Saturday, July 12, 2008

Why QuickTime is the US Dollar of Digital Video

Mark Christiansen | 07/12- 09:00 AM

As the standard is devalued, the world undertakes a slow-motion search for an alternative. What can be done for QuickTime?

How bad are things for the US Dollar these days? So bad that, as reported by the BBC and mentioned recently on This Week in Tech, Gisele Bundchen no longer accepts modeling pay in dollars, nor apparently do many high-end boutiques in the capital of U.S. commerce, New York City. European travel is effectively twice as expensive as it was just a few years ago simply because of the exchange rate. So it may come as a surprise how familiar the situation of the world economy in regards to the dollar is if you’re a video professional using QuickTime.

I’m not actually joking.

Tuesday, July 01, 2008

Blu-ray Disc for Mac is Here

Scott Gentry | 07/01- 12:49 PM

Finally, something to fill my empty drive bay on my Mac Pro.

MCE announces a new installable Blu-ray drive that fits nicely into the Mac Pro and Power Mac bays.  According to the release, it doesn’t even require new drivers.  Install and go.

The MCE Technologies Blu-ray Internal Recordable Drive for Apple Mac Pro and Power Mac is completely pre-configured for easy user installation. In addition to writing to 25GB single-layer and 50GB dual-layer Blu-ray discs, the MCE Technologies Blu-ray Internal Recordable Drive is compatible with all DVD and CD recordable media including DVD±R/RW + Dual/Double Layer, DVD-RAM, and CD-R and CD-RW. The MCE Technologies Blu-ray Internal Recordable Drive includes a 25GB Blu-ray (BD-RE) rewritable disc for instant storage right out of the box.

I may be making a purchase soon....  You can learn more here: MCE Blu-ray

Friday, June 27, 2008

Dymo Discpainter, Part Deux

Art Adams | 06/27- 01:07 PM

Wherein I use the Discpainter to print 70 DVDs, with reasonable results.

Monday, June 23, 2008

Mainstream Media’s new correspondent: YouTube

Chris Meyer | 06/23- 10:34 PM

YouTube as the new AP Wire Service. Except nobody gets paid.

I’m still working out how I feel about this, so feel free to chime in with your own comments.

This past weekend, drag racer Scott Kalitta died in an accident while qualifying for the NHRA SuperNationals. The event was televised by ESPN.

I first learned about the tragedy while browsing the web site for the Los Angeles Times newspaper. In the initial version of the story, they didn’t have photos, but they did have a video of the accident.

It turns out that the video was an embedded clip from YouTube.

The interesting implication of this is that a news gathering source no longer needs to have staff on site, trade the story with a partner, or buy it from another news service; they can just link to a free service someone else has created.

Friday, June 20, 2008

AFI Digital Content Lab Sessions

Chris Meyer | 06/20- 08:10 AM

A couple of interactive TV sessions at upcoming conferences.

We occasionally post mention of what’s happening at the American Film Institute’s Digital Content Lab (AFI DCL for short), as it’s perhaps the best incubator around right now for interactive television. Here’s a couple of sessions they have coming up that are part of other conferences (the first with a registration discount):

MediaXchange
June 25-27, Los Angeles, CA

Exhibition Session June 26: New Technologies Impacting Drama Creation
Professionals from around the globe congregate in Los Angeles to address new models for scripted drama and for an exciting insight into the fast-evolving future of a more global TV drama industry. AFI Discount Resistration Code: EDU814 (3-day) or AFIEDU814 (1-day).

LA TV Festival Digital Day
July 30-August 1, 2008, Hollywood, CA

DCL Session, July 30: Steal These Ideas
Join project participants and mentors as they share lessons learned in the Digital Content Lab. The innovations and ideas developed in the lab are for the benefit of the entire television community, so come, learn and steal an idea or two!

Saturday, June 14, 2008

A Retro View of the Future

Chris Meyer | 06/14- 02:40 PM

We unearth a time capsule and see how predictions for digital television have panned out so far.

Back in the early 90s, I wrote a column on interactive media for Audio/Video Interiors magazine. It was an odd fit; I was writing highly technical, philosophical think pieces, while the magazine was aimed at the most blatant forms of consumerism and instant gratification – but the editor gave me free rein, and it was a fun romp.

I’ve had reason to go clean out my archives recently, and it’s been quite a laugh to read the predictions of what the “future” of television and video would supposedly look like. To give you an idea of the landscape at the time, DVDs were just being developed, HD was but a promise, and the main way of gathering information was to attend lots of conferences and trade shows – for example, it was considered odd that I also had started to use chat rooms on sites such as The Well as part of my research.

One set of predictions I wrote about were made by noted futurist Nicolas Negroponte (co-founder of the MIT Media Lab, founder of the One Laptop Per Child project, and author of Being Digital) on the implications of television going digital. Let’s have some fun and see how many came true:

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