Author: Philip

What does the human bring?

Post author By Philip
Post date January 17, 2013
6 Comments on What does the human bring?

I have a strong interest – personally and professionally – to want to automate the boring parts of post-production away from humans to computers, extending to some of the basic string-outs. This seems to infringe on the “human” role in postproduction, at least according to some of my associates. Well, lately I’ve come across a whole series of stories on how traditionally human roles, like doctors (and assistant editors), can or will be automated out of existence. That’s led me to think about what is the essential role of the human that can’t be automated? It’s not a simple question.

Interesting Technology

Are Pixels Doomed?

Pixels – those little dots that make up all our video images – are hard to encode and push down pipelines, even with ever-increasing encoding efficiency. On the other hand, vectors are small and very efficient, but so far have proved difficult to apply to video content.

Distribution Media Consumption

Streaming will never replace Cable TV?

Post author By Philip
Post date January 14, 2013
5 Comments on Streaming will never replace Cable TV?

Dan Rayburn, has written a provocative post titled:Â Streaming Video Canâ€™t Scale At Cable TV Quality, Will Never Replace Traditional TV Distribution. Essentially he argues that there isn’t enough bandwidth for the large scale events. He’s only partly right.

Metadata

Automatically Generated Metadata is here already?

Post author By Philip
Post date January 11, 2013
3 Comments on Automatically Generated Metadata is here already?

One of the more interesting press releases coming Â this week out of CES, was from RAMP, a company I’d not heard of before, but with some interesting technology if the press release is to be believed for automatically generated metadata. (I say let’s give them the benefit of the doubt!)

The Business of Production

Is YouTube a Broadcast Network?

Post author By Philip
Post date January 10, 2013
1 Comment on Is YouTube a Broadcast Network?

Traditionally a broadcast network would be a world of transmitters or cable infrastructure, but revenues and views might make YouTube a broadcast network. At least that’s Broadcast Engineering’s questionÂ although there it’s framed as a competitor.

Distribution The Business of Production

Branded Video to boom in 2013?

Post author By Philip
Post date January 8, 2013
4 Comments on Branded Video to boom in 2013?

Video Insider is a good read, and I recommend following them. Like many sites, they take a pass atÂ Online Video Predictions for 2013. They vary from the cute:

1. The term â€œThis is the year of online videoâ€ will be written and stated about 35% more often in 2013 than it was in 2012.

to the sly and accurate, slipping in at the end:

6. Branded content (Branded Video) production will be on the rise, but not enough to grab headlines or the kind of attention this trend will deserve.

Continue reading “Branded Video to boom in 2013?”

The Business of Production

$86 million Film Fund!

A $100 million film fund is not to be ignored, and this one comes from the fans as outlined by Mike Masnick inÂ $100 Million Pledged To Indie Film On Kickstarter… And 8,000 Films Made. Some of the highlights:

$100 million pledges ($86 million raised as some projects did not get fully funded). $60 million in 2012 alone.
8,000 movies actually made, 86 with theatrical release.
Â three of the 20 best-reviewed films of 2012 are Kickstarter-funded (The Waiting Room,Â Brooklyn Castle, andÂ Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry).
Two Oscar nominations:Â in the past two years:Â Sun Come UpÂ andÂ Incident in New Baghdad. A third,Â Barber of Birmingham, launched a project after being Oscar-nominated.
Three documentary features and two documentary shorts are currently shortlisted for Oscar nominations in 2013:Â The Waiting Room,Â Detropia,Â Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry,Â Inocente, andÂ Kings Point.
10% of the films submitted to Sundance or SXSW and Tribeca film festivals.
16 films broadcast onÂ HBO, PBS, Showtime, and other networks.

That’s a pretty decent film fund, and fairly successful at that.

Studio 2.0 The Business of Production

Cringley on Disrupting Hollywood: Steal the future!

Post author By Philip
Post date January 5, 2013
2 Comments on Cringley on Disrupting Hollywood: Steal the future!

As I’ve noted, Robert Cringley is writing a series of articles on how “Hollywood” (the studios, network broadcasters and cable companies) Â might be disrupted by “Silicon Valley” (i.e. Apple, Amazon, Google, Netflix, et al). He notes the exact same problem that Intel (and everyone else) in disrupting Hollywood: that incumbent content controllers don’t want to disrupt their own very profitable existing ecosystem for an uncertain future.

Business & Marketing Media Consumption

Only a headline for a day: Intel set to destroy cable TV industry!

Post author By Philip
Post date January 3, 2013
2 Comments on Only a headline for a day: Intel set to destroy cable TV industry!

Yesterday Broadcast Engineer had a headline Intel set to destroy cable TV industryÂ suggesting Intel were ready to disrupt the pay TV industry with a new set top box and a lÃ¡ carte content.

General

Is Collaborative or Cloud Editing here yet?

Post author By Philip
Post date January 2, 2013
2 Comments on Is Collaborative or Cloud Editing here yet?

Is Cloud Editing ready for prime time? One reviewer at BroadcastEngineering.com takes a look at current (or near future) offerings from Adobe and Avid.

Both companies take a similar approach – storing media and doing all editing remotely, feeding only the result down an adaptive pipeline with high resolution stills updated when playback stops. I also think both are aimed at “private” clouds where only the one organization’s folk work in that cloud, as opposed to a service run by Adobe or Avid. Neither have announced any service-based options (to date).

Terence Curren and I discussed collaborative editing and the likely outcomes last year in EpisodeÂ 40: Will we be outsourced or automated out of existence?