TABLE OF CONTENTS The theme of convergence that has suffered from overuse at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) convention and other industry events refers to the coming together of the television, film, and computer industries through shared digital technologies. The reality is that during the late 1990s digital technologies have, in fact, brought about the opposite effect in regard to distribution. A plethora of new formats and distribution mechanisms from the World Wide Web to set-top boxes to wireless devices threatened to overwhelm even the most well-equipped and well-staffed content development facilities. From the viewpoint of content creators at the end of the last decade, convergence more accurately referred to the coming together of creation tools on the desktop (such as the flatbed, effects workstation, tape bay, audio mix room, multimedia software, Website development tools, and so forth) while divergence more accurately described the new range of requirements for output.
The following two illustrations outline at a high level the evolution of creation paths, first toward divergent delivery formats and then toward merged architecture formats.
Figure 14-1 highlights the separate paths required to create the types of content that are common in the industry today. Until recently, production of various forms of media involved such distinct technologies and techniques that the translation of content required significant time and resources.
The diversity of output requirements encouraged the evolution of development tools that brought video production, Website creation, and multimedia authoring together...
