06.12.06
Animated Take on Avenue Q
Another fun selection from YouTube. Here’s a machinima music video of the Avenue Q
05.29.06
On Demand
I have decided I am a fan of the cable “On Demand” service. I’ve never had it until I upgraded to digital cable at my current place a few months ago. Prior to that I had basic analog cable, prior to which I had digital cable but no on demand service, and prior to that I had DirecTV which does not have On Demand since I’m not sure how you’d do that with satellite.
I’ve always been a big Tivo fan and customer, and I never felt like I was missing out without On Demand. But what I’ve realized is they’re totally separate beasts that provide complimentary entertainment functions. Tivo is great for recording arbitrary programs, pausing live TV, etc.
With On Demand I can create ad hoc TV marathons. Yesterday’s was an Entourage season two marathon, since I never saw season two and it’s almost time for season three. Tonight I introduced my roomie to the wonderful world of Deadwood, and in the process got myself all jazzed up for the upcoming new season.
I still have not gotten into watching movies from the On Demand library, so we’ll see if that prospect grows on me or if I am staisfied with simply Tivoing movies I want to watch.
02.09.06
Silent Universe: Interactive Podcast Drama
I haven’t had a chance to listen to this at all yet, but the Silent Universe is billing itself as the first interactive podcast drama. I don’t know if it’s good or not, but I mention it because it shows the power of the podcast format beyond the initial “talk radio neaveu” format that has been popular up until now.
Of course, these days I’m more fascinated by video…but there’s a lot of cross-media idea germination.
01.25.06
IPTV on DVD-RW?
As I have mentioned before, I’m pretty intrigued by the Tivo+Rocketboom deal. I think going forward this is going to be a huge change in the media landscape. Independently produced content delivered over the Internet either directly from the producer or perhaps through yet to emerge distributors. And I don’t think it will all be two man teams producing low budget entertainment. I am sure that higher budget productions will pop up once the business models are ironed out and revenues become proven.
01.24.06
Sundance Shorts
The Sundance film festival has made a number of shorts available online in Flash format. Kind of cool.
Tags: Sundance
01.22.06
Online Magazine Publishing
As I have written here before, I’m trying to get my podcast Showbiz News - Online off the ground. Of course to report the showbiz news you have to know what’s going on. So that means I have to read the trade magazines.
The problem is that I live in the Washington, DC suburbs. You can’t even get Daily Variety home delivery in the eastern Los Angeles suburbs. If I subscribed I would be getting the news days or even weeks late, which is totally pointless.
Aha, Internet to the rescue!
12.24.05
Tivo Online Stuff
I bought my Series 2 Tivo because I was interested in the Tivo Online Services package. So far this has proven to be a bit underwhelming - the streaming podcasts seems to defeat the point for me, along with the lack of a directory, and somewhat kludgey integreation with Yahoo’s Internet content.
On the other hand, the somewhat less hyped beta release of Rocketboom-on-Tivo I am very much digging. I hope they open up this platform a bit more to allow other content providers to play. I want my Diggnation and commandN on Tivo! And more importantly, I want Tivo to create an open platform for the next generation of “television” content.
12.23.05
Cool Hunting Has a Vidcast
Cool Hunting has launched a vidcast. Let’s all be sure to subscribe.
12.01.05
Tivo Online Services
So there was a story on digg that Tivo Online Services (signup page) has been officially announced. This will allow various Internet-enabled features on broadband connected Series 2 DVRs. They’ll offer Yahoo!-powered photo sharing, weather forecasts, traffic info, etc. That’s all handy, but it’s not the bombshell. The real news is that Yahoo is also integrating Live 365 streaming audio and…wait for it…podcasts into their Online Services portfolio.
11.24.05
Numark iDJ Mixer
Numark has come out with the iDJ, a new mixer for the mobile DJ. In addition to the normal line and phono inputs for CD and vinyl turntables, it has two integrated iPod docks. The one piece that it doesn’t seem to have is a pitch or tempo control for the tracks coming out of the iPod so I’m not sure how useful it would be for any live performance that requires beat matching. On the other hand, for the mobile event DJ it may work well.
Cool stuff, in any case.
