damien

what Ive learnt in the course so far:

where I’m going from here, both in course and beyond
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
well being

its a turn of phrase that is off the curriculum, particularly at end of semester as the overload peaks and the synapses reach critical mass. The entry above the dotted lines here was, as Rupert stated in his trackback, somewhat minimalist. In a way it acted as a metaphor for the burnout I had reached by the submission date for the Media Contexts blogs.

And though I had plenty I could have said, I really had nothing positive to contribute to the conversation at that point. Which is to say, I needed to stop, find clarity and find my clear perspective.

Media Contexts presented the opportunity for a dialogue to start within the group. In hindsight this did not meet my expectations, giving me reason to consider whether my expectations were unreasonable.

Dawkins pointed out: “The adversarial approach to truth isn’t necessarily always the best one. On the contrary, when two people disagree strongly, a great deal of time may be wasted. It’s been well said that when two opposite points of view are advocated with equal vigor, the truth does not necessarily lie mid-way between them. And in the same way, when two people agree about something, it’s just possible that the reason they agree is that they’re both right. There’s also I suppose the hope that in a dialogue of this sort each speaker may manage to achieve a joint understanding with the other one, better than he would have done on his own.”
http://www.edge.org/documents/archive/edge53.html

Expectations…
I think a Masters course must challenge the participants to ever higher levels of to inquiry. Given the content is centred on Media Production, excellent resources are available with which to stimulate the debate. I believe that the MC seminars would benefit from an inclusion of relevant video/film and audio clips: challenging, topical, insightful. Most media production students have a Visual-Spatial orientation and the opportunity to provide such stimulus should be embraced.

I have decided to persevere with the MMP program is based upon my substantial dislike of giving up on anything. I think the first semester could have been much better, but I know the production phases of semester 2 and 3 will be far more accomodating for my personal goals and challenges.

And Beyond…
Right now I am focusing on making my short films and growing with my daughter and partner . Somewhere in the ether of my future lies a destiny that my actions NOW will lead me toward. So for now its eyes on the track. As Bresson intimated about the role of criticism,

Master precision. Be a precision instrument myself.
(Notes on the Cinematographer, p. 3)

for notes on Notes to a Cinamatographer

H.264 is a codec that improves the viability of video on the web, and has immediate application advantages for broadcast, cable, and videoconferencing. It’s also known as MPEG 4 path 10.
The implication for new media content is obvious- suddenly our productions have a more affordable distribution and marketing capability.

http://www.shapeofdays.com/2005/05/more_h264_demon.html
this site has a good demonstration of H.264 using action footage from Saving Private Ryan and talking heads in front of static backgrounds from The West Wing. Not my favorite movies but they clearly illustrate the point.
Five different samples for each clip are provided for comparison :
* Encoded at 256 kilobits per second
* Encoded at 512 kilobits per second
* Encoded at 768 kilobits per second
* Encoded at 2,048 kilobits per second
* Encoded at 4,096 kilobits per second
The important aspect here is that codecs are most susceptible to artifacting(breakdown of the pixels) when there is a lot of movement within the frame.
The results show that, even with dynamic action sequences, an encoding bit rate of 2048kbs or higher will look like DVD quality whilst significantly reducing the file size. Static scenes (eg a short interview clip, say, for a vog) could get away with 512 or 768. This is a very good thing!

QuickTime 7 features a state-of-the-art video codec called H.264, which delivers stunning quality at remarkably low data rates. Ratified as part of the MPEG-4 standard (MPEG-4 Part 10), this ultra-efficient technology gives you excellent results across a broad range of bandwidths, from 3G for mobile devices to iChat AV for video conferencing to HD for broadcast and DVD

Every now and then web research strikes gold. My discovery of the networked performance blog at turbulance.org blog is one such happy occasion. The site covers the diaspora of every concievable new media theory, experiment and event.

My interest on mobtech is primarily concerned with how it will fundamentally change the way we communicate, rather than an interest in mobile phones per se. In fact I see mobile technologies as they have existed up to this point as being fairly irrelevant. My opinion is changing, however, because of the affordance for new media that mobtech provides.
Take a look at the Mobile Culture Scratching project. What a great concept!
Theie aim was to create a mobile portrait of the city through video and audio sampling of real time events…

Michelle Riel is one of the key bloggers at www.turbulence.org

An excellent directory to mobile art and locative media
( ie mobile art through locative/ mobile/ pervasive/ wearable/ wireless devices)

It is not about digital video, but about what might change if we think
of a video practice that is primarily for networked computational
environments, where for example things like frame rate are meaningless.

Adrian Miles

a useful resource:

http://www.dvdmadeeasy.com/glossary/g.html

I’ve been doing some research into the advantages of HD video cameras in the context of output: does the prosumer equipment available (e.g. the DVD recorders we use in the G5 edit suite) allow the quality of the HD footage captured to translate (at the same resolution of capture) onto Standard Definition (SD) DVD? Apparently not, unless you can access a high-end production suite with a DVD burner that can burn dual layers(9.6 Gb).
So currently there is no advantage shooting HD unless you intend to master your video for mass distribution, or are shooting for HD for HD Broadcast.
How much would it cost, and how long before higher quality DVD recorders (dual layer or Blue Laser) or some other affordable technology/software arrives that can be integrated into our workflow?

On the other hand, as HD captures double the amount of information this will translate into visible improvements in saturation (particularly noticable in the blacks) and thus deliver more options when grading. This will deliver a visably better image quality if compared side by side with SD footage shot say on a Sony PD-170. Soooooo, if the target destination is Standard Def DVD (720 x 576), HD footage should look a bit better than SD captured footage, even though the output resolution is the same!

