Net movie premiere: A ways to go

But the event was also a reminder that the worlds of technology and art are still miles apart, partly because of the still-crude state of Internet multimedia, and partly because Godfrey Reggio, the movie's director, displays some marked Luddite tendencies.

"In this world one cannot avoid technology," Reggio said in his introduction to the film, comparing the technological environment to the oxygen we breathe. "A new definition of freedom might be the ability to say no to technological necessity. But which of us can say that?"

As the direction of Reggio's talk became clear, some of the more unrepentant technophiles in the audience shifted restlessly in their seats, clutching their mobile phones more tightly.

The broadcast, hosted by Broadcast.com, used an emerging technology called IP multicast. A layer of hardware and software that runs on top of Internet Protocol (IP), it is intended to advance the Net to the next audio-visual level, enabling programming that's closer to television and radio in quality.

The system demonstrating the premiere in San Jose's Doubletree Hotel tapped into an IP multicast stream originating in Texas via a satellite-based access system called DirecPC. Projected onto a large screen, the film was a no more grainy than a VHS tape, and showed a few glitches that could have originated with the PC hardware.

Reggio downplayed the imperfect quality, pointing out there is "no comparison" to the film's original premiere, in Radio City Music Hall with a live orchestral accompaniment.

"But this is the medium that is changing the world," he said. "It brings to mind what the first radio broadcast must have sounded like, from the point of view of now."

That was also the point of view taken by most of the audience, and organizers said they counted the event as a rousing success.

Net not degraded
"Never has such high quality audio and video been broadcast to such a large potential audience [over the Internet], with such a minimal potential impact on the network," said Martin Hall, chief technology officer of Stardust Forums, which organized the premiere and the annual IP Multicast Summit, running through Tuesday.

John McHugh, general manager of Hewlett-Packard Pro Curve Networking, congratulated Reggio on achieving "kind of a Marconi thing," referring to Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi, who demonstrated the first trans-Atlantic wireless transmission in 1901.

"Koyaanisqatsi," named for a Hopi word meaning "life out of balance," critiques the increasing dehumanization of the modern world through a montage of images of the natural and technological worlds, to the accompaniment of a hypnotic Philip Glass soundtrack.

Glass recently renovated and extended the score, and "Koyaanisqatsi" is now touring the world with a live orchestra, underscoring the continuing power of traditional media.

How did a film with such an ambivalent attitude toward technology end up kicking off the third annual IP Multicast Summit?

It was partly as a result of economics, organizers said: the film's rights were available.

Perfect for the Net
And then, in some ways the movie is perfect for the Internet. It doesn't have characters or a plot, meaning that occasional interruptions aren't that big a deal. "This is a move made for packet loss," said Mayra Langdon Riesman, founder of Film Scouts LLC., using a technical term for Internet transmission glitches.

Riesman, who claims to have made the first Internet feature film premiere in 1995 with the 1902 film "A Trip to the Moon," said she insisted on using "Koyaanisqatsi" for Sunday's event.

"I thought the philosophical statement would be interesting to put out into the community, as a landmark," she said.