Archive for November, 2004
Friday, November 26th, 2004
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 […]
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Wednesday, November 24th, 2004
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 […]
Posted in General | Comments Off on Dance Heritage Coalition’s Report on Video Preservation
Friday, November 19th, 2004
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 […]
Posted in General, Iraq War | Comments Off on US Army Routes Around Broadcast Nets
Thursday, November 18th, 2004
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.
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Tuesday, November 16th, 2004
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 […]
Posted in General | Comments Off on New Senate Bill to Criminalize Access?
Sunday, November 14th, 2004
Keepers of the Moving Image has additional coverage of the AMIA conference.
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Sunday, November 14th, 2004
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 […]
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Wednesday, November 10th, 2004
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 […]
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Friday, November 5th, 2004
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 […]
Posted in General, Articles | Comments Off on Salon on Instant Documentaries
Thursday, November 4th, 2004
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.
Posted in General, Denials, Projects | Comments Off on Report Finds Documentary Film Culture Hurt By Today’s Copyright Law
Wednesday, November 3rd, 2004
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 […]
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Tuesday, November 2nd, 2004
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!
Posted in General, Projects | Comments Off on $3mm NDIPP Grant for Television Archiving