Technology360

HD Dreams: VOOM HDTV Satellite Service

... Launched with much fanfare last year by a subsidiary of Cablevision, VOOM is the first satellite provider to deliver high-definition content--and lots of it. The result is stunningly beautiful visuals served up through a clumsy interface. But given a choice between that and a wonderful UI serving up crummy content, we'll take the great content any day of the week. ¶ Four of us from the ET crew ... spent quality time with the VOOM setup in our HDTV test lab watching on two newly released HDTV monitors, a 30-inch LCD and a 42-inch plasma panel. We did like much of what we saw, but VOOM doesn't quite get it all right. ... ExtremeTech link

Broadcast Treaty Battle Rages On

An international treaty to give broadcasters the right to control who may record, transmit, or distribute their signals is reaching a crucial stage of negotiation by the World Intellectual Property Organization in Geneva. ¶ The current draft (PDF) incorporates many proposals, but the main ones most countries agree on give broadcasters 50 years' worth of legal control over the recording, retransmission, and reproduction of their broadcast signals. These rights are separate from those of the owners of the actual content being broadcast. ... Wired News link

TiVo-like software draws ire of XM Radio

Time Trax, a program designed to record XM radio programming directly to a PC's hard drive, has drawn the attention of XM Radio and the RIAA — and not in a good way. Frustrated by his inability to listen to all the broadcasts he wanted to, Ontario programmer Scott MacLean wrote and began selling Time Trax. The application creates an analog recording of songs broadcast over XM along with track information which is then stored as an MP3 file. It will only work with the XM PCR receiver, as the auto and home stereo receivers lack a PC interface.arstechnica link

PBCore web site & "case for"

There's been a relaunch of the web site for the Public Broadcasting Metadata Dictionary project (PBCore), generously hosted by the University of Utah and maintained by the indefatigable Paul Burrows. In addition to the home URL, it is now accessible from the easier to remember pbcore.org.

Readers might also be interested in a short essay, Public Broadcasting's Future Is PBCore's Future, by myself, Marcia Brooks at WGBH, and James Steinbach at Wisconsin Public Television. It was included as part of the deliverables for the project which developed PBCore, is posted in the Continuation area below, and as a pdf on my web site, technology360.org. --Dennis

OnHD.TV

Phillip Swann of TVPredictions.com has started a new "entertainment guide" web site providing info about HD programming. --Dennis

My Free HDTV

A new web site, "sponsored by your local television broadcasters," at www.myfreehdtv.org has been launched that's worth a visit. Sinclair Broadcast Group will begin running spots in its HD markets in September promoting the site. --Dennis

Ultra-fast broadband hits Europe

For Rainer Kinnunen, life has been a bit of a blur since he signed up for a super-high-speed Internet service three years ago. ¶ The 31-year-old Swedish student's computer has supplanted the television as the most vital link between his home and the outside world. He watches television shows and movies, makes phone calls, surfs the Web and plays multiplayer shoot 'em-up games through his high-speed connection -- often doing one or more activities at once. ¶ Kinnunen's 10-megabit-per-second service from telecommunications company Bredbandsbolaget is up to 20 times faster than conventional cable modems, enabling a user to download a two-hour movie in a matter of minutes rather than hours. ... ZDNet UK Insight link

The End of Phish and the Future of Television

Dick Hubert guest commentary: My son the Phishhead (or for nonfollowers of the jam band Phish, a Phish fan) called me from Colorado this past Sunday morning (and again Monday morning) in a state of euphoria. ¶ "I have seen the future of television, and it's awesome," he said. What caused my son's journey into television ecstasy was Phish's decision to reach its fans by having its farewell concert from Coventry, Vt., distributed via closed-circuit high-definition satellite television and with Dolby sound to select movie theaters, including one in Denver. ... TV Week. [registration required]

FCC Spectrum Policy Task Force

The FCC's Spectrum Policy Task Force has its own home page at www.fcc.gov/sptf/. It links to relevant FCC proceedings, including a number relating to DTV. --Dennis

Media Lullabies: The Reinvention of the World Wide Web

The peer-reviewed online journal on the internet, FirstMonday, is featuring a remarkably relevant article, Media Lullabies, from its archives by Bill Hilf, first published in April 1998. --Dennis
Abstract: Have traditional mass media models influenced the development of the Internet? This paper examines several ways in which the Internet and the World Wide Web have been described in terms of historical media, and how the Internet and the Web differ remarkably from these models. Thinking in the terms of traditional media - has created misinterpretations of the Web, built from conventions of past media.