What do you get from a camera that costs as much as a house? The ability to shoot at insane frames per second! The average video, TV show or Movie is shot anywhere between 24-60fps. These cameras (SprintCam v3 and Phantom) can shoot up to 1000fps which means that you can capture great slow motion. I mean really, really slooooowwww motion. You are going to want to watch these ones all the way through.

Seit Anfang dieser Woche ist es so weit. CBS hat tatsächlich ein paar Dollar springen lassen und strahlt die Late Late Show mit Craig Ferguson in HiDef (High Definition) aus.

Bei der Gelegenheit gab es auch einen neuen, hübschen Vorspann. Viele Craig Fans werden vielleicht nicht wissen, dass er sowohl im alten als auch neuen Vorspann selbst die Titelmelodie singt. Das nenn ich mal vollen Einsatz.

Angeblich hat er auch zwei neue Lampen für sein Studio bekommen, von der gleich bei der ersten Sendung nach der Sommerpause direkt eine ausgefallen ist, und sein erster Gast Emily Deschanel (Bones – Die Knochenjägerin) folgerichtig im Dunklen saß.

Auch auf die eingeblendeten Grafiken musste er in der ersten Sendung verzichten, weil anscheinend noch niemand wußte wie der betreffende Computer zu bedienen ist.

Für eine eigene Band hat es beim “british scottish Conan guy” (Danke Johannes) auch diesmal wieder nicht gereicht. Auf der anderen Seite, was wäre seine Show ohne seine ständigen Monologe, dass er der einzige Late Night Hoster ohne Band ist.

Ich weiß ja nicht, wie groß die deutsche Fanbase von Craig inzwischen ist, aber ich finde es wird langsam Zeit für ein kleines Spiegel Interview, oder nicht? Immerhin zählt er den Spiegel zu den renomierten Magazinen Deutschlands. Wo sind die Spiegel Reporter, wenn man einen braucht?

Bei der Gelegenheit könnten sie ihn ja auch zu den ganzen deutschen Stereotypen befragen, die er in seiner Sendung immer zum Besten gibt. Vorallem der Ursprung von “germans throwning poop at each other” würde mich brennend interessieren.

Ken Block, een van de mede-oprichters van het bekende skaterbrand DCShoes, weet niet alleen veel van schoenen en verkopen af. Hij kan ook een beetje met auto’s overweg en is dan ook rallyrijder bij rally oppermerk Subaru. Verder is hij ook een begenadigd skater, snowboarder en motocrosser. Zijn favoriete sport is echter Gymkhana of in gewone-mensen-taal: precisie-rijden. Een sport die straf genoeg blijkt om de nieuwe infomercial (zoals ze het zelf noemen omdat het te lang is om een commercial genoemd te worden) van DCShoes te dragen. De spot werd gisteren door DCShoes gereleased op het internet:

Vergeet vooral niet op het High Def knopje te klikken in YouTube en full screen while you’re at it, dat maakt dit indrukwekkende filmpje des te knapper. Vooral de SloMo fragmentjes zien er heel netjes uit. Nochtans gewoon een truukje zo oud als de straat: filmen tegen 5000 frames per seconde en afspelen tegen 25 frames per seconde.. maar dan nu in HD gefilmd.

Voor de liefhebbers hier nog een ouder Gymkhana filmpje van diezelfde Ken Block

   Up until our old TV set starting have a bad case of color hiccups, I really thought our TV had a great picture.  The old set was a 55 inch Mitsubishi digital projection set, which thanks to progressive scanning made a standard 512 interlaced analog signal look pretty darn good.   This is as compared to a standard analog TV of course.  The large screen format was really nice too.  But now we have 58 inches of plasma in HiDef and of course I had to look for differences if any.

   Well, the bottom line is, we now have a wide screen format TV which actually can display the whole screen without image distortion.  Is the picture really more defined than the old progressive scan set?  The answer is a resounding “yes”.  Not sure I would say it looks 3D, but it’s getting close. 

   The other news is, the world is now full of people who have gotten thinner!  For years now, I have viewed a standard 4:3 ratio analog TV image stretched into a progressive fit which though it did present things in the middle of the screen as pretty normal, it stretched images wider and wider toward the image sides to fill up the screen into the 16:9 ratio screen.  Thus everyone tended to put on just a little weight as they moved around on the screen.  Over time, I think my mind simply did a little visual averaging to compensate with the result that I was seeing people looking heavier than they really were.

