that  the optical disc is  going away anytime soon.

      DVDA 
I think we both concur though that the, the balance point between the online versus the, the shiny disc delivery is likely going to tilt a little bit as the years go forward.

     RICHARD
We certainly see, yes, the online growing tremendously. It's, it's a small fraction  as I think all your listeners know, the very small fraction of DVD shells right now, which is the monster in the industry just as DVD is completely replaced the VHS sales.

      DVDA 
Right.

     RICHARD
… but at the same time, digital downloads are often enjoyed differently  they're enjoyed at different kinds of devices. So, we don't know what that market is gonna look like and it's very likely these markets are going to co-exist    just fine for quite some time.

      DVDA 
Well, about the interesting potential nexus point between those two that has surfaced in recent years. I mean, we all just heard about the announcement of the Qflix format, which is CSS-encoded recordable is something that has just been approved and it's brand new and something that poses a very interesting and exciting new opportunity for many content vendors - to be able to download what is essentially a DVD experience, and then have the user burn it to a plastic disc of their very own to enjoy as they would any package goods that they would buy.    Have you got thoughts on that, if I might throw you that curve?

     RICHARD
Sure. So, there's two different markets we're looking at specifically with that kind of work. One is something to simplify the Amazon experience. I do want to mention, I think we'll get to it about the thousand Indies and things that Amazon is doing, kind of using this technology which was they can keep a very low inventory and they can burn basically any title that you want, if you have an interest in a very old title that no one else is stocking, you can go into an online service. Have them essentially burn you a disc to order...

      DVDA 
Right.

     RICHARD
...or, or replicate a disc to order and then you get something in mail which is that disc. But it, it allows a much wider variety for online stores,  and possibly even retail stores, there's been some talking and  and I think preliminary announcements of actually putting these kinds of kiosks into retail stores – they can have huge libraries and burn you a disc while you're there shopping. The second form that you talked about was let’s sit in our living room and not go to a store and have a burner and allow us to burn an optical disc right in front of us. And it's, it is pretty exciting, the technology has been finally approved and largely worked out and we might see some of that appear soon. To the consumer, that's not really much of a different experience.

     RICHARD (CONTINUED)
      you may, have to push some buttons on your screen and, and you have to wait awhile for the burn to happen and you don't have to put on your clothes to leave your house. But, ultimately, at the end of the day, you're left with an optical disc of the movie that you purchased.    It's certainly a very different experience for retailers who are now, if, if that's the transaction process are completely cut out of the line of purchasing there and that creates other kinds of difficulties as you might imagine and other challenges.

      DVDA 
Right.

     RICHARD
But for the users, essentially, at the end of the day, you end up with the same experience. If ever you decide you want to buy a birthday gift for your mom that's an optical disc...

      DVDA 
Right.

     RICHARD
You can buy one, burn it, put it in a box and give it to her and it's ultimately not the same thing. So, we do look at that but for me, that’s sort of an intermediate product that's not nearly as exciting as I want to sit with my remote control and look at all of the 100,000 movies that have ever been produced and choose the one I want to watch right now.

      DVDA 
Yeah. That’s pretty sexy  opportunity.      The download to burn services  provide a very interesting new publishing paradigm to service what we call the long tail, which is, you know, content that has a very, very long life but not necessarily at retail, but yet, enough of a demand on a continuing basis that that information should be kept available and not lost for history.

     RICHARD
 I completely agree. And I love that you have all the, the latest lingo, the long tail, (LAUGH)  but that's exactly right. And, in fact, the, the history of Hollywood when we first started  making movies in the 1930s, all of that is still interesting entertainment to a lot of people.

      DVDA 
Absolutely.

     RICHARD
And the huge libraries that the studios have been building up  getting deeper and longer access to that is, for me, it was an  entertainment aficionado, a film aficionado especially, that's a very exciting prospect moving forward.

