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Internet Movies: How Far We've Gone!

© Archie Sicat

I remember only a year ago, just the thought of creating and making available on the Internet a movie with a running time of fifteen minutes or more—was just inconceivable. But these days, with the advent of high-speed Internet connection, webfilms are becoming longer and longer, such that the average length of one film may be fifteen to twenty minutes soon.

Another technology that has made the big leap possible is streaming media (Microsoft, RealPlayer, Apple are the big players) which has made video-on-demand a household item. Of course, as you already know, computer power keeps on quadrupling and this development alone is enough to make a two-hour Internet Movie a reality in the not-so-distant future. The One gigahertz model is no longer a rumor. Its already being sold. Imagine how this makes me feel as I am still stuck with my 330 megahertz Packard Bell!

And so in my next PC purchase, I am no longer considering buying to own. I will just lease. I think that is the practical thing to do. Besides, DNA-powered PCs are also being looked into, with proponents saying that our DNA strand can hold infinitely more information than any silicon chip. Besides, DNA does not heat up like silicon (goodbye, PC fan!).

I hate to make fearless forecasts. These are doomed to fail. Remember the guy who said man will already live on the moon by 1999 (a.k.a. Space 1999)? Yet on the Internet, the forecasts I make tend to be behind, not ahead of the future (Back to the Future?). For example, just recently when I was coordinating with the video ministry in our local church, Randy Gobin, the ministry’s top honcho was asking me to load one gigabyte of footages into the church’s Internet server. I told him that was not possible! He wouldn’t take any of it. He asked me to go to the Benny Hinn ministry website and to my surprise, I found myself watching a live worship service twenty minutes long. What staggered me even more was the fact that previous services of the same length were stored or archived in the website—available for viewing at any time.

My friend Randy just opened my eyes to the truth here. It’s okay to make fearless forecasts in the Internet world. And so in the next week or two, Randy and I will attempt to upload a 20-minute movie on the church website which I am currently managing. The question is, how do I compress one gig-worth of video into the church’s server? I know that I can rely on my Microsoft Media Player On-Demand Producer which I already donwloaded and installed in my PC two months ago. But doing the actual work? I have no clue yet.

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