Andy Stout - The Write Stuff

IBC - International Bug Catching

2010-09-28T09:07:00.004+01:00

The tradition is that every year, a goodly percentage of the broadcast industry comes back from IBC having caught something. Not in an entertaining and frankly worrying manner in the Red Light District, you understand, but simply as a function of spending time in air conditioned halls with 48,500 other people.

This year's has been a bug and a half too. Never mind high definition, this year's post IBC lurgy has gone straight for the Super Hi-Vision resolution, 22.2 channel cough-o-rama. All of which is a roundabout way of saying no, I haven't put anything new up on the blogsite recently and no, I'm not about to either. In fact, I'm going to escape down to Cornwall for a week and hope that a decent amount of Atlantic stormfront barrelling in from the ocean can clear the tubes.

And after that, maybe, there may be some updates...

Two things that are worth talking about from IBC that aren't stereo 3D in the meantime: connected TV and Super Hi-Vision. The first has got way more implications in the short term; the second will be the way the industry lurches once 3DTV fails to take off (and yes, I am still banging that drum).

And yes, there was going to be a complicated, multilayer metaphor using the picture of the Amsterdam bridge. However, it seems to have had a beer too many and fallen in the canal...

IBC

2010-09-08T06:45:00.002+01:00

Yes, the interminable summer of work is finally over, and all the hard work and preparation pays off today as we jet off to Amsterdam and the start of this year's IBC. Will be ensconced in Room E108 (Room P as was) for the duration, so feel free to pop by and say hello.

Afterwards life returns to something resembling normality for, oh, at least a couple of days. Should be an occassion for slightly more regular blog postings at least...

Wedding Day – Las Vegas 07/05/10, 06.00

2010-07-03T12:04:00.001+01:00

[Slightly belated post]

Too excited to sleep so I get up and take a stroll about. Inevitably there are people still in the casino – some starting early some finishing late. You can normally tell the difference between the early and the late shift depending on whether they’re drinking coffee or booze. Usually...Vegas is not so much the city that never sleeps as the one that got thrown out of school for Attention Deficit Disorder.

I head outside where gardeners are starting to hoover the grass (seriously – it’s all artificial nowadays) and mosey amidst the joggers and stragglers over to the nearest Starbucks to buy a couple of lattes. The sky’s an azure desert blue, the wind’s died down, and it’s a beautiful day in Sin City. A beautiful day, in fact, to get married.

The ceremony’s fabulous. Nice, simple and uncluttered, with the photographer – a cycling nut – as a witness. A lot of couples get married at The Chapel of the Flowers, but the place did a very good job of making us imagine for a minute that we were the only ones. And, as far as we were concerned, we truly were – the only two people living and breathing on the planet for those moments. Kate looked heart-wrenchingly beautiful and the ceremony and photo shoot afterwards was full of love and laughter. Brilliant, utterly, utterly, brilliant.

The only way to top it was with landscape, so we got changed and headed off to the Valley of Fire, about 60 miles north of Vegas. It’s a stunning place; a desert ecosystem dotted with giant red sandstone formations (it doubled for Mars in Total Recall) on which the Ancient Pueblo Peoples drew petroglyphs on the rock whose purpose and meaning remains elusive to this day. More than anything though, there’s a real feeling of age and gravity to the place; a timeless, brooding ancientness which makes it as different from Las Vegas as it’s probably possible to get while remaining in the same universe.

From there we headed up the Stratosphere to the Top of the World restaurant. It’s not, of course, but the views from the windows as the restaurant slowly revolves 800ft above The Strip are pretty spectacular – lines of neon and light stretching to the desert horizon in petroglyphs all of their own. Food, wine, more food, more wine, and a significantly wallet-lightening bill later, and our wedding day was pretty much done.

It was, of course, only the start of the journey though...

Defining Vegas moment: in a bar where a giant volcano that took up the size of a standard English semi erupted, spewing out a girl in a bikini who promptly slid down a waterslide and into a giant margarita mixer, whereupon she began dancing Esther Williams style while people on stilts stalked around egging the crowd to clap along. Mad. And it wasn’t just the margaritas talking – promise.

Most amazing non-wedding Vegas moment: 250 miles away or thereabouts at the rim of the Grand Canyon. The seminal horror writer HP Lovecraft used an interesting literary cheat in his works, saying that Cthulu and his ilk were ‘too horrible to describe’...and so, he didn’t. As a writer myself I can only admire the cheek (while, being paid by the word, decrying the potential lost income). But Reader, to paraphrase the man himself, words truly cannot convey the majesty and the wonder of the Grand Canyon. Go there, see for yourself.

Dumbest Vegas moment: Anything involving a fruit machine and beer for a dollar.

Weirdest Vegas moment: The last exhibit at The Atomic Testing Museum. The museum is great, chronicling the Nevada nuclear tests from back in the day when the mushroom clouds could be seen towering over The Strip, but then it gets to the point where it justifies the continued funding of the testing facility (even though the Test Ban Treaty remains in force). So, you end up with lots of stuff about terrorism, some bits about rogue states and nuclear suitcases, and then a chunk of I-beam girder from the World Twin Trade Towers in New York. And you end up touching it because you can .