      DVDA 
Well, you may be a film aficionado, I just classify myself as a movie junkie, but I think, (LAUGH) I think we both basically appreciate the fact that the technological shifts that have been changing and the ability to deliver content  continually on an easier, easier method gives us more and more access to content that the studios are willing to unlock and make available. And that's a priceless look back into history, because all of that stuff has been sitting there and is now coming available for us to partake it.

     RICHARD
Right. And it's absolutely exciting for people to watch and it's good for the studios who are now finding a way to sell this content that the otherwise might not have been a big enough market to actually go and replicate a disc for some of the older titles. But they certainly would, if they can just put it online and if even a couple of people start to order it...

      DVDA 
Right, right.

     RICHARD
...there's, there's money there.

      DVDA 
Exactly. So  let's talk a little bit about the shiny disc because, you know, it's one of my favorite topics and probably one of yours as well.    We have seen 10 years of amazing penetration and success for the original standard-def SD DVD disc. Do you have an opinion, like some have, that SD is sort of not quite good enough or is it good enough or, or where, what's your observation about how the market views the standard-def DVD disc?

     RICHARD
Well, the standard-def DVD disc has been a tremendous product for many years as we know, and has given some great picture quality moving forward. But now, people are buying almost universally at this point, I think they, they purchase something like 80 percent when they walk into buying new television, they're getting a high-definition television. And we've seen tremendous penetration I think this year, it's 40 million sets out there in the U.S. So people are buying high-definition televisions.

      DVDA 
Right.

     RICHARD
And the question is what do you, what do you watch on those televisions? Well, the first thing everyone turns on, of course, the Discovery Channel HD 'cause it looks phenomenal.

      DVDA 
Right.

     RICHARD
And  you know, “come on over” and you’d show your friends in Discovery Channel and they have actually some great programming in high-definition. So, you’re watching your high-definition channels coming forward, and certainly, there's a big penetration of high-definition sports. For people who watch a lot of sports, that's terrific as well. Now, you're put in your DVD and it's not anywhere near as good-looking a picture as you're getting from these other sources.

     RICHARD (CONTINUED)
And in a sense, that's almost not right, because forever the DVD was the premium look of  video delivery for movies. And you want your movies to look as good, in fact, substantially better than you look at these other entertainment offerings. So, sort-of DVD needs to step it up at this point and an HD DVD is a great way to do that.    At the same time, people are trying in their living rooms to replicate the theatrical experience.

      DVDA 
Right.

     RICHARD
Getting larger and larger screens, and in some cases, huge screens – I actually have a 113 inche  projection (system), which we love, and so it's hard to get out and go to the theater after that, although we still do that. And so, with these kinds of screen sizes moving forward and these kinds of replication theatrical experience, high-definition is pretty much the only way you're getting it. And for those  I think a lot of your listeners would agree  I would hope they agree, that if you've stepped up to a really great high-definition presentation in your home  and you have an adequate viewing distance and, and, and you, you get a full resolution set, it’s night and day between what you're getting up a HiDef disc and what you're getting off of a standard-def disc.

      DVDA 
Oh, yes. In fact, it's an astronomical difference between what we're used to experience in an SD and even the same content re-mastered and repurposed into HD,  given the correct playback device, and given the correct optimized display device, there's a phenomenal difference between them. And all of a sudden, it, you know, you're not watching a movie, it's like you're in that experience, whatever it is.

     RICHARD
Yeah, and we completely agree. And we shouldn't, we shouldn't leave off the other improvements to audio. Now, we're delivering on the next gen disc, we're delivering  both  a lossless audio as well as significantly better compressed audio. And, you know  Microsoft were also very proud of some of the additional interactivity and connectivity we've delivered on the, the next generation of discs.

      DVDA 
Oh, absolutely.

     RICHARD
I think it's completely    lacking on DVD.

      DVDA 
As an author who has shared the pain of trying to make the disc do more than it was really designed to do in the first generation, (LAUGH) I totally concur with you…

     RICHARD
And we've done some great things. I, I didn't mean to disparage DVD  and in fact, even in interactivity there'd been some impressive discs.

