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There's been much buzz about the way Apple's iPad will change personal computing, with its lightweight, mouse-free elegant design that allows greater mobility with longer battery life for web surfing, movie-watching and reading books and other print media. But there's another big factor shaping the way we use electronic media and it's related to devices like the iPad because all of this is involved with digital media, the technology that allows all kinds of information to be compressed into binary code and used to access multimedia on multiple platforms, as anyone who's watched a Hollywood movie on their iPod knows.

The revolution is in the realm of home video, the segment of the media that impacted the way we use television starting in the 1980s when the VCR boom exploded across the world. Prior to the arrival of Beta and then VHS videotape player/recorders, there was no way to control one's television or film viewing. When a network broadcast a program or movie, you either caught it the night and time it aired, or caught the episode rerun months later. The Big Three television network, NBC, CBS, ABC, controlled the television content flow on their scheduling grids so that viewers planned their lives around watching their favorite programs.
In the 1970s, the three networks accounted for over 90 % of the audience.

Two huge technological developments allowed Americans to have greater choices over what they did with their television sets. The first was the growth of cable channels and their penetration to more and more homes, giving greater choices of what to watch. The other was the rise of the VCR (the first VHS model shown here) to allow the recording of television programs for later viewing ("timeshifting") which delivered the audience from its captivity to a program schedule; the VCR could also play prerecorded Hollywood films. The result was that the American home was now more autonomous in its viewing choices. Today, television broadcast networks are down to just over 50% of the audience, having lost out to cable and home video.

The rise of the VCR meant that we began to expect to be able to do our own programming, to view what we wanted, when we wanted. And we could fast forward past commercials, undermining the whole business model of commercial television. Later, when the Digital Video Disc brought us an even better version of Hollywood products, we began to enjoy how good movies could look on our television sets. The arrival of high-definition, widescreen monitors enhanced the aesthetic experience.

When the Digital Video Recorder, such as those made by TiVo, arrived, it used a hard drive to digitally record and store program content for pausing, or replaying anything on TV, a real improvement on the now ancient-seeming VCR. Just like the World Wide Web taught us to expect to get print content easily and for free, home video made us our own exhibitors in our home theater.

But as "digital convergence" made all kinds of content available on all kinds of devices, the term Video on Demand became one of the buzzwords in circulation: the expectation that someday soon, we would be able to order up any content we had once had to rent from our closest Blockbuster store or through the mail from Netflix. But digital convergence means that all kinds of devices can be conduits for the same streaming content. Thus it is that I have begun to experience some of the latest advances in home video.

We have a TiVo HD DVR that records many hours of programming and saves it, creating a library of movies and other programs that can be watched at anytime. We also have added a Tivo wireless adapter which receives wireless signals from our computer's router. In essence, our router sends out signals from our cable broadband connection to our TiVo so that we can access You Tube, Amazon and other content providers over the Internet. But the biggest source of offerings is that we can watch hundreds of movies and television shows on our Netflix account this way in standard and high definition. For weeks we've been watching successive season of Lost in beautiful detail whenever we want to.

But wait, there's more-Months ago, Netflix sent out an e-mail asking if we'd like to watch content from our Instant Queue on my son's Wii game console. They sent us a disc that enabled the Wii, already able to receive wireless signals, to play back Netflix programs picked up from our router. Ever since, I've been able to watch movies, documentaries and television programs while using our treadmill. And last week I did the same thing on my son's Playstation 3, which brings Netflix content in even better resolution. If I'm in the middle of a program, on any of these three devices, or one of our computers, I can stop it, and resume the program on another device in the house.

I can tell already that this will continue to change our media habits. As DVD and Blu-Ray sales stay flat, and as more titles become available instantly, we will watch more streaming content instead of having to wait for it by mail, as we have done with Lost episodes. I will still prefer to watch Blu-Ray discs of classic and major films but HD streaming at what looks like 1080i quality will certainly suffice for lots of other content, when more arrives.

This fascinating cnet article reports on Netflix's strategy of getting more and more rights to programming from Hollywood studios. Even Netflix's much reported agreement to delay receiving Warner Bros. DVDs for three weeks (allowing the studio to sell DVDs rather than allowing Netfix to rent them) is a long-term tactic to obtain the video streaming rights that will one day save them millions in postage fees as their growing customer based opts to stream movies rather than order them through the mail. They see that as the soon-arriving future of home video-on demand.

