RT Early Bird Pricing ends WED June 9 at 11:55pm BEST DEAL – do the WHOLE DAY: http://philiphodgetts.eventbrite.com #money #film #video
If you’re not in San Francisco, I apologize for the interruption.
Apple loves ads in Apps; Safari 5 blocks them in reader mode. http://bit.ly/dp3I8F Inconsistent Apple?
I really don’t have anything to add to the Ars Technica article except that it’s the kind of thing that happens in a big company with different divisions acting independently. I don’t think there’s a big conspiracy going on, just lack of internal communication.
Tremor Media CEO: We Have the Scale of Large Cable Network http://bit.ly/a8tMHc 7 figure advertising deals.
Using familiar TV metrics can help brands open their wallets to the Web. Another contributing factor to the growth in large deals is the scale and scope of online video. Tremor serves more than 1 billion video streams each month to more than 190 million unique users, a reach akin to many of the largest cable networks,
I’d prefer that we paid for our media other than advertising but at least some of the business continues as normal. (That’s not a good thing really.)
H.264 SVC – extending the standard http://bit.ly/cJYcfa multiple quality levels out of the same file for adaptive bitrates. Nice
Scalable Video Coding (SVC) is a new extension of the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC video compression standard that enables multi-platform and adaptive streaming from a single file. Andy explained that existing adaptive bit rate technologies creates multiple files that enhances the viewing experience. Yet it puts a real burden on the infrastructure, and increases the workload and cost of content creation, storage and delivery. But with SVC, instead of producing separate streams, the SVC encoder converts the source into layers in an “encode once serve many” model. The SVC stream is comprised of 3 dimensions – clarity, spatial, and temporal layers and each layer adds information to the lower layers, rather than just duplicating information into multiple bit rates.
Another round of learning coming up!
Social apps on a TV, a really bad idea as they describe it http://bit.ly/bDV891 My take is that it’s the wrong approach http://bit.ly/cvGPT9
Meanwhile, the ‘backchannel’ discussion currently taking place on Twitter could be integrated directly into the programme. A Google TV app (for example) could allow producers to foster discussion via custom tools that suit the show in question
I already wrote abut the better approach at the second URL above, but having the program fit in among all the Twitter and social overlay seems like a really bad idea for directors and audiences. Put the interaction on the second screen: iPad, iTouch, iPhone, laptop etc.
I agree with the social TV aspects, but simply don’t think it’s viable on the primary screen.
Randy Ubillos, Chief Architect of Video Applications – not just Pro Apps video applications.
During the WWDC Keynote Randy Ubillos came on stage to reveal iMovie for iPhone with the newly revealed title above. So, kind of involved with video Pro Apps but not a direct member of that team? Â Makes sense to have someone as the reference point for making sure the best ideas for video apps get into all video apps.
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More Flash Security Problems
More Flash Security Flaws http://bit.ly/boWsSd Adobe – make it secure, don’t just tell us how there are no security problems,when there are!
As if Adobe needed another nail in the Flash is dead tombstone– a zero-day Flash vulnerability has been identified and announced by Adobe:
A critical vulnerability exists in Adobe Flash Player 10.0.45.2 and earlier versions for Windows, Macintosh, Linux and Solaris operating systems, and the authplay.dll component that ships with Adobe Reader and Acrobat 9.x for Windows, Macintosh and UNIX operating systems. This vulnerability (CVE-2010-1297) could cause a crash and potentially allow an attacker to take control of the affected system.
There are reports that this vulnerability is being actively exploited in the wild against both Adobe Flash Player, and Adobe Reader and Acrobat
Scott Kirsner share his notes from Day 1 of the PGA Produce By conference http://bit.ly/b0kDIH You should be following @ScottKirsner on Twitter (if  you do that) or his CinemaTech blog.
Scott’s takeaway points from the day are diverse but I’ve grabbed a couple of points that hit home to me. Go to the site and read the lot if you’re interested in distribution (and earning money) from media production in the future.
The subtext of most of the sessions I went to was this: we acknowledge that new stuff is happening and new technologies are emerging…and we know audiences want to interact with content in new ways…but it’s unclear how we’ll make anything approaching decent money in this new world.
