Media Paradox » Other Media Related

Power To The Node

techmanager — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 19:04:35 +0000

In the not too distant past there were plenty of arguments about whether fiber to the home was better than fiber to the home. Cable companies crowed that fiber to the home required expensive terminal equipment at each customer premise and that fiber to the node was the was the way to go. Well now I’m sitting here on Long Island with lots of power but no internet/phone/TV service. So much for those pole-mounted backup power supplies. Thinking about switching to Verizon FiOS.

Jack LaLanne – TV Pioneer

techmanager — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 13:26:05 +0000

Television pioneer Jack LaLanne has passed at the age of 96. Already well known in the Bay Area for his health spa (gym), “The Jack LaLanne Show” began in 1951 as a local program on San Francisco’s KGO-TV, and was carried nationally on ABC starting in 1959. LaLanne and his dog Happy encouraged kids (like me) to wake their moms and drag them in front of the set. His TV exercises used no special equipment, just household items like a chair and a towel.

What Is The Fate of Film ?

techmanager — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 14:30:26 +0000

Broadcasting & Cable ran a feature this week on the increased use of Digital SLR cameras to shoot parts of primetime shows along with an on-line sidebar. Along with the trend toward digital projection in theaters, things do not bode well for those who manufacture, develop and transfer film for a living.

According to B&C, one big reason for the growing popularity of DSLRs is the fact that they offer very large imaging sensors in a relatively small camera. Those big sensors provide outstanding performance in low light, a strength that has led to their extensive use in a number of popular TV shows and high-end commercials.

Your thoughts – will film become extinct? Please comment.

Next on FiOS: Holographic TV ?

techmanager — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 14:21:34 +0000

In a CNET article, Verizon CIO Shaygan Kheradpir said his company has been playing around with sending holographic images of someone’s head across its FiOS network. OK, that is a bit out of context but Kheradpir said this could be a very useful application for doctors and other medical professionals.

Verizon recently announced that it had field tested the first ever 1Gbps link to a business using Verizon’s existing FiOS infrastructure. According to CNET, Kheradpir has also been testing the 1Gbps service in his home. On a tour of his home earlier this month, he said that holography is the type of application that would require these higher speed connections.

EW Forgets “Supertrain”

techmanager — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 16:36:58 +0000

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 !

Television Causes Debt? – Perhaps Not !

techmanager — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 11:17:18 +0000

“Results indicate that television increases the tendency to borrow for household goods and to carry debt.” says the article “Television Access Linked to Household Debt” in the November 4th issue of TV Technology (available on-line here) reviewing a paper by two Hunter College economics researchers.

No PhD am I, but I do remember some things from my college research methods course. I remember there being something about controlling for external validity. In their paper, Drs. Baker and George do not appear to have controlled for the effects of increased household newspaper and magazine (think Life and Look) subscriptions. [As their data deals with the 1950's and '60s.] Perhaps printed ads in the home are not a game changer, but think about the possibility that babies cause storks.

CES Wrap-Ups

techmanager — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 16:35:15 +0000

Here are some blog summaries on how CES is morphing from just a hardware show to a harware and content show:

NewTeeVee:
CES Scorecard: What You Need to Know

Jack Myers: NBCU and Sony Transform CES to ‘Tech PLUS Content’ Convention

Shelly Palmer (via Jack Myers): Key Take-aways from CES 2008: Shelly Palmer Report

Lost Remote (Entries Tagged “CES”)

Warner Rejects HD DVD For BLU-RAY

techmanager — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 21:43:21 +0000

And one last item for today – Warner Brothers Entertainment will release its High-Definition DVD titles exclusively in the Blu-Ray format beginning in June, dropping the HD-DVD format. Read what Peter Putman had to say here.

UPDATE:

The Financial Times is reporting that “Paramount is poised to drop its support of HD DVD after Warner Brothers’ recent backing” of Blu-Ray.

Snipe Update

techmanager — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 16:31:09 +0000

Snipes have gotten soo bad that even the New York Times has devoted space to the problem.
(And see my original blog post “Woo ! Swish ! Snipe !” from February ’06.)

Why, Oh Why Can’t I ?

techmanager — Sun, 25 Mar 2007 19:05:46 +0000

This is not the blog entry I originally started to write…

I am now the proud owner of a video iPod. News junkie and uber-geek that
I am, the first videos I watched on it were newscasts.

And then I didn’t. Stupid me, I had totally forgotten that my iPod is
Mac formatted and that the computer at my current gig is a PC.

When I recently replaced my first generation iPod, I just had to get the
video model because I wanted to watch that day’s ABC World News podcast
and the Fox News Flashes on my commuter rail journey home. Fourty-five
minutes of just my iPod and my noise canceling headphones, completely
oblivious to the jerks talking too loud on their cellphones. (I have a
special playlist of songs with lots of high frequency sounds that I turn
up to earsplitting volume when I sit next to the worst walkie-talkie
mode offenders. I’m beginning to loose my hearing anyway, so I get great
pleasure in counter-annoying.)

So there I was on my first workday with my new gadget, and I plug it in
to my desktop and iTunes politely asks if I want to re-format it. No,
duh! So I walk it around the corner to the Art Director’s office (who
had already left) and logged in to my account on her Mac. Downloaded the
World News Webcast, plugged-in my iPod, and “This file type cannot be
played on this device.” Now, although that was just a file type format
blunder, that only happens occisionally (and whose fault – ABC or
Apple), needless to say I have still not watched a same-day video
podcast yet. After all, I’m already late for the train. Who has time to
download podcasts in someone else’s office? If Macs can read and make PC
formatted CD-ROMs, why can’t iTunes read and write to Mac and PC
formatted iPods?