Friday, January 30, 2009

The ultimate weakness of web video

(at least it its current incarnation)

From The Washington Post: The Day Web Video Failed Us. Erick Schonfeld writes about the travails of attempting to live stream the Presidential Inauguration. I feel his pain. I wanted to stream the Inauguration while I kept up with other tasks in my browser - multitasking is one of the killer features of web video. But I had a rough time.

Hulu (which has absolutely nailed every other aspect of online video) could barely feed me audio... I would get one or two frames and the video would stop completely.

CNN.com/Live was able to load my Facebook contacts and allow me to see status updates, but couldn't give me video.

MSNBC's player wouldn't even load.

I finally, unlike Erick Schonfeld, did manage to find success. FOX News (no comment) had a decent player that performed just fine. It stuttered about 4 times in almost an hour - not much worse than content being fed from a hard drive somewhere. As the Post says, "Right now, the Internet breaks at about one million simultaneous streams."

The reason behind this is simple: broadcast is, well, broadcast, while the internet is (by design) narrowcast. For a traditional broadcaster, having 100 viewers or having 100 million viewers makes no difference. The single broadcast requires the same effort to reach anyone within range. It scales seemlessly from 1:1 to 1:100 to 1:1,000,000 and beyond. The web is designed differently. For ever bit or byte delivered via the internet, servers have to establish a 1:1 connection. This means that 1 million viewers is 1 millions times more bandwidth-intensive than 1 viewer. Clearly it's expensive to scale to that level.

Which may be why broadcast, in some form, sticks around for a long time. The internet has succeeded brilliantly in untethering viewers from the tyranny of the majority: we watch what we want, when we want, where we want. The model breaks down we we all want to watch the same thing at the same time.

posted by Jon at 3:13 PM



Thursday, January 15, 2009

Point / Counterpoint - Blu-Ray

Two articles to share today, each taking a different side in the "Will it or Won't It?" debate regarding the survival / viability of the Blu-Ray disc format.

In the It Won't Corner: Mike Harvey writing for Times Online from CES 2009. His main point? Discs are on their last legs; digital downloads is the wave of the future, and Blu-Ray is going to get leapfrogged by the Apple TVs and Netflix[s??] of the world. It's a valid point, particularly with Netflix embedding their technology right into televisions. As bandwidth becomes broader and broader, HD downloads are going to be much more viable.

In the It Will Corner: David Carnoy writing for CNET. He posits 9 reasons why Blu-Ray will succeed, each with differing levels of persuasiveness.

Persuasive: Digital downloads will not eliminate the need for discs anytime soon. He discusses the quality issues, bandwidth issues, etc. that convince him that downloading just isn't a realistic way for viewers to access content.

Less Persuasive: Sony can't afford to have Blu-ray fail. Umm... I'm sure they said the same thing about Betamax... remember that?

And the winner is: Split Decision. I know, I know... it's anticlimactic, but the verdict is still out on this one. It's true that downloads aren't where they could be (YouTube, anyone?), but I've seen with my own eyes 720p (24fps) streamed over a broadband connection. It looked great on a 12' projector. Granted, it was a fiber-to-the-building or fiber-to-the-premises type connection, but it worked. As broadband speeds increase, streaming will become more on viable.

On the other hand, Blu-Ray faces pressure from two other sources - upconverting DVD players that look "good enough" on most TVs under 40" or so and the threat of a two-tiered internet system (or a pay-per-gigabyte structure) that makes downloading unrealistic.

As a media company, we look to Blu-Ray as the only way to distribute HD imagery to viewers. On the other hand, we haven't made a huge investment in it yet; time will tell.

posted by Jon at 5:48 PM



Thursday, January 8, 2009

Didn't see that one coming...

I have to admit - the whole DTV Feb. 17 '09 thing has always seemed a bit rosy. The transition date was pushed back... and back... and back... mostly because the industry couldn't get it's act together. The amount of equipment that had to be upgraded was intense - rooftop microwave emitters for live broadcasts from key locations, switchers, routers, transmitters, monitoring, everything. But it seemed like all the major broadcasters had actually pulled it off - this this was going to happen.

Now it seems like the new Administration is trying to get involved to delay the switch because... consumers can't get it together.

