ETC in the News

USC’s Entertainment Technology Center Announces Volkswagen Group of America as New Executive Sponsor

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Entertainment Technology Center at USC (ETC@USC) (www.etcenter.org), announced today that Volkswagen Group of America, Inc. has joined as an executive sponsor of the ETC. Volkswagen joins a growing group of studios and major technology companies that sponsor the non-profit consortium, which brings together top entertainment and consumer electronics companies to listen to and evaluate consumer mindshare towards future technologies.

The Volkswagen Group is a leader in incorporating the latest consumer and safety technology into its vehicles, and is committed to cutting edge research that will bring the newest innovations to drivers on the go. One of ETC’s goals is to understand what entertainment products consumers want today and into the digital future. Bringing in corporations such as Volkswagen Group, with a history of research and innovation, to collaborate with ETC’s world-leading sponsors and staff, will help improve the technology consumers will use.

March 6, 2008 | businesswire.com | Read Article | PDF

USC’s Entertainment Technology Center Announces LG Electronics as New Project Sponsor

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Entertainment Technology Center at USC (ETC) [www.etcenter.org], a non-profit consortium that brings together top entertainment and consumer electronics companies to listen to and evaluate consumer mindshare towards future technologies, announced today that LG Electronics, Inc. [http://us.lge.com], a global force in consumer electronics, mobile communications and home appliances, has joined ETC’s already growing major technology companies as an Anytime/Anywhere Content Lab (AACL) sponsor.

The AACL will showcase a wide spectrum of leading edge products, services and technologies in action. The lab will use these tools to examine the technological and sociological implications of providing content to consumers who desire it at anytime, on any device, and anywhere they happen to be. LG Electronics’ long experience and deep expertise in this area will add significant value to the AACL’s activities. As a member of the Technical Advisory Board, LG Electronics will help ETC identify emerging trends and structure technology projects related to emerging paradigms in content production, distribution and consumption.

April 29, 2008 | businesswire.com | Read Article | PDF | Related News

Convergence Idea Gets Serious With Live Mesh, Analysts Say

David Wertheimer, executive director of the University of Southern California's Entertainment Technology Center, called the announcement a "dramatic one for Microsoft." Wertheimer has been studying methods, practices and technologies pertaining to such "anytime, anywhere" content models.

"The key question here is can a large company like Microsoft, long known for proprietary and relatively closed technologies, truly embrace a world that's about openness and lack of control?"

Wertheimer further posits that this idea has been around since the dawn of the World Wide Web, when Sun Microsystems first proclaimed that the "computer is the network."

"What Microsoft is realizing is that they can't stop what's going on," he added. "Google is everywhere but you won't find a single physical tangible product with their name on it other than in the virtual space. And I think, rightly so, that Microsoft is going to leverage its very smart engineers and intellectual capital to make sure that their strength, a powerful OS that developers can build applications on, is played up."

April 25, 2008 | redmondmag.com | Read Article | PDF

Ex-Paramount Head Wants World Peace Just As Much As Tim Robbins

David Wertheimer: I didn’t hear that.

AF: Well, basically he said broadcasters are in an “abyss as an industry,” that they’re too obsessed with celebrity culture, that we have a “pornographic obsession with celebrity culture.” Would you agree with that?

DW: (Laughs) I’m not convinced that it’s the broadcasters that are the problem. I think that the broadcasters tend to cater to what is interesting to their audience. Look at the newsstands, and the magazines that sell at the supermarket—People, Us Weekly, Star—I think it’s pretty clear that Americans are very interested in the lives of celebrities. I think that overall the broadcast media does a good job of balancing important stuff with stuff that’s more base, or lighter.

What Tim Robbins ought to be thinking about is, “How do we change American culture so the audience isn’t interested in base, frivolous things?” That would be more interesting and useful than telling the media not to cover it.

It seems somewhat hypocritical and disingenuous that he’s using the platform that’s been given to him—because people appreciate celebrities—to tell them not to be so obsessed with celebrities. He and Susan Sarandon use that platform in great quantity to push their own agendas, and I don’t always agree with it, but hey, good for them.

I think someone who actually tried to turn the tide of celebrity obsession is Dean Kamen, the inventor of the Segway. He created what is akin to the Olympics of science by creating this robotic competition—he tried to change the way kids think about science and introduce them to scientific “all-stars.”