    Now with everyone and everything properly proportioned, everyone appears in my minds eye as having gotten thinner.  Now of course I am forced into the position to go out and purchase a video camera, so I can watch myself on the new TV.  That’s right, I need to loose a couple pounds myself.

Anchor Bay Home Entertainment has announced that they will bring the 1984 horror classic ‘Children of the Corn‘ to Blu-ray on July 28th to mark the 25th anniversary of the film, and just in time for the upcoming remake. Video will be presented in 1.85:1 1080p AVC accompanied by a 5.1 Dolby TrueHD soundtrack.

Special features include:

• Audio commentary with director Fritz Kiersch, producer Terrence Kirby and actors John Franklin & Courtney Gains
• “It Was The Eighties!” (HD) — Linda Hamilton talks about working on the film, offering great behind-the-scenes stories about the cast and crew
• “Stephen King on a Shoestring” (HD) – All-New interview with Producer Donald Borchers.
• “Welcome to Gatlin: The Sights and Sounds of Children of the Corn” (HD) – Interview with Production Designer Craig Stearns and Composer Jonathan Elias
• “Harvesting Horror: The Making of Children of the Corn” (SD)
• Fast Film Facts
• Original theatrical trailer
• Poster & still gallery
• Original storyboard and original title sequence art

[Alanson Sample] and [Joshua R. Smith] have been experimenting with wireless power transfer for their sensing platform. Their microcontroller of choice is the MSP430, which we used on our e-paper clock. They chose it specifically for its ability to work with low voltages and they discus its specific behavior at different voltages. The first portion of their paper uses a UHF RFID reader to transmit to the sensor’s four stage charge pump. They added a supercap to provide enough power for 24 hours of logging while the node isn’t near a reader. For the second half of the paper, they use a UHF antenna designed for digital TV with the same circuit and pointed it at a television tower ~4.1km away. It had an open circuit voltage of 5.0V and 0.7V across an 8KOhm load, which works out to be 60uW of power. They connected this to the AAA battery terminals of the thermometer/hygrometer pictured above. It worked without issue. The thermometer’s draw on a lab power supply was 25uA at 1.5V.

It’s an interesting approach to powering devices. Do you have an application that needs something like this? For more on wireless power, checkout this earlier post on scratch building RFID tags.

[via DVICE]

Broadcasting & Cable reports that Hulu has started adding full length 720p high definition movies and TV shows to its HD Gallery.  The first programs available are NBC shows, including the latest episodes of 30 Rock, The Office and Heroes, as well as Joss Whedon’s strike induced web-feature Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog.

Thursday, September 25, 2008

     As the days turn into weeks and weeks turn… ah you get the picture, I find myself vexed with recurring themes from project to project. All of which have resulted in unfinished works gathering dust in their limbo. Issues of budget, scale and production value haunt me. Our latest kick at the can was conceived to forgo these issues, in fact, was at the very heart of the concept, but alas as we move forward I can’t help but feel us falling into the same pitfalls. As a producer I have a vision for this project and it is quite vivid. Converting this esoteric notion into something visually close to that is the real challenge. I’m not saying that these issues are unique to us; I’m simply stating what our current position is. 

Having enjoyed the most recent TWIM (This Week In Media) I had to laugh out loud after checking out the project of one of the participants. Watching the first episode of the “Pigeon Impossible” podcast and seeing its creator repeat “It’s been Four Years!” multiple times within the first 30 seconds when talking about how long the project has been in the works, caused me to reflect upon our little company. Listening to this man expound upon his challenges while trying to produce a Pixar quality short helped me feel a little less frustrated with our current state of progress. Lucas Martell the shows creator talks about the right balance when it comes to marketing the project. Talking about the right time to begin releasing details about your work is a tricky matter. If he had started his podcast right at the beginning he feels he surely would have lost the majority of his audience a short while in. 

At this point, “P.I.” has been 4 yrs in the making and there’s no way in hell I’ll allow our 5 min webisodes to take that long to produce. Having said that, I’ve already found that writing a BLOG at regular intervals with something meaningful to say is more challenging than I had expected. When I started this it was more of an exercise than anything, but I’ve quickly found a legitimate purpose for continuing. The “P.I.” podcast following the step by step process of creating an animated short (an extremely detailed account I might add) has yielded the benefit of an audience primed for it’s release as well as a group of enthusiasts and animators looking for tips, tricks, a chance to pick up new skills and solutions to their own problems. This process has garnered the attention of industry professionals before there is a movie to review. 