Most equestrian Vegas moment: Riding through Red Rock Canyon on the back of a couple of ponies. Inevitably, Kate (experienced rider) got a perfectly behaved horse called Stagecoach, while I (second time ever in the saddle) got a stubborn-minded git called Big Joe who wanted to stop and try and eat every single bit of vegetation that came under his hooves. About half-way through I started calling him Evostick...

Foodie Vegas moment: Vegas does a lot of food blandly in portions that would make Jabba the Hutt blanche. That said though, the corned beef hash at Tiffany’s 24-hour Diner & Pharmacy (you can picture the clientele for yourselves) was pretty spectacular in a ‘That’s really unhealthy but I’m glad I’ve eaten it’ sort of way. Plus we got to say we’d eaten breakfast at Tiffany’s afterwards...We really did eat in all the best places.

Word neglect

2010-07-01T07:47:00.002+01:00

It's not that I haven't been meaning to post, I just have not had the time. The intervening months have had to accommodate:

Work - lots.

Weddings - two (one of which was mine)

Holidays - two (see above)

Visits to places of jaw-dropping natural beauty - one (that'll be the Grand Canyon)

Website launches - one

Press releases - loads

World Cups - one

Cricket matches - five

It has just all been a tad hectic and now IBC looms large for the next two and a half months, so that's me off the radar and nose to the iMac grindstone until mid September basically. Still, must at least write a bit more about a couple of events mentioned above in the next week or so...

NAB - Need Another Body

2010-04-09T07:31:00.003+01:00

Despite not making the trip out to Vegas myself, NAB has had the usual cripplingly distortive effect on the local space time continuum. Been working on a four pager for Broadcast about studios for next week's issue, plus loading content onto - and tweaking the results thereof - of the new TVBE website that's due to go live at 18.00 later today. The sheer deluge of press releases at this time of year has made that an interesting task as I want to make sure it's as shiny and new as possible, and pretty much every hour I'm having to upgrade the triage program to make sure more fall by the wayside for the moment at least.

Oh, and then I've got to write some press releases myself. It seems that I'm part of the problem...

Anyway, www.tvbeurope.com from this evening on, or even @tvbeurope on Twitter. Looking nice...

Oxfordshire start-up to introduce radical new Smell-D™ technology at NAB

2010-04-01T10:54:00.002+01:00

London, 1 April 2010 – With 3DTV in the home rapidly becoming a reality, a new Oxfordshire-based start-up, InHalE, is planning to revolutionise home entertainment by introducing radical new Smell-D™ technology at this month’s NAB 2010 show in Las Vegas. What’s more, the technology, that promises to add a whole new dimension to the home viewing experience, will be available to viewers via a simple firmware upgrade to most set-top boxes (STBs) and gaming consoles.

“In much the same way that the current developers in the broadcast and film spaces have rehabilitated 3D, so we are presenting a very 21st Century solution to the age-old problem of coordinating olfactory stimulation with entertainment,” says InHalE MD, Tristan LeNez.

LeNez is not the only one excited by the prospect, and the company hopes to announce several deals with major Hollywood Studios and international broadcasters at the show. “3D is great, of course, but to really immerse the viewer you have to make them believe they’re in the actual location, and scientific research has proved that the olfactory sense is the most powerful way of doing that.”

The technology works by passing discrete voltage increases via different parts of the STB or console’s electronics. “This is completely safe and doesn’t harm the electronics one bit,” explains LeNez. “What our researchers found was that by increasing the current minutely that flows through different parts of the unit’s printed circuit board (PCB), we could generate different olfactory experiences. A rheostat with a 0.5V increase emits a different odour, for example, to a flux capacitor with a 0.1V increase. The odours are very basic initially, but by playing ‘olfactory chords’ and triggering several at once, we’ve found that we can recreate many well-known smells, from cut grass, through to strawberries and out to a very convincing smell of burning.”

Visitors to the company’s booth at NAB will be able to experience the technology directly in sync with a specially shot new video for the classic Talking Heads’ song ‘Burning Down the House’, as well as receive a free ‘I InHalEd’ t-shirt.

Upconverting

2010-03-31T10:26:00.001+01:00

Some interesting views from Den of Geek on the 2D - 3D conversion of Clash of the Titans that, well, seems to be a bit of a porridge to say the least.

Also includes a good quote from that august purveyor of sage wisdom, Michael Bay: "Studios might be willing to sacrifice the look and use the gimmick to make $3 more a ticket, but I'm not. Avatar took four years. You can't just shit out a 3D movie."

