Macleans has a new piece about the television industry’s new found fear of file traders. Further discussion on Slashdot. One interesting point there is that the average show season is comprised of less than five hours of programming, i.e. is small enough to share pretty easily. Television networks don’t appear to have learned much from [...]
The Digital Video Preservation Reformatting Project offers tremendous insight into the best approaches to digitizing video. The report compares different standards (including MPEG-2, MPEG-4, JPEG2000) and commercial offerings (including Windows Media, RealMedia, and QuickTime), and analyzes them in several ways, including in terms of human perceptual ability. Funded by the Mellon Foundation, and conducted by [...]
Though its mission is to be “more responsive to the media,” the Coalition Force Land Component Command for Operations Iraqi and Enduring Freedom’s Digital Video and Imagery Distribution System (DVIDS) of the US Army effectively routes around established broadcast networks by providing watchable video of events in Iraq, Kuwait, and Afghanistan to anyone with a [...]
There’s an interesting discussion on Slashdot about the best way to capture HDTV broadcasts off air. Useful for archivists planning to build their own off-air recording systems.
Wired is reporting that “the Senate might vote on HR2391, the Intellectual Property Protection Act, a comprehensive bill that opponents charge could make many users of peer-to-peer networks, digital-music players and other products criminally liable for copyright infringement. The bill would also undo centuries of “fair use” — the principle that gives Americans the right [...]
Keepers of the Moving Image has additional coverage of the AMIA conference.
Just back from the annual conference of the Association of Moving Image Archivists. What follows is an impressionistic recounting of some of the issues and themes that came up. Television. Television archiving seems to be of growing interest, in part because cheaper digitization services are making it more feasible. The Local Television Task Force released [...]
In an article on Silicon.com, Keith Little, head of IT at the BBC, says that “Scheduled broadcasting is now dying. The idea of the seven ’til nine peak schedule time is no longer relevant – technologies such as TiVo are now driving the market and we must provide content for users to watch whenever they [...]
Very interesting piece at Salon on the use of digital video equipment and archival footage to quickly produce new documentaries. Also has a useful set of links for would be documentary makers. “Documentaries may soon become as ubiquitous as a voice-mail message or a phone, or any of the content elements that we use in [...]
A new report by two American University professors finds that restrictive interpretations of copyright law are distorting the films they do make and changing the kinds of films documentary filmmakers choose to make.
The Washington Post’s Leslie Walker has an article comparing Akimbo and DaveTV. Long term, the idea of providing on demand access to large video libraries is an obvious winner, but it seems both companies have a ways to go. Akimbo’s insistence that users buy a dedicated box is a discouraging move towards a locked down [...]
A partnership between WNET New York and WGBH Boston, the two largest PBS’ program suppliers; PBS; and New York University has received a $2,846,625 grant for digital archiving and preservation. Broadcasting & Cable has the details. Thanks Janet!