Our project doesn’t lend itself to this kind of detailed account, as there are secrets that will have to be discovered by watching the episodes and not from reading them before hand. Doing so would ruin the experience from the start… but talking about the process and being honest about what it takes to make a movie, short, podcast etc is what makes this era of “New Media” exciting. Let’s open the doors and share our knowledge so that the Studios don’t have the power to decide for us what it is we watch. 

So here’s the short list of questions T.E.D. Films faces moving forward.

1. How often should we post a new Blog and are we already too early by talking about this project?

We’ve put it out to the world that we need writers. We had a welcomed although unexpected response. Putting a small challenge to those who inquired about our “Craig’s List” ad helped to shrink the list of potentials to something a little more manageable. We’ve gone through some interviews and have a bit of a dilemma. Being a tech guy myself I should probably be wide open to the possibilities that such innovations can bring, however I’m a little leery about long distance teamwork. Conceptually we thought a team of 4-5 writers would be ideal for brainstorming and banging out episodes at a regular pace. The idea was we would get together monthly or bi-monthly to brainstorm and course correct the writing direction. So at the current stage of selection we’ve got two local writers on board and one possibly two that would require some technological intervention for the team get together. With e-mail and voice/video conference calls technically there should be no reason for everyone to have to be in the same place in order to communicate freely. That’s technically true but there is still something to be said about being there. Certain things are lost through writing or voice only communication. Body language can say a lot about how you really feel about something. It can also help convey your thoughts and help sell an idea. So, question two:

2. Do we stick with local writers possibly sacrificing on quality for the benefit of better communication?

Something that has been brought to my attention in regards to our BLOG is its lack of commenting system. This was a conscious decision I made, as I don’t really want to take responsibility for moderating such a system. There are theoretical implications of editorial responsibility once you change or remove one comment. However, if the public wants to comment and e-mail is too inconvenient, so be it. I put it to you the reader. 

3. Would you like to see a commenting system for our Blog?

If you’d like to see a commenting system, one time only, go through the arduous task of sending an e-mail to info@tedfilms.com Subject: Comments. You can expound upon your thoughts or leave it at that. A blank e-mail with that subject will be considered a yea vote.

Our current plan is to have a large stockpile of episodes written before we shoot one second of footage. This is to make sure that the story arcs are fully flushed out well ahead of time and also to make sure we can release episodes in a timely manner without being stuck waiting for stuff to be written. The question now becomes all about the magic number.

4. How many episodes to we amass before shooting starts?

Speaking of shooting, there are newer and better cameras being announced every day. The rule of thumb is, the better your source footage is the better your final output will look. This webisodic series will of course not be 4k film resolution as the initial target will be web streaming, but if successful (okay when successful) we will release a higher res compilation for a price. Here’s the big question:

5. HighDef or StandardDef for shooting?

There are several more questions bouncing around in my head right now:

6. Do we settle for what we’ve got as far as equipment goes?

7. If not, Do we Rent or Buy?

8. What’s more important a crane/jib or DOF (depth of field) adapter?

9. Do we shoot in the Winter or wait for Summer?

Finally it all comes down to one thing… Trust. 

10. Who do we trust with what we know and what we want?

Many of these questions are rhetorical and will be decided with or without outside influence but if you have any questions or comments about anything T.E.D. Films, as always drop us an e-mail (or leave a V/M on our Skype account, more on that soon).

Having gone on here much longer than anticipated a friend of mine might say: “Doooo Shut Up Leopold!” 

‘till next time…

Christopher O’Hare

Twenty-Eight Dollar Films

Last Tuesday, I experienced an emotion that I have never felt in my life.

Its not often that one can say that with certainty. Let me explain. For the last 3 months or so, I have been working on a project that culminated Tuesday. It all started when my Beatles tribute band went to Webster Hall and I was introduced to Lon Ballinger, the club’s owner. I eventually asked him if Webster Hall was pursuing a digital media strategy, and we had a long conversation about what that meant. Within a few weeks I found that the task was mine.