Clash Of The Titans: 3D conversion comes in for heavy criticism - Den of Geek:

NAB - Not Attending Basically

2010-03-17T08:19:00.002Z

With all due thanks to the scores of PRs who've sent me invites to various events at NAB, I'm sorry but I'm not there this year. In fact, I'm not there every year: the simple economics of funding my own trip out there as a freelancer when every magazine has already sent their own editorial staff to cover it (and sit in front of the advertisers) simply don't stack up - especially given the amount I'm involved with IBC.

Respect though to Snell for their 'The Kahunaverse is expanding' line. I'll be watching from afar...

Grading Gear...

2010-03-02T13:04:00.001Z

An article I wrote about grading the BBC's Top Gear for High Definition magazine. Not often I get to quote AA Gill twice in the same piece. You'd think he might return the favour sometime...;-)

WELCOME | High Definition magazine

The end of advertising

2010-03-02T11:06:00.000Z

Interesting presentation to say the least...

Faster Future: Publishing possibilities now and beyond: Time to end the failed experiment of advertising

Confessions of a 3DTV skeptic

2010-02-25T11:09:00.001Z

And so we gallop relentlessly towards the 3D future. NAB is going to have stereo 3D absolutely everywhere, consumer electronics manufacturers are rushing to release sets, dedicated OB trucks are being built, broadcasters are laying plans for 3D channels, post facilities are investing with 50% of attendees at BVE saying they expect to work in 3D this year...Hell, there’s even a chance that some form of standard for TX might emerge sometime this year. And everyone is pointing to the Brobdingnagian bucketloads of cash that Avatar has raked in on its 3D screens and congratulating themselves on picking the wave early and riding it over the breakers to the shore.

I confess I have a bit of a problem with this. First of, it’s too technologically deterministic. You can see why the industry vendors in particular are leaping on to this – it’s a new technology that requires yet more kit to be sold to upgrade the production chain and everyone pretty much has HD capability now. But the ‘build it and they’ll come’ approach is a remarkably naïve one in a culture that tends to focus group things to within an inch of its life in so many other areas.

The fact is that there’s no real body of evidence suggesting that consumers really really want this. Or at least if there is I’m not aware of it. That 3D works in cinemas is a given, but these are controlled environments designed for immersive experiences, they are not the living rooms with all their chaos, clutter, and sleeping greyhounds littered about the place (okay that last one might just be me) that we are used to. Even at IBC last year, examining the output of the conferences suggested that the industry is divided still, with definite camps of enthusiasts and skeptics forming.

So, currently I’m firmly in the latter camp, unless anyone can prove to me otherwise. Do people really want this and, of the surveys that have been done, has the enthusiasm for the new technology overtaken the rigour of identifying genuine demand? Phone me up and ask me if I’d be interested in rocket pants and I’ll say yes immediately. Come the decision to buy them I might be a bit more worried about scorch marks...

Virtual work

2010-02-19T09:15:00.003Z

Got a fairly nice piece in this week's Broadcast about virtual studio technology. A slight poisoned chalice of a commission, in that the first person I lined up to interview told me that no-one was really using it in the UK outside of election night. Hmmmm...try getting 1300 words out of that. But examining the problems and looking at the development of the technology over the years yielded the requisite number of words in the end. Not only that, but it actually turned out to be rather interesting too.

Now delving into website copywriting again and the joy of testing SEO keywords for a week or two.

Vegas here we come

2010-02-04T18:28:00.003Z

Well, here some of us go anyway out to NAB. And probably not this particular us, despite Muse playing the Saturday night at the Mandalay.

Anyway, congrats to Tektronix for sending out the first NAB preview across my desktop. I shall happily highlight the VQNet Video Service Assurance Manager and IPM400A Network Probe wherever possible as a result.

[Update: and even more impressively, someone at Tek is sitting there monitoring such frivolous blog posts and following them up with emails. Tight operation!]

Another brief interlude...

2010-01-31T15:40:00.002Z

Off working at ISE next week and, to make up for the lack of recent activity, thought I'd stick this up - a short story written for a New Scientist competition to write something about life in the future in 350 words or under. It didn't win, but I'm still quite fond of it.

Border Point

The border point was along a quiet, non-electrified B-road in the middle of the countryside. It was secluded and there were guns. Richard held Jeanette’s hand.

“So, you want entry into Rutland?” asked the Guard.

Richard swallowed, but stuck to the plan. “Citizenship actually....Refugee status even,” he added, seeing the look on the Guard’s face.

Don’t babble, he thought to himself. Be strong. You’re the one with the power here.

He babbled.

“Look, we’ve been on the move for a year now, ever since Surrey enacted the Native Wealth Laws and threw us out because Jeanette was born in Kent. We work where we can – we work hard, we’re science teachers – but no-one wants us. Lincolnshire has given us a five-day transit visa but it runs out today and if we’re caught we’ll be Interned.

“And,” he concluded in a whisper,” I can’t let that happen.”

They stepped off the road to let an oil-burner go past. Richard coughed from the stench of its exhaust. There had even been a driver behind the wheel. What sort of Godforsaken backwater was this?

“Look, mate,” said the Guard. “There’s not a lot I can do. Unless, of course, you have special reasons for me to look into your case...”