Entertainment Weekly‘s Jeff Jensen traced the last ten years of ever more lucrative superhero movies and wondered if the viability of the genre was on the wane. Hollywood studios with mammoth budgets for next year's Green Lantern, Thor, Captain America: The First Avenger and X-Men: First Class are betting that there's still plenty of power in those spandex tights. Comic-Con displayed the casts of several movies due next year and in 2012′s The Avengers which combines the Hulk, Iron Man, Captain America and others in a Marvel extravaganza to dwarf earlier films.

Jensen is right to ask the question about how upcoming films can resonate with audiences now quite familiar with such characters-we relate to these characters on some level because we can relate to Batman's quest for rough justice, Spider-Man's struggle for a normal life, the X-Men's societal rejection or the giddy fun of imagining ourselves in a cool metal suit. But what does Green Lantern speak to in the mass audience, or for that matter, the Green Hornet? Is the appeal of Thor or Cap limited to hardcore comic book geeks, the essential audience the Comic-Con panels were reaching out to but not the average moviegoer?

I think it will probably all come down to the story and the attitude of the production toward the character. If it takes an ironic stance toward the "star spangled sentinel of liberty," Captain America, a character whose red, white and blue costume is hard to imagine in live action (see the picture I took at Universal Studios Marvel attraction) then the audience will mostly stay away. The new movie's version of the costume, shown above, successfully adapts it to a live action practicality. As a character, Cap's alter ego, Steve Rogers, a man of the 1940s patriotic spirit, was always at odds with his latter day resurrection into a more cynical and knowing culture-it was his quiet insistence on his American values that made him Marvel's moral compass, what Superman is to DC Comics. I think it's quite possible to pull it off if the director an script believes in the classic rendering of the character.

Thor, an actual Norse god, banished to Earth from his mythical home of Asgard by his stern father Odin, would, in big screen translation, have to avoid the attraction to wink at the material and pull a campy Wagnerian spectacle needing only Elmer Fudd and Bugs Bunny from the class cartoon "What's Opera, Doc?"

This still from next summer's release already reminds me of a scene from Das Rheingold or another of the Ring Cycle operas, missing only Brunhilda in a breastplate, helmet and spear. And Green Lantern's tactic of using his power ring to create a giant boxing glove or fly swatter in combat has always seemed pretty cartoonish even for comics.

So success will all be in the tone and identification of the human drama of each character. Comic book characters only work because there's something about the hero, other than their fantasy appeal, that attracts readers and makes them care about them. So, Cap is a man burdened with living up to the best ideals of his country-perhaps a metaphor for anyone serving in the armed forces, or with any duty to a higher national cause. Thor is a a golden boy who has never mastered himself or risen to the responsibilities of a royal household and must now learn to serve protect mere mortals, sort of a mythic rich kid who must do community service. And Hal jordan's Green Lantern preceded and perhaps inspired George Lucas' Jedi Knights, as an Emerald Warrior, a space cop keeping order on his assigned space sector. These are all types that, if adapted intelligently, will appeal to that desired blockbuster audience the same way Marvel second stringer Tony Stark's Iron Man hit paydirt by showing that superheroes are always, after all, human.

Posted by: Alex Wainer

The kids aren't out of school yet but the onset of the summer movie season, having crept back to make room for earlier releases, scores a box office touchdown with the sequel to 2008′s superhero funfest Iron Man, with Robert Downey Jr. The original film was a nice alternative to the brooding darkness of the Batman films and the angst of Spider-Man. Downey's Tony Stark was an flippant, eccentric weapons developer who grows a conscience when he discovers that his business partner is selling his company's high-tech munitions to the country's enemies and invents the ultimate corporate suit of advanced armor in order to personally clean up the mess. When the movie ended with Stark revealing his true iron identity to a press conference, the audience knew that the wild times were just beginning.

And the sequel picks up a few months later as Stark/Iron Man has, in his words before a meddling Senate hearing, "privatized world peace" with his Iron Man technology, which he refuses to share with the US military. But the wily Stark of course must begin the movie with both outer and inner challenges to confront and we soon see both: the vengeful son of former Stark employee is using Tony's arc reactor technology to turn himself into the supervillain Whiplash while Stark himself faces the slowly increasing toxic effects of an element used in the personal arc reactor that powers his heart and the Iron Man suit. More so than in the long-running (since the 1960s) comic, Downey's Tony Stark is a complicated hero, often his own worst enemy, who must face father issues, and his own inability to connect to those closest to him, Girl Friday Pepper Potts and military liaison James Rhodes.

