Watch your dream

Filipino TV viewers first became aware of Dream Broadcasting System during the 2002 World Cup. No free broadcast television station or cable TV operator was going to air the games live.

But Dream Broadcasting System, the only direct-to-home (DTH) satellite TV service provider in the Philippines, set up, free of charge, big screens in the outdoors and open-spaces of malls and in select bars and bistros, so that all who wanted, whether perched on a tree or a bar stool, got to watch Brazilian superstar Ronaldo and his teammates run, scoot, scurry and kick their way to victory.

But what is satellite TV?

Satellite TV, as opposed to cable, is wireless, delivering broadcasts via a satellite in the sky. Program material is uplinked to the satellite and then downlinked directly to your personal dish that then transmits images and sound to your television set. Thus the term direct-to-home broadcast.

A small dish installed outside your house serves as a window to a vast horizon of TV channels which you will have access to at a surprisingly reasonable price. (Dream insists it is very competitive with the price of a cable subscription.) One other big advantage, aside from being wireless, is that satellite TV delivers digital clarity sound and video. The Aguila-2 satellite which carries Dream’s signal blankets the whole Philippines and also covers Hong Kong, Taiwan, China and Singapore. According to Cesar G. Reyes, CEO of Dream Broadcasting System, Filipino soldiers in the far-flung Kalayaan Islands "watch Dream to get news and information as well as to reduce their loneliness".

Dream Broadcasting is taking its service a step further via a new tie-up with the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP). Under a recently signed Memorandum of Agreement, the CCP will have its own pay-per-view art channel on the Dream network and Dream will upgrade the Tanghalang Manuel Conde, the CCP’s aging audio-visual room, into a state-of-the-art theater capable of receiving and showing films broadcast via DTH. The venue will then be known as the CCP Dream Theater at the Tanghalang Manuel Conde.

Through the joint project, Dream and CCP hope to promote art films in the Philippines. Reyes explains: "When we started with our Dream Broadcasting System, one of the driving forces that put us in this kind of project was that we wanted Filipino viewers to have access to information and content that would enrich their lives. It can mean news, art films, it can mean anything that would make Filipinos aware of what’s happening around them. This tie-up means that CCP will be making available to Dream its art films and Dream will be able to broadcast these art films via satellite nationwide for its subscribers. For Dream, it means content that we have always wanted to democratize and want every Filipino to be able to access. This means also that we have an avenue and a vehicle or a platform where aspiring directors and producers can show their films nationwide."

The project, adds CCP Cultural Exchange and Communications Services Department Officer-in-Charge Eva Mari G. Salvador, is a project using technology for the arts. "For the CCP Art Channel, we will provide programming. We have so much material that we can now show. In exchange, Dream will upgrade the Tanghalang Manuel Conde and will provide for all of the satellite equipment and frequencies and beam programs to Tanghalang Manuel Conde. Now that it will be upgraded it can attract more viewers to come here and watch films. At the same time, we will have programs that we can beam simultaneously to anyone with a Dream subscription kahit nasa bundok dahil it’s within the direct home concept."

The CCP Art Channel on Dream is a pay-per-view channel available to Dream Subscibers, the first ever art channel in the Philippines. Through the CCP Art Channel, the center hopes to regain visibility in media as well as increase its audience reach and accessibility to people outside the Center itself. The channel also gives the CCP a much needed venue for airing its wealth of materials just gathering dust in storage.

"We have two kinds of materials that are just waiting to be de-magnetized," Salvador says. "One is the numerous documentations on art and culture that we have and the other are the winners of the CCP Independent Film and Video Competition."

Salvador says that the CCP Art Channel will also help nurture film artists because it will provide them with an outlet for their works. Aside from the upgrade of the Tanghalang Manuel Conde, the Dream project also will expand the reach of the CCP. "The Dream Project fits quite snugly into the CCP’s objectives–it promotes the works of artists because we will show their works, it promotes participation in the arts because anywhere you are, if you have the Dream system, you can access the CCP Art Channel and it promotes the arts as an industry because we are helping in the distribution of art films"

The CCP Dream Theater at Tanghalang Manuel Conde is the pilot site for the Dream Theaters that they plan to build nationwide. The plan for Dream, says Reyes, is to go to places where there are no movie theaters. "The problem with existing conventional theaters is the distribution. Films are usually first shown in Metro Manila, then the reels are sent to the provinces. You have a situation where there is first run and second run. For Dream you don’t have to have a reel to show the movie. When you show it in one Dream theater, it can also be shown in 700 theaters nationwide at the same time. It becomes one super roadshow. There’s no discrimination. People in the provinces don’t have to wait for the reels to get to their location."

Major local producers and foreign distributors in the country will provide the films to be shown. The films will be converted into digital format before broadcast to ensure high quality sound and video. To ensure against piracy, Dream Theater employs a fingerprinting technology capable of detecting unauthorized reproduction of the film while it is being broadcast to the different Dream Theater locations. The conversion equipment is housed in a secure compound in Clark Field where the Dream Broadcasting facility is.

Is watching a movie at the CCP Dream Theater, or any future Dream Theater for that matter, going to be expensive? No, says Eldon C. Cruz, CEO and President of Dream Theaters Inc. "We will match the P25 to P30 a person has to pay in order to watch a pirated dvd movie in someone’s sala in the province. We would really like to bring down piracy. We are very sincere about this."

The Dream Theater concept is a first in Asia and even the world, one which Dream hopes to trademark one day. "The goal of Dream Theater is to bring current entertainment to the public all over the country," adds Cruz. "Initially, we will be showing Tagalog movies. We will be the first in Asia–and the world–to do this. Americans will be watching how we will be doing this. They are still choosing the digital standard that they will use. In the next 15 years, digital pictures will be so much cheaper than celluloid. You can already see the handwriting on the wall for celluloid."

Being the pilot site, the CCP Dream Theater will be a showcase for Dream Broadcasting System. To be inaugurated on February 26, it will demonstrate to the public that such a technology is available and that it works. The first commercial Dream Theater is scheduled to start operations early next year in Guagua, Pampanga.

"We think this is going to be a very good investment," says Cruz of the P1 million-plus put into renovating the CCP theater. "I don’t think we will get an ROI in the next three years but the mere public perception that our technology works is enough for us to be very happy."

There is much excitement about the possibilities that the project brings. There is talk of stepping up activity in the area of production of artistic programs and documentation. One day, it might even be possible to watch an artist, performing live at the CCP Main Theater, in far-away Samal Island, via satellite TV.

Salvador elaborates: "We are thinking of ‘Dream-able’ projects….this means we are not limiting ourselves just to productions. There are exhibits that can be documented and produced so that they can appear as a walk-through, so that if you’re in Siargao and you want to view an exhibit, you can experience it."

Now that is a sweet dream indeed.