      DVDA 
Oh, no, no, not...

     RICHARD
If we have the chance to...

      DVDA 
...not taking that away at all. And we've had a chance to see some pretty amazing standard-def things.

     RICHARD
but, yeah, now we (have) been able to make a new generation of stuff, and can step it up quite a bit. We're seeing stuff that we would have never been able to see on DVD.

      DVDA 
Right. And it's fascinating for the DVD Association to watch as the new technology was taking shape, that many of the things that we had long said, boy, if we could just do that, boy, if we could just do that. Well, it's magically, all of a sudden, these things started popping up and became part of the next generation specifications. And it's a really great time, when you're an author and a creator and a producer who is a, a DVD producer going, wow, all these great things I can do now with this whole reinvented new paradigm that does all the stuff I wanted to, but was really too hard to do (before).

     RICHARD
Oh, it’s a great time. And we actually have a team here  as part of our group does, does HDi evangelism. It actually goes out and helps studios and post-production houses to  improve and, and push the envelope and do new things and make sure that they work correctly. And  there's not enough time in the day in terms of when the post-production houses have to deliver discs and the number of ideas being generated.  And I know that's always been true, but now it's more true and that nearly all of them probably are do-able and we have to sort of roll them out slowly as we get more and more comfortable and build up the expertise.

      DVDA 
Is this the Kevin Collins team and should we give them a little bit of credit here?

     RICHARD
Oh, Kevin Collins has been doing a terrific job.

      DVDA 
Yeah.

     RICHARD
And there's a number of, of team members here including Kevin.

      DVDA 
Yeah. Yeah.    It was     it was a year ago when I first saw the HD DVD drive at the DVD For      attached to the Xbox and that was that was a world first, and that was pretty amazing. You guys have definitely been pushing the envelope on these things forward, forward, forward, as quickly as it's possible to make it happen. And it’s really great. 
So, it brings me around to the question of, you know, gingerly put.  obviously Microsoft chose a format that they felt very comfortable embracing. So, what made HD DVD the seductive format for Microsoft to choose?

     RICHARD
Well, there're number of reasons for that.   It was actually a choice made several years ago, and it has proven to be a choice that we’ve been very fond of moving forward, and that is  HD DVD has a number of great things really going forward. One is the low cost of replication and the low cost of products that are available. And those are very important to us.

      DVDA 
Right.

     RICHARD
 To make sure to get the consumers hands at a reasonable price point.  The interactivity was obviously a big one for us, and I think, as you know, we helped with the technology for the interactivity in HD DVD. And we think it's really delivered to a large degree in terms of that interactivity, both in terms of the Web enablement and  picture in picture. And picture in picture has become pretty much a standard feature of any A-list title coming out of HD DVD… and that was something we pushed for.    And a unique feature of HD DVD… not only the networking (but) the picture in picture are mandatory on HD DVD format.

      DVDA 
Right.

     RICHARD
…   so, all players have them. All players have set a mandatory in terms of the connectivity, in terms of the amount of storage that they require to have. And therefore, you get a uniform consumer experience between all the players… and that was very important to us as well.

     RICHARD
Combo discs is a feature HD DVD only that we thought was very important, and that was  something that was only available on HD DVD.

      DVDA 
So, could you clarify for those of us… combo discs are what?

     RICHARD
Well, combo discs are discs that have DVD on one side and HD DVD on the other, or have HD DVD and DVD on one side of the disc and both simultaneously on the same side of the disc.

      DVDA 
There you go. Okay.

     DVDA 
So, it's actually very interesting, kind of upward mobile, an upwardly mobile disc that someone who loves the title now can experience it in SD. And then eventually, when they upgrade their small system to the 50-inch system and the 50-inch sound system and the 50-inch popcorn you know, they get to unlock and watch the HD that was there all along.

