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Can we predict the future of media technology? What will it bring in the next 5, 10, and 15 years - and how will it change our lives and the industry? These were the topics discussed at the conference organised by SMPTE and the EBU in Geneva over the last two days. About 110 broadcast and media managers from accross the world came together to try to plot the trajectory of emerging media technology.

The conference examined the likely future of technology itself,  programme making and broadcasting, programme content, and the economics of the media. The conference also asked a group of young people to explan their media habits today, and what they hoped for in the years ahead.

Opinions were divided about the extent the future can be predicted, though technical managers seemed more convinced that it can be done than general managers. One certainty is that the future will offer very many options for broadcasters and viewers to choose from.

Left : EBU Director General Ingrid Deltenre; Centre: (L-R) Karl Schubert (Grass Valley), Leszek Izdebski (Cisco), Peter Ludé (Sony Electronics), Yoshiaki Shishikui (NHK), Hans Hoffmann (EBU); Right: Students from International School Geneva

Will the rate of change of technology eventually overload us - leading to a kind of 'media shock'? Most delegates thought that humans and broadcasting organziations will be self-regulating and the acccelarating rate of change will eventually be checked. But on the way, there will a change in just about everything we do and consume as media. It seems that 90% of the data in the world has been created in the last two years. We are rapidly moving from gigabytes to terabytes in just about everything.

But through it all, television looks likely to survive. One reason was explained by one of the young panellists: "when you get old you have more time to watch television".