Is Verizon Smoking Crack Again?

01/31/2005 - 09:05 PM >> Tech & Society, Wireless

image Verizon announced today that they will be introducing music video downloads on their new cell phones. Certainly with the success that downloading ringtones has brought to cell carriers this seems like a logical move. That is until you read about halfway through the press release cum Reuters news article:

Verizon, the first to offer U.S. video services to mobile phones with data speeds similar to home computers, will charge $3.99 for each music video download on top of the $15 a month it plans to charge for V Cast.

Let’s do the math: to download one music video will cost you a minimum of $20 (not to mention the purchase of a snazzy $200 phone to play the videos). Now we understand that everyone wants to become the next iTunes Music Store but Apple has a great product at a great price ($1) with no monthly subscription. I just can’t see people tripping over themselves to pay $4 for a music video that only plays on a tiny, crappy cell phone screen.

Maybe teenagers today have a lot more of an allowance than I ever had as a kid. If I had twenty bucks to spare in my disposable income I certainly wouldn’t spend it on this, would you?

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The Death of Controlled Distribution

01/29/2005 - 07:27 PM >> Hack the Planet, Tech & Society, The Digital Revolution

Greetings from Las Vegas. BigBrainBoy is currently sitting 27 stories up staring at the multiple jumbotrons on the strip completely mesmerized…

In this zen state of massive display overload an interesting thought popped up: Who controls what is released? When it is released? Where it is released? These are the questions that have dominated and shaped the structure of all modern mass media. Take for example region coding of DVDs (and now even of printer cartridges). Of course this interwebs thing came along and any schmoe with a camera and an internet connection can distribute anything, anytime and anywhere.

One good example of this is the viral ad that I alluded to in an earlier post. Today VW announced that they have filed suit against the “unknown” creators of the ad.

Company spokesman Hartwig von Sass said VW lodged a criminal complaint with prosecutors in Brunswick, Germany, but did not specify a perpetrator. “This is an attack on Volkswagen’s good name,” he said of the ad, which he called cynical and criminal.

He could not say who made the film or with what aim.

The article goes on to state the widely reported identity is the “Lee and Dan” team in the UK which claim that they created the ad for their demo reel and had no intention of widespread distribution. And herein lies the rub: any item once placed on the ‘net can become available to tens of millions instantly. Sometimes a random screencap from CNN gets featured on a few prominent blogs and a random server is overwhelmed by the massive influx of traffic. Not that we would know anything about that…

So while Lee and Dan may have created the ad with small scale expectations its important to keep in mind that in the internet age there is no small thing as a small player.

Jeff Jarvis has his always interesting take on the lawsuit.

Joi Ito mentions it as well…

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Why Not Search Video Like Text?

01/28/2005 - 06:45 AM >> Copyfight, Death of TV, The Digital Revolution

Everyone is probably thinking that the crew over here at BigBrainBoy are Google fanatics (which we’ll grudgingly admit we are). Be that as it may, the new Google video search is an interesting approach to TV. However, Google was not the first to embark on such a project. Just last month Yahoo! had already launched its video search.

Google’s video searches are basically digging through TV transcripts of programs and as of now no streaming video of any kind is provided. This is not because the technology isn’t available: once again its litigation killing off innovation as this CNET article points out:

For now, people will not be able to watch the video clip, nor will the Web pages contain the company’s signature text advertising. But Google expects to add video playback down the road, after ironing out the complexities of broadcasting rights and business models with various content owners.

Yahoo’s search also includes movies found on the net which can be watched online. So go ahead and look for your favorite clips, just be sure to notice the little gray warning under every link in the Yahoo! search: “This video may be subject to copyright.” Oh no! I wouldn’t dream of clicking on that Spiderman 2 link you just showed me…

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Mobile Movies in your Pocket?

01/26/2005 - 07:22 PM >> Future Formats, Tech Trends, Wireless

imageUnless you’ve been living under a rock (or perhaps stumbling around Sundance drunk) you must have heard all the hype about 2005 being the year of the cell phone. The BBC has a cute piece on yet another video-on-cellphone project: Fox’s “24.” Noting how people don’t really have the patience to watch video on a tiny handset for a long period of time, Fox is splitting episodes into 60 second bites. The BBC shivers with excitement in claiming:

So a new form of video is being devised. Just as radio and then television spawned new genres of drama so will video phones.

Let’s not get too excited folks, perhaps our British friends have forgotten Edison’s ”Kinetoscope“ that played short films lasting mere seconds on index cards in the 1890’s? Frankly, I know that there is only one form of video that will succeed on cellphones: those short videos of suicide bombers driving shiny new VWs. Or maybe you can use the video recording feature on your shiny new cellphone to get yourself and your high-school girlfriend in some real trouble.

But the fun doesn’t stop there. The BBC pauses for a moment to note that there is a tiny little snag in its “new medium” hyperbole:

Television companies usually own the dramas they’ve made, so simply putting them on new broadcasting outlets like mobile phones causes legal difficulties.

Contracts have to be renegotiated. Accordingly, the phone version of “24” will be re-shot with a new cast.

That’s right folks, they’re turning your cellphone into a display for re-runs that are so low-budget that they can’t afford the original material. I’m sure you can hardly wait.

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The Sad, Sad Face of Modern “Journalism”

01/26/2005 - 12:07 PM >> Death of TV, Hack the Planet

My friend James snapped this quick photo and emailed it to me with the following:

Not much to be said here. This does rule out the terrifying possibility of an unkillable zombie Bin Laden though. Does anyone know how to become an ‘expert’ for the news media? Seems like an easy job.