What a mess. There's certainly validity to the argument that a delay is unavoidable, but it must be rough to be the chief engineer who was ready to have a massive bonfire of aging, malfunctioning analog equipment that was being nursed to Feb. 17 with duct tape and coat hangers. Not to mention the telcos that just forked over $19 billion for the spectrum...

posted by Jon at 3:50 PM



Monday, January 5, 2009

More bad news for Broadcast & Cable

As if it weren't bad enough that hundreds of thousands of people are expected to be lost in the DTV transition on Feb. 17, now Netflix is getting its technology right on the televisions.

LG Electronics and Netflix announced today that LG would be the first manufacturer to release HDTV models that can stream Netflix content directly from the Internet without the aid of an external piece of hardware. The "Broadband HDTVs" will be available this spring in both LCD and plasma form, and they will be available on display during this week's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
This is a huge challenge for traditional broadcast and cable operations - it accelerates the creep of on-demand and non-traditional viewing patterns into the mainstream.

It will be fascinating to see how Netflix, Hulu, and other on-demand alternatives are dealt with by traditional broadcasters.

posted by Jon at 1:23 PM



Monday, December 29, 2008

New Year's Resolution: Blogging Better

It's that time of year. After gorging ourselves on cookies and ham and fruitcake (what, exactly, is fruitcake?), after buying way too many clearance-aisle tchotchkes on impulse, after sleeping until noon and spending our days doing nothing but watching hours of football (how about that West Virginia one-handed-grab!?)... we resolve to do better next year. Maybe your thing is exercising, or you're going to eat better, or maybe spend more quality time with the family. Each noble, each difficult.

Well, here's a resolution that may be a little easier to keep: blog better. (Or, if you're not blogging, start.)

I'm directing this particularly at religious leaders (pastors, clergy, etc.), because I think blogging is a nearly-ideal medium for communicating thoughts of spiritual significance. I have a hunch that if the Epistles were written today, St. Paul would be using WordPress or Blogger. Can't you just imagine II Corinthians as an exchange in the Comments section of a rather acerbic entry? Or this Banner Headline: "You Foolish Galatians! Who Has Bewitched You?" I don't know of many pastors in my local area who are blogging. My pastor blogs (somewhat infrequently) on our church's website. Bill Uhrich blogs about religion for the Reading Eagle. Brian Ross of Koinos Community Church has written for Next-Wave, and it's possible he's blogging somewhere. I'm sure there are some I've missed, but those are the few that come to mind.

For those looking to start blogging (or those looking to improve), here are some tips (written from the "Do as I say, not as I do" perspective):

1. Remember that "brevity is... wit" - keep it short (unlike this post)
(the following 6 from Michael Agger):
2. Bulleted list[s]
3. Occasional use of bold to prevent skimming
4. Short sentence fragments
5. Explanatory subheads
6. No puns (I personally disagree with this one.)
7. Did I mention lists?
(the following 6 from Farhad Manjoo):
8. Set a schedule. Blog often.
9. Don't worry if your posts [stink] a little.
10. Write casually but clearly.
11. Add something new.
12. Join the bloggy conversation. And link!
13. Don't expect instant fame.
(the following 2 from Om Malik):
14. Wait at least 15 minutes before publishing something you've written — this will give you enough distance to edit yourself dispassionately;
15. Write everything as if your mom is reading your work, a good way to maintain civility and keep your work comprehensible.
(more from me):
16. Add personal touches. Write from your unique perspective.
17. Borrow freely; give credit generously
18. Tell Stories. One of my favorite blogs (not linking because he's not entirely appropriate all the time) was just a collection of anecdotes with pithy concluding thoughts.
19. Feed the beast (RSS, Atom, whatever feed you set up)
20. Pull others into the dialog.

There you go. 19 and 1/2 tips for blogging well in 2009. Now get to it.

posted by Jon at 2:24 PM



Monday, December 22, 2008

Motion Graphics Trend - Minimalist Movable Type

An ongoing part of this blog is going to be gathering, interpreting, and sharing trends in media and media production. Our case study today: Movable / Kinetic Type with a minimalist approach. We've found four videos from three different sources that all utilize a similar technique in their motion graphics: Simple typography with creative motion paths / transitions. View the clips and scroll down to read some interpretation.

(Starbucks) RED



Starbucks Free Coffee for Voting



Advent Conspiracy


Girl Effect


(Note that re:freshed neither endorses or rejects any of the messages / organizations behind these videos. We're just dissecting a production trend.)

