Print, video converging on the Web.

YES, YOU TOO CAN be on TV. Mindful of our envious print brethren, who may have fancied themselves as the next Andy Rooney, any editorial writer aspiring to see his or her mug on TV can accomplish this trick today without the publisher's having to go into hock to buy a television station or cable system. The answer is streaming video on your Web site.

Granted, streaming video is still a little jerky, constrained as it is to small windows on Web pages. But the quality is getting better, and full-motion video is in the future; how far off is still a matter of debate.

Many broadcasters are adding streaming video to their Web sites these days, including the News 12 networks (www.News12.com) reaching metropolitan New York, in which Cablevision editorials are presented. Consequently, we have begun experimenting with posting some of our editorials on the Web site in a streaming video format, where they can be viewed and heard, much as they appeared on television.

What would it take to put a television version of a newspaper editorial on a Web site? Actually, the process is pretty simple, once you have presented your editorial on camera and recorded it.

This is how our experts tell me it is done at News 12 networks. First, you record the editorial on a VHS tape, and then capture it as a file using RealMedia software. Your computer has to have an Osprey or other capture card to do this. Both of these items can be acquired for about $300. Then you can load the streaming video onto your Web page. The video is captured at 28.8K speed, so it can be played back using an average speed modem. Eventually, you can improve quality by accommodating higher-speed modems, including cable modems and those capable of handling T1 lines.

Once the images and videos are stored on the server, you can link these files to your editorial Web pages. Of course, to view the video, computer users have to download the Realplayer from a link placed on your Web page, or by going to www.real.com to download the software.

How long will it take to get high-quality television images on the Internet? Some Internet outfits are already planning to use streaming video to offer pay-per-view movies, and one of them, MovieFlow.com, is acquiring rights to old Westerns and war flicks. Another firm, called Video Pipeline, is currently offering movie previews.

What complicates long-term prospects for high-quality streaming video is a pending traffic jam on the information superhighway. Streaming video, I'm told, acts like a herd of 18-wheelers on an interstate, potentially jamming all the lanes so nothing else can get past. Gridlock galore. When will this get straightened out? Some say five, maybe 10 years from now.

Still, though, you now can be on TV. Just as the Internet has removed barriers to entry to those who would be publishers (who needs to spend hundreds of millions of dollars for newspaper presses?), so too has it removed barriers to entry to television (who needs to spend hundreds of millions to buy TV stations or cable stations?)

Of course, you can't put yourself on TV, even with streaming video, unless you can find someone with a TV camera to make a video version of you speaking the lines. Then, of course, you have to find someone to watch it. Welcome to the club.

NCEW member Peter Kohier is director of editorial services for Cablevision Systems Corp. of Woodbury, N.Y. His e-mail address is pkohler@ cablevision.com