April 25, 2008 | jossip.com | Read Article

Excitement surrounds Blu-ray At NAB

Just after the recent NAB show in Las Vegas last week, (with record international attendance levels 28,310 people), One To One
caught up with David Wertheimer, executive director of The Technology Center at the University of Southern California, who spoke at the show about new devices and new opportunities. As someone not connected to the replication business, Wertheimer was able to provide an objective opinion about the vibe of the show in terms of Blu-ray.

April 23, 2008 | oto-online.com | Read Article

Many issues threaten 3-D momentum

LAS VEGAS -- Digital-cinema stakeholders said that while digital-cinema and 3-D has been widely embraced, there remain myriad unresolved technical and business issues that threaten the momentum.

Sunday at the NAB Show's Digital Cinema Summit, MKPE Consulting's Michael Karagosian warned that not one of the virtual print fee agreements that are moving the industry forward have all six major studios on board.

April 13, 2008 | hollywoodreporter.com | Read Article | PDF

SOCIAL STUDIES

Thrashing: What happens when a computer is asked to do so many background tasks at once that its hard drive is overworked. Thrashing can paralyze the system's ability to do the important tasks a user requires, Gloria Goodale writes in The Christian Science Monitor. Humans who are continuously communicating or reeling in images and data can dramatically slow their processing abilities as well, human behaviour experts say. "I see the American worker becoming less and less productive," says David Wertheimer, executive director of the Entertainment Technology Center at the University of Southern California. "As workplaces get flooded with digital demands, such as constant e-mails and non-stop information, we are in danger of becoming a Third World-style economy, where much movement takes place but little actual effective work is being done."

April 11, 2008 | theglobeandmail.com | Read Article | PDF

USC media technology director Wertheimer to discuss consumer content, device preferences

David Wertheimer, executive director of the Entertainment Technology Center at USC, will participate in an NAB2008 panel, Tuesday, April 15, that will explore new media opportunities resulting from the introduction of new consumer devices.

During the panel, “New Devices, New Opportunities,” Wertheimer will be among industry leaders discussing how people want their media and on what devices. The panel discussion will follow a keynote by Kevin Kahn, senior fellow and director of Intel’s communications technology lab. The panel will include industry executives from Sling Media, TiVo and World Now.

April 3, 2008 | broadcastengineering.com | Read Article | PDF

Mastering the high-tech tools that help us

Getting a handle on digital distractions has far-reaching ramifications, says David Wertheimer, executive director of the Entertainment Technology Center at the University of Southern California. He says that such intense distractions are leading the American workforce down a road of deepening ineffectiveness.

"I see the American worker becoming less and less productive," says Mr. Wertheimer. "As workplaces get flooded with digital demands, such as constant e-mails and nonstop information, we are in danger of becoming a third-world-style economy, where much movement takes place but little actual effective work is being done."

April 2, 2008 | csmonitor.com | Read Article | PDF

Alcatel-Lucent Joins University of Southern California's Entertainment Technology Center as Executive Sponsor

LAS VEGAS, April 1, 2008 -- CTIA Wireless -- Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) and the Entertainment Technology Center (ETC) at the University of Southern California, a non-profit consortium that brings together top entertainment and consumer electronics companies to listen to and evaluate consumer mindshare toward future technologies, announced today that Alcatel-Lucent has joined the ETC as an Executive Sponsor. Alcatel-Lucent joins ETC's existing member studios and major technology and consumer electronic companies to help collaborate and produce new technologies for consumers and generate new revenue streams for entertainment technology creators.

April 1, 2008 | sunherald.com |Read Article | PDF

Demand Performances

“The technology and business rules today are confusing and frustrating for consumers,” notes David Wertheimer, executive director of USC’s Entertainment Technology Center. “If content providers don’t find frictionless methods to give consumers what they want, then the users will expend the energy required to get it their own way.”

Wertheimer’s job is to bridge the gap between studios, who like to maintain near-total control over their product, and the digital world, where anything that isn’t dead simple to use typically winds up dead in the water.

Right now, nothing in the on-demand entertainment world is simple. But Wertheimer believes that over the next five years studios will figure out how to bring their business models in line with technology, which will make life easier for consumers who want to watch their stuff anytime, anywhere.