Soon after that, I was approached by Shane Savant (who choreographs the club’s dance performances and hosts some racy weekly burlesque parties). Shane told that he had met a guy from Sharp who wanted to talk to us about some sort of video sponsorship. Within a few days, I was on the phone with Judah Zeigler, the Associate Vice President of Retail & Consumer Marketing Group and the guy who made Sharp’s HD deals with NASCAR, NBC and Major League Baseball. After weeks of negotiations, I managed to swing a deal whereby Sharp would GIVE us 133 HD Screens ranging in sizes of 19 up to 65 inches. This is about $800,000 worth of retail product. In return, we offered a multitude of brand exposure and the use of the entire club, free of charge, one day per year. As soon as Judah heard that part of the offer, he jumped on it. July 15, 2008 was the date of the MLB All Star Game at Yankee Stadium. And Sharp is the official video partner of MLB. And Webster Hall was going to be the site of the only officially sanctioned All Star Game party attended by 1500 people.

Although I had never done anything even remotely like this before, I promised Sharp that the majority of the screens would be installed, cabled, networked and operational by July 15. I put together a great team of people and got cracking. I had my deadline and it was inviolate.

40 hours before game time, only 3 screens had been hung. Most of the cabling was laid, but there were thousands of feet of it all over the place. The $140,000 box that controls all of the signals had arrived, but it was unconnected and untested. And we were yet to build the “spectacular giant video wall consisting of nine 65 inch screens” that I had promised. Sound stressful?

10 hours before the game, the cabling was essentially complete. But many TV’s had to still be hung. We still had not received the delivery of 15 portable stands that would house many of the biggest screens.The HD signal in the building looked crappy. Worst of all, we simply could not get the giant video screen to scale properly (we wanted to put all nine screens in a giant rectangle and broadcast a single huge image of the game). By noon, the decision was made to abandon the giant wall and use an amazing 15,000 lumen HD projector instead. In the end, I figured this would be fine, since it allowed me to take the nine screens I was going to allocate to the wall and disperse them throughout the club. We would build the wall for another even, I hoped.

2 hours before the game, things seemed to be relatively on track, with one major unanticipated problem. Though we had beautiful HD everywhere, and things LOOKED amazing, for some reason that no one could pin down, we were unable to get the audio portion of the game to pipe through our million dollar sound system. My guys promised me that this would be solved by the first pitch. I, in turn, promised Sharp and MLB that there would be sound for the game. I am apparently very good at saying something I don’t believe with a straight face.

At 7:30, an hour before the game’s scheduled start, the doors opened and people poured in. The place looked great. HD video was everywhere. There was no issue about the audio yet, because until the game actually started at 8:32, the plan was always to play music throughout. But the fact was we still did not have audio.

At 8 pm, I saw John Loughlin, my head video technician running down the street outside the club. He had not slept in about 100 hours. “Where are you running, dude” I asked. “Radio Shack is a block away” he babbled. “I need a wireless transmitter that will enable me to send a signal from the Magenta Box in the basement up to the crow’s nest in the Grand Ballroom. That will make the audio work.” “Are you sure?”, I asked. “It’s a ghetto solution, but it SHOULD work” he said. Hardly convincing. This is gonna be ugly.

At 8:20, it became clear that John’s idea was not going to work. Something to do with signal polarity and sound impedance I think. But our lighting technician, Jake, had an idea. We could hard wire a cable directly from the basement to the sound system. But this would entail cutting some of the existing cable on both ends and soldering, on each end, a new connection that looks like the plastic end of an ethernet cable. Each connection would require perfectly soldering 9 wires. And it had to be done on both ends of the cable and it had to be done in 12 minutes.

At 8:30, Jake had finished soldering his end of the cable and Jake and John were carefully applying electrician’s tape to the basement end of the cable, which had just been soldered as well. “How much time do we have till the game starts?” they asked. “About 3 minutes”, I said. By this time my head was in my hands, my heart was in my throat, I was palpitating and I could barely breathe. After all of this work, the game was going to start and there would be no sound. Within seconds, people were going to ask us to turn down the music and turn on the game and we would have to tell the people from Sharp, the people from MLB, the executives from Pepsi and Budweiser and the 1500 guests that we had no sound for the game. This would ruin everything that was good about this installation. And all the blame would fall on me.

