Studios are always looking to save a buck or two. If the program looks like Adobe Premiere or Avid MCXpress, or even an EditBox, why not use it? PC technology today facilitates high-powered video work. I'm personally excited since I am a student in production/editing, and I can finally get my hands on some software that'll work on my Sparc at home. I can't possibly see this replacing the Avid or the EditBox any time soon, but if the Gimp was able to convert people from Photoshop, maybe that will be true with Premiere.
I can't wait to give this a test run, and I'm glad that production houses are already making use of it.
Read Rare Earth, it shows that water has been found on some distant planets (or variations thereof). My personal take is that life is out there, but in extremaphile form (simple life forms that can exist in extremely hot/cold environments, live off sulfur, etc...)
Just get an analog-digital converter box. I don't know how legitimate the "perfect copy" argument is, seeing as how the RIAA hasn't gone nuts over the CD copiers that can create perfect digital copies, also. As far as the MPAA should be concerned, this should be no worse than recording a movie from HBO on VHS. The only difference is quality, and if it's HD, full 16:9 instead of letterbox.
Money is always standing in the way of progress, or maybe this is just a chance for the MPAA to stop movie copying because they couldn't catch it the first time around...
Back in the 1950's and 1960's, before the diary system came into use, there was a mechanical device employed by ratings companies (I can't remember the name of it offhand) which showed what channels you watched. Every time you changed the channel, a needle would mark another spot on a sheet of paper, and you'd send that into the ratings companies. It couldn't tell how long you were watching that channel for, but it did know what you were watching. And -- who cares if the commercials are tailor made for specific demographics? That's what the business is all about. You can't possibly create something for everyone, so you need to narrow it down and generalize a bit. Plus, it's not like you pay attention to commericals, anyways.
The quality is better, but there is a bail-out clause for broadcasters, as I mentioned in a previous thread, that says that there has to be 80% penetration of digital TV's/receivers in homes for the broadcasters to be required to go digital. Even when color TV was mandated, it took until the late 1970's for the market to reach 80% penetration. Perhaps this is the first step in achieving this.
Why not have it at Java's, downtown on the East End? That's a pretty neutral place and during the summer, it's easy to get conversation going. Those wishing to booze later in the night can go to Milestones, it's a block away.
Of course, I don't live in Rochester any more, but I figured I'd throw my 2c in.
Interesting side note on the HDTV analog turn-off... there's a bail-out clause to that, the turn-off will only become mandatory when there is 80% market penetration of HDTV. Consider this - when color TV was mandated and everyone forced to do color in the 1960's, it took about 20 years until there was 80% penetration. And, color is a lot easier to adapt to since old black & white TV's would work just fine with a color signal.
Just something to consider. Bureaucracy has killed HDTV in America. The technology has been around in analog form since the mid 80's, and we still haven't adopted it. It's a big, tangled mess and I really don't know what's going to be next.
I attended a screening about a year ago in Rochester, NY, it was a documentary on the Pope and it was shot entirely on digital. The quality was awesome - the color depth was excellent, and the sound was clear and crisp. The quality is much better, but the industry needs to adopt it. Once the industry offers releases exclusively on a digital format, theatres will be forced to switch. By that time, the technology should be more affordable on both ends.
Now that the big trend is radio stations simulcasting all over the world, I personally think that internet broadcasting should be seen as an extension of previously existing range. I worked for a 10-watt college radio station, and we recently went on the internet. Granted, our ASCAP/BMI fees were only $5,000 a year (roughly), since we were so small and educational, but our broadcast range is increased with internet broadcasting. 75 to 100 listeners can tune in over the internet, which, even on a small scale, increases our listenership. For larger commerical stations, they ought to have to pay some, too. They pay quite a bit in music licensing, but internet broadcasting allows them to extend their range. Therefore, they are reaching more of an audience, and are a more "powerful" station. I don't see the problem with it -- ASCAP/BMI really isn't that much to begin with, in the grand scheme of things.
Do you think that these days, with digital technology being more affordable for more people in the industry, that special effects are being used too much, and are being used as a substitute for other cinematic elements?
If you've ever watched any sort of sporting event, be it NHL hockey, NBA basketball, tennis, or NASCAR, you'll notice that ads are everywhere. Everything is sponsored. The Gatorade Play of the Game, the Snickers "Why Wait?" Time-Out, the AFLAC Stat of the Game, along with advertisements placed in the FoxBoxes. Being a student of production, I see this is just another way to make the industry more profitable. I don't like it one bit, I prefer the old method of not even using FoxBoxes in sports programming, and forcing people to watch and wait until the next commerical break to find out the score. The fact that banner ads will be on the bottom of the screen is just disturbing. This will seriously disrupt and water down quality programming. It's bad enough that sports features are all sponsored, and game shows are all big advertisements anyways. The cause of this is not new technology, HDTV, or anything like that. It's just pure greed on the part of the executives.
