MUMBAI: A Digital Media Summit organised by iHollywood Forum takes place next week in the US. The event in California from 7-8 June 2005 will look at the business opportunities in using digital technologies that create, deliver and distribute content.

The summit will see experts talking about how content creators and service providers can make money from all areas of digital home entertainment including and cable services, video on demand, music, streaming, online gaming, home networking, home theatre, set top boxes, interactive television and subscription services such as MusicNet, Pressplay, Movies.com and Movielink.

Topics that will be dealt with will include: dueling digital music strategies from Apple, Yahoo! Microsoft, Real and Napster; the telcoms invasion of cable operators' television space; the explosion of HDTV; the emergence of anytime, anywhere programming on TV and portable devices; wireless and mobile programming, the latest trends in interactive games, subscription vs. downloadable content models, home networking, peer-to-peer, digital asset management, digital rights management.

The speakers include CBS Television, senior VP, strategic planning and interactive ventures Daviod Katz, Fox Sports senior VP Ross Levinsohn, Microsoft, Director, Technical Policy Andy Moss, Google director video Jennifer Feikin and Reuters VP mobile and emerging media Stephen Smyth.

One breakout session exmaines the The Mobile Content Explosion. Mobile entertainment may finally be coming of age as a consistent and reliable source of revenue for carriers, product developers and aggregators of content. The speakers evaluate the opportunities in mobile video and imaging, messaging, music, gaming, mobile communities, music and other areas of interest. Can the wireless business avoid the retrenchment and consolidation that followed emergence of other breakthrough technologies?

Another session is called Digital World of Sports. Loyal sports fans are ready to pay for digital content delivered by VOD, video games, broadband, streaming, iTV and wireless. Sports executives discuss their plans for bringing digital sports into the home and on the go.

The movie format war is discused in the session DVDs: Still the Crown Jewels? Ten years into a spectacular sales run, the DVD business is morphing. Games, soundtracks, web links and other interactive extras are now a must. Consumers are starting to buy new players that let them watch movies in multiple rooms or slice out objectionable content. A high-definition format war looms between HD DVD and Blu Ray. Video-on-demand, recordable DVDs, PVRs and piracy could hurt sales.

The conference will also look at how interactive marketing is getting real. Internet advertising now represents more than two per cent of the ad spend for the Fortune 500 companies. Entertainment and publishing companies, with their highly visible properties, are well-positioned to cash in. This session takes a look at how companies are creating – and cashing in on – ads, promotions and sponsorship online and in emerging media such as mobile, iTV and games.