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Distribution Item of Interest

Worried about loss of iDVD from iLife?

Worried about (possible) loss of iDVD? http://bit.ly/9hiYvg

iDVD – the DVD burning part of iLife is, according to rumors, likely to be dropped from the iLife 11 package supposedly in development. In it’s place an unannounced mystery application.

Just how important is iDVD – well at the bottom of the Apple Blog article linked above, is a survey:

Daily 3.3% (20 votes)

Once a week 4.6% (28 votes)

Once a month 11.2% (68 votes)

Every few months 25.3%(154 votes)

Once a year 27.1% (165 votes)

I’ve never used it. 28.5%(173 votes)

Total of 608 votes at that point.

I wasn’t sure exactly where to place my vote. I’ve used it exactly once in five years. To do a slideshow!

Categories
Item of Interest

San Francisco firm to buy Grass Valley Group

RT @walterbiscardi: San Francisco firm to buy Grass Valley Group | TheUnion.com – http://tinyurl.com/26fw9zw

Interesting move to buy Grass Valley out from French-owned Technicolor (Thompson). I didn’t realize there were so many parts to Grass Valley.

The binding offer from Francisco Partners is for 100 percent ownership of the current Grass Valley Broadcast & Professional business, which would operate as “Grass Valley” going forward. This includes the camera, content repurposing, editing, master control, modular, news production, production automation, routing, servers, storage, and switching product lines including their entire product portfolios, the R&D centers and factories around the world, the Sales & Systems activities and Customer Support organization worldwide, as well as the management and administrative support functions dedicated to the business. This business perimeter and associated product lines for which the offer was made by Francisco Partners represent the core of what the market historically knows as Grass Valley products.

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Distribution Item of Interest Monetizing

Yes Men Make $11,000 on first weekend of P2P release.

Yes Men Make $11,000 on First Weekend of P2P Release http://bit.ly/aEP04J

By asking for donations while distributing the film The Yes Men Fix The World the Yes Men are bringing in “about $500 an hour” now.

For the Yes Men, that tipping point could actually come sooner than later. The duo has already said that it will definitely publish its next movie on file-sharing sites again to give back to people who finance its production with their donations. But Bonanno said that they could also change their mind on other distribution methods, like theatrical releases or TV deals, depending on how much money the current donation campaign will bring in.

Just shows that there are many different ways to distribute and fund a movie.

Categories
Item of Interest

MXF -a progress report

MXF -a progress report http://bit.ly/aBR3UC

MSF media is commonly used and read. Know what it’s about.

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Item of Interest

Announcing The Terence and Philip show

Announcing The Terence and Philip Show http://bit.ly/b9E8Yg

Terry Curren and Philip Hodgetts bring their not-politically-correct opinions on Avid, Adobe, Apple, post production, production, distribution and pretty much anything they want to talk about.

The show has no fixed duration or schedule, taking the form of a free-form discussion between the hosts, who bring their years of industry knowledge to the discussion.

If you remember back to when I hosted the Digital Production BuZZ and the last segment – the BuZZ in Depth officially – that Michael Horton generally referred to as “the rant”, then this is kind of like that but with Terry Curren’s perspective as well. For any of you that don’t know Terry:

Terence Curren has had a passion for filmed entertainment since the age of 12, when he began creating home movies with an old eight-millimeter camera.

He began his career in the early 1980s by directing, editing and producing music videos and a direct-to-video feature film. In 1986, he spearheaded the evolution of a major post-production facility’s edit bays, where he became senior editor in short order. His reviews and tutorials of emerging post technologies have appeared in Post, DV Magazine and other publications.

His extensive knowledge of the Avid along with his rich editorial and color-correction experience, has earned him the recognition of his peers and a legion of loyal clients.

And if you like the new show, thank Keith Larsen who first came up with the idea and name of the show. If you don’t like it, you know who to blame!

The new show has no connection with the Digital Production BuZZ. I will continue to contribute there as and when Larry Jordan would like me to.

Categories
Item of Interest

CloudCanvas HTML5 Image Creation and Editing tool.

