DIGITAL L.A. : PANTY RAID ON THE NET; VICTORIA'S SECRET SHOW TAKES WEB INTO NEW TERRITORY.

Byline: David Bloom 

It may not have been much of a milestone in Western civilization, but as landmarks go in the Internet's development as a broadcast medium, this week's Webcast of the Victoria's Secret's lingerie fashion show was right up there.

An eye-popping 1.5 million visitors logged on to www.broadcast.com and www.victoriassecret.com to watch the hourlong show, which included 17 minutes of top models parading around in the latest next-to-nothings.

Those numbers don't even include the people who were turned away because of the crush of viewers already logged on to the sites.

Now, it's true the streaming video could only be seen in a tiny window on the screen. And yes, it was choppy, snowy, low-quality video, certainly compared to that splashy Super Bowl ad by Victoria's Secret that promoted the Webcast last Sunday. And yes, the ``server'' computers handling all the requests to watch the show were nearly overwhelmed.

Those problems led some critics, such as Zona Research, a Redwood City consulting group, to focus on initial reports about what didn't happen: ``Before the Internet can become a robust multimedia vehicle and a trusted medium for business, it has to resolve bandwidth issues.''

``I tried to get on and I couldn't do it,'' said Zona research associate Tom Huskerson. ``It was a problem with bandwidth and with what the servers could handle. These types of problems, when it comes to the Internet, will have to be dealt with. The Net is growing exponentially, and companies are struggling to keep up.''

But those legitimate complaints almost miss the point.

Like the John Glenn shuttle launch and President Clinton's video deposition, people tuned in, in huge numbers, despite the cruddy reception, to see something through the Web. That size audience starts to approach the numbers for many cable television broadcasts.

Given the Lilliputian viewer numbers that have typically accompanied Web-based video and audio broadcasts, the turnout implies that sometime in the future, when the technology smooths out the many current shortcomings, the Internet can be a viable competitor to - and even a replacement for - both broadcasters and cable companies.

Certainly that's what Broadcast.com's brash president Mark Cuban has been saying for some time.

In a recent interview, he predicted his site will become the place for high-definition digital television in the future, once his company and Intel finish work on an HDTV tuner card for computers.

``Most people's first exposure to HDTV won't be some special television that costs thousands of dollars, it'll be a card in their computer that costs a few hundred dollars,'' Cuban said. ``We're the future of TV. We will be the digital set-top box. The days of network dominance are already gone.''

And though Cuban acknowledged online video's current painful limits, he also said that will change fast enough, judging from the quick improvements in sound quality on the Internet.

``Three years ago, people used to condemn the quality of audio on the Net,'' Cuban said. ``Now no one complains about it.''

And of course, Huskerson said, there is one other thing that broadcasters and cable companies can't do: let you choose what you want to watch, when you want to watch it.

``It'll be the ability, if you miss a program, to go and watch it,'' Huskerson said. ``You'll be able to download and watch it in streaming mode.''

Driving music

Gran Turismo was one of the best games to hit the PlayStation last year, a crackerjack driving simulation that has since become the standard for the genre, thanks to its great graphics, terrific game play, exquisite detail and a really hot soundtrack.

Well, somebody noticed. Now EMI Records has released ``The Sound of Gran Turismo,'' the game's soundtrack with complete versions of songs by 18 performers, including Garbage, David Bowie, Blur and Supergrass.

Releasing a soundtrack seems a little odd, especially because you could just play the game disk in your CD player and get at least snippets of all the songs. But the idea fits with the video-game industry's continuing efforts to be taken at least as seriously as the movie business (there's nothing like shooting low in your ambitions).

The video game business did gross roughly as much last year as the movie biz's domestic box office; its use of animation is increasingly as sophisticated as in many films, despite technology limitations; and a lot of talent and franchises are now routinely jumping back and forth between the two mediums.

For instance, one of the brothers who created Myst and Riven went off to create films and released a soundtrack of music from the best-selling games. And there'll soon be an animated film based on the hugely popular Final Fantasy role-playing games, as well as just-released half-hour animated episodes based on the Dark Stalker fighting genre.

And of course, movies have been the basis for an endless array of video games, though seldom very memorably (the N64's James Bond action game GoldenEye being a notable exception). So count this as part of the convergence we keep hearing about.

By the way, the ``Grand Turismo'' album itself is pretty cool, if you like your music generally loud and fast. Melodies even work their way into the driving beats behind the rock, alternative and dance mix. Appropriately, this is indeed driving music for people breaking the speed limit.

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

PHOTO (1) The Victoria's Secret fashion show on the Web last week drew 1.5 million to its choppy video feed.

(2) First a successful PlayStation game, Grand Turismo is now available as a soundtrack featuring Garbage, David Bowie, Blur and Supergrass.

Mark Lennihan/Associated Press