     RICHARD
That’s exactly right – it’s future-proof…And it's also good to who, who already own it, but then have the HD DVD player in one place, but then sometimes want to put in the car on the DVD side.

      DVDA 
Right.

     RICHARD
And we're seeing offerings coming out now the combo disc is priced exactly the same as other forms of the movie in HiDef, so that you don't have to pay a premium for it, in the future coming up.

      DVDA 
 That makes it a pretty irresistible prospect at retail.

     RICHARD
Right.

      DVDA 
So, I know from experience, and you and I have met at at trade shows and whatnot. We, we've watched the development of the interactive component of the HD DVD standard take shape from a skeleton to a specification to, my, God, this is really happening and there's really tools. And Microsoft has been, a long the way, providing, very aggressively, a set of tools to assist in the growth and understanding and realization of the programming for this new HDi environment. So, could briefly tell us what it is that's currently available in the Microsoft tool set or whatever comments you might want to make on it?

     RICHARD
Sure. We have a number of online things to help. We actually have a jumpstart kit that you can get online in terms of HDi, like HDi. We also developed, as part of that kit, a Validator. And we are also very soon rolling out a Simulator as well, just to help them make their discs and, and use the best advanced interactivity they can… At the same time, like I said before, we also have an HDi evangelism group that works with post-production houses and studios…

      DVDA 
Right.

     RICHARD
...and provides expert support, moving forward, for these kinds of discs. So we're doing everything we can, I think, to make sure that that's as easy to author as it can be, moving forward.

      DVDA 
Correct. And we know from my friend Ben Waggonerner, (SP?) who is now one of the new directors of the DVD Association, going forward that you have also been quite active in developing the VC-1 encoding tools to make the next generation video look as beautiful as the HDi tools make it interactive.

     RICHARD
Absolutely right. And we have provided encoding solutions. And we have both professional ones that are run on, on many multiple CPUs at a time as well as consumers can do it with download kits that they can get on the Web. And we are doing quite a number, I think, as you know, for the VC-1 compression, there's a very large number of titles in HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc that have been using the VC-1 compression and gotten terrific reviews on picture quality. They're quite proud of what they’ve done.

     RICHARD (CONTINUED)
And they're not exactly stopping either. They continue to release updates to their encoders  moving forward to try and get the best resolution they can. And the real goal there, I think we've talked about this before, is to try and, again, replicate theatrical experience, to try and replicate the director's vision as closely as possible. And sometimes that, on some particular footage, that can be really challenging.

     RICHARD (CONTINUED)
But I think we're not trying to  hide any of the visual features that may have been designed in the film at the beginning, but to try and completely replicate what you're seeing and what you're seeing often on film.

      DVDA 
Exactly. The “you are there” rather than “you are watching what somebody saw in a big screen, but not quite experiencing it the same”.

     RICHARD
Exactly.  In fact, I think you may have seen  that Paramount announced with “Star Trek”, they're going to actually show it in a couple of theaters and just play it off the HD DVD since the experience is going to be as good or superior to what they could get from a film print.

      DVDA 
Right, but, but don't lead us into that whole digital cinema, 'cause that’s another interview that we're gonna have at some point in time. (LAUGH) It's, it's another one of those interesting parallel developments that's changing the way that we experience and the way we entertain. And...

     RICHARD
It is

      DVDA 
So  sticking with the shiny discs for a second and the next generation specifically, give us a little future peek here. What might be coming up in some HDi-enabled titles that we haven't seen yet, if you're able to talk about that?

     RICHARD
Well, just to make sure we haven't  missed the future that's here now,  some people may not be aware of some of the stuff that just shipped in the last couple of weeks...

      DVDA 
Great.

     RICHARD
...or in the last couple of days  including things like  Evan Almighty was one of the first discs to ship at E-commerce and some interesting choices on the E-commerce, but nevertheless you really can, from your remote control, start to make purchases. You may or may not know that’s a green based film and so I believe you can purchase a tree to plant, and some other green labeled initiatives, light bulbs. It's kind of interesting… the first “toe in the water of that”.  I think everyone has seen, we have on HD DVD pretty ubiquitous now, picture in picture, and we forget. That was revolutionary only six, eight months ago.

