|
The origin of television commercials in 1938
|
Chad's "Design For Television" (1960)
Stephen Worth, director of ASIFA-Hollywood Animation
Archive says:
"Today at the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive, we
digitized a lesson on design for television written by
the cartoonist, Chad in 1960. It has amazing images
from 1950s animated commercials and examples of
vintage storyboards, from thumbnails to finished
boards.
"Chad was a Disney animator who created the very first
commercials for television way back in 1938, when
there were no more than fifty television sets in the
entire country. He was a pioneer of 'funny animal'
comics as well. He passed away last year in his
nineties.
"Another great cartoonist that more people should know
about!"
Chad Grothkopf left the Disney Studios in 1938, he was hired by NBC to create the very first commercials for television. At that time, there were approximately fifty television sets in the entire country!
THE DEVELOPMENT OF ANIMATED TV COMMERCIALS IN THE 1940s
|
Top Video Sharing Sites Reviewed
|
Digital Video Guru is running a comparison
of 10 digital video sharing sites - EyeSpot Beta, Google Video Beta,
Grouper Beta, Jumpcut Beta, OurMedia, Revver Beta, VideoEgg, Vimeo,
vSocial and YouTube. Currently, based on traffic, YouTube is the leader of the pack
(more heavily visited MSN Video does not support user-uploaded videos),
but Digital Video Guru blog awards Vimeo for fastest uploads, JumpCut
for editing, and YouTube for community features.
|
Top video sites in February 2006 |
| Site |
Audience, 000 |
YTY Change |
| MSN Video |
9,279 |
44% |
| YouTube |
9,045 |
NA |
| Google Video |
6,246 |
NA |
| iFILM |
4,336 |
102% |
| video.search.yahoo.com |
3,774 |
148% |
| Source: Nielsen//NetRatings |
|
First HD-DVD Player Goes On Sale
|
If you live in Japan, you can get your hands on the first commercially available HD-DVD player
as of today. Toshiba has launched the HD-XA1, and hopes for sales in
the next year to exceed 600,000 units. The device is set to debut in
the states in April. From the article: "The player will sell for
110,000 yen (US$936) in Japan. In that market there will also be a
cheaper player, the HD-A1, priced at $500. Toshiba said the price in
Japan is based on its expectation that video enthusiasts will be first
to adopt the technology, while in the United States, the prices are
aimed more at average consumers who are more price conscious.
|
IPTV Provider Akimbo Joins with AT&T
|
TechWeb is reporting that in a recent deal AT&T has teamed up with Akimbo Systems to bring internet-based video-on-demand services to customers as early as this summer. From the article: "The
AT&T Homezone service, being trialed within several states,
integrates AT&T Yahoo! high-speed Internet and AT&T DISH
Network programming. The service provides video on demand, digital
video, and Internet content, such as photos and music through a set-top
box." AT&T and Akimbo have also both issued press releases with a few more specifics.
|
Porn Industry Trials Burnable DVDs
|
The LA Times has an article discussing porn giant Vivid following the likes of King Kong in allowing users to download and burn movies to DVD. Unlike in the Hollywood plan, these DVDs will be viewable on other DVD players." From the article: "Despite
their obvious differences, adult and mainstream entertainment companies
face similar pressures in the Internet age. Both are grappling with how
to deliver content securely and reliably to devices in a variety of
ways, whether it's prepackaged on DVD for TVs or sent wirelessly to
cellphones. Both also want to capitalize on digital delivery methods
but can't afford to undercut their retail partners: big-box stores such
as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. for the major studios and mom-and-pop video
shops for the porn producers. They also fear online piracy, which the
music industry partly blames for its lackluster sales.
|
Free Net TV Threatens Telecoms
|
C|Net's running an article about the threat free television on the internet poses to traditional telecoms and cable companies." From the article: "No
one is expecting Internet television to cannibalize traditional TV
models overnight. Despite advancements in streaming technology, video
delivered on the Web can still be choppy, with frequent interruptions
as data packets buffer and reload on the screen. In fact many viewers
who watched the NCAA tournament aired by CBS on the Internet last month
complained about the network being overloaded.
We're eating out of the hands of a few select companies and with television over the internet, the fact is that we might not have to.
From Slashdot:
Chancer asks: "I work for a very well
known company specializing in Game Engine Middleware. Recently we've
been trying to gather together marketing material for some new
products, and one step towards that end is capturing high resolution
gameplay footage (1280x1024) into some kind of movie file for editing.
According to the 'experts', the best solution is to scan convert the
DVI out into HDTV 1080p, and then HD capture it back into another PC
for editing. Surely all this conversion to 'broadcast' quality is
pointless - has anyone come across a pure DVI capture solution?"
|
|
|
|
Video Tape Recorder Unveiled 50 Years Ago
|
50 years ago Ampex unveiled the first video tape recorder.
TV Technology has an excellent story about the surprise launch of the
video tape recorder, impacting almost every aspect of business,
entertainment, and family life as we know it today. The enabler of the
entire modern entertainment industry, the video tape recorder was was
designed by only six men, Charles Ginsburg, Charles Anderson, Ray
Dolby, Shelby Henderson, Alex Maxey, and Fred Pfost.
|
ABC Launches Full Episode Streaming
|
ABC.com has launched their free online episode streaming
service earlier today. Shows available include Lost and Alias among
others, and are available to watch for free, albeit with ads and
commercials. It works pretty well so far, although no Linux support yet
as it requires Flash 8." The first episode of Lost on there is a
clip show. You can skip around to a segment of the show, but are forced
through a commercial before you play. The quality is approximately what
you would expect from flash video.
|
Awesome Multimedia Technology Heads for KDE
|
Linux Devices is reporting on a cool new multimedia technology that's slated to be incuded in KDE 4.0. The two key components are Phonon, a central hardware configuration database said to free multimedia applications from the need to configure hardware, and NMM
(network-integrated multimedia middleware), a distributed multimedia
architecture whereby multimedia content can be readily shared among
networked devices and even 'handed over' from one device to another.
Potential NMM applications include networked multimedia home
entertainment systems, distributed and parallel media processing
applications, distributed streaming servers and services, communication
and control systems, and large-scale multimedia installations such as
video walls, according to the article, which includes some interesting
photos and diagrams. Phonon and NMM will be demonstrated at LinuxTag, May 3-6, in Wiesbaden, Germany.
|
Linux Version of Democracy Player Released
|
The Participatory Culture Foundation just released Democracy Player 0.8.2
for Linux, the first beta version for Linux. It's a free software
internet TV client with built in support for both RSS video podcasts
and downloading using BitTorrent. It can even scrape web pages for
videos. It's an excellent way to find great internet video. For
example, once you've installed Democracy, make sure to check out The
Postal Service - Such Great Heights on the Telemusicvision
channel.
|
Streaming Patent Buoys RealNetworks
|
The New York Times is reporting that RealNetworks recently received a patent
for a specific way to stream multimedia content over the internet. From the article: "The
patent, which is described as being for a 'multimedia communications
system and method for providing audio on demand to subscribers' (No.
6,985,932) View Patent here , describes the idea of permitting a PC user to play back
audio, video and other information on a PC. RealNetworks executives
said the technology was distinguished from other similar systems by the
fact that it permitted "intelligent" streaming of data in potentially
congested networks."
|