Then follows an interesting discussion on Transmedia, particularly interesting was The Lion King:
But [Cary Granat of Bedrock Studios]mentioned an interesting transmedia example toward the end: Disney’s decision to create a Broadway version of “The Lion King.” The studio took a risk in hiring Julie Taymor to reinterpret the film, and wound up creating a stage franchise that has since surpassed the movie in revenues by playing for years in theaters the world over (at a much higher ticket price than the film, of course.)
On 3D Television:
On 3-D television broadcasts, Fox Sports exec Jerry Steinberg said, “It is still a technology in search of a business model. People will have to pay extra at home, or for theater tickets.” But Steinberg is a believer that it’ll happen: “What 3-D does for sports is recreate the experience of being in the premium seats, and we as an industry haven’t sold that yet.” He said his expectation is that 3-D TV, just like high-def, will be an 8 to 10 year transition. “We’re two years into it,” he said.
And from Scott’s own panel:
In our panel on “DIY and Hybrid Distribution,” I tossed out what I’ve found to be four essential truths of the new media world producers are living in: “Distribution is free. Choice is infinite. Demand is instant. Noise is unprecedented.” You can either develop strategies to address those shifts, or you can try to ignore them. (I’ve found that many studios and more established producers are doing the latter.)
If that latter content is of interest you’ll want to buy Scott’s Book Fans, Friends and Followers in either PDF or paperback. (I have both versions: the paperback came from the Distribution U conference, but I purchased the PDF so I cold search the printed book!)
How Monetary Rewards Can Demotivate Creative Works http://bit.ly/bht4fC Once the basic need for $$ is met, more $$ doesn’t motivate
The RIAA and MPAA constantly claim that no-one would do creative work if they are not super-well compensated by restrictive copyright. Well, not only has that been thoroughly debunked, but the idea of more money – once our basic living needs are met – can be a demotivating factor for creative people.
As people note all the time, you need to be able to make money to survive. But, it’s that once people have a base level of money that makes them comfortable, using monetary incentives to get them to do creative work fails. Not just fails, but leads to worse performance. As we noted in the original blog post about this, my initial inkling was that this highlighted a point often forgotten by economists and non-economists alike: while marginal benefit is often considered in terms of dollars, that doesn’t mean that cash is the the equivalent of marginal benefit. That is, you can’t just replace other benefits with cash. Sometimes people value other types of rewards even greater than the equivalent in cash. And, Pink’s book and presentation highlight how it’s often things like meaning and working on something fulfilling that are much more beneficial to people than cash. So it’s not that money is bad for creativity — but that having a direct pay-for-performance type scheme seems to create negative consequences when it comes to cognitive work (it works fine for repetitive work, however) — and other types of non-monetary rewards are a lot more effective.
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Democratizing Talent
Democratizing Talent: Guy Oseary, Greyson Chance, NowMov, IndieGoGo and the Future of Talent http://tcrn.ch/9sQsML Good read on the new paths to fame.
Guest writer for Techcrunch,  Shervin Pishevar is SGN founder and Executive Chairman and now an Angel Investor. In the context of one of his Angel investments, Nowmov he talks about being exposed to a young performer.
This boy has the potential to be his generation’s Elton John or Billy Joel. His name is Greyson Chance. It’s a name we will all know.
I immediately shoot an email to my friend, Guy Oseary, the superstar manager to Madonna and many more top stars. The title of the email said, “You must sign him today!!! He’s a superstar!!†Sixty seconds later my iPhone rings and it’s Guy. “I just met with him!â€, Guy said. Guy was already on top of it and meeting with him and his mother all day. Meanwhile, over 40 other competing agents were trying to get to them. But when you could have Guy Oseary as your manager why would go anywhere else? The video quickly to over 4 million views in one day, after Ellen then featured it, and has now crossed 20 million views. The next day he performed on Ellen live! (Note: Guy and Greyson just announced that they have officially joined forces!)
No label, no manager to get first (management found him) and 4 million views. YouTube beats waiting tables while attempting to be discovered!