He left the sentence hanging. Richard sighed.

“Bananas?” said the Guard. “Tea? Coffee? We’re landlocked here and trade negotiations aren’t going well.”

“I’m sorry,” said Richard. “We’ve given away everything just to get here.”

The Guard leaned in and whispered earnestly. “Can you fight? It’s starting to look mean over Leicestershire way.”

Richard shook his head.

“Well, then, be off with you,” the Guard shouted. “We have no use for your type here.”

“But where can we go? We’ve tried all the borders!”

“Have you tried the sea?” the Guard sneered, and stalked off.

Richard went to leave and reached for Jeanette’s hand, but she took a step forwards.

“I can show you how to make mustard gas,” she said.

The Guard turned.

Today's tasks

2010-01-19T11:36:00.002Z

1. Update blog (man, that was easy)
2. Sort out TVBe email
3. Sort out BVE email. Actually, perhaps even get ahead and sort out two BVE emails
4. Deal with facetious PR people
5. Check over Broadcast 5.1 feature
6. Go see Wolfmother
7. Really get to grips with Liferay CMS this time round
8. Walk dog/buy food/cook/remember to breathe etc.
9. Amend list of recommended PRs (see 4)

12 Trends to Watch in 2010

2010-01-14T08:12:00.000Z

The Electronic Frontier Foundation's list of a dozen things that could affect electronic civil liberties in 2010...

12 Trends to Watch in 2010 | Electronic Frontier Foundation

Meanwhile...

2010-01-03T09:44:00.002Z

It has come to my attention that, after a two week layoff, tomorrow is Monday the 4th of January and it's time to start being economically productive again.

So, today = copious cups of tea and looking out the window at the birds, listening to the cricket from Cape Town and wondering if it's going to snow again later.

Tomorrow = steadily increasing amounts of judicious panic while listening to the cricket from Cape Town. It's going to be a busy January...

It's patently obvious

2009-12-30T09:07:00.001Z

According to the New York Daily News, patent analysis by Thomson and Reuters points to a real upswing in patents related to 3D viewing. Now, whether this in turn means that the technology is a definite winner is, of course, a bit more contested. But the effort is certainly there...

"* 3-D TV in Your Living Room: It will only be a matter of time before you can enjoy 3-D television programs from your couch. From 2003 to 2008, patent activity in the 3-D television space grew by 69%. Breakthrough new technologies include lenticular lenses, which create a more natural 3-D viewing experience without the need for special glasses.

* Capture Moments With 3-D Photos: 3-D photographic technology is also on the rise; it grew by 57% from 2003 to 2009 as the digital camera industry works to combat declines in other areas.

* 3-D Glasses Are Big Business: A great deal of 3-D cinema innovation has less to do with movie production than it does with ancillary products. From 2003 to 2008, patent activity in the 3-D cinema space grew by 45%. Areas receiving the most attention include: projection systems, specialized glasses, cleaning apparatus and registration systems for glasses."

More (and a distressing habit of spelling 3D as 3-D) here.

And so...Xmas

2009-12-18T16:16:00.004Z

Well, not yet. But if you're tried to get anyone in the broadcast industry on the phone or raise them via email today, you'll know that Xmas has started early this year - about a week early. It's Friday the 18th of December, and everyone is either snow-bound and at home or down the pub.

Might as well join them. Peeking through the looking-glass to January, 2010's looking manic.

An imprefect science

2009-12-07T08:12:00.002Z

Fascinating insight into how things can go wrong in the broadcast chain from the BBC's tech guru, Andy Quested.

Yes, Doctor Who should have been in 5.1! Something the dubbing mixer pointed out quite forcefully on the Monday morning after transmission. Before he contacted me I had discovered the programme was only in stereo on the server but the delivered tape had the full surround audio. After a bit of investigation we discovered someone had routed one of the server ingest video tape players to another area and changed the audio replay options to a non-standard mode. When the machine was routed back to its normal role the audio set-up was not reset and the next programme in the stack for loading was Doctor Who."

[And yes, 'imprefect' was a joke]

More at the source. BBC - BBC Internet Blog: The Hitchhiker's Guide to Encoding: Before we start

BBC admits HDTV is being squeezed - Rapid TV News

2009-11-30T08:33:00.000Z

Chris Forrester at Rapid TV News with more on the BBC HD bitrate problems

BBC admits HDTV is being squeezed - Rapid TV News: "The BBC's Roly Keating, formally the Controller of BBC 2 but now the broadcaster's head of archive content, has confirmed that the BBC has cut back its HDTV transmission bit-rate by almost 40%."

Incoming news

2009-11-22T10:24:00.001Z

A busy old time, with most of the stuff posted about on 12 November still ongoing. Plus there's a Sony press conference on Wednesday that the company's been trailing for a month or two now which promises news that will redefine the word 'significant'. Well, maybe not, but it does promise not to be run of the mill at least...