CloudCanvas Launches HTML5 Image Creation And Editing Suite http://tcrn.ch/dkuE6P

While Adobe have given some indication that it’s moving to provide the creation tools for HTML5, with their Lab project add-on to Dreamweaver for HTML5, the addition of a competing comprehensive tool is good news for the HTML5 ecosystem and long term prospects for even more widespread adoption. More interestingly this is a browser-based “cloud” application.

CloudCanvas allows both novice doodlers and expert designers to create, store, edit and embed images into the suite. The suite, which supports both vector and bitmap images, includes a standard roster of simple image tools similar to offline image editing suites (i.e. Photoshop), including polygons, circles, painting, layers, brushes and others. And the suite includes more advanced editing tools such as bezier curves, blurring, drop shadow and bevel filters.

Additionally, CloudCanvas is integrated with Google Images search and DeviantArt libraries to import images into the suite and includes over 30,000 clipart and templates within the suite. The suite also includes 500 fonts ready to use on the web and support saving in PNG and SVG formats

Categories
Distribution Item of Interest

YouTube testing hybrid HTML5/Flash Embeds

YouTube testing hybrid HTML5/Flash embeds http://bit.ly/9Gxsdr

Just another data point along the way but it does seem Flash is slowly falling out of favor. Vimeo added HTML 5 support in January and pretty much every content distribution network now has support for HTML5 as well as Flash. YouTube’s owner, Google, is one of the major HTML5 proponents.

Since launching its HTML5 player, YouTube has offered a similar viewing experience on its own site, though the convenience was not carried out to embedded videos. Instead, these linked to the clip in an Adobe Flash wrapper, which mobile devices like the iPhone and Android could identify and re-route to the source clip, but browsers without that logic built-in would see nothing at all. The new code fixes that.

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Business & Marketing Item of Interest

Amanda Palmer Sells $15,000 of music and merchandize in 3 minutes.

Amanda Palmer Sells $15,000 Worth Of Music & Merch In Three Minutes http://bit.ly/aSX730

Amanda Palmer, recently dropped by her record label to her great pleasure, has been experimenting with different revenue models to fund her music. (Note I didn’t say “selling her music”.) She’s a big believer in the Techdirt formula of Connect with Fans and give them a Reason to Buy (something) and you have profit. Or at least a decent income for the work of making music.

From our view here at Bandcamp HQ, yesterday’s launch of Amanda Palmer Performs the Popular Hits of Radiohead on Her Magical Ukulele less resembled a record release than a coordinated strike of ravenous piranha. In one three minute period, her fanbase snapped up $15,000 in music and merch. It didn’t let up much from there: 4,000 digital EPs were sold, the vinyl sold out, most of the high end packages disappeared in minutes, and at the time of this writing, it looks like every other package will be gone in a matter of days

Different options giving fans different places to connect, including a “pay what you like” option. The money is there but artists have to “think different”. Remember, if you have 1000 real fans, who can be provided with something of $10 value a month (on average) in music, merchandise, tickets or participation, then that’s a comfortable $120K a year.

Categories
Item of Interest

What a reason to buy!

What a reason to buy”! http://bit.ly/bThyDa

I think I’ve mentioned here before of Techdirt’s CwF+RtB=profit where Connect with Fans who you give a reason to buy (something, not necessarily the media) is the modern secret to profiting from creative endeavors.

Well Indian cricket star Shirshendu Mandal is writing a book that has a special edition, for only $75,000, has one page that is partly printed with his blood. So far 10 people have signed up, which makes the income a whole lot better than the average publisher’s advance!

An odd ‘reason to buy’ and probably another in the “gimmick” category (brilliant but wouldn’t work for everyone) but it shows creativity.

Categories
3D Item of Interest

New technology allows users to “feel” 3D images.

New technology allows users to literally “feel” 3D images http://bit.ly/dvgjSd

Quite possibly the early days of the Star Trek ‘holodeck’:

The key piece of technology is a special touch sensor that emits feedback to the user’s hand and is able to manipulate it into feeling like the actual object that is being displayed. The 3D images themselves, though, can be projected on something as ordinary as a Samsung 3D TV.

It’s still a long way from visible light beings that have solid form, but I imagine the sensation is more real – even with goggles – than regular 3D.

Still, I have to contemplate the thought that the most likely initial use of this technology will be for more baser pursuits.