March 31, 2008 | usairwaysmag.com | Read Article | PDF

Right Interview with Bryan Biniak, Jacked

2005 was the first year that the majority of PCs sold to consumers were laptops. Now, you are seeing homes where each individual has a laptop, and you might have two or three laptops connected through broadband, and more importantly wireless. You also have broadband Internet access through mobile devices, which is not just texting, and that is really ramping up engagement. What consumers like about the second screen, is that they control that--that's their space. I had spoken at a conference for David Wertheimer at the Center for Entertainment Technology at USC. They had been doing all this research on multi-tasking consumers, because people were concerned that if people were not watching ads, they would destroy broadcast television. What the found on the study, which was focused on college students, was that 100% of them had a laptop; 100% of people watched TV with their laptop; and 100% of the people who had laptops while watching TV were doing things related to what they were watching. Then, they asked--who would wanted an experience where someone has combined a laptop with a television into one, and how many wanted something like that? Zero.

March 24, 2008 | socaltech.com | Read Article | PDF

How Hulu's Design Gets It Right

Hulu's chief design theme, one that clearly appeals to this market, says David Wertheimer, executive director of the Entertainment Technology Center at the University of Southern California, is its pared-down aesthetic, which "gets at the bare essence of the product." Hulu's simple pages are unencumbered by advertising, while the user interface is uncomplicated and intuitive. "There are no blinking lights, no flashy buttons all over the place," says Wertheimer. "It's a simple, high-quality streaming experience."

March 14, 2008 | businessweek.com | Read Article | PDF

USC's Entertainment Technology Center Announces New Executive Sponsor

LOS ANGELES - The Entertainment Technology Center at USC (ETC) (www.etcenter.org), a non-profit consortium that brings together top entertainment and consumer electronics companies to listen to and evaluate consumer mindshare towards future technologies, announced today that Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) (BSE: TCS.BO, NSE: TCS.NS), a global IT services, business solutions, and outsourcing firm, has joined the ETC as an Executive Sponsor. TCS will join ETC's existing studios and major technology companies as a sponsor - with the main goal of producing new technologies for consumers and of generating new revenue streams for the companies that create entertainment technology.

March 11, 2008 | newsobserver.com | Read Article | PDF | Related Articles

iTunes Comes Up Short on Movie Rental Goals

"The business and legal folks at the studios are always careful about how new deals affect their existing relationships -- such as with Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) , Blockbuster, etc.," David Wertheimer, executive director of the Entertainment Technology Center the University of Southern California told MacNewsWorld.

"This one is especially complicated because it's Apple/iTunes, and companies are increasingly curious about how the decisions they make today may come back to haunt them later," he said, pointing to perhaps the most notorious decision of all -- the music industry's agreement let iTunes lock its prices at 99 cents for song downloads.

Setting up these agreements can be more complicated than they appear at first glance, Mark Meckler, an associate business professor at the University of Portland in Oregon, told MacNewsWorld. In fact, he was surprised that Jobs even put a concrete number out to the public. "Unless there were negotiations under way at the time that later fell through, that was an incredibly ambitious thing for him to do."

March 4, 2008 | ecommercetimes.com | Read Article | PDF

Mobile users, look forward to more free videos

Mobile users who haven't made the jump to watching videos on their cell phones and smartphones may see a juicy, dangling carrot on the horizon. A paper submitted by John Barrett of Parks Associates and David Wertheimer of USC's Entertainment Technology Center (PDF), summarizes that mobile phone users will watch more videos on their phones if they can get them for free. Well, duh. Who doesn't want free?

February 27, 2008 | cnet.com | Read Article | Related Articles | PDF

Made-for-Web TV show a broadcasting first

David Wertheimer, former president of digital entertainment at U.S. studio Paramount, says he doesn't believe the pilot is dead. But the arrival of Quarterlife in prime time on a major network has proven "that there's not a single model anymore," he said yesterday.

"We're getting to a point where you're only limited by your creativity, not bound by the traditional rules of the ‘system'," said Mr. Wertheimer, who runs the Entertainment Technology Center at the University of Southern California, which is funded by Hollywood studios including Disney, Fox and Sony.

"High-quality production values will always cost real money, so the networks will continue to invest in the tried-and-true development system," said Mr. Wertheimer. "But TV networks may well begin to test well-produced content online rather than relying solely on intuition and focus groups.

February 26, 2008 | financialpost.com | Read Article | PDF

More lab work for USC

The Entertainment Technology Center @ USC is planning to build an Anytime/Anywhere Content Lab, a modular research and testing site being developed for the industry to explore how consumers interact with entertainment in an integrated environment.