BBC turns wick down

2009-11-13T08:48:00.000Z

Chris Forrester on trouble at t'mill.

BBC cuts HDTV bit-rate - Rapid TV News: "Now we know why the BBC’s HDTV images are suffering. Ordinary viewers have been complaining about the BBC’s picture quality, and there’s little doubt amongst the industry’s ‘golden eyes’ that the bit-rate spigot is being tightened."

Current projects on the boil

2009-11-12T16:13:00.003Z

Quick round up on what's keeping the iMac humming

Broadcast - OB year-end round-up feature

ISE Daily - Working on preshow news

Sony - Corporate case study

Project X - Sorry, if I told you I'd have to kill you. But suffice to say it's webby.

Misc - Couple of press releases for various clients

And before I wrote all that down I was thinking it was a quiet month so far!

Foursquare - 5 x 5?

2009-11-09T08:27:00.001Z

Feel really quite torn by this. On one hand, being someone of a fairly geographic and map-oriented persuasion, being able to geographically track my friends and my life is immensely appealing. On the other though, at what point do you stop experiencing the world fully unless it's foursquared, facebooked or tweeted - nevermind the privacy issues.

It's the consumption of tourist spaces by photographs taken to the next level. The experiential nature of being somewhere has to be validated with evidence which, as it moves towards the realtime web, means that that validation inevitably dilutes the actual experience of being there.

As to foursquare, no iPhone and working from home kind of puts the mockers on that, but I do kind of wonder for how long.

foursquare

HD helps drive Sky

2009-10-23T08:53:00.001+01:00

Helped no doubt by slashing the price of a Sky+ HD box from £150 to £49, Sky has added 287,000 subscribers on the HD side of things, a threefold increase on the prior year, to reach a total of 1.6 million households.

Other relevant figures: a first quarter pre-tax profit of £279m; the broadcaster now has 9.5 million customers for the first time in its history; and on the downside, churn rose to 11.3% from 9.9% in the previous quarter after it hiked direct-to-home subscriptions.

More here

Nailing jelly to the wall

2009-10-22T14:05:00.003+01:00

Finally back in the work groove again. Can't complain too much as the disruption was caused by a wonderful holiday to Greece (details here) and then a trip to Paris with Sony for the unveiling of the PDW-350 and the EX1R.

Now catching up on some case study writing for various corporate clients including Evolutions, VMI and SaDIE. Oh, and then there's that potential Radio 4 play that's languishing somewhere at the start of the second act...

The Tamiflu Kid

2009-09-23T14:05:00.003+01:00

And so the post-IBC lurgy manages to turn into full-on swine flu. Not pleasant, especially with the deadlines really starting to bite. Still, not as bad as the year the immortal Scott Lehane, the Hunter S Thompson of broadcast industry journalism and a good friend and colleague, came back from Amsterdam with Legionnaire's Disease...

In the meantime, the Exec Summary of the show - the first time we've published one - can be found here.

Amsterdam over

2009-09-20T08:42:00.002+01:00

So, that's IBC over with for another year. We did something like 650 stories from the showfloor all in all including the pre-print material, all of which in one way or another are available online here. Themes of the show? Stereo 3D, Loudness, the environment, iPhone apps, and the prospect of London 2012 being firmly to the fore of the marketing mix from next year on.

Bit of post-show analysis to contend with now along with a smidgeon of corporate work. Then it's off to Greece with Kate for a fortnight of general exploration, a trip that will no doubt be covered at a length that some may call excruciating over on Sto(ut)opia.

August went where exactly?

2009-09-04T09:44:00.004+01:00

So, another summer sacrificed on the altar that is IBC. Can't complain too much financially, but one moment it's July, the next it's autumn, and all that's happened in the interim is that it's rained a bit and England have somehow contrived to win the Ashes.

Still, in that period we've done over 500 new stories for the show, as well as numerous other bits and pieces such as the Resellers piece that's finally out in this week's Broadcast (which you can read here).

IBC itself starts in a week exactly. Will be Tweeting from the show via the IBCDaily09 account. See you at the RAI...

Head down for IBC

2009-07-21T11:12:00.003+01:00

Finished processing the news stories for this year's IBC Daily, and now at full tilt on working through the mass of material that we pre-print for the show itself, as well as its various online incarnations.

Add in a Broadcast feature on resellers, various bits and pieces of corporate work, and an unscheduled house move (landlord didn't pay the mortgage - oops) and it's a bit of a busy time all in all. Infrequent updates as and when...

2009-07-03T17:15:00.002+01:00

Been a bit of a busy few weeks and - lawks and a-lordy, wouldn't you know it - there's more to come.

Got a veritable blizzard of features that have to be completed in July plus, of course, the IBC Daily work starts in earnest this month. The first story came in from the contributing journos last week, and there's a steady trickle via the email that promises to turn into a major full-on flood any moment soon.