It's gonna be interesting what happens in 2 years, when I get to go make a living off this stuff...
Reading Yahoo!'s statement regarding their "sponsored links", it actually shows that it's quite limited. For your site to be listed, you have to already be listed in Business & Economy, clearly show who you are, have your site in English, no 404's or irrelevant links and should be visible by all web browsers. So, in reality, you're just paying to have your site listed at the top. Just looking at the criteria, most of the criteria ensure that the sites themselves are well designed and not deceptive, so in this case, this could actually help consumers.
Read the fine print here.
Yahoo, although it's format is more limited than Google, also distinguishes between their "sponsored" in the directory listing. However, a lot of the time, many of the top "sponsored" sites are the same that are in the "cool links" category. As a consumer, I'm happy if they just tell me that the search result is due to the fact that a company paid to camp on my keywords.
however, this is becoming a hot topic with all the intellectual property issues that are coming up today. Still though, not very exciting unless you're an intellectual property executive like my father is. personally, I could care less, I'll just let him deal with it. It's another facet for the legal profession to study and litigate over.
The ones in Vermont didn't have any scary music - they actually had sound effects of birds chirping in the background, and a male and female talking seriously about the issue, and encouraging people to call Senators Leahy and Jeffords. Not a spook campaign at all, but still as effective I guess.
Vermont lobbyist groups were putting out radio ads advocating this, citing that Nevada is the place for nuclear waste to be stored, and not Vermont. Seems like it worked, but it had a lot of Vermonters really worried for a while.
Lousy Smarch!
The last thing we need to do is change the way we've measured time for thousands of years. Even if it will eliminate time zones and the like, and although the points are pretty valid, it just is unrealistic.
People switch off from "commercial" operating systems to *NIX/open source operating systems because it benefits their company in some way. If BeOS can benefit someone more than their current OS, it will find its niche. It has to become unique and offer advantages though, in order to become a player in the OS market today.
His best point was when he said that copy-protected CDs will only anger the consumers, although I can't think of anyone who likes the RIAA. Those who don't already hate them probably will if the copy-protected CD's become standard. People are going to copy music and give it to their friends, where was this back in the 80's when mix tapes were all the rage? It's the same thing. The internet is merely a faster facilitator of music swapping.
The current QWERTY keyboard design came about in the early 20th century, because typewriters which had efficent keyboard layouts were jamming, and there was no anti-jamming mechanism except to slow the typist down. However, once there was an anti-jamming mechanism, the amount of money lost from the industry created to basically teach people how to type quickly was so ingrained that nobody wanted to get rid of it, even though they could get to a better alternative. Humans are actually capable of going much quicker, but the current QWERTY layout was designed for intentional inefficency.
My main point with that is that all the counters, timecode, etc is based upon there being 30 frames per second. We'd have to totally redefine what has been the standard for years and years in broadcasting and production. The industry is adapted to the standards that have been set, and many people have got rich off tools to deal with the fact that there are 30 frames per second, it's inefficent but there's no reason to change it. The new effeciences would be made at the cost of the sanity of directors and engineers everywhere.
NTSC video runs at 29.97 frames/second, which people in production just round to 30. Programs are timed precicely on the 30's, be it a 30 minute program, or a 60 second commercial. This is also based upon the fact that there's 60 cycles of electricity per second, the whole concept around interlaced scanning. This whole metric time thing would just throw everything off.
Personally, from working in production, I have it ingrained in my mind that there's 30fps. In our control room, we even have a neat little sheet titled "How many frames?" which breaks down the common fractions and their second counterparts(1/5 second = 6 seconds, etc). I couldn't deal with it being 50 metric minutes for a metric half-hour show, it might make sense, but if it ain't broke why fix it? I wouldn't even know what would happen to video equipment that relies on 60 cycles/second.
Take for example, a CD. $20. Now, all DVD's (whether you buy them in store or on a place like Amazon) are, at the most, $20. Old classics, such as Airplane! and the like, can be had at some places used for as little as $6.
The quality of the product is higher, and the price is right. As long as Hollywood can keep putting out some decent movies, the same fate that befell the music industry should not happen.
I work for a small college station and I am simply chomping at the bit to be able to work on Linux or any sort of UN*X variant, simply because our network sucks.
