Videocracy Blog

I watched the Scobleshow today, and they spoke with a guy who’s working with advances in photography, and the newest buzz, is developing cameras that won’t need a flash…furthermore they discussed a thing called computational photography…it basically means pictures that cannot be reproduced without the use of a computer.

In some of the examples he is showing a highly, highly detailed image of crayons, and when blown up close, instead of tightly packed pixels…it consists of very tiny “discs” to me what it looked like a lightbrite…

This uses a micro lens that record each separate light coming into the camera into its own pixel as opposed to several light sources coming in and is then recorded into one pixel.

What really caught my attention is that the camera takes such high quality photos, that one of th examples they showed was a photograph where the autofocus captured something in the background, as opposed to the object in the foreground, and because of the high amounts of detail captured by this camera, in post…you are able to shift the focus back to the foreground, and still maintain this striking detail….

It’s becoming increasingly possible to never leave your house…I remember as a kid watching AOL commercials, showing how you can order a pizza or your groceries from your home computer…I remember thinking, “Wow, you don’t have to go anywhere…”

Today, that is becoming increasingly obvious, especially when it comes to movies. The price of a movie ticket is increasing…and things like Netflix are becoming more and more popular. Not to mention the increase in pirated movies, will inevitably be driving movie tickets down…maybe.

I just read about a new device called the Vudu…it’s a set top box (to add to your other set top boxes already…DVD, VCR, Tivo….et al). This device plugs into your ethernet connection and has the ability to rent or purchase from over 5,000 movie selections…in some of the new releases and past titles. This device gives you the ability to either buy or rent movies.

This seems like an interesting concept, but again…you lose that experience of going to a movie theatre, or even owning a DVD or Video. This is something that I’ve questioned for some time now, with the days of iPod, and now Vudu…which is like the iPod for your home theatre. Don’t people want to own a tangible object? Yes, I have more MP3s then I do CDs, but I also collect Vinyl Records, because I love that tangible, physical presence that it has. I also own over 200 DVDs for the same reason. I never download movies…I buy or rent them.

Yes it is nice that you will have the ability to get any movie you can think of, delivered right to your television in a matter of seconds. And this type of thing is great for renting, but I would never get it to buy movies…I fear that we are seeing the end of the movie theatre experience…just as people stopped going to drive ins, I forsee people will stop going to the movies as well….and then furthermore they will stop going to concerts. We are going to become a reclusive society, who’s only means of social interaction is by playing “Second Life.”

I just read about an interesting camera that works with GPS technology, it’s made by Ricoh. I had no idea something like this exists, but when you take a photograph, it imprints the Longitude and Latitude of where the image was taken right into the picture.

This is interesting for people who would have a use for something like that…but it’s cool to know it exists.

Whats the most interesting is, if I am taking a picture of the Chopin monument in Poland, it will give me the longitude and latitude of the monument, and on a map I can pinpoint exactly where it is located…

I had a really great conversation about Apple yesterday…of course this conversation comes up quite often, it usually starts with whether you are an Apple user or a PC user…? Well, personally I’m on the fence, at work here I use a Mac (love it!) and at home I use a PC, but what I use at home is more important, because that computer is mine, I chose it.

Last night we had a special guest in the studio, we invited Blues Guitarist and Harmonica player Steve Cohen to be in Episode #10 of our Wisconsin Business Owner Interview series…it was a lot of fun, We started with the interview portion, it was a pretty interesting interview because he wasn’t a business owner primarily, primarily he is a musician….although I find the business owner interviews to be interesting, I find this one to be particularly interesting, hearing the life of a musician was a pretty interesting thing…and the life of a pretty well known one too…

After we were finished with the interview, Steve did a live set for us…pretty basic set up, just an amp and a mic…and I had the opportunity to practice recording live music…I listened to it this morning, and I have to say the audio quality was pretty good…of course with the sound board it records onto two tracks, so when I work with it, I will be able to mix the audio a little more.

It was a great time, and a great interview…next week some time I will get a chance to begin editing it…it will be interesting.

Oh, and also we used the black backdrop for the first time…and I think it turned out well.

I read an article about a new show where the editors of, I believe Newspapers are put in control of talking about the recent headlines.

So another year has come and gone, and Sunday marked the last day of the 2007 Milwaukee International Film Festival.