Ah well, at least I don't need an excuse to stay at home with the cricket on...;-)

DTG unveils 3DTV findings

2009-06-12T07:45:00.001+01:00

Much interesting stuff in the DTG's report on 3DTV. Basically, the organisation just bombarded its members with questions and collated the replies, but as always with these things, it's who you get the replies from that matters. Thus the DTG survey carries a fair bit of weight.

Quite a lot of different data to wade though, but a couple of salient points below.

Though prototype technologies exist, most (81%) agree that current systems are too immature for a successful market launch. 3DTV could, however, become a mass entertainment medium in the UK within three to five years (56% stating a timeframe), and the UK could lead the world (70%).

Most members (85%) have allocated some level of R&D budget, with most of them (64%) describing it as "very limited funding".

The business case is far from being established (only 14% agreed it had), largely due to the difficulty of forecasting consumer acceptance of an emerging technology and its potential take-up (54%), and uncertainties over the business model.

TVBEurope - DTG unveils 3DTV findings

Hollywood actors agree pay deal

2009-06-10T09:01:00.000+01:00

"The main US actors' union has agreed a deal with the major Hollywood studios after a year of acrimonious pay talks which almost led to strike action.

Members of the Screen Actors Guild voted to back a two-year deal covering films and prime-time TV shows.

The SAG said the deal raised actors' minimum pay by 3% as part of a $105m package of improvements.

But there appeared to be no significant pay increase for internet appearances - a key sticking point in the talks."

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Hollywood actors agree pay deal:

Next up - Studios, case studies and IBC

2009-06-03T12:07:00.003+01:00

A busy week with lots going on. And that's before we get to the importance of watching as much Twenty20 cricket as humanly possible!

Broadcast: a feature on the studios sector and - somewhat inevitably - how it's faring in the Tough Economic Climate (copyright all features). Also cueing something up looking at resellers and their own problems in the TEC. Might need a new acronym for that...

Case studies: working on a load for VMI and Fineline Media Finance, for VMI themselves and Bubble & Squeak respectively, everything from shoots using P2 in Malaysia to people buying cameras so that other people can gad off and do shoots in Malaysia. In a truly serendipitous manner, even have to do one story about one company for the other...

IBC: the first of the eDaily email newsletters goes out imminently. Have set up a Twitter account (http://twitter.com/ibcdaily09) to highlight what's going on. Plenty of stuff to talk about already (speakers, deals etc) and will be able to highlight exhibitor news and even drop in the odd rumour as the show gets nearer.

In a word, phew. And I thought Gordon Brown was having a busy time of it...

3D = Definite Deployment Due

2009-05-25T10:49:00.002+01:00

Having just talked to a load of OB companies for a forthcoming Broadcast feature looking at the sector, I'm starting to review my long-standing slight scepticism on the format. Everyone, it seems, is doing tests, they all say they can do it quite simply, and the only thing holding the production side of things back is the cameras.

I still think there is a way to go in two areas - home delivery and also the actual visual language of putting 3D broadcasts together - but am happy to concede that it's probably all now going to happen. When, of course, is another matter entirely...

A quick restorative

2009-05-15T13:56:00.005+01:00

Just finished a piece for Broadcast on restoration of archive material, and how the square of SD archive can be circled with the HD present (so to speak). Some interesting stuff in there...out next Thursday.

The pic above shows two versions of Price & Prejudice, with the restored and rather lovely Blu-ray version on the left.

A couple of good quotes in particular from Paul Gardner, Head of Archive at Darlow Smithson says:

“A few years ago, the requirement tended to be only 30% of SD footage allowed in a documentary for the international market. Now that’s dropped to 10%, and making historical programmes with only 10% SD is very difficult.”

Gardner won the Researcher of the Year at the recent Focal International Awards 2009 for ‘The Thriller in Manila’, a sports doc about the infamous 1975 Ali vs Frazier fight in The Philippines. “That had 50 minutes of SD archive in a 100 minute programme, and you couldn’t make it under those rules today,” he says.

Next up: a feature on OB for Broadcast, various bits and pieces of a press release nature, and the start of serious preparations for this year's IBC Daily and it's various e-shots.

NAB = Need Another Brain

2009-05-05T17:29:00.003+01:00

Well, that's NAB largely wrapped up. Just completed the last TVBe email full of news from the show and that, it seems, is that. Some good products have come out of it. AJA's Ki Pro deck was interesting, Panasonic's dedicated stereo 3D rig looked the part (and surely if 3D is going to go mainstream, it needs dedicated kit, not lashed up home-brew equipment), there were interesting onboard digital camera recorders from S.two and Convergent, and Blackmagic's UltraScope was a pretty nifty innovation as well.

All good. Nothing major or world-shattering, but good solid kit that should keep the industry ticking over while we wait for 3D to take off, super-high-massive-vision to debut, telepathic transmission to be invented (Big Brother straight to your frontal lobes! Aiee! The horror!) or whatever comes next...

In the meantime, the newsroom design piece for Broadcast comes out on Thursday. Shame the ITV newsroom pic wasn't big enough to be the lead, but it's a good piece anyway and there are some interesting points to be made in it. And it's now straight into another one for the magazine on archive restoration.

