CHAPLIN'S `THE RINK' PULLS IN ON-LINE AUDIENCES : REAL-TIME VIDEO GETTING CLOSER TO BECOMING REALITY ON INTERNET.

Byline: Dave McNary Daily News Staff Writer

Charlie Chaplin drew massive crowds into silent movie theaters in the 1910s and 1920s. The beloved ``Little Tramp'' is doing it again - this time on the Internet.

Although the images are sometimes jerky and blurred, and the frame is only about three inches wide on the typical personal computer, Chaplin's 1916 short ``The Rink'' has been viewed by more than 50,000 people since the American Film Institute put the 20-minute comedy on line on Jan. 22.

The event is a landmark in the still-developing history of cyberspace because it offers on-demand viewing of the movie rather than the usual wait - about 10 minutes to download a 2-1/2-minute video file using a typical modem operating over telephone lines.

``This is something the AFI has wanted to do for a long time,'' said Dan Harries, the institute's director of on-line media. ``We finally have the technology to do it.''

The long-term implications are profound. If video clips can be transferred instantly, observers say, it also offers a glimpse of the staggering potential of the Internet.

``Being able to access video in real time could make the Internet as popular as television,'' said Roy Williams, a California Institute of Technology senior staff scientist who specializes in studying the Internet. ``Let's say you call up a Web site, and everything that comes on the screen has an instant video clip attached to it. Imagine the power that whoever has the remote control will have.''

In other words, users eventually will be able to move through the Internet with the same kind of ease as a cable TV customer does when channel surfing. But the technical obstacles are daunting, requiring faster modems and upgrades to fiber-optic wire in cable systems.

``What you need essentially for real-time video over the Internet is a big modem and a big cable pipe,'' said Aki Namioka, a Seattle-based consultant to IBM Corp. and president of the Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility. ``I would say the first places it will show up will be universities and large corporations.''

Namioka noted that significant numbers of cable customers will probably start having access to upgraded cable and faster modems in three to four years, probably at a price of an additional $30 to $40 a month.

For now, AFI is using ``streaming'' software developed by VDONet Corp. of Palo Alto which can be loaded into a personal computer in five to 20 seconds. Essentially, the VDOLive program allows the digitized information comprising the movie to flow into the PC on a constant basis.

AFI has championed the movie as being on demand, meaning that it can be viewed as soon as a program to run the film is downloaded from the AFI site at www.afionline.org. The AFI will switch to Buster Keaton's 1921 movie ``The Boat'' later this month and plans to show a new movie every month for at least four more months, featuring such silent stars as Harold Lloyd.

Each film has an AFI-created soundtrack, and most will be either owned by AFI or in the public domain to reduce potential copyright headaches, Harries said.

AFI's site is not the only one showing films on the Internet. Movie studios offer trailers for their movies, and several producers of experimental films have made their wares available. Additionally, CBS News and the Public Broadcasting System are making use of the VDONet technology.

``I think what AFI is doing is remarkable,'' said Randy Haldeman, VDONet's director of marketing. ``What tickles my fancy is that it's doubtful that this movie and the ones that are upcoming have ever been seen in places like Peru and Bulgaria. So even though it's not the same as sitting in a theater, it's still pretty exciting.''

For now, AFI will only present one film at a time, since each file will take up a large amount of space on computer disks.

``We're not planning for more than six months in advance because the technology will be so changed by then,'' Harries said. ``The key is getting high-speed cable modems. If you get them, you can have digital movies on demand.''

Harries is the creator of the highly regarded Cinemedia Web site, the Internet's film and media directory with links to nearly 10,000 sites covering TV, movies, radio, new media and magazines. It was started three years ago when he was a professor of film and media at Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia, with links to 150 sites and no graphics. Cinemedia, located within the AFI site, is growing at a rate of 500 to 1,000 listings per month.

Harries said the reaction to ``The Rink'' has shown him that the notion of movies on the Internet could be quite popular.

``It's gotten shown at a cybercafe in Bangkok, and you can see people in Japan, Korea, Israel and Egypt log on as we go into the night here in Los Angeles,'' he said. ``The server is busy 24 hours a day. As we're talking, 50 to 100 people are checking it out.''

Ira Rubinstein, director of interactive marketing for Columbia TriStar, said his studio is considering VDONet software, along with several others, for use on the Sony Pictures Web site.

``The technology is really getting there,'' he said. ``I think it's exciting when people like AFI push new technology to its limit. VDO and the others keep getting better and better, and it's only a matter of time where it looks and feels like a TV screen or at least a CD-ROM.''

Rubinstein said trailers are among the most popular items on the Sony site despite the waiting and jerkiness of the images, due to the movie frames being digitized at 10 to 12 frames a second rather than the 30 frames a second in theaters. He reports that the number of visits to the site were up 40 percent in January from December.

``If you have faster access and technological advances, it's certainly going to make our area more popular,'' Rubinstein said. ``The Internet is something that really lends itself to people who are on a quest for information about a specific area like film, so it's a great way to reach the real frequent moviegoers. They eat up everything that we put out.''

VDONet's Haldeman said the quality of video on the Internet has already reached a crucial level.

``Video on the net is not TV quality, but it is decision quality. That means I would watch five trailers on Friday night and I can make an educated decision based on what I see,'' he said. ``The bigger picture is that the Internet will eventually have all the interactivity that TV doesn't have, and that will be a big kick to advertisers.''

Maureen Saringer, Internet marketing specialist for Rick's American Cybercafe in Denton, Texas, said ``The Rink'' was shown several times on a big screen set up at the restaurant.

``We weren't sure how it was going to work, seeing as we were blowing up this tiny image,'' she said. ``We didn't make a big deal over it. It looked pretty good as long as you sat fairly close. We'll definitely show the next one.''

Saringer pointed out that the restaurant is able to attract patrons partly because the workstations are equipped with a high-speed connection, operating at about 200 times the speed of a conventional 28.8 kilobaud modem.

Saringer points out that analysts have forecast that between 45 million and 75 million people will be shopping over the Web during the year 2000. They will spend as much as $150 billion annually, according to International Data Corp.

``I think this kind of technology is what's going to enable people to start using the Internet in economically significant ways like on-line shopping,'' she said. ``You're not going to see it happen until you get real-time video.''