Life in the new century isn’t merely a continuation of the unfolding Information Age. It’s an acceleration.

When technology and Hollywood conspire, as they’re doing with the rollout of digitized entertainment, those bits and bytes mean that entertainment is information.

Let’s not tell our children: They’ll never study again.

Seriously, the tipping point nears for a big change in how we obtain video for our viewing pleasure.

It’s true the pace of change has accelerated, but this kind of  change is nothing new. Three big trends formed around Marconi’s invention of radio, Edison’s invention of motion pictures and Philo T. Farnsworth’s invention of the cathode ray tube, and they’ve been competing — and cooperating — ever since.

Add the Internet and high-definition television to the mix, and you’ve got a revolution on your hands. The explosion in HDTV sales will feed this beast, to be sure.

So we passed from radio to Hollywood’s Golden Age to the television explosion of the 1950s and then on to cable and HBO, VHS and Betamax, which all were supposed to destroy Hollywood but didn’t.

Of course, when consumers noticed they could record TV and speed past the commercials, it was mistaken as the death knell of commercial broadcasting.

The 1990s biggest trend, the DVD, was expected to decimate the movie-theater industry, but again it didn’t. Our local movie houses turned into multiplexes with eight, 10, even 12 screens or more. That’s a collapse?

Now the Internet comes along with its promise of a new form of digital distribution, and that was supposed to wreak havoc on the decades-old primacy of the local video-tape-turned-DVD outlets, and it very well might do that. But the jury is still out.

There are a whole lot of golden geese that are still laying golden eggs.

Now we’re about to witness a battle royal as a variety of broadcast media are about to compete in the video distribution space.

Of course, DVDs used to mean movies, but that changed when television began to be marketed using the medium.

Now that the iPod can play video, television is not necessarily the playback appliance of choice, and now that iTunes is starting to distribute TV episodes and music videos, well, video starts to mean anything that moves.

Where are we going to get it?

The answer is from everywhere very, very soon.

Some of the distribution channels have been with us for a while.

HBO, Showtime and their ilk will continue to distribute their usual fare of slightly behind-the-curve releases. Look for them to try harder.

Comcast, DirecTV, and Dish Networks will keep dishing out their pay-per-view at their $3.99 price point, although just beating Blockbuster’s $4.25 rental fee won’t last for long.

In fact, Blockbuster has begun to compete with itself with its Blockbuster Online Total Access plans, which are bringing the cost of a movie down to as low as a buck each.

Netflix is the leader in that space, and online ordering of mailed DVDs will probably enjoy a heyday for some time to come.

Comcast competes with its own pay-per-view with its On Demand service, which has a variety of free movies and TV shows available, as well as some movies down at $2.99 and even $1.99. The On Demand service lets viewers pause live movies a la TiVo and even save them for later viewing.

I haven’t subscribed to the DirecTV and Dish Network services recently, but with their own digital video recording systems, I assume their pay-per-view can be saved for later, repeated viewing as well.

What’s the Internet up to?

I see two trends. First, you’ve got the established service iTunes that, with its fixation on serving its own appliances — the iPod, MacBook and Mac Pro — is focusing on computer or handheld video viewing pleasure. Its movie and TV download offerings are available in a 640- by 480-resolution, which will play a bit poorly on larger screens.

Rhapsody.com, Real Networks’ competitor to iTunes, is getting into the video download game too.

Yahoo!, MSN and Google have yet to get geared up for streaming movies, but watch for them to break out in the coming year. They can’t afford to miss the party.

Currently, small sites such as CinemaNow.com are attempting, legally, to stream feature-length films, but I’m sure more will follow.

Who will make the breakout, like Netflix did in the online DVD space?

It’s anyone’s guess, really, though my money is on one of the big names such as Yahoo! or Google.

And don’t think AT&T will take this lying down. DSL wants to play, too, don’t you worry.

Whoever it is, they’re going to usher in another tech revolution. How many is that now?

Calvin Ross can be reached at calross@napanet.com