      DVDA 
Right, it's scary how fast it's going.

     RICHARD
Where, it is going very fast.

      DVDA 
Yeah.

     RICHARD
And especially, just the favorite one, I think I've heard from many of the people who purchase the discs, is on “300” where they do, and I think you're probably familiar with this, they do frame after reproduction of what you're seeing on the screen without any of the special effects to see the green screen...

      DVDA 
Yes.

     RICHARD
...and the people walking, and it's, it's incredibly compelling.

      DVDA 
I can tell you as a certified film geek that was one of the most  most interesting things that I enjoyed on the 300 film. And it's chock full of other great stuff as well.

     RICHARD
It sure is, which I'll, I'll have to talk about, I'm sure.    So, Transformers just came out a couple of days ago...

      DVDA 
Okay.

     RICHARD
...and they have a number of Web-enabled features including  one of the ones they can do is you can actually go online and download a completely new interactive experience for the film itself. They call it, I think, “Intelligence Mode” where you, it go and, goes and changes how you're watching the film by showing how much damage the robots have been taking and then what transformed form they're in and the GPS locator of where you are.

     RICHARD (CONTINUED)
And again, just on a basic interactive level, it’s an interesting way to watch the film, but also the fact that it's hosted on some server, it’s not even shipping on the disc at all. They completely transform the way you're watching the film from something that you go and download. And there's a number of things on the Transformers disc that promise upcoming  download features.

     RICHARD (CONTINUED)
There's a couple that are, say, coming soon, and I think that's something we're gonna see in a very exciting way.    I think one of them is probably on a timeframe for releasing at about a month's timeframe where you can go back to your Transformers disc, put it in and get a brand new experience and a brand new feature that you wouldn't have on the day of release.

      DVDA 
Well, so, for, for some enterprising young individual out there, I'll bet this spawns a whole potential new industry of  upgrade announcements. Now, “sign up here and we'll let you know when the new features are activated on your library”. (LAUGH)

     RICHARD
Exactly, right. And as we get into more community kinds of features where possibly discs are tied to each other in terms of the experience...and I'm being a little vague, but  I have to, I think you might see more of that, moving forward.

      DVDA 
Okay.

     RICHARD
And all of this is a way to make the disc more exciting. And, and movie studios do want you to put the disc back in your player and watch it again and again.

      DVDA 
Right.

     RICHARD
And some of this finally realizes the dream to have some of that. I think we mentioned there's Web-enabled features on Knocked Up, on Heroes, and I think you mentioned 300, which we've had some great response on, particularly in the scene-sharing activity. And those of you who don't know, you can go and make an, a reedit of the film and get, like, your favorite scenes and put them on whatever order you want and cut them how you want and then share them on the Web server with other people who can rate them and give them one to five stars, and you can look at everybody else's shared re-cuts of the film. Here’s a quick and funny anecdote -  I  do a lot of demos of that, and I try to do that demo of that scene, although it's a little risky, because it's, you're putting up stuff that other people have put online.

      DVDA 
Right.

     RICHARD
And one, sure enough, I went to an audience, I think, of 150 people. I was showing the “300” re-cut, and one of the ones that showed up was  it's the ass shot. (LAUGH) Okay. And then everyone of the audience is, “show us the ass shot. Show us the  we want to see that one”. So, I brought it up, and that's exactly what it was...

      DVDA 
Mm hmm.

     RICHARD
...a great experience. Um...

      DVDA 
Well, I guess if they trained that long to get those bodies in perfect shape, someone's gonna appreciate them in some way. (LAUGH)

     RICHARD
They did and that's what people wanted to see. It's funny. I tried to re-cut 300 with, like take out all the violence, but preserve the plot, that was my goal.

      DVDA 
Right.