About a minute before game time, John and Jake announced that they were ready to plug in the basement end of the cable. Things could simply not have been more stressful. Everyone was on the verge of melting down. John and Jake were in communication by walkie talkie with our people upstairs. They plugged in their end of the cable and listened. I was in the basement, sitting across from them. I knew that if the news was good form the walkie talkies, they would start high-fiving one another. But there was no high-fiving. Instead, I saw John and Jake drop everything and literally RUN out the door and upstairs. Apparently, though there was no game audio in the Grand Ballroom, there WAS a moment of loud static when they connected the cable. This meant that a signal had been transmitted, but that something was not right about it. We all ran upstairs and John and Jake examined the problem. By this time, we were literally moments from the start of the game. Already, people were a little curious as to why we did not turn the sound up during Sheryl Crow’s singing of the national anthem, during the first pitch ceremony involving George Steinbrenner, or during the player introductions.

John and Jake figured the problem had to be that one of the connections was improperly grounded. They fiddled with the ground connections and….like some sonic apparition… the beautiful, glorious, mellifluous, crystal clear voices of the FOX Sports commentators came pouring through the speakers EXACTLY FIVE SECONDS BEFORE THE FIRST PITCH WAS THROWN.

Once I realized that I was actually hearing the game, I knew that the rest of the night was going to be amazing, no matter what else happened. I made my way downstairs to the center of the action and sat on one of the couches. I looked around. Everyone was having a great time. TV’s were everywhere. The place looked like something out of a fairy tale. Not like a sports bar, but more like someone’s giant, beautiful, 40,000 square foot living room. There was free beer, courtesy of Bud. There were hot dogs and peanuts and popcorn and apple pie and pulled pork sandwiches. And there was the MLB All Star Game on 50 giant Aquos screens. It was exactly what I had dreamed up in my head.

At that moment, I felt the enormity of what I had managed to pull off. From the very beginning. Making the deal with Sharp. Convincing the owners of Webster Hall to spend nearly $200,000 to install everything. Figuring out how to finance the project. Putting the technical team in place. Dealing with at least 3 separate occasions during which the owners told me to cancel the project and I had to talk them off of the ledge. Firing our cable installer a week before the event. “Borrowing” our cable signal from the bar next door. All of it.

I sat there, and I experienced an emotion that I had never felt in my life. Total, complete, utter, pure, overwhelming relief. It was so powerful a feeling that I just sat there, among hundreds of people, all having a great time, and bawled my eyes out for about 10 minutes. I could not care less that people were looking at me. This was a moment that was mine and mine alone and no one who did not live it could understand what I was feeling. In fact, I actually enjoyed it. It was like some cathartic wave coming over me, washing away all of the hellish mania that had literally consumed me for the past month.

After that, I walked out the door and took a cab over to my health club where I had one of the best showers I can ever recall. I changed my clothes, turned around and took a cab back to the club. I walked in at about 9:45. Rejuvenated, happy and normal.

Well not exactly normal. After all, I was still the madman who took all this on in the first place.

Σε εναν γνωστό μου έκαναν δώρο μια καινούργια επίπεδη τηλεόραση Sony Bravia 32U3000 32″. Αυτή την στιγμή (Ιούνιος 2008 ) κοστίζει κάπου στα 600 ευρώ (skroutz.com, eprice.gr). Μια καλύτερη τηλεόραση με πλήρες HiDef κοστίζει σχεδόν το διπλάσιο, στα 1100 περίπου, με ίδιο μέγεθος τηλεόρασης (Bravia KDL-32W4000). Το ερώτημα που μου έθεσε είναι αξίζει να πληρώσει κανείς το διπλάσιο για να πάρει Full HiDef? Η απάντηση είναι ένα καταφατικό OXI, ΣΕ ΚΑΜΙΑ ΠΕΡΙΠΤΩΣΗ.

Η κύρια διαφορά μεταξύ HiDef Ready και  Full HiDef τηλεοράσεων είναι στο πόσο λεπτομερές εικόνες μπορούν να δείξουν. Και πίστεψε με όταν λέω ότι οι τηλεοράσεις Full HiDef πραγματικά είναι καταπληκτικές! Ναι σωστά διαβάζετε, είναι πολύ καλύτερες από τις HiDef Ready και για αυτό είναι και πολύ πιο ακριβές (σχεδόν διπλάσια τιμή).