Oh, and I also had my first IBC meeting last week. Incoming!

30,186 Apples a day

2009-04-23T09:04:00.004+01:00

30,186 is how many iPods Apple sells every day of every week, 11m of them in a year. And they have contributed rather largely to the Cupertino-based company posting impressive revenue results, especially give the global financial Götterdämmerung that's currently going on.

Profits are $1.21bn, up 15% on last year on quarterly revenues of over $8bn. As for the iPhone, it managed to shift 3.7m units round the world, generating $2.2bn while it did so.

All very impressive, and even more so when you realise that Mac sales are down 3% but that the company has actually managed to increase its profit margins over the past three years - partly due to its ability to leverage its sheer size in the Flash memory purchasing market. Writing this on one of their lovely but infernally expensive machines, I'm not surprised.

NAB = Numbers Almost Bad

2009-04-22T17:33:00.004+01:00

Well the first figures are in and seem to bear up the anecdotal evidence from the showfloor that the show is definitely quieter than before. Final figures are yet to be released (massaged did someone say at the back? - cynic!) but so far seem to be around 20,000 down at a shade over 80,000. Interestingly though, overseas visitors have only fallen by about 4000 to 23,000 or thereabouts.

Monitoring the news coming out of Vegas though it's been a quiet show for products as well as visitors, with little in the way of incandescent announcements to set the world on fire. Some post stuff, some 3D stuff, some camera stuff...the theme of the show seems to be encouraging greater efficiencies out of existing tech and greater interoperability between it all. Less a Great Leap Forward and more of a What Do We Do With What We've Already Got, Eh? - and probably no bad thing because of that. Every industry needs a fallow year while it catches its breath now and then.

And IBC is already coming out fighting. Here's part of a statement the Amsterdam show released this morning, with Mike Crimp answering the questions:

How are plans for IBC2009?

Exhibition bookings for IBC2009 are still very strong. Currently we are about 10% down on the final space requirement for last year, which at this time is very good. My view is that we will have an excellent show, filling the RAI Centre, and perhaps the space available to us in the new Elicium building. Sony is the only major company at IBC2008 which has not signed up for this year.

Does that mean IBC2009 will be a smaller exhibition than last year?

We are a little smaller because many exhibitors have trimmed their stand space a little, and we fully understand why they need to do this.

Sadly, we are seeing some cancellations from companies who are struggling in the market, but these are being replaced by fresh applications. Last month we were able to allocate stands to 25 new companies, who were waiting for space in the right areas for them. It may be hard to believe but I promise it is true: new bookings are still outrunning cancellations for IBC2009. Sustainability is the keyword.

Not strictly relevant

2009-04-20T16:15:00.003+01:00

Which is why I've posted this story from New Scientist about a map generated to illustrate temporal distances from major cities worldwide on the personal site and not here. Still interesting enough to go have a look though IMHO...More here.

NAB = Not Actually Bothered

2009-04-15T16:08:00.003+01:00

Okay, so that's a slight exaggeration I admit. Part of me would love to be in Vegas for this year's show, especially to sit in on all the 3D cinema stuff that's going to be talked about out there. It is though a long and expensive way to go, as a lot of other people seem to be deciding, so I'll follow it remotely from the comfort of my own sun-kissed part of Rutland.*

In the meantime, plenty to be getting on with, including a feature for Broadcast on newsrooms which looks at how the physical layout of the places has changed with the advent of new technologies. Should be interesting...Now, if only all the people I need to talk to aren't in Vegas at the moment...

*Only slight sarcasm there...

The name's Snell. Just Snell...

2009-04-14T14:46:00.002+01:00

Pro-Bel and Snell & Wilcox have decided to move forward into the brave new broadcast future together under the name Snell. So much so simple, but the enjoyment comes from the press release accompanying said announcement, which is an entertaining masterpiece of corporate cobblers.

"At the same time the Snell name and new branding position for the company introduces the ambitious, passionate and customer-focused agenda that will define our activities in the future.”

Marvelous.

More Dwarfism

2009-04-09T09:06:00.004+01:00

Writing about Red Dwarf: Back to Earth again. Just had to do a primer for people who've never heard of it (which includes most of the US apparently. Inevitably they tried a US version full of quite bewilderingly attractive people, but the pilot never screened). Anyway, it was difficult to do without using the word 'Smeghead' once or going into the wonders of Mr Flibble. but 'twas done all the same. Now looking in a bit more detail at the vfx work. I'd post a pic, but I'd be shot if I did and then large men called Len would come round and shoot you too for having seen it. Maybe after Easter...

Now, smoke me a kipper, I'll be back by breakfast.

UPDATE: Seen the first ep and the vfx work is, indeed, rather splendid.

That April Fool release in full

2009-04-05T11:20:00.001+01:00

BBP! Introduces VFX For All

1 April 2009 – Film goers and game players will soon have a whole new way of looking at the world thanks to radical new realtime VFX sunglasses technology being introduced by Biff Bang Pow!, a new knowledge-based, satisfaction-oriented start-up based in Peterborough.