     RICHARD
I ended up with, I think, a four-minute film.

      DVDA 
I was gonna say, it's, it's not exactly much of a plot without the violence.

     RICHARD
And I put it up online, and I got one star.

      DVDA 
Yeah. Well...

     RICHARD
Yeah, what are you gonna do?

      DVDA 
it just proves that sometimes violence is a raison d’etre of its own, you know…

     RICHARD
Indeed.

      DVDA 
…especially when you're telling that kind of a story from history. Well...

     RICHARD
But you're asking about the future things...and there are a number of titles coming out and some big title names.    and I think you're gonna see, significantly, more interesting things than even the ones we've delivered so far in the next two months.

      DVDA 
So, following on with the topic of Web enablement, which has always been near and dear to my heart 'cause I've been a Web DVD geek from, like, day one.  The whole HDi interactive and Web enablement is just a realization of a long held dream on our part. Many of us in the DVD Association were evangelizing Web DVD years before we could do this, so it puts a big smile on our face.

      DVDA  (CONTINUED)
But following up on the fact that that's a reality now, large publishers like Hollywood Studios have tremendous resources available to them to mount servers and take care of the connectivity issues that are involved. But what about those who are less endowed with finances, let's say?    Are there tools available to easily provide (to) like a corporate or industrial client to setup a Web server to serve the aftermarket for that kind of information? Or is the programming so straight ahead that you could literally do it from just the average Joe kind of Web site?

     RICHARD
We're in the early stages of this, and so I think someone who went and tried to do it sort of independently would find some, some challenges that I expect to make very easy in the near future. So, I don't think there's anything that's going to stop anyone in a big way. And people prove to be very agile in terms of rolling out blogs, rolling out Web pages and so forth or something, all of which used to be difficult in the formation stages. So we're in the very early stage of that kind of work. I would expect in short order that (it) will be easy for other people to do on the discs that they author. Now there's certainly some security concerns and...

      DVDA 
Right.

     RICHARD
...other issues that do make it a little bit more complicated…  things that you just have to pay attention to. But also make sure that only the discs that you author are the ones that you can then provide online content to, and you do have control over your discs. And so, there are some issues like that that...

      DVDA 
Right.

     RICHARD
...people have to face when they start offering the disc. But there's really nothing about the overall process that's particularly more complicated than, and in fact it's all based on Web services and a lot of the infrastructure that we already know and familiar with. And in fact, HDi itself is based on XML and  ECMAScript and a number of standards. I think someone who wanted to start programming in that environment would find it very comfortable if they already know the Web environment very well.

      DVDA 
Right, and your tools online that are available and downloadable clearly make that a very easy step if someone wants to take it.

     RICHARD
That's the idea.

      DVDA 
Exactly. So  so, where do you see the DVD industry in, you know, three, four, five years? 
Where do you think this is all going?

     RICHARD
Where do I think it's going in three to five years? It's certainly going in a, (LAUGH) it's certainly going in a direction where we're gonna see higher and higher quality and wider and wider libraries. And I suppose that's all obvious. And we're gonna see lower and lower prices, because that's the way all these entertainment technology solutions seem to roll out, and this will not be any different.

     RICHARD (CONTINUED)
But I expect increasing quality and I expect to see  more and more of connected features, of community-based features, because we've seen a lot of popularity in that,  in other contexts such as online.

      DVDA 
Mm hmm.

     RICHARD
   and we certainly would like to see more integration with delivery of this kind of entertainment, with delivery of entertainment in other methods, which we already, I think talked for some length about.

      DVDA 
Right. A bit about, okay.

     RICHARD
…   but I fully expect in five years, you're still gonna be able to walk into a local store and purchase a shiny disc, and go home and enjoy a great-looking, HiDef movie.

      DVDA 
I, I totally concur. And I think our DVDA members would be especially interested in knowing your thoughts on, if you see any gaps in the current DVD business or the HD DVD business. And what role might you anticipate that an industry associate like the DVDA could play in helping to fill those gaps?

