Thursday 13 December 2007

From Trad to Rad?


NBC is no longer using iTunes to make its content available. However its working on other ways of providing content and spreading its services. NBC Direct is currently in beta but illustrates a modern, practical and flexible approach from NBC. Here is a traditional linear broadcaster reaching out to both VOD and peer-to-peer file sharing to provide a HIGH DEF service. (Techcrunch.)What an awesome combination! The continuing problem of bandwisth presents a problem for companies wanting to provide high resolution video. We guess that people want this - look at the sales of HD TV's. The trad Companies need some way of separating their content from Youtube's frame rate and frame sized reduced output. Quality is their selling point and they therefore put distance between themselves and UGC. If you get paid for your content does that make it professional? Well, YouTube wants to give you some of that crazy Google money. If you make the cut, that is. After half a year of testing out its Partners program with 100 lucky YouTube contributors, YouTube is now accepting applications from all comers. Tell them why they should give you the money and they might enroll you in their revenue-sharing program. If they feel like it.

Thursday 6 December 2007

what's THIS got to do with broadcasting?

Here is a thought provoking piece of video. It attempts to squeeze a huge concept into a small package. Does it make sense to you? Comment...

Free magazine - online

COW Magazine ISSUE 7 -- Nov/Dec 2007.

In this issue of Creative COW Magazine, you will meet one of the men that made Max Headroom such an 80's icon. He'll share strategies and how it all came about, including some of the techniques used. One of the members of the legendary Robert Abel & Associates team takes you inside some of the earliest uses of CGI and how these commercial techniques preceded their later use in the world of film. You will also be taken inside a direct response advertising expert's world and how it works and why. You will also learn how one man made a commercial that you would swear used 3D software but doesn't. You will discover five ways to get control of your billings and make more money with less stress. Watch as one woman handles 11 deadlines a day -- and you thought you had it bad, eh? Learn an artist's secrets for high-end graphics workflows. And take a tour of drive technology of the past, the present and the future. Well worth a look

Tuesday 4 December 2007

User generated content

Here's a recent lecture from the man behind the Creative Commons movement that we have discussed in sessions before. He presents an interesting case for changes in copyright control which are needed as a result of technological changes and the way people use media.

Saturday 1 December 2007

Recent 'film' firsts

As we start to see some of the ramifications of the spread of technology on the traditional forms of distribution - whether by broadcast or otherwise - there were a couple of interesting firsts recently. Rune, a movie, was premiered exclusively on the iPod and 'released' exclusively and free via iTunes in September.

"We felt Rune's distribution method should be as timely and as comprehensive as possible, and the burgeoning popularity of video iPod and digital downloads gives any filmmaker unprecedented access to a wide audience," said writer/director Arayana Thomas. "It's the new movie theatre for independent filmmakers."

Download it yourself from iTunes or directly from the creators site.

In the past filmmakers have sort interesting ways to distribute their work as well as promoting their skills. '4 eyed monsters' was released in its entirety on YouTube in June this year.



It joins some other notable web based films such as the 911 documentary 'loose change' (it explores the possibility of a cover up in the coverage of 911) and 'stealthisfilm' (Peer-to-peer distribution). These stories raise all the issues we have looked at over the semester in terms of regulation, controls and freedoms as well as changes to the structure and technology of media distribution. Whats going to happen next? Someone might shoot a film and make it ALL available for download via Peer-toPeer and invite anyone to re-edit it! Well its happened. Bruce McDonald's Tracey Fragments is being offered in exactly this manner. (That's about 36 gigs of rushes and Final Cut Pro files!)



Saturday 24 November 2007

Kraftwerk: We are the robots - sound pioneers Kraftwork

Check out this 3o min documentary on Kraftwork. You might find it interesting in terms of sound and sound design. Kraftwerk: We are the robots. Marc Riley traces the career of Kraftwerk, whose 70s electronic music owed more to the experimental German classical compositions of Karlheinz Stockhausen than to any pop tradition. When you've listened comment on it here. Enjoy. (I've fixed the link now Kym)

Friday 23 November 2007

User generated content


There is an enormous amount of material provided by people who are not media professionals. Referred to as User Generated content (UGC), some is obviously derived from consumers while at other times its less clear. Even the Royal Television Society has an award for the best use of UGC. This was recently won by Sky News " in recognition of its groundbreaking work in getting users involved in content and distributing video news." The UGC award was won by Skys's Green Week, which saw people throughout the country invited to help create a snapshot of climate change. In addition to special reports, exclusive interviews and practical advice, contributors were invited to make a video about the environment. Sky are not the only industry professu=ionals making use of UGC. Jake reports that Sony and Yahoo have collaborated on a venture to use this content. Michael makes the point of the implications of the use of UGC on journalists and broadcasters. Rob also highlights the way that the media industry feels threatened by UGC and while they expect to be making money from it over the next few years they are unsure as to exactly how!

Sunday 18 November 2007

Blu Ray and HD DVD

In this weeks session we talked about these competing High def DVD formats. Here is a basic round up of the formats. It should clarify the issue for you, albeit slightly!

Thursday 8 November 2007

NEWS from week starting 5th November

How much to download music?

Several weeks ago Radiohead released their latest album 'In rainbows' by making it available for download at whatever price the customer wants to pay. As a differnet approach to marketing and pirating it has been closely watched by the record and media industries. In July Prince provided his Planet Earth LP free with the Mail on Sunday provoking anger from the music biz and retailers (see this guardian piece). Free CD's on magazines are not new - they provided the lynch pin for Bath based Future Publishing - but this was the first studio album. (BBC website). However for Radiohead the figures are now coming in and showing that rather than downloading the album from the Radiohead website fans are still preferring to use bit torrents provided by Peer-to-peer sites. Why might that be?

A recent Canadian commissioned survey on P2P found that Down loaders actually buy MORE music. So why the fuss?

Friday 26 October 2007

Copyrights

The copyright issue is a real minefield and the Creative Commons solution attempts to propose a practical contemporary solution to the problem. It isn't universally popular however. It offers a range of licenses based on what people might want to do with material. What do you think?

Sunday 21 October 2007

Further to last fridays session

If you want to listen to more about the BBC Cuts and the likely affects the most recent edition of Feedback would be a good place to start. Other BBC Radio progs that might appeal and are available via 'listen again' or podcast are:

The Film Programme

Front Row

The Leading Edge

Soundscape: the sea swallow

There are plenty of other programmes you might find interesting. Have a go at using iTunes and subscribe to a few and download them. You should get familiar with some of the programmes formats.

Thursday 11 October 2007

Now you have a blog

I showed you briefly the google reader. This is a popular feed reader and using RSS will tell you when someone writing a blog has added a new posting. Since you have set up Blogger.com accounts and Blogger is owned by Google its easy to use the same ID and password etc. If you have a GMAIL account, then its even easier.

There is plenty of help on the net. These are on Youtube - setting up a google reader, adding feeds and managing feeds.





They are quite short tutorials - you could figure it out for yourself. But they might save some time and confusion.

If you're interested you might want to watch the del.icio.us tutorial. What is it? How can you use it?

Wednesday 10 October 2007

round up late wed

Great to see you all trying hard. Some really impressive starts. We will work our way through your research in fridays session. I have left comments on each of the blogs. Several have room for further work before friday. There are a couple of blogs missing - hopefully they wil be up before then. Use the links and view and comment on a few blogs too. regards, Mike J

Monday 8 October 2007

Welcome

Hi Guys,

welcome to the world of blogging. As each of you get going I will add links to your blogs from this blog. You can use it as a way of checking what all your colleagues are doing, saying and learning.