The following grab takes you to a blog dicussion on this topic.

“HD downrezzed to SD becomes SD — it gets encoded in a 720x480 (or, in your case, 720x576) data stream. You cannot fit two HD pixels into one SD pixel and have it look like it’s still two pixels. Square pegs and round holes — there are only 720x576 SD pixels, and if they encoded to a standard-def DVD, that’s what they had to work with………”
Green, Barry , Moderators comment, 2005: http://www.dvxuser.com/V3/showthread.php?t=23621
March 2005

and another opinion(does this guy receive endorsements from Sony?)

“Everyone knows that shooting DV in high contrast and low light will generally result in images with a great deal of noise in the shadows, streaking in the highlights, blooming in the reds and visual stutter. Not the HVRZ1. THIS FOOTAGE FROM THIS CAMERA WAS AMAZING. Great detail in low light and high contrast. With the gain up 12dB, still no noise in the shadows. With black stretch on and Cinemalook filter, the shots were unbelievable. You could see the spray of the fountains against the night sky (with detail still evident in the background).”
Eldred, Jody. Jody Eldred Raves On Sony HD CamJanuary 2005: http://www.cinemaminima.com/correspondents/greening/index.php?id=P419, 2005
http://www.cinemaminima.com/correspondents/greening/index.php?id=P419

Wk 3. DoCoMo is a Japanese Telco.

I’m interested in iMode for two reasons. It certainly presents as a New Media Content Provider opportunity, and it is currently being launched into Australia (by Telstra). So I guess it really is a New Media. Its also a good example of convergence of existing media to form a new media.

All quotes in parenthesis taken from the DoCoMo iMode website: www.nttdocomo.com

The focus(and marketing pitch) of iMode is Interconnectivity and mobile as a computer.
The banner: “Innovative ubiquitous services powered by NTT DoCoMo.”
hey, it sounds so…cool… From the onset, this Flash website has a futuristic, Jetsons-like look and feel. It’s as if, even by navigating into it (as you are surely drawn to) you are part of this world, this is for you, you are one of us etc . This site is Selling You An Idea packaged as Information, so caveat emptor!

As far as its unique selling point goes: think of DOCoMo’s iMode suite of services as an extension of the TV/DVD/HiFi combo remote control concept… morphed with a mobile phone and web-connected… with much, much more. It has a target market of early adopters of new technology. It promotes as a dynamic, evolving technology and refers to Trials and Tests in its website marketing. The pitch they seem to making is that you are buying into an ever-expanding universe of opportunity with…theiMode phone. As with other mobile phone user plans, you can choose to buy from a range of four or five phones. Its main point of difference from other SP’s is that it has been in operation in Japan since 2001 and from its inception has seen the phone as a mobile computing device that works with CP’s to create afunctional(read useful) integrated platform tha daily tasks/chores.

THe menu interface on the phone separates Banking/Trade, Travel, Entertainment, Lifestyle, Billing. The idea here seems to get you to commit to using this phone for …your entire existence? Oh, they even have a Dating/Chat service…

Some of the things it can do:

Home Appliance Controller- mobile phone as security camera(leave it at home and it will capture video and send it to the FOMA( ) handset, can communicate via infrared with TV and VHS, and allows users to view programs, set DVD and video recorders to record, turn on air-conditioners, turn appliances on/off, control

Barcode Scanner
uses the camera in the phone to scan a barcode to get the price, display an order form, make payments, use a barcode as a movie/theatre ticket

iMode video is called i-motion
Format:15 frames/second, maximum 100Kb. Uses cache to store data, rather than streaming(which scraps acquired data).
“CP (content providers) can distribute i-motion content from CP servers in the same way as regular iMode service”
An obvious benefit here it that you get to keep the video, can upload it to your URL from where friends/your team can download it.

i-area
This refers to the location info service for 500 segments of Japan. Content such as weather forecasts, maps, traffic, restaurants, and sales at local stores are available.

In summary, DoCoMo’s utilsation of iMode seems be be well-received in Japan(43 million users by 2005), and reflects their modern culture fascination with New Technologies. It will be interesting to see how much impact it has in Australia. I expect its impact to be moderated by our significantly smaller population, but AUstralians are also renowned as early-adopters, and iMode provides significant opportunities for content development.

A Final Thought…
From the Social Context, I guess a primary concern is, do I want to enter a world that is driven from my phone. Do I really need to be the consumate consumer. What of the road less travelling, free thought and spontaneity…*
On the other hand, if you think of it as just another part of your working kit…and consider that it may allow faster responses based on informed decisions, it may be a path we can walk on and leave a trail for others to follow. That is, this could be the start of a great adventure…
*hyperdictionary.com gives the following definition for spontaneity:
[n] the quality of being spontaneous and coming from natural feelings without constraint

Humans love small hand-held lightweight tools because they improve their beloved aesthetic of freedom. Or to put it in Darwinian terms, greater manouverability and faster reactions lead to the other monkey in the cave now being dinner…
Now it could be argued that the media in modern times is really about providing constraint which is cleverly disguised as being there to improve your quality of life. It’s a valid argument but one I think I’ll leave alone for the moment, primarily vecause I’d like to finish this entry sometime this week…
The issue I’m wanting to focus on is how do go about create content for emerging media’s and technologies when they are changing so rapidly? And what style and form should we focus on? If I can answer these two questions by the end of this semester I’ll feel that I have made some progress.