We have a mid-range Pentium running CoolEdit Pro on Windows 98 (I believe) for production work, an internet broadcasting machine which is very similar to the production box, and the MCR computer is a high-range Pentium, which is running Windows ME and is the core of our broadcast operation. We have a great program from BSI called WaveCart, which simulates old cart decks, only with wav files. We have a full licence to this product, but I would not be afraid to get rid of that licence if we can find something better that runs on Linux. Unfortunately, I have not been able to find a program which serves the same need as WaveCart, and until I find it, I guess I'm stuck on Windows.
Guess I just have to keep on looking. However, I think that our LAN that integrates our production, MCR and internet broadcasting computers could be a lot more streamlined if we can just serve our needs and still sound professional.
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Studios are always looking to save a buck or two. If the program looks like Adobe Premiere or Avid MCXpress, or even an EditBox, why not use it? PC technology today facilitates high-powered video work. I'm personally excited since I am a student in production/editing, and I can finally get my hands on some software that'll work on my Sparc at home. I can't possibly see this replacing the Avid or the EditBox any time soon, but if the Gimp was able to convert people from Photoshop, maybe that will be true with Premiere.
I can't wait to give this a test run, and I'm glad that production houses are already making use of it.
Read Rare Earth, it shows that water has been found on some distant planets (or variations thereof). My personal take is that life is out there, but in extremaphile form (simple life forms that can exist in extremely hot/cold environments, live off sulfur, etc...)
Money is always standing in the way of progress, or maybe this is just a chance for the MPAA to stop movie copying because they couldn't catch it the first time around...
Back in the 1950's and 1960's, before the diary system came into use, there was a mechanical device employed by ratings companies (I can't remember the name of it offhand) which showed what channels you watched. Every time you changed the channel, a needle would mark another spot on a sheet of paper, and you'd send that into the ratings companies. It couldn't tell how long you were watching that channel for, but it did know what you were watching. And -- who cares if the commercials are tailor made for specific demographics? That's what the business is all about. You can't possibly create something for everyone, so you need to narrow it down and generalize a bit. Plus, it's not like you pay attention to commericals, anyways.
The quality is better, but there is a bail-out clause for broadcasters, as I mentioned in a previous thread, that says that there has to be 80% penetration of digital TV's/receivers in homes for the broadcasters to be required to go digital. Even when color TV was mandated, it took until the late 1970's for the market to reach 80% penetration. Perhaps this is the first step in achieving this.
If Japan can do it, why can't we?
Anything happen in Plattsburgh? I checked and like 4 people were signed up, I had also made plans... anything happen?
Of course, I don't live in Rochester any more, but I figured I'd throw my 2c in.
Just something to consider. Bureaucracy has killed HDTV in America. The technology has been around in analog form since the mid 80's, and we still haven't adopted it. It's a big, tangled mess and I really don't know what's going to be next.
I attended a screening about a year ago in Rochester, NY, it was a documentary on the Pope and it was shot entirely on digital. The quality was awesome - the color depth was excellent, and the sound was clear and crisp. The quality is much better, but the industry needs to adopt it. Once the industry offers releases exclusively on a digital format, theatres will be forced to switch. By that time, the technology should be more affordable on both ends.
Now that the big trend is radio stations simulcasting all over the world, I personally think that internet broadcasting should be seen as an extension of previously existing range. I worked for a 10-watt college radio station, and we recently went on the internet. Granted, our ASCAP/BMI fees were only $5,000 a year (roughly), since we were so small and educational, but our broadcast range is increased with internet broadcasting. 75 to 100 listeners can tune in over the internet, which, even on a small scale, increases our listenership. For larger commerical stations, they ought to have to pay some, too. They pay quite a bit in music licensing, but internet broadcasting allows them to extend their range. Therefore, they are reaching more of an audience, and are a more "powerful" station. I don't see the problem with it -- ASCAP/BMI really isn't that much to begin with, in the grand scheme of things.
Do you think that these days, with digital technology being more affordable for more people in the industry, that special effects are being used too much, and are being used as a substitute for other cinematic elements?
It's gonna be interesting what happens in 2 years, when I get to go make a living off this stuff...
Reading Yahoo!'s statement regarding their "sponsored links", it actually shows that it's quite limited. For your site to be listed, you have to already be listed in Business & Economy, clearly show who you are, have your site in English, no 404's or irrelevant links and should be visible by all web browsers. So, in reality, you're just paying to have your site listed at the top. Just looking at the criteria, most of the criteria ensure that the sites themselves are well designed and not deceptive, so in this case, this could actually help consumers. Read the fine print here.
