Mediated Reality.

I have had the good fortune to be able to attend a few good concerts at local arenas over the last month and have thoroughly enjoyed being there and experiencing some great acts live on stage. I have seen them both on the small screen much earlier in my life and the when the chances to see them live came up months ago tickets were hastily bought on-line and the dates were anticipated weeks in advance. For me the time I am there at the concert I like to lose myself in the performance and try to take in as much of the experience as possible.

It was just during a long and indulgent Clapton Guitar solo that I first noticed the strange sea of lights below me. (I happened to have a sub-prime seat at the Echo arena for this one so I could see the floor seating from quite a height). Almost all of the floor seating looked as if the crowd were holding lights above their heads, reminiscent of concerts of an earlier generation where lighters were held aloft and swayed in time to the music. These lights were not moving however but remained fixed on the stage unmoving. The lights were, as you may have guessed, the LCD screens of multitudes of mobile phones, their users attempting to capture the intricacies of the performance before them. At the time I thought it was some how strange but perhaps understandable to preserve the experience to remember later and share with friends (either at the pub or more likely via MMS).

It wasn’t until the last concert, where I had significantly better seats on the floor, that I had the opportunity to study the phenomenon a little more closely. This time the visual feast of Jean Michel Jarres laser light show was far more impressive, filling the field of view and the music immersing you in the experience and sure enough there were hoards of people with their phones trained on the stage attempting to preserve the spectacle on solid state memory. I took a few pictures of particularly amazing sights and my partner took a few pictures and a couple of short video shots but some people seemed to be consuming the concert entirely through their three inch LCD screens. Eyes barely wavering from the screen to ensure it remained focused on the action but somehow to me almost entirely missing the point of actually being there to experience the event.

As a general rule the people that exhibited this behaviour were the much younger section of the audience. Is this a trend that is indicative of a wider malaise, people so wrapped up in digitising their life and interacting with reality though technology that they are no longer content to simply be there in the moment. I can’t really comment on whether the youtube generation I witnessed actually enjoyed the concert as much as I had despite their concentration on the small screen but my gut feeling is that they can’t have done.

Perhaps, now that they have recorded it a more persistent form than my neurons, their memories will last longer as they can re-ignite them at will by re-playing the video on the phone or PC. I still feel that there is an emotional connection from being in the present, with the whole of your self, that is being missed continually by an ever increasing proportion of our population.

Moral Dilemma

I have a huge back catalogue of tapes of music I used to listen to a lot when I was younger, both at school and at University. My recent attendance of a Jean Michel Jarre concert prompted my to want to listen to the old albums again, some of which I only have on tape. Unfortunately with the 100% digital household the re-playing of analogue tapes is not really possible unless I use one of the kids CD/Radio/Cassette players. It would be incredibly easy to just pop on to Pirate Bay, or whatever has replaced it since the court case the other month, and download a nice MP3 version to listen too anywhere in the house or on my MP3 player.

This is where the moral dilemma comes in, I own the tape, I could probably find it in about half an hour digging in the garage but I can’t really make good use of it any more (hence why they are all in the garage). As such it it actually a violation of copyright to own a copied version of the MP3s. I could feasibly create the MP3 copies for personal use with the right equipment (I think I own a 3.5mm connector to play the tape into the computer and hack it up into tracks and MP3 encode them). I don’t really see why I should pay to own it again on CD ( I think I paid about ten quid for it first time round which felt like a lot of money back then), but then if I had lost the tape I wouldn’ t be entitled to a free replacement. It is making use of a freely distributed copy of the CD with no royalties being paid to the artist and in some cases I have bought CDs of things I have on tape because I have found them in discount bins at HMV in order to have a proper digital copy.

I don’t really mind paying for music on the right medium, but not at extortionate cost. I think it would be a great idea to have a trade-in option where you could take your old tapes and get CD versions for something like three pound perhaps up to a fiver which is about what I have been happy to pay in the bargain bins to upgrade some albums.

As this option does not exist though the dilemma still stands is is morally (if not legally) acceptable to download an MP3 file of music you have already paid for legitimately in one form or another?

The future of Digital Broadcast

On reading the various diatribes on DAB on the register over the last few months of which Fixing the UKs DAB disaster | The Register was the most recent one to get me thinking. DAB as a technology is outdated and really hasn’t achieved the market penetration needed to bring digital broadcasting into the mainstream.

I tried DAB a few years ago and was disappointed then by the quality and reliability of the stations I was receiving and very quickly found myself returning to FM. In the intervening years I purchased a Roku Soundbridge with the primary purpose of listening to my growing MP3 collection over some decent speakers in my lounge when I am reading the odd book. The Soundbridge is also a very capable internet radio with 18 preset stations and more available from Radio Roku which are made available via the Sounbridge as My Favorites. So now I have a huge selection of Digital Radio stations available at home and to some extent on the move via my N800 which also has good internet radio capabilities.

There is one problem now for my digital life style now. The one place where digital radio has yet to make an impact and the one place where digital radio can make serious big wins. I spend a long time in my car when I am working and that is the one place I am still at the mercy of FM. Yes I can listen to CDs or I can re-play podcasts via my MP3 player but I can’t listen to my favorite radio stations unless I happen to be in their FM coverage areas. I like Virgin and Smooth FM and have them both on my various devices as internet streams but if I am working in the wrong areas then I am stuck.

I want to have my radio and listen to it where ever I am and that means the 10 or 12 hours a week I am in the car (sometimes more if I have a busy week). I have a phone with data and a data calling plan. I can get a Sat Nav that downloads up to the minute traffic announcements from the Web. I have a hands free kit in the car to make calls that will come out of the car stereo speakers. Why can’t I play my internet radio this way?

3g coverage and higher speed mobile data connections are getting better as the technology finally catches up with the spectrum allocation so expensively purchased by mobile networks. There are still some problems with more rural areas where broadband/3g coverage is still poor but I guess these areas are probably poorly served by DAB too so if we are going to invest money into any form of digital coverage for these areas it makes sense to me to ensure it is IP based coverage in one form or another to provide both digital broadcast and twenty first century network access. The growth of Multicast channels (as mentioned in the above article) should alleviate some of the additional bandwidth costs required by this switch and allow even the most rural of stretches of phone line to get reasonable sound quality.

Even the big radio makers are seeing the market trend with Roberts producing a WiFi Radio player and similar offerings can be seen from other major manufacturers. If I have the right phone then I can get a number of players from Sydus I just need to get an unlimited data plan that will not cost me an arm and a leg.