Dick Wolf looked skeptically at the shiny new video iPod he had given his 12-year-old son for Christmas, and prepared to watch a downloaded version of 24 for the first time. "Who's going to see anything on this screen?" shrugged the 59-year-old TV producer, whose Law & Order dramas favor gritty, realistic street scenes over high-tech gadgetry and geekspeak. But when Wolf inserted the white earbuds and started watching the 2.5-in. LCD, he had an epiphany. "The screen size became meaningless. I was in the moment. After 30 seconds, I knew it would change the game."
The game is the $60 billion...