Yahoo, although it's format is more limited than Google, also distinguishes between their "sponsored" in the directory listing. However, a lot of the time, many of the top "sponsored" sites are the same that are in the "cool links" category. As a consumer, I'm happy if they just tell me that the search result is due to the fact that a company paid to camp on my keywords.
the trolls can have this one.
however, this is becoming a hot topic with all the intellectual property issues that are coming up today. Still though, not very exciting unless you're an intellectual property executive like my father is. personally, I could care less, I'll just let him deal with it. It's another facet for the legal profession to study and litigate over.
just my (hopefully) troll-free two cents.
(keep those AC posts coming!)
The ones in Vermont didn't have any scary music - they actually had sound effects of birds chirping in the background, and a male and female talking seriously about the issue, and encouraging people to call Senators Leahy and Jeffords. Not a spook campaign at all, but still as effective I guess.
Vermont lobbyist groups were putting out radio ads advocating this, citing that Nevada is the place for nuclear waste to be stored, and not Vermont. Seems like it worked, but it had a lot of Vermonters really worried for a while.
Lousy Smarch! The last thing we need to do is change the way we've measured time for thousands of years. Even if it will eliminate time zones and the like, and although the points are pretty valid, it just is unrealistic.
People switch off from "commercial" operating systems to *NIX/open source operating systems because it benefits their company in some way. If BeOS can benefit someone more than their current OS, it will find its niche. It has to become unique and offer advantages though, in order to become a player in the OS market today.
His best point was when he said that copy-protected CDs will only anger the consumers, although I can't think of anyone who likes the RIAA. Those who don't already hate them probably will if the copy-protected CD's become standard. People are going to copy music and give it to their friends, where was this back in the 80's when mix tapes were all the rage? It's the same thing. The internet is merely a faster facilitator of music swapping.
The current QWERTY keyboard design came about in the early 20th century, because typewriters which had efficent keyboard layouts were jamming, and there was no anti-jamming mechanism except to slow the typist down. However, once there was an anti-jamming mechanism, the amount of money lost from the industry created to basically teach people how to type quickly was so ingrained that nobody wanted to get rid of it, even though they could get to a better alternative. Humans are actually capable of going much quicker, but the current QWERTY layout was designed for intentional inefficency.
My main point with that is that all the counters, timecode, etc is based upon there being 30 frames per second. We'd have to totally redefine what has been the standard for years and years in broadcasting and production. The industry is adapted to the standards that have been set, and many people have got rich off tools to deal with the fact that there are 30 frames per second, it's inefficent but there's no reason to change it. The new effeciences would be made at the cost of the sanity of directors and engineers everywhere.
NTSC video runs at 29.97 frames/second, which people in production just round to 30. Programs are timed precicely on the 30's, be it a 30 minute program, or a 60 second commercial. This is also based upon the fact that there's 60 cycles of electricity per second, the whole concept around interlaced scanning. This whole metric time thing would just throw everything off. Personally, from working in production, I have it ingrained in my mind that there's 30fps. In our control room, we even have a neat little sheet titled "How many frames?" which breaks down the common fractions and their second counterparts(1/5 second = 6 seconds, etc). I couldn't deal with it being 50 metric minutes for a metric half-hour show, it might make sense, but if it ain't broke why fix it? I wouldn't even know what would happen to video equipment that relies on 60 cycles/second.
Take for example, a CD. $20. Now, all DVD's (whether you buy them in store or on a place like Amazon) are, at the most, $20. Old classics, such as Airplane! and the like, can be had at some places used for as little as $6. The quality of the product is higher, and the price is right. As long as Hollywood can keep putting out some decent movies, the same fate that befell the music industry should not happen.
I work for a small college station and I am simply chomping at the bit to be able to work on Linux or any sort of UN*X variant, simply because our network sucks. We have a mid-range Pentium running CoolEdit Pro on Windows 98 (I believe) for production work, an internet broadcasting machine which is very similar to the production box, and the MCR computer is a high-range Pentium, which is running Windows ME and is the core of our broadcast operation. We have a great program from BSI called WaveCart, which simulates old cart decks, only with wav files. We have a full licence to this product, but I would not be afraid to get rid of that licence if we can find something better that runs on Linux. Unfortunately, I have not been able to find a program which serves the same need as WaveCart, and until I find it, I guess I'm stuck on Windows. Guess I just have to keep on looking. However, I think that our LAN that integrates our production, MCR and internet broadcasting computers could be a lot more streamlined if we can just serve our needs and still sound professional.