The President’s challenge http://t.co/g4LQL9Ss was to the tech community to “solve” the “piracy problem” in the White House’s rejection of the current form of SOPA.
But it misses the point and Nat Torkington nailed it brilliantly. I’d post the whole thing but that would not be right. It’s short, go read it.
Although I’ve shamelessly stolen the title from Joe B (@zbutcher on Twitter) I think it does represent a shift in the way we work with our source media.
Now, before I start let me be clear. I am NOT saying timecode is unimportant. I’m NOT saying that timecode is passé and suddenly irrelevant. Timecode remains incredibly important for any tape based access.
What I am saying is that text search – or phonetic search derived from text – is becoming a highly viable, and in many ways superior, way to search and find content. Timecode’s primary role was in being able to identify any given frame from a tape by tape and frame number. There’s nothing wrong with that approach, but as humans we don’t think in “reel and Timecode”, which is why text is a superior option.