Comcast – Your 3D Source ?

Comcast SVP Derek Harrar wants you to know that Comcast, not DirecTV, will be the place to go for 3D TV content in 2010 according to this article from Multichannel News. (And this press release.) Harrar said that Comcast lead they way with Hannah Montana: The Movie in 2008 and followed-up with My Bloody Valentine, Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience and Coraline, all offered in the anaglyph 3D format.

Cheap Thrills, uh – Tools

Two things caught my eye today. First – the value of a good cheap chroma key background along with inexpensive keying software = interesting results. (Thanks to Philip Hodgetts.)

The second is cheap animation software. See a PG-13 example here. (Warning: cuss words!)

EW Forgets “Supertrain”

In the January 29th issue of Entertainment Weekly there is an article “TV’s 50 Biggest Bombs Ever”. (Sorry, it’s only in the print edition.) Well it looks like there is no one over the age of thirty at EW, because they left out NBC’s Supertrain, one of TV’s most expensive bombs ever !

5 Big Moves In Hyper-Local News

Andria Krewson in MediaShift writes that big changes have been happening in the online hyper-local news world. Here are the five biggest:

• Datasphere Raised $10.8 Million
• Outside.In Raised $7 Million
• U.S. Local Partnered With L.A. Times
• The New York Times Partnered With CUNY
• Patch.Com Expanded Their Recruiting

CNN: Do You Have a Picture of the Pain ?

Even I had to turn off the TV yesterday when CNN repeatedly showed pictures of an eleven year old girl trapped in the rubble in Haiti.

Newsday’s Verne Gay wrote: “If any individual story set the tone – and established a threshold of horror – for TV’s coverage of the Haitian disaster, it may have been one by CNN’s Ivan Watson Thursday afternoon. Reporting the rescue effort of an 11-year-old girl trapped in the rubble, her cries of agony clearly audible, he paused and suggested that even his own network might want to bail out at that point: A man had just pulled the body part of a person who was right next to the girl.”

Just because we have anchors and BGANs and Skype doesn’t mean that we have to show all of the horror that is this quake.

Second 3-D Truck Underway

All Mobile Video has announced that it will build a 3-D HD remote truck utilizing Sony gear. The only other 3-D truck is NEP’s Supershooter 3D, which will be used to broadcast the Feb. 25th Harlem Globetrotters game on ESPN.

The All Mobile Video unit will incorporate 3D camera rigs from 3ality Digital, while NEP’s truck uses 3D HD camera rigs from PACE.

Business At The Speed of BlackBerry

There was an article in today’s New York Times Week In Review titled “The Children of Cyberspace“. In the article, Larry Rosen, a professor of psychology at California State University, said that the newest generations, unlike their older peers, will expect an instant response from everyone they communicate with, and won’t have the patience for anything less.

We already have the 24-hour news cycle and with the addition of the ubiquitous BlackBerry, we are now approaching the 24-hour business cycle – with our bosses expecting nothing less than an immediate response to their messages.

Mobile DTV – Too Little, Too Late?

Receiving a big send-off from manufacturers at this week’s CES, free mobile digital television could either be part of broadcast TV’s salvation, or a non-starter. With so many under-30′s used to watching on their computers or downloading to their portable devices, mobile DTV may only be a big hit in soccer mom’s minivans.

(Photo: Samsung Moment Android powered phone to be used in testing Mobile DTV in Baltimore and Washington D.C.)

3-D Networks

With announcements this week from ESPN, Discovery and Direct-TV, it looks like 2010 will usher in the era of 3-D TV telecasts. (At least until everyone has a 20 megabit per second internet connection.)

Start saving for that $2,000.00 $3,500.00 3-D set !

(Click on thumbnail for link to complete New York Times graphic.)

Related:
Cnet wrap-up.
Broadcasting & Cable: 3D Reality Sets In