Αλλά πίσω έχει η αχλάδα την ουρά! Δεν έχει σημασία μόνον τι τηλεόραση έχεις αλλά και τι σήμα, τι βίντεο βλέπεις ή παίζεις στην τηλεόραση σου. Απλά η εικόνα που πιάνει η κεραία σας και η εικόνα που έχουν τα DVD δεν είναι σε καμιά περίπτωση Full HiDef. Ούτε καν την ποιοτικά της ακριβείας που μπορούν να δείξουν οι HiDef Ready τηλεοράσεις δεν φτάνουν. Ακόμη και τα HiDef επεισόδια σειρών που κυκλοφορούν στο διαδίκτυο είναι συνήθως σε HiDef Ready ποιότητα και όχι Full HiDef. Οπότε εάν περιμένετε στην πράξη να δείτε εικόνα με μεγάλη λεπτομέρεια, ΞΕΧΑΣΤΕ ΤΟ.

Θα πρέπει να πληρώσετε επιπλέον 200-300 ευρώ για να αγοράσετε Blu-Ray player (skroutz.gr, eprice.gr) που είναι η επόμενη γενιά μετά τα DVD. Αλλά αυτά ακόμη καλά καλά δεν κυκλοφορούν στο εξωτερικό και σίγουρα δεν υπάρχουν πολλά στην Ελλάδα. Μετά θα πρέπει να πάτε να αγοράσετε ή να νοικιάσετε (εάν βρείτε) δίσκους Blu-Ray που θα είναι σίγουρα πολύ πιο ακριβοί από τα DVD.
Οπότε για να δείτε και Full HiDef ταινίες και γενικά Full HiDef εικόνα θα πρέπει να ξοδέψετε πολλά περισσότερα από την διπλάσια τιμή μιας HiDef ready τηλεόρασης. Απλά δεν συμφέρει.

Η συμβουλή μου είναι να κρατήσετε τα χρήματα σας και περιμένετε μερικά χρονιά. Τότε θα πάρετε με τα ιδία επιπλέον χρήματα που θα ξοδεύατε μια δεύτερη τηλεόραση αλλά σε Full HiDef. Και τότε θα  έχουν βγει καινούργιες τεχνολογίες με πολύ καλύτερη ποιότητα εικόνας (πιο ζωντανά χρώματα) (OLED,“Αγώνας δρόμου για τις OLED τηλεοράσεις στην αγορά”, οθόνη OLED στα 3 χιλιοστά!, ) και μικρότερη κατανάλωση ρεύματος. Και τότε μάλλον θα κυκλοφορούν κατά κύριο λόγω blue-ray και οχι DVD.

Συμπέρασμα: Οι Full HiDef συγκριτικά με τις HiDef Ready δεν αξίζουν αφού δεν πρόκειται να δείτε κάποια διαφορά στην λεπτομέρεια (και τα παράσιτα) της εικόνας των τηλεοπτικών καναλιών και των DVD. Με τα επιπλέον χρήματα που θα πληρώνατε, σε μερικά χρονιά θα πάρετε μια δεύτερη και  πολύ καλύτερη HiDef  τηλεόραση από αυτές που κυκλοφορούν.

Ένας τρόπος είναι να κατεβάσετε το εξής δωρεάν πρόγραμμα K-Lite (μάλλον πακέτο προγραμμάτων). Συνιστώ την έκδοση MegaPack διότι έχει πολλά και καλά χαρακτηριστικά. Έτσι θα μπορείτε να δείτε ταινίες HiDef στον υπολογιστή σας.

Για κάτι καλύτερο μπορείτε να βρείτε το πρόγραμμα CoreAVC που θα επιτρέψει να δείτε τέτοιες ταινίες και σε (κάποιους) παλιότερους υπολογιστές. Το πρόγραμμα δεν είναι δωρεάν οπότε πρώτα δοκιμάστε το K-Lite. Αλλά μπορεί να κάνει έναν παλιό υπολογιστή να δείχνει HiDef ταινίες και να σας γλυτώσει από την αγορά νέου υπολογιστή.

Βεβαία πάντα μιλάω για ταινίες και επεισόδια σειρών σε μορφή αρχείων (avi, mkv κτλ).

I was browsing the web today and found this interview that I did with Sean Maloney at Intel. It got me thinking. Intel needs a new intel inside consumer branding theme. I found it for them. It’s HiDef – HD. Sean Maloney gets it. He’s old school Intel, but he understands what new users are looking for.