A few things these videos have in common:

1. Minimalism - The backgrounds are simple, there's nothing flashing or glowing or bouncing up and down in hyperstylized 3D space. The text is simple sans-serif fonts (Helvetica is always a good one, Arial a close second.) The color palates are basic - black / white / bold color for attention. There are only a bare minimum of illustrations / other graphics. The type generally stands alone.

2. Creative Animation - The animations are generally not complex, but they're very creative. Movement across the X/Y axes, occasionally something with Z-space (3D), rotation, scale. Anything that does keyframe animation (After Effects, Motion, even Final Cut / Premiere Pro / Vegas / Avid) can handle 99% of those animations. There's no complicated motion tracking or time-consuming 3D compositing. It's just creativity applied within minimalist constraints. The "(Starbucks) RED" commercial makes excellent use of a rotating question mark kicking "Me" into "We." Simple and effective.

3. Meaningful Animation - Some of the movements are almost the visual equivalent of a mini-parable. They tell a story. In "Girl Effect," the words "Flies," "Baby," "Husband," "Hunger," and "HIV" all compress the word "Girl" (set in orange type) and illustrate the pressures facing a girl living in poverty. The same concepts are usually invoked via slow-motion video or pan/scan on photos (documentary style), but this is incredibly effective. "Advent Conspiracy" does the same type of thing with "Credit Cards," "Traffic Jams," "To Do Lists," and "Useless Gifts."

4. Inspiring Soundtracks - Part of it has to do with subject matter (more on that in a minute), but each of these uses a simple (there's that minimalism again) soundtrack that generates positives emotions and indicates movement or progress.

5. Conversational Tone - All of these videos find their place in the broader movement towards "conversational marketing." You'll notice the the pace of the animation matches the cadence of spoke word (an important thing to remember if you want to ever create something similar.) Concepts are expressed in vernacular, utilize essential questions, and imply a sense that the viewer is "in the know" ("Not sure if you noticed... it'll add up.") By removing the traditional pitchman or narrator, the pieces create the impression of a face-to-face conversation between friends.

6. Meaningful Message - While this technique is undoubtedly being employed for more venal purposes (I think Charles Schwab has done some similar things with "Talk to Chuck"), it's especially effective when employed for "noble" causes. Charitable donations to the needy, voting, water in Africa, international development: all of these things seem "bigger" than marketing soup or SUVs the newest must-have Christmas toy. The videos make an implicit assumption that the viewers are kind, decent people who want to "do their part." It's like a reverse guilt trip: we know you're a good person, so don't you want to help with ____________?

For those of you in video production, watching the application of these techniques should be inspirational. It's perhaps a perfect medium for an update to Sunday Morning PowerPoint presentations or for fundraising campaign videos.

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posted by Jon at 3:23 PM



Monday, December 1, 2008

Charity in Uncertainty

Those of us in the not-for-profit community understand all too clearly that there are no golden parachutes for society's most vulnerable members. When the economy suffers, "the least of these" often suffer the most. Charitable organizations that respond to these urgent needs are often hit hard by financial downturns – as donors see their amount of disposable income dropping, charitable donations are unfortunately one of the first things to go.

NPR's Plant Money podcast just featured a great conversation between a Presbyterian pastor and an MIT professor / IMF economist discussing people's willingness to give to charity in uncertain economic times.

Listen to the segment:


Or download the full podcast.

Here are a few take-away points:

In the short term, people are going to give less and give more judiciously
Organizations that appear "a bit more discretionary" or that donors think will continue to exist regardless of their donations will feel the pinch more than others

Direct-service organizations will do "a little bit better"
This is a challenge and an opportunity – it becomes imperative to communicate the societal need that your organization addresses and how important it is that the work continues.

People may be willing to volunteer time when they can't donate
There may be a vast, untapped resource of educated, talented potential volunteers ready to tackle tough challenges. Don't set them to work stuffing envelopes – find creative ways to engage them in meaningful tasks commensurate with their expertise

People are not going to back away from civic and community engagement
"A crisis like this brings people together. But the question is: do they just want to write a check, or do they want to contribute in some other way and come through this with more of a sense of belonging, more of a sense of having helped people."

There is also insightful discussion about the merits of deficit spending (debt) in non-profits and multi-phase appeal campaigns.

posted by Jon at 4:45 PM