The filmmakers took a chance that the actors' appeal and interaction would keep audiences interested during the middle part of the story that has less action than you might expect as the various plotlines play out and converge in a predictably explosive and exciting climax. There's nothing much in the movie to talk about as one sits during the closing credits-no great themes or ambiguity to stimulate debate, just a romp of a comic-book story. But as in the first film, those True Believers who sit through the long credit sequence are rewarded with a glimpse at what Marvel Studios are cooking up next so stay and you'll get the full value of your ticket.

Posted by: Alex Wainer

American media companies aren't the only ones who have successfully relaunched pop culture franchises, such as Batman, Transformers and Battlestar Galactica. The BBC series, Dr. Who originally aimed at family audiences when it began in 1963, and running till 1989, was brought back on the air in 2005 as a filmed hour series with much higher production values. What didn't change was the essential nature of the title character, referred to only as "The Doctor," an eccentric, proccupied, cosmic-level genius often dressed with what looks like clothes out of your grandparents' attic. He's also an alien itinerant from a race of Time Lords and thus, though appearing human, has two hearts and is exquisitely attuned to the turning the galaxies, planets and time itself. And another thing, when his body is struck with some mortal blow, he can regenerate himself into a new body or a total of 12 regenerations, which each appear to be a different person with personalities differences unique to that regeneration.

The first Doctor (the different versions are known by their sequence), played by William Hartnell, fit the general stereotype of the absent-minded scientist, irascible and cunning with his white hair and formal, antiquated attire. Always accompanied by usually human companions, for audience identification, the Doctor traveled in his time machine, the TARDIS (time and relative dimension in space) a marvelous machine that outwardly appeared to be a blue police call box of the early 1960s but inwardly was a vast interstellar vehicle for moving through time and space. The show really caught on with the arrival of the Daleks, a scary race of robotic beings looking like more sinister versions of R2D2 and intent on exterminating their enemies, meaning anyone but themselves. The complete quirkiness of the program with its cheap sets and old-fashioned cliff-hangers became popular so that the show continued for over twenty years, going through a series of regenerated Doctors and offering actors a chance to bring their own contribution to an ageless character.

In 1989, with no firm support from BBC executives, the program had faltered in its direction and appeal leading to its cancellation. The series continued in the public awareness through home video of the years of episodes and audio productions of new episodes of past doctors but it took a new BBC regime to see the potential for a relaunch.

What was immediately striking about the new Doctor Who series was that it had truly entered the 21st century world of digital effects, high production values and enhanced characterization. Just as other rebooted heroes were examined more in-depth, like Daniel Craig's James Bond, the Doctor was now more vulnerable, his need for companionship more apparent despite his seemingly insouciant demeanor. The episodes are also much faster-paced and dramatically richer than in the past with plot threads weaving in and out of episodes as in other high-concept television narratives.

The general direction of actors cast has been to make the Doctor gradually younger and thus more likely to appeal to a broader audience. With the 10th Doctor, played by David Tennant, the series reached the height of its popularity, as the sneaker-clad protagonist raced down corridors and across planetscapes in his hair-raising battle against evil aliens and monsters. After five years, Tennant decided to leave which once again challenged producers with how to cast the character that would continue audience attachment. The result was Matt Smith, a twenty-something who will bring his own interpretation when the new season begins on BBC America this Saturday the 17th. I imagine most fans have wondered what the BBC will do when Smith eventually leaves, to be replaced by number 12 leading to an eventual decision what to do when the thirteenth Doctor's run is up. Christopher Eccleston, the actor who relaunched the franchise lasted only one year, announcing his departure early in his run so producers must be thinking about such contigencies.

One last comment: Many time travel tales in popular culture involve changing the past or repairing a mistake made when someone goes to the past, as in Back to the Future. I think Dr. Who is unique in that the character doesn't change anything in history that he knows is set. He simply arrives at a certain time and place, is plunged into a dangerous situation, and works to stop evil machinations, because he knows that certain things in history aren't determined and that's where he can interfere. (Yes, Who fans, Tennant's Doctor famously broke that rule in his last season, in "The Waters of Mars," and was soundly rebuked for it. Thus, if you're tired of the usual paradoxical headache-inducing time travel stories, consider a voyage in the Tardis starting this Saturday with a new Doctor.

