WHILE the In The City 96 international music convention might have brought a surplus of gigs and clubs to Dublin's Temple Bar district last week, it also saw some important discussions about the music industry and multimedia.
Since its inception in 1992, In The City has always been a digital friendly gathering, overwhelmingly positive about what the Internet and other new media such as CD Roms can offer the industry.
This year, however, saw a different mood setting in. The keynote multimedia panel, "Come Back When You're Older", examined the industry's attitude to new technology and its unwillingness to invest in creative multimedia. It was argued that as far as the record companies are concerned, they don't want to know about new technology until it's perfect and they can make money from it. The love affair, it would appear, is over.
James Plummer, an agent for creative multimedia artists with Thumb Candy Ltd, said there was a great difference in perception between the two sides. "The record companies don't recognise multimedia as an art form, they see it as a marketing tool, something you do afterwards to increase the sale or the profile. That's sad because there are so many people working in multimedia with great ideas and artistic vision. These are people with something to say rather than people who are just repackaging for promotion.
Dan Buzzo, MD of interactive music providers Wild Tangents, believed that the focus was wrong. "People keep thinking that the future is multimedia. It's not the present is multimedia, the future is interactive.
Judy O'Brien, head of legal affairs at Castle Communications, said record labels still had to do their homework. "They have to talk to the people involved on the other side, they must discuss the issues involved and work with what they have." She gave an example of this approach a game developed by her company based around a character from an Iron Maiden song. Naturally, the band (signed to Castle's record label) provided the soundtrack.
Many in the audience also suggested possible routes for developers to explore. John Rahim from Denevo Multimedia, who developed a CDRom for David Bowie last year, said they should target artists not labels, and make projects more artist driven from the outset. Another audience member argued that the record companies should "forget about spending all their money on David Bowie, the Rolling Stones and the Cranberries" and spread the budget across a greater range of artists, while another suggestion was for multimedia companies to set up their own Artists & Repertoire departments to sign bands and artists.
According to James Plummer, however, the main problem has to do with "the psychology of the people in charge and the negative perspective from which multimedia is viewed by them. It is this attitude which ensures creative and commercial failure and prompts that `come back when you're older' comment. Wasn't rock and roll all about being young in the first place?"
Another young format set to play a major part in the music industry within the next two or three years is DYD, or the digital versatile disc. DYD is capable of holding 4.7 to 17 gigabytes (between seven and 25 times the current CD capacity) of high quality video and audio data using MPEG2 compression techniques.
With Toshiba and Matsushita planning to launch DVD video players on the Japanese market in November, the "DVD - The Future Or What?" panel examined the potential implications for the entertainment industry arising from this new format.
Given the CD revolution and the retail failure of such recent format launches as MiniDisc and DCC, there's quite a deal of apprehension among the music industry about a renewed format battle. With the development of DYD spearheaded by 10 companies (spanning the movie, computer and consumer electronics industries), the prevalent feeling among participants was that the music companies must involve themselves in the ongoing DVDAudio development process. After all, as John Barker from Inside Multimedia magazine pointed out, "the idea of 4.7 gigs on a five and a half inch silver disc is quite exciting".
ANOTHER area which came the convention's micro scope was the much hyped topic of live broadcasting over the Internet. Simon Scott from multimedia design and production company AMK Digital described his workshop as "a masterclass by a partially sighted man in the world of the blind".
Talking through such webcasts as this summer's Phoenix festival and the Oasis show from Loch Lomond, Scott presented many insights into the ongoing learning curve of the medium and the logistics behind it. "At Phoenix, [BBC] Radio 1 had a huge setup to broadcast basically to an island. We were in a rundown portacabin with a load of computers broadcasting to the world."
For delegates who had over indulged the night before on the gig and club circuit and couldn't make it to a particular panel, there was always the Disctronics service to fall back on. A major UK CD mastering outlet, Disctronics recorded each panel and provided CDs the following day. "It's a service for the delegates and it's also a useful marketing tool for us," Martin Goldman explained. "There are always overlaps on the timetable which mean that if delegates are interested in two panels that are happening at the same time, they can go to one and simply buy the CD of the other the following day. At £2 a CD, we're certainly not doing this for any commercial reasons.
Each panel was recorded live and a signal sent directly via ISDN line to the Disctronics plant in Sussex. There, the CDs were mastered, manufactured and shipped back to Dublin early the following morning, ensuring a turnaround below 12 hours.