     RICHARD
…   interesting question. The DVDA's proven such a useful organization in the past. One of the big ones that's, that's gonna be more difficult, moving forward is  education, and specifically, consumer education. It used to be a lot easier, number one, to hook up your player in the first place. And that was supposed to be easier when we move forward to HiDef, when you plug in an HDMI cable, and you get both your audio and your video, but that doesn't always seem to prove the case.

     RICHARD (CONTINUED)
But  other kinds of consumer education in terms of, if we are going to get other forms of delivery or delivery on the disc but tied to Web enablement or Web connectivity, these kinds of education campaigns are very important.    We also, I think all of us look to outside organizations who are not intimately invested in one form or the other to help do should I say, trustworthy reporting of information...

      DVDA 
Right.

     RICHARD (CONTINUED)
...about the formats and, and trustworthy consumer information to (let)  them do an informed choice, moving forward.    and that's very important. And then, there's a part of it that is not always visible on the consumer side, such as replication and cost of discs and the manufacturing side, and that's very important as well. So I would expect 100 percent, if not more, of the kinds of work that DVDA has been doing in the past where DVD would be completely  applicable to HD discs. And, and  we hope that your organization and others like you continue to embrace and, and help do the work that needs to be done to make sure this is successful.

      DVDA 
Well, that is certainly the mandate of  the DVD Association, going forward. It will be under my watch. There are many, many very exiting things that we're looking forward to rolling out in the coming year and years, some of which I can't even talk about right now because they're still a little bit (CLEARS THROAT) under wraps. But I think that everyone will be very excited by the proactive approach that we're going to take in areas that we previously may not have necessarily been active in.

      DVDA  (CONTINUED)
But there's lots of opportunities to do great stuff.

    RICHARD
Terrific.

     DVDA 
So, if you got any parting thoughts for our DVDA members or the readers of Wavelength or possibly listeners to this podcast?

     RICHARD
Well, I mean, I don’t think I'd be doing my job, I think, if I didn't point out that we're pretty proud of the HDV and  encourage people, if they haven't yet purchased into that, you can do it at a pretty low price point…    it's now about $299, and there's a great selection of movies, and they look terrific. And it’s an experience that I think you'll enjoy, and I encourage you to check it out if you can.

     RICHARD (CONTINUED)
And we just take that's a, a great product, we're pretty proud of the work we've done and, and the things that had been delivered.    And it's only gonna get better from here, so stay tuned.

      DVDA 
Exactly. And I'm not necessarily evangelizing, you know, on an official political note, but I can tell you as a personal consumer,  that  the most recent version of an HD DVD player that I acquired (Editor: Toshiba HD-A20)  is a fantastic little machine, and you're absolutely right. The price is very affordable, which makes it very seductive for the consumer experience. And the movies are amazing. And I would like to think that a lot of the people that do that are the members of our association.

      DVDA  (CONTINUED)
So, we're, we're happy to be doing our part, whether it's behind the scenes and authoring or buying in retail or just spreading the good news about the formats.

     RICHARD
And they are great upconverting players as well. So, if you're watching traditional DVDs, they do a great thing...

      DVDA 
Yes.

     RICHARD
...for your high-definition TV. So, uh…

      DVDA 
Exactly. So extending the life of what you already have and opening it up to a new life for a new product that's currently out for sale.

     RICHARD
Exactly.

      DVDA 
So, Richard Doherty, thank you so very much for your time and your thoughts  and your insight into the industry.    We will be putting this up online at our earliest possibility and we certainly look forward to maintaining continuity of communication between Microsoft and the DVDA, and how we can continue to work together going forward to make sure all of these really great technological developments are well-exposed and well-thought through....

    RICHARD
Well, thank you for your time Bruce

      DVDA 
Good talking to you Richard. Take care…
     

Interview conducted by:

Bruce Nazarian,  "the Digital Guy"
President, DVD Association