Perhaps journalists have figured out the ultimate way to become objective: cover all possible bases and consider every angle no matter how unlikely. Perhaps this is CNN’s new approach after cancelling shows like “Crossfire” where ‘experts’ constantly disagreed. It is nice to see all the ‘experts’ agree. CNN’s headline is true since being either dead or alive satisfies both possibilities of that boolean condition. I think this is why Dan Gilmor and others are pushing for grassroots journalism that maintains the author’s voice.

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The Death of Celluloid

01/25/2005 - 01:54 PM >> Future Formats, The Digital Revolution, Tech Trends, Wireless

Sundance is renowned for world premieres but there was a different sort of premiere taking place with the new documentary “Rize”:

PARK CITY, Utah—It was a film without film, a movie without moving parts. The premiere of Rize that took place last Saturday at a ski lodge here was a historic event—the first feature film to be delivered via wireless technology.

Wired’s article is one of many heralding the event that took place at Sundance. David LaChappelle’s documentary was shot on HD so it was already a digital production to begin with. Now it is only a matter of time before all films will come from a digital source. Say goodbye to lugging those cans around the world for distribution.

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Get Ready for Google Phone Service

01/24/2005 - 10:00 AM >> Broadband, Convergence, Tech & Society, Tech Trends

The Times Online in the UK is reporting that Google is gearing up to do battle with entrenched telecom giant BT (over 70% of UK households use BT phone lines). Regular readers of BigBrainBoy are already accustomed to unlikely companies offering unlikely services in the wild west gold rush that is broadband. Even by those standards this becomes a fascinating study in futurism because linking Google to your phone line can have dramatic implications:

Mr Hewitt said that a Google telephone service could be made to link with the Google search engine, which already conducts half of all internet inquiries made around the world. A surfer looking for a clothes retailer could simply find the web site and click on the screen to speak to the shop.

Now that earlier article we posted about Google looking for excess fiber optic capacity is starting to make some sense. Google is not coming up with new VOIP technology since according to the piece they will be rebranding Skype’s already popular phone-over-the-internet technology.

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That time of year again: DVD Screeners Debate

01/21/2005 - 03:59 PM >> Copyfight, Tech & Society

Jacob over at Yankee Fog has a fascinating entry on the DVD screeners distributed by the studios for the BAFTA awards in the UK. He provides pretty strong evidence that people who do not distribute screeners (ostensibly to prevent piracy) and those who use overbearing watermarking techniques suffer in awards voting:

Let’s take a look at the strange case of Hero versus House of Flying Daggers. The films were made several years apart, but thanks to their British release schedules, they were both eligible for this year’s BAFTAs. Both films were fantastic, but I think most people would agree with me that Hero was the better of the two. Yet after the first round of voting, House of Flying Daggers ended up shortlisted in 13 categories, including Best Picture, Best Direction, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Actress--all categories that Hero was left out of. In fact, Hero was shortlisted in only 6 categories. And after the second round of voting, House of Flying Daggers ended up with 9 nominations, and Hero was left without any. Meanwhile, Million Dollar Baby--one of the most critically acclaimed movies of the year--was shortlisted in only two categories, and ended up without a single BAFTA nomination.

How do I explain this mystery? By pointing out that BAFTA members received screener DVDs of House of Flying Daggers, and not of Hero or Million Dollar Baby. If people don’t see your film, they can’t vote for it; it’s as simple as that. Now, I cannot and do not speak for BAFTA, and maybe my fellow voting members consider House of Flying Daggers to be a better written, directed, acted, edited, shot, scored, costumed, and set-designed film than the other two. But I don’t think so.

Ultimately Jacob comes up with a maxim that everyone in the industry should remember: as soon as you treat every single person who wants to watch your film as a potential criminal you can be sure that the film industry is on its way to suffering like the music industry…

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Gov’t Still Trying to Catch Up to Broadband

01/21/2005 - 10:07 AM >> Broadband, Tech & Society

If you thought it was confusing that your cable company can now offer you phone service and your power company wants to sell you internet access just imagine what the government is dealing with:

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit previously ruled broadband from cable companies had a telecommunications component and should be subject to stricter regulations and overturned the FCC (news - web sites) action.

The government countered that the court failed to yield to the FCC’s expertise and that the decision was reasonable.

“Classifying cable modem service as a telecommunications service would drastically change the regulatory environment for cable modem service,” the U.S. government said in its brief by acting U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement.

If the appeals court decision stood, cable companies would be forced to follow pricing regulations, contribute to the universal service fund that subsidizes telephone service and face other obligations, the brief said.

While you are still trying to wrap your head around the idea that everything is a “dumb pipe” the government has more than a century of legislation treating each of these utilities as separate services governed by different laws. For example: you can buy a phone attachment to your computer to make calls via the internet but should that company be responsible for allowing you to make 9-1-1 calls?

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Display Technologies Shootout

01/20/2005 - 10:01 AM >> Future Formats

One of the things I’ve learned quickly working in post-production is how little people understand about display technologies. Have you ever put your heart and soul into a project, tweaking everything so it looks just right only to be crushed when you see it on someone else’s screen? Clients come in here all the time wanting their projects to have a certain look but inevitably we run into the disaster that is multiple display technologies.

There are so many out there now that the acronyms alone are enough to intimidate people. ExtremeTech has done a nice “shootout” between all the various contenders explaining the strengths and weaknesses of each one. So next time you hand me a project I’ll expect you to understand that I can’t make it look the same on your fancy 62” PDP 1080P HD display as it does on your grandma’s 13” SD CRT. Got it?

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