In the old days the CPU powered software. Today it’s a entire new paradigm -rich media and broadband. It’s the ‘new software equivalent for processors and subsystems”. The Intel Inside brand is getting stale. Intel Inside clicked for consumers back in the 90s, but I think that Intel is confusing to a new breed of consumers now. The new net users don’t have that historical connection that guys like me have with Intel. Intel needs to connect with those new users while keeping it’s image up with the existing users.

Answer: HiDef – HD. HD touches all consumers both online and offline. Intel needs to own image in the mind of the consumer. I would argue that HD is yet to be owned from brand association perspective by any one vendor. HD is everywhere but yet unbranded.

More importantly HD requires a boatload of processing power and storage (and cloud computing – I won’t get started how cloud computing is threating the PC which should have Intel worried as well). Great processing and system software, Intel’s technology stronghold, enables a great user experience from online to the living room. Intel needs to leverage that in a clear message to consumers.

Companies like nVidia are competing directly with Intel on CPUs. With nVidia dominating the graphics market for years they have a chance to make a run at Intel. Will nVidia and others possibly steal away the Intel franchise?

Here is the interview with Sean Maloney that I did. Sean gets it. He thinks big and Intel needs a new Intel Inside theme. It has to be HD.

So! You want to know the real difference in the top of the pile video formats? Well, that’s what this little slice of wisdom is hopefully going to do. When it comes to these kinds of things, we know what we’re talking about. No, really – we do. Without further ado, here’s how it all started:

Back in the good old days of the late 1960s, there started in Japan a newfangled theory that television broadcasts could look better than the crummy old sets we’d all been using since the early days of color television. Improvements had been made – color reproduction, contrast, sharpness were all greatly improved by the introduction of high quality digital components that were simply better than their old analog counterparts. But that hadn’t changed the fact that the CRT (cathode ray tube) hadn’t really changed all that much. At the same time, it was well established that a higher quality picture tube was quite feasible. Some bright scientist somewhere said “HEY! What if we made a television that could do the same thing as a computer monitor?” And so, the quest for high definition television was begun.

Experiments with HDTV had been tried before – England and France had both experimented with higher definition broadcasts in the 1940s, Japan had tried in the 1960s and 1970s, and all of them eventually abandoned the idea. The experiment was lackluster at best and an outright failure at worst. Because high definition uses more bandwidth than a normal broadcast, there’s a sacrifice – you can have either high quality visuals OR lots of channels in over the air broadcasts…but not both. There was, however, some good. By the early 1980s, standards such as the formats that would later become standard HDTV were agreed upon. With the advent of digital broadcasting in the form of satellite and cable services, the early fears of broadcast limitations were more or less dissolved. Digital signals have a much higher capacity allowing TV watchers to have their cake and eat it, too. In addition, public interest was becoming sparked by the prospects of a higher quality television.

Around 1997, the first 480p/720p televisions went on sale to the general public in the USA. Though extremely expensive at first, these first generation TVs made a great impression based on their high quality picture. During this period, there was also an influx of EDTV sets, which were able to display at 480p only. These sets have largely been phased out in favor of newer 720p/1080i capable screens, but they are still occasionally seen in second hand stores, yard sales, and online.

The main problem was the fact that at first, there was nothing to use with the new HDTV screens! High definition broadcasting was an entirely new concept in the USA, and although DVD players have higher quality images than VHS tapes, the max resolution of a DVD player is only 800 pixels by 600. You could get an up scaling DVD player, but they were pricey. As if that weren’t frustrating enough, there was also a vigorous debate over how to get the best quality of signal out of the attached devices – analog connections or digital. The benefits and disadvantages of these could fill their own article (hint, hint..) but the basic argument boils down to the fact that digital doesn’t lose signal quality and analog is much cheaper to use.

These days, with the introduction of the new (and pricey) 1080p screens and truly high definition formats such as Blu-Ray and HD-DVD, the high definition television has come into its own. It’s now possible to get a high quality high definition screen for around $800-$1000, or a similar quality projector that can output an extremely large image (typically, 100”+). The issues initially encountered are now far removed, and in many cases outright eliminated.

A chronicle of the life of 18th century aristocrat Georgiana, duchess of Devonshire, an ancestor of Princess Diana who was alternately celebrated and reviled for her extravagant political and personal lives.

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