Fidelity vs. Convenience

Recently, I’ve been considering investment opportunities in entertainment media (as part of some broader thinking about how brand advertising (as opposed to performance-based advertising) will move online). In connection with that, I’ve been also musing about whether there is a secular trend in entertainment media in which “fidelity” of the experience gets traded off for “convenience” (portability) of the experience.

Here are some anecdotal data I’ve observed, some from my kids, 19 and 21, and their friends. The data do not categorically support a hypothesis, but they do seem to indicate a general movement.

 Audio: 

When I was a teenager, we (mostly boys) were obsessed with getting the best stereo (“hi-fi”) we could afford (or build). The goal was to achieve the closest “fidelity” to the “live” (studio, usually) performance from which the recording was made. 

There weren’t many “convenience” (portability) options. Real audio “nuts” could buy portable, reel-to-reel tape recorders, but they were difficult to use, and almost no one had them. We were pretty much tethered to our stereos: turntables, tuners, pre-amplifiers (and, for the audiophiles, an amplifier) and speakers. Actually, the experience was (metaphorically) very similar to that of a desktop computer. 

Then convenience became available. The major examples: Transistor radios, Cassette Tape Players (the original Walkman), CD Players and, most recently, MP3 players (iPods being the canonical example). In each case, the (pure) audio experience was inferior to that of sitting properly positioned in front of a good stereo system: inferior system components, digital vs. analog files, smaller file sizes (e.g., MP3 vs. CD). 

Yet portable music has obviously exploded. 

Today, neither my kids nor their friends have stereos. Their laptops serve as their media centers. Whether on their laptops or through their iPods, they listen through the crummy built-in speakers (laptops), through low-end earphones (earbuds) or through decent PC speakers. Even the best quality music they listen to (MP3’s ripped directly from a CD – I hope legally) is inferior to the quality of a CD (or, God forbid, a vinyl LP). 

But, they can take their music wherever they go. 

Video:

In video, the story’s harder to decipher. 

For our purposes, the first video was films watched in movie theaters. By the mid-to-late ‘50’s, the quality of films was pretty good (film recording techniques had gotten good, and many movie theaters had good projection systems and sound systems). Obviously, however, watching a movie in a theater is not very “convenient” (in the sense of being portable). Drive-ins were, in this sense, more convenient, but lower fidelity, both video and audio (though, for other reasons, drive-ins have largely died out). 

One couldn’t watch portable video (of any type) until the ‘70’s when so-called “portable” TV’s began to appear. In this context, portable meant that you could use them in any room in the house that had reception and an electric plug. That’s also (roughly) when usable video recorder technology began to become available – though only for institutions (e.g., schools), not consumers.

In the early ‘90’s, handheld TV’s began to be sold; great convenience, terrible picture quality. 

Sales of theatrical release (and other straight-to-DVD) films for home consumption began in the late ‘90’s or early this century (can’t find the precise dates). Again, more convenience, less “fidelity” (except at the expensive, high-end, most home theater systems are poor substitutes for a modern multiplex in this regard). Portable DVD players also became available in the mid-to-late ‘90’s – lower fidelity, more convenience. 

Then cell phones and video MP3 players (again, the canonical example: the Video iPod). I was very surprised when I watched my first video on a video iPod – when you put the earphones in, that little screen becomes quite large and it’s an amazing experience (compared to one’s expectations, at least). Super convenient, but less fidelity than a movie theater. 

Not all the data line up neatly behind my hypothesis. The DVR is an example of additional convenience with no loss of fidelity. If one subtracts the increasingly annoying experience of going to a movie theater (audience conversations throughout the film, many on cell phones, etc.), it may well be that watching a DVD on a great home theater system without the annoyances of a movie theaters is better on both dimensions: fidelity and convenience. 

My hypothesis also probably only makes sense if the growth in more convenient ways to consume audio and video media has been accompanied by a decline in less convenient but higher fidelity experiences. 

Finally, there are other media types or experiences (e.g., virtual worlds, MMOG’s, video Skype-type applications, movies projected on a sheet in a college dorm room from a laptop through a cheap LCD projector, radio on the web, YouTube, Metacafe and similar sites) that deserve treatment, but time doesn’t permit here. 

I’d love to hear from anyone with other examples (or counter examples), as well with views of the implications of this hypothesis that the trend is to trade off fidelity for convenience.