The glasses, dubbed Eye Candy, work by overlaying realtime special effects sequences over real life events. Wearers can thus add explosions to everyday events such as making a cup of tea, dinosaur rampages to mundane tasks such as popping out for lunch, or even complete alien visitations to something as simple as taking the dog for a walk.

And while it perhaps sounds gimmicky, according to company founder Tiberius J Kirk, it addresses a serious psychological need in today's Web 2.0/Film 3.0/Reality 1.0 world.

“Research is finding that people who immerse themselves in violent gaming or Hollywood blockbusters for any length of time experience profound sensory deprivation and a psychological disconnect when they decouple themselves from their media ingest and return to what we refer to as the 'normal world',” he says. “We call this Sensory Grieving. By wearing Eye Candy, however, they can augment reality, and the default setting is that the glasses 'dial down' the vfx augmentation over a couple of days. For example, explosions become smaller, dinosaurs turn from raptors to vegetarians, and aliens come in peace rather than wanting to take over the world and enslave humanity as a food source. After a couple of days, when they have been parachuted back to the so-called 'normal world' with a soft landing, they can then remove the glasses and get on with their lives without experiencing any residual trauma.”

The glasses, which also feature ear buds for realtime soundtrack delivery, are powered by sept-core processors and the latest generation Graphics Processing Units, which, along with batteries, are carried along in a separate backpack. Glasses and backpack send and receive data via Bluetooth, and a handbag model for fashion-concious female wearers is also in development.

Interest in the glasses is widespread and not just confined to the entertainment community. “We have even had calls from religious groups who want to be able to use the technology to pixellate out body parts so that their members can walk along beaches without fear of seeing something sinful,” says Kirk.

The Eye Candy glasses will go on sale this Summer. Pricing to be announced.

Vegas here we come?

2009-04-03T19:00:00.004+01:00

That's the first of the NAB previews finished. It'll be interesting to see how many actually go out to Vegas this year. Numbers were down last year already - albeit by a mere few thousand - and, of course, the economy has driven a long way off a very tall cliff since then.

One aspect of all this a few people have commented on is that it could herald the growth of the local show. Broadcast Video Expo was quite a lively little event back in February, and the feeling is that smaller, local shows with associated lower travel costs, could be the way forward in straitened times.

27,000 overseas visitors went out to NAB last year. Bets on it being under 20,000 this year?

Sony projector success

2009-04-02T08:26:00.002+01:00

Quite a big story from the States: the AMC cinema chain has just ordered a rather large amount of Sony 4K projectors for its theatres and is paying $315m for the privilege.

Important because a) it brings Sony almost level with TI (5000 projectors as opposed to TI's installed base of 5500) and b) it gives 4k production a real boost. There will probably be a c) and a d) too - perhaps time to try and line up an interview with someone there...

Sony to Install Digital Projectors in AMC Theaters - NYTimes.com

Mid-Week Humping

2009-04-01T12:52:00.002+01:00

After a few diverse shenanigans involving a dog that went through rather than over a fence while chasing a small deer and subsequent visits to the vet, back in the work groove. An NAB preview is taking most of the waking hours, with a couple of press releases zipping in for urgent attention along the way.

Sunday overtime

2009-03-29T10:34:00.006+01:00

Up hideously early considering the clocks went forward to watch the Australian Grand Prix and, with an empty house and all the chores done, am fiddling about with bits and pieces of work. Part of that means trying to get together the material for this year's April Fool press release. Last year's, about a start-up company that had developed a new 8D system, got published in quite a few place (including here and here), so it's going to be a challenge to top that.

Brand on the run

2009-03-25T17:43:00.002Z

Latest TVB-e newsletter will hit desktops tomorrow. Got some good stories in it, including a rather innovative new product from Pixel Power called BrandManager which integrates a complete master control switcher with broadcast graphics for channel branding purposes. Clever stuff.

Wild at Heart

2009-03-24T14:09:00.002Z

Trying to set up an interview with Anthony Geffen, the Director of The Wildest Dream. Film looks like it could be a good 'un...

NAB - what goes up...

2009-03-23T12:43:00.003Z

Starting work on a piece for Broadcast looking at the upcoming NAB show in Vegas. Plenty of products about to be launched there, but will there be anyone there to see them? It's almost an old Buddhist koan: if a brand new camera is launched to an empty press conference, does it make any noise?

Preview finished

2009-03-18T22:45:00.000Z

Just looked at the final proofs of Fineline Media Finance's Preview magazine, which I just wrote with Sadie at Bubble & Squeak. Good issue, with a nice piece on the RED camera in the UK kicking it all off. Previous issues (and the current one soon) here.

Small ones are more juicy

2009-03-18T19:40:00.001Z

Finished a piece for Broadcast on cameras and miniaturisation - should be published on 26/03/09.