The lab is part of an expanding agenda for the ETC, which is best known for its pioneering efforts in digital cinema.

"Traditionally, the ETC has been a resource to bring together the technologists and thought leaders from the entertainment industry to talk about how technology and entertainment come together," said David Wertheimer, executive director of ETC @ USC. "Moving beyond the success ETC had with the Digital Cinema Lab, now we are expanding the focus to talk about not only content creation and technology but how consumers will interact with products and how we can create new types of offerings for consumers."

October 30, 2007 | hollywoodreporter.com | Read Article | PDF

Right of Return

by David Wertheimer

There was a time when you could safely assume that a product’s existence on store shelves meant that it had undergone some reasonable level of testing. I guess those days are gone. In today’s hailstorm of consumer electronics raining from the heavens, it seems that the emphasis is on getting to market, not getting it right.

Years ago, I learned the difference between the words “to” and “through.” I learned about the industry’s zeal to report “sell to,” which meant how many items you shipped to the retailers. Apparently, it was easy to jack this number up by just getting retailers excited about a flood of orders that would never materialize. You may remember stories in the post-Enron days about shipments sitting in an empty warehouse being counted as “sales”. A much more meaningful statistic I learned was “sell through” – how many products the retailers actually sold through to consumers.

June 18, 2007 | ContentAgenda.com | Read Article

Itiva Networks to Showcase Next Generation Rich Media Content Delivery Technology at Digital Hollywood

PALO ALTO, Calif., June 5 /PRNewswire/ -- Itiva Networks, the on-line Video Content Delivery Solution for high quality digital assets, announced today that it will participate in the Digital Hollywood Spring 2007 Conference in Santa Monica, Calif.

Itiva Board Director Jerry Pierce will present an overview of the critical business needs for secure, scalable and capital-efficient rich media content delivery and an update of Itiva's service offerings at the Entertainment Technology Center (ETC) Studio Executive VIP Dinner, a by-invitation special event held during Digital Hollywood.

June 6, 2007 | hd.broadcastnewsroom.com | Read Article

Is Crucial Daypart Finally Past Its Prime?

"...I believe that the networks have a great opportunity to establish new kinds of advertising opportunities and business models," says Mr. Wertheimer. "There is still an important role for networks and programming, but it will require a different kind of thinking in an IP-enabled world. The result will be more choice for consumers and new models for creators and distributors."

May 10, 2007 | Adage.com | Read Article | PDF

YouTube nation

Audiences have always had an appetite for ethnic and cultural stories, as evidenced by the success of films such as "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" and "Bend It Like Beckham," said David B. Wertheimer, executive director of the Entertainment Technology Center at the University of Southern California. The center is a consortium funded by Hollywood studios and leading technology companies that looks at how technology is changing the entertainment landscape.

What's different about video-sharing technology is that it allows culture and ethnicity to be shared in smaller, more flexible, more immediate ways than traditional films can. And while the power can be abused because of a lack of censorship, when used earnestly, it offers viewers a totally new type of entertainment, Wertheimer said.

"When I watch (Gambito's) stuff, I don't just see her Filipino family, I see my family. And yet, by seeing the sameness, we are able to appreciate the differences," he said.

May 4, 2007 | JSonline.com | Read Article | PDF

Digital Cinema Summit musings

Today’s Digital Cinema Summit (put on by the Entertainment Technology Center at USC) was heavy on the 3D theme and its impact on both the creation of content and the distribution and exhibition of that content. The topic was apropos coming on the heels of Disney’s Meet the Robinsons–the subject of an afternoon session at the conference. During that session, panel members cited statistics indicating that the 3D version of “Meet the Robinsons” opened on 892 screens simultaneously worldwide, making it, according to them, “the biggest D-cinema release to date.”

Apr. 15, 2007 | DigitalContentProducer.com | Read Article | PDF

NAB summit adopting wider view: Digital event looks at dawn of digital age

In the past, much of the focus on digital cinema has been on the exhibition end, but with the Digital Cinema Initiative specifications in place, SMPTE standards yet to come and most theater chains in their testing phase, the action has shifted to other parts of the digital cinema pipeline.

That was reflected in the Sunday lineup at the NAB Digital Cinema Summit.

"Now that d-cinema deployment has tremendous momentum, the Summit has expanded its focus both up and downstream," says Entertainment Technology Center executive director David Wertheimer.

Apr. 12, 2007 | Variety.com | Read Article | PDF