Archive for the 'Video Technology' Category
posted by Steve5th, 2008
I recently got a few samples of the new Archival Century DVD Disc from Ross Allen at VA Media, which he claims is the only truly archival DVD available, “maximizing data life to 100 plus years.”
You might remember a couple years ago when Ross’s company were carrying LUX-PRO archival DVD - the one you could fingerprint up, scratch it up with steel wool, write on it with a pen -and it would still work?
It went a little against my grain to purposely deface a perfectly good disk, but I gave it my best shot. Fingerprints, scratches…”Boy,” I thought, “This one’s going to end up in Skip City!”
When I was finished ‘ruining’ the DVD-R, Ross slipped it into a DVD player. And to my amazement, it played perfectly. No skips, no stops, no signal breakup at all. That was my introduction to the LUX PRO “precision archival” DVD-R.
And the new Century Disc DVD is apparently even better.
Read the whole article.
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posted by Steve2nd, 2008
Hope you didn’t buy your big screen TV last month…According to Gizmodo, Sony is leading a huge price drop next month.
posted by Steve23rd, 2008
My old partner Randy was one of those guys who never threw anything out. As a result, our production company had a lot of…well, interesting is a good word…interesting stuff cluttering up the place. Laser disc players, a couple of broken reel-to-reel 1/2″ VCR’s, some hopelessly antique cameras and camcorders…he had so much of this technojunk that we finally built him a large storage space -”Randy’s Room” -filled corner to corner with sturdy steel shelving. I was down at Great Lakes Video the other day and -guess what -even though he’s not with the operation any more, Randy’s Room remains, securely locked and apparently still loaded. Sort of like Al Capone’s vault. Who knows what treasures lurk inside?
Well, Randy isn’t alone. Old computers, camcorder, motherboards, broken audio boards and switchers, cell phones, CDs, jewel cases, old VHS tapes…we of the video production persuasion certainly can stack up the old equipment quickly.
As we move farther into the information age, the volume of obsolete computer equipment and supplies is becoming a serious problem that needs to be dealt with responsibly. Today, it’s estimated that over 90 percent of technojunk is not being recycled. Some is thrown away, but most remains unused sitting on desks or taking up storage space.
You know what I’m getting at; I’m asking you to recycle your old broken and outmoded gear. There may be a local drop-off that legitimately recycles your equipment. If so, why not make a stop there part of your spring cleaning ritual?
Alas, many communities don’t have a good recycling point. If this is your case, I recommend an operation such as GreenDisk. You can use them to recycle ‘puters, iPods, MP3 players, cell phones and chargers, digital cameras, PDAs, palm pilots, and more. Also, easily recycle all of your CDs, jewel cases, DVDs, audio and video tapes, pagers, rechargeable and single-use batteries, PDAs, and ink/toner cartridges with GreenDisk’s Technotrash program. For $30, GreenDisk will send you a cardboard box in which you can ship them up to 70 pounds of any of the above. Your fee covers the box as well as shipping and recycling fees.
Check ‘em out right here: www.GreenDisk.com
posted by Steve9th, 2008
According to a recent article in Top Tech News, a video camera, computer and high-speed Internet connection are the tools you’ll need for the next “gold rush.”
More and more, businesses and corporations are looking to the Internet as a source of advertising revenue. And, smart producers just like you are working to create ad-friendly entertainment and news videos for the Web. Who can blame them? Research firm eMarketer says that ad spending for Internet videos will rise 455 percent by 2011 to $4.3 billion.
Internet users can already find a plethora of web video from reruns of network TV programming to user-generated bits for YouTube. The problem for advertisers is that a large amount of the video people watch on the Web is still user-generated.
There’s no way to tell what user-generated tip will be hot, “And it’s typically pornographic, stolen or stupid,” says Ron Bloom, CEO of PodShow. (Gotta love that.) Which is why companies are turning their focus to original Web production. And forward-thinking producers are ramping up to take advantage of the emerging trend…
Read the article here but you’ll have to bypass a splash page…
posted by Steve29th, 2008
Great article in Tech Gadget Update about the recent discovery (and playback) of the first sound ever recorded, circia 1860. It was made in France by Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville on his invention, “the phonautograph.” While it recorded properly, says the article, M. de Martinville didn’t have the playback quite figured out…and thus it languished for lo these 147 years until a group of audio historians learned about its existence earlier this month, nabbed it, and managed to capture and reproduce the audio -a 10 second clip of someone singing a French folk song. Quite cool. Here’s the audio…
posted by Steve12th, 2008
The MP3 player -well, this one -is already ten years old. For about $250, the mpman and its 32MB of flash-based storage would hold about a dozen songs of average length. And of course to make things even more inconvenient, songs were loaded in via your computer’s parallel port.
Thankfully, the Diamond Rio came along shortly thereafter and gave you everything the mpman boasted, and tossed in track controls, a four-position equalizer AND a smart card slot for $50 less.
posted by Steve23rd, 2008
Interesting article from the Kelsey Group about a new twist in using video to market -classified video ads! According to their blog, the Real People Real Stuff site introduced last year by newspaper design consultant Alan Jacobsen is a long shot. Sez the blog, “Video classifieds can’t be efficiently searched on a local or category basis; video production has been time consuming; video uploading has not been intuitive; and the value of most personal goods – the fodder for free ads – haven’t been high enough to make the effort. Real estate and cars, yes. Easy chairs that cost $10, probably not.
“But Jacobsen (and his business partner, classified consultant Janet DeGeorge) have pressed on. To me, its prospects are still iffy. But it now has deals with 10 initial newspapers, including The Pittsburgh Post Gazette, The Provo Herald and The Spokesman Review in Spokane, Washington. Three more papers are coming online soon. The revenue comes from flat fees, based in print circulation. In the future, Google ads or the equivalent might be added.” More right here.
