‘Ignore Hollywood,’ Put Consumers First, HDNet’s Cuban Urges TV Makers
LOS ANGELES -- HDNet’s strategy in HDTV content delivery is to “break the mold, not stick to it” by proving that being consumer-driven and profit-driven aren’t “mutually exclusive,” its chmn., Mark Cuban, told the HDTV Forum here Wed. In a provocative keynote, he sought to rally TV display makers to support him in resisting those who would put “quantity over quality” in the delivery of HDTV programming. He also called on the CE industry to “ignore Hollywood” in building alliances he said have the effect of stifling innovation and working against what’s best for the consumer.
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HDNet and its affiliates are producing an average of 15-20 hours per week of original HD content, all shot and produced in 1080i, Cuban said. As one example of consumer friendliness, Cuban said HDNet would eschew Hollywood’s traditional theatrical windows in delaying the release of content on packaged media. He said there’s no reason why HDNet content can’t be released “day and date” on DVD with its theatrical release. Cuban is a partner in the entertainment holding company 2929 Entertainment, which is 100% owner of the Landmark Theaters chain, Magnolia Pictures Distribution and Rysher Entertainment. Cuban also holds a stake in Lions Gate Entertainment. His 2929 Productions subsidiary produces movies and TV shows, while HDNet Films produces high-definition movies. Typifying his outspokenness, Cuban, responding to an audience questioner on what content protection was using for HDNet programming, said: “I have no plans to protect it at all. Feel free to copy it. Just don’t sell it.”
“I have content, and I have issues,” Cuban declared. As an example of those who he said would put quantity over quality, he blasted cable and satellite providers who think “MPEG-2 is as good as it gets” in HDTV program delivery. In the next 3 years, “codecs are coming along that will give you straight out-of-the camera HD quality and fit it into the amount of space it takes to broadcast over cable, over the air, over satellite -- whatever the case may be,” Cuban said.
As for features he would personally like to see in future DTVs, “hard drive expandability,” whether through an internal or external drive or a slot to accept mega- capacity storage cards, leads the list, Cuban said. “That expandable storage creates all kinds of content distribution opportunities. Having the expandability allows me to raise the content bar. I'm not bound by the size of a DVD.” He said the capability of expandable storage could render the whole Blu-ray vs. HD-DVD debate “a nonissue.” As to claims that the next-generation optical formats were designed to be future-proof for the next decade or more, Cuban said: “Guess what? The quality of content is going to jack up the amount of bandwidth required,” even with the new compression codecs. HDNet “is looking for ways to distribute our content with the quality that maximizes the value of your TV and maximizes the experience for the consumer,” he said. “Blu-ray versus HD-DVD? That whole fight is just going to slow us down.”
Cuban said he frequently urges audiences to “ignore Hollywood” and admits he usually gets scoffed at as a result. “But when you work with Hollywood, you get the CableCARD,” he said. The plug-&-play agreement was billed as the “purest” development possible to spur the DTV transition, but “it’s a mess, and only something Hollywood can love because it keeps things from happening for the consumer,” Cuban said. Of the CableCARD, he said, “not only can you not plug it in, you've got to make a phone call, they've got to come out, they've got to insert the card, then you've got to hope the port you're on works with CableCARD or else they've got to try to make it work, and then it’s still only one way.”
Plug-&-play is ample evidence that to do what’s best for the consumer, avoid “committees,” Cuban said. “Use your brains instead of committees,” he said. “You get what you pay for with committees. Do smart things and others either will try to outdo you or get in line behind you.” Responding to a British questioner who asked what lessons Europeans could learn from the HDTV rollout in the U.S., Cuban said: “Listen to consumers, not corporations.”
Executives with the major set-makers who followed Cuban were left to defend CableCARD. Scott Ramirez, vp- mktg. at Toshiba America Consumer Products, ridiculed cable’s use of semantics in pledging to “support” CableCARD but not “promote it.” Jonas Tanenbaum, Samsung senior mktg. mgr. for visual display products, said his company still believes CableCARD could be the “tipping point” toward mass DTV acceptance, despite its limitations. Frank DeMartin, Mitsubishi vp-mktg., said CableCARD wasn’t the first time cable declined to actively promote a product that brought benefits to the consumer, saying the MSOs were late to the HDTV party. Of the major features lacking in one-way CableCARDs -- electronic program guides (EPGs) and video on demand -- DeMartin said set-makers were building more sophisticated EPGs into CE products and VoD was a service that still is in exceeding short demand.