This is a big year for alternate universes in pop culture. Where to begin? Last summer's movie hit Star Trek rebooted the franchise by positing that a Romulan villain's trip to the past that caused the death of the future Captain Kirk's father, radically changed history. But it wasn't by obliterating the long history of the Enterprise and its crew but by creating an alternate time stream with the same characters having different first meetings but still winding up together for some yet unwritten adventures.

And the J. J. Abrams sci-fi series Fringe, offered a mind-blowing revelation of a parallel universe impinging on the one of the main characters. But viewers of Abrams much more infamous series, Lost, are now experiencing alternate reality whiplash as the new and final season has left behind the series famous flashbacks and flash forwards to "flash-sideways" where we see the series' characters living in a world in which Oceanic flight 815 never crashed on the island. Viewers are now asking which is the real world? Both? Neither? This picture of Jack Shephard in the Side-ways world suggests the parallel nature off his predicament.

It's important to note that all of the above are part of Abrams' Bad Robot productions with many of the same writers and producers using these concepts to create mind-bending tales whatever their understanding of or commitment to specific scientific theories.

Last night I watched JLA: Crisis on Two Earths, the latest in Warner Bros. direct-to-video movies featuring superheroes of the DC universe. The concept of multiple realities, based on the theory that every human choice creates a new universe, thus leading to a "multiverse" of infinite earths, feeds the concept of such stories. Despite the current vogue, the concept of parallel universes that are to some degree different from our own has spawned tales long before the 20th century. But instances of the science fiction thread discussed here can be found in television at least as early as several episodes of The Twilight Zone of the early 1960s and in the famous Star Trek episode, "Mirror, Mirror," wherein Kirk finds himself on a different, barbaric Enterprise with a goateed Mr. Spock.

Comics got into the act when in 1961, DC Comics offered "Flash of Two Worlds," the "Silver Age" tale of the original speedster, Jay Garrick, from the comics "Golden Age" of the 1940s, meeting the new Flash, Barry Allen, who had been the instrument of DC's rebooting of its superhero stories by re-inventing classic characters in an updated form. To account for characters of the same name who didn't live in the same world, DC borrowed the alternate reality concept and posited that the Jay Garrick earth was slightly ahead, history wise, of Barry Allen's earth and that many of the same characters had their versions in each world. Thus we would see more and more DC characters re-introduced into current continuity as inhabitants of "Earth One" often crossing over to or being visited by their counterparts on "Earth Two."

Eventually there were two Green Lanterns, Atoms, Hawkmans (Hawkmen?) and others each with their distinctly different costume designed that sent young readers' brains spinning with wonder and delight. Periodic expansion of the concept led to the discovery of other earths, one with an "Crime Syndicate" that had evil counterparts to Superman, Wonder Woman and others and resisted by its lone hero, Lex Luthor in a topsy turvy reversal.

Eventually, by the 1980s, DC had accumulated so many characters and parallel earths that it did a major housecleaning with its historic 12-issue series, "Crisis on Infinite Earths" which saw the elimination of the multi-verse into a single universe. That tradition of dimensional crossovers is the basis of JLA: Crisis on Two Earths. The Batman criminal counterpart, Owlman (voiced by actor James Woods) does a surprising dive into philosophy by surmising that an infinite number of worlds created by choices makes human free will pointless and humanity insignificant. Thus it would be no crime if he was to set off a superbomb that will destroy the multiverse-just because he can. This isn't the first time DC animators have delved into modern philosophy. In this YouTube clip from the Justice League series, titled here "Sartre and Superman," the original evil Lex Luthor advises an android seeking purpose for his life, to go all existential and create his own purpose. Owlman shows his fidelity to his nihilist beliefs in the movie's climax. This and a well-executed story lifts the movie out of simple bash and crash beat ‘em ups.

Ultimately, none of these stories is meant to prove the reality of quantum physics. Writers just love to explore the dramatic story potential of parallel lives intertwining. Indeed, many are meditations on the consequences of human moral choices, again reminding us of the significance of our actions and the power of imagination.

Note: Soon after posting this, my buddy Thom Parham, also known as the "DCU Continuity Cop," let me know of several errors of names of the complex DC history, which I've since corrected and for which I am grateful.