LIVE from Iowa!!

I’ll be spending the week in lovely Des Moines, Iowa, presenting at and participating in the Iowa Digital Television Symposium, put on by my great friends at Iowa Public Television.  You can see the schedule of presentations here. I’ll post daily updates of highlights, and all presentations are archived in audio form (many with downloadable PowerPoint presentations) for later listening.  So stay tuned for great information!

Have You Got Your Analog Nightlight Yet?

Here’s an article from Broadcasting & Cable Magazine on the newest accessory in the world of digital television:  the “analog nightlight.”

OK, it’s not really a little light you plug into the wall.  It is proposed legislation that would allow US television stations to continue analog broadcasting for 30 days past the statutorily-decreed February 17, 2009 cutoff.  It’s my opinion that the February cutoff is going to be a disaster no matter what happens, so the question becomes:

Do you hold OTA antenna-viewers hands for 30 more days, or do you let them sink or swim?

Either option is fraught with peril, especially among PBS stations, who have a disproportionately large percentage of OTA viewers.  This transition just keeps on getting weirder and weirder.

The (Considerable) Downside To “Citizen Journalism”

This article from Advertising Age describes a slight downside to the trend of “citizen journalism.” (And if you follow the link, there is a picture that, if you click on it, is pretty NSFW.) It seems that since the release of the CBSEyeMobile app for the iPhone, the standards of what is considered “journalism” seem to have slipped a bit.  That is to say, user-generated porn clips are becoming more common among all the other user-generated content. 

Jeez, who woulda seen that coming?  The nice thing about real, paid journalists is that if they engage in shenanigans like that, you can fire them.  But “citizens” just need a new IP address, alias and user account to continue to pollute your brand.  And since perception is truth, the damage, once done, can be incredibly hard to undo.

4-Pin Firewire:  What Were They Thinking?

I’m a calm man.  I really am, ask anybody.  I never get worked up about anything.  But once in a while, annoyances mount to the point where even Mr. Frosty can get a little miffed.

I saw my first Firewire connectors about ten years ago, when I bought a Canon XL1.  The tiny size of the 4-pin connector amazed me - how could this little jack, plug & cable throw around enough data to make video?  Hey, it’s all magic to me; then as now, I’m thrilled when it works.  But even back then it looked rather fragile.  So, I babied my Firewire jacks, to the extent possible.  The six-pin jacks are quite sturdy affairs; while breakable, you really have to screw up bad to hurt them.  But the 4-pins?  If you sneeze towards them you are at risk.

It Had To Happen

I’ve made a bit of a cottage industry out of criticizing the Digital TV transition over the last eight years.  I still hold my core beliefs - that the transition was unnecessary, poorly engineered, and largely a welfare program for equipment companies and TV set sellers.  But the biggest problem in my eyes is that the ATSC standard is locked into the technology of when it was ratified - 1996.  That means that the top-shelf technology of 12 years ago - MPEG2 compression - is supposed to be our TV standard for decades to come.

Any White Wall - A Movie Palace!

Here’s a link to a Popular Science blurb on the debut of the 3M Mpro110 Pocket Projector.  I saw this demonstrated at CES 2008, and it’s undeniably cool, if a little light in the lumens department.  It runs at VGA resolution (640x480) and makes a decent picture if you give it a little darkness to work in.  The 3M guy at CES said the holy grail of this technology is fitting a projector into a cell phone, and right now I wouldn’t bet against the boys from Minneapolis.

REVIEW:  Roku Netflix Player

It’s a pretty rare mailbox that never sees those iconic red Netflix envelopes.  The little mail-order that could reshaped the face of video rentals seemingly overnight.  But slick as it is, you still have to do something that is anathema to many people these days - you have to wait.  Now there seems to be a bit of an answer to that, and one that could offer an alternative delivery vehicle for small productions.

A Salute To America’s History Teacher

I’m using this holiday weekend to do some movie-watching catch-up (even with astoundingly nice weather).  Last night it was time to load up “Charlie Wilson’s War,” produced by and starring the man I’ve come to call America’s History Teacher: Tom Hanks.

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