“Why 3D Doesn’t Work and Never Will”

While a large portion of both the media creation and consumption industries gear up to produce and support 3D films and video, others are digging in their heels and asking about the fit and fabric of the emperor’s clothes. Much loved sound designer and film editor Walter Murch - as well as film curmudgeon critic Roger Ebert - are two of those questioners. This blog post by Ebert reprints a detailed letter from Murch about the inherent technical issues of stereoscopic films that detract from the esthetic appreciation of them as well. It’s quite meaty - I suggest you go read it all - but the central issue Murch brings up is what he refers to as the ‘convergence/focus’ issue: “3D films require us to focus at one distance and converge at another. And 600 million years of evolution has never presented this problem before.”

4 Ways Video Is Fundamentally Changing

If you’re interested in the business of video beyond just shooting and editing it, you might enjoy reading Shishir Mehrotra of Google’s recent article over on ClickZ. He notes “In my position at YouTube, I’ve observed this market over the last few years, and have taken note of the ways in which it is fundamentally changing.” His four main macro-changes are:

• Hyper-Fragmentation
• Great Content Can Come From Anywhere
• Advertisers Can Create Content That Users Love
• There Is No Online Video, Just Video

For many of you, the first two may fit into the “well, DUH” category; Shishir even notes the first one is “not a new story.” The last one is something we’ve been personally preaching for years: The sooner you blur the lines between broadcast and web video from the production side, the better, because the viewer already expects them to be of the same quality - just as they expected “local market” or cable TV to look as good as the major networks. That third one may come as a bit of a surprise to the cynical, but anyone who has seen videos like the Evian Roller Babies (and not to mention, its view counter) realize it’s becoming true. Regardless, it’s a good read, as well as something to pass onto your clients.

50.94 Is Not A Valid Frame Rate

I recently had a fellow motion graphics artist asked me what format used a 50.94 fps frame rate, as a client had requested delivery at this rate. 50.94 is obviously a typo based on 59.94 fps (the field rate for NTSC, and the North American speed favored for some HD media such as 720p for sports and news). But a quick Google search turned it up in multiple places where people should know better. For example, I found it in:

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Adobe Community Leaders Summit

Last week, Adobe invited a variety of well-known people in the industry to come get a closer look at what they’ve been working on, and to provide feedback on their direction. To Adobe’s credit, this was no “preaching to the choir” session; many of those invited were FCP and Avid editors, and several current users gave Adobe personnel an earful both publicly and privately. It was also made clear to us that no specific product versions or release dates were being discussed, and that we couldn’t repeat anything that had not already been mentioned publicly (reminds us of the old Zen Buddhist saying “Those who know don’t say; those who say don’t know”). However, this event gives us an excuse to aggregate into one place a number of emerging technologies Adobe has already murmured about, for those who haven’t had the chance to keep up…

Apple + Tablet = New Video Distribution Outlet?

As a long-time Apple user (and - full disclosure - Apple stockholder), I’ve learned long ago to take Apple rumors with a grain of salt. However, combine patents (some going back to 2005), leaks from developers, and the rental of a big hall for a special event in late January, and you start to feel something might actually happen - although it’s certainly not a lock. Personally, I’m thrilled with the speculation that the rumored “iPad” iSlate iPad will be more about media than computing.

Automated Video Production

We’ve all been there: A client asks for a job that requires complex editing and effects, and they say (as part of the negotiation over price): “Don’t you have software where you press a button and it does it automatically?”

Brightness Issues with H.264 QuickTime Movies

If you haven’t encountered this problem yet, you will: QuickTime movies re-exported from applications such has QuickTime Player Pro using the H.264 codec (a common format for web content) appear brighter than the original in some contexts - such as inside QuickTime Player on the Mac, or on a web page viewed by Safari - but not in other contexts such as QuickTime Player on Windows, or the stripped-down QT Player inside After Effects.

Many attribute this to a bug introduced by use of a hidden, optional “gamma” tag (which is different than a full-blown color profile tag) inside QuickTime movies that is supposed to aid in cross-platform compatibility. Unfortunately, this tag is not exposed for the user to edit, and may be interpreted differently by different programs. It has been the cause of much grief among After Effects users employing color management, and has spread into the realm of web video.

I was recently bitten by this myself when I went to encode a batch of introductory video training movies going onto the DVD for the second edition of our book After Effects Apprentice. Everything worked fine two years ago when we did the first edition, but something has changed since then, and now the same settings produce unsatisfactory results:

TED Talk: The Web and TV, a Sibling Rivalry

A parallel conference to TED (Technology, Entertainment, and Design) is the EG (Entertainment Gathering) conference, whose goal is “making information entertaining & entertainment informative.” This talk from last year’s EG gives a history lesson on the development of both television and computers, which are of roughly the same age. Although it gets bogged down at times (you could skip ahead from the 5 minute mark to 11 minutes, unless early computers gets your geek up), it does contain numerous interesting nuggets, such as the interview with tweeners where they explain why thing think television is “optional” in their lives, parallels between the tech and messianic movements, how TV was supposed to kill radio, how crayons were used to create a proprietary media platform, Microsoft’s initial pooh-poohing of the information superhighway, and other amusing anecdotes as well as important lessons in the different business models between the web and television.

(While blogging on a web site about media creation, I can’t help but note technically that they failed to removed the interlacing from the video reference materials, and that the audio equalization is fatiguing to listen to. Plus not all technologists understand pacing in entertainment. Fortunately, the medium isn’t the entire message.)

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