Technology360

Nielsen no longer counting “channels”

My Roku box calls its different providers “channels,” one of which is Pandora, which in turn calls the dozen music “channels” I’ve set “stations.”  Joe Mandese writes of Nielsen’s changing practice:

In a move that is a bit ironic and very symbolic for the television industry, Nielsen Wednesday said it has effectively turned off the TV channel. As part of the release of an annual report on America's television audiences, Nielsen said it had dropped one of its most popular features - data showing how many channels the average TV household receives - because in a digital, time-shifted multichannel universe, there no longer is a "consistent" meaning for the term "channel." …

Link:  MediaPost.  --Dennis

FCC “Future of Media” workshop Fri., Apr. 30

Dru Sefton writes in Current:

Public and noncom media is the focus of the next FCC "Future of Media" workshop Friday in Washington, D.C. Subjects include: Potential for greater collaboration among public broadcasters, PEG channels, noncommercial web-based outlets, and other new media entities; infrastructure needs and assets of public and other noncommercial media; and possibilities for new kinds of noncommercial media networks and associated funding models. … There'll be a streaming video feed of the event from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m [Eastern time].

Link:  Current.  --Dennis

3-D TV disparities said to cause physical, mental strain

I’ve posted previously on this topic here and here, the latter a personal experience.  Now, R. Colin Johnson reports on recent research at UC Berkeley that provides some guidance to videographers and cinematographers who are shooting in 3D.  He writes:

… According to [professor Martin] Banks, when viewers direct their eyes at nearby objects or scenes, their gaze converges. When they gaze into the distance they, diverge, or what optometrists call "vergence." Conversely, focusing the eye muscles to bring something into sharp focus is called "accommodation."  ¶  In the real world, vergence and accommodation are synched to the same distance, but in the world of 3-D stereoscopic glasses decouple the two, forcing the brain to cope with a disparity between the vergence and accommodation distances.  …

Link:  EE Times. 

Also see this piece by Junko Yoshida, Opinion: 3-D TV can’t make your kids sick…can it?  Link:  EE Times.  --Dennis

Digital investment challenge for public radio stations

I rarely post work related material (I'm an SVP at NPR, where member services is in my current portfolio but digital media is not), but readers of this blog for the last 6½ years know of my long-time interest in how public media meet the challenges of disruptive developments and investments.  So, with permission of all, I'm posting here a file containing an important email discussion initiated by Jon Schwartz. GM of Wyoming Public Radio, on the NPR "authorized representatives" email list.  It's nine pages -- an original and addendum from Jon, a reply from NPR President/CEO Vivian Schiller and NPR SVP/GM Digital Media Kinsey Wilson, and a further reply from Jon.  PDF Link.

I would also like to call your attention to a related 16 April essay from Todd Mundt, The Challenge of Serving Audiences Where They Are (also available on his own blog), and to this 19 April post from Arthur Cohen of the Public Radio Program Directors Association, which has still more on the topic.  Update:  Independent producer Stephen Hill also provides comments on Jon's email in a 16 April post on his blog.

Lots of reading, all important.  --Dennis

12 TV groups form JV to develop mobile content service

From the joint venture’s news release:

Belo Corp., Cox Media Group, E.W. Scripps Co., Fox, Gannett Broadcasting, Hearst Television Inc., ION Television, Media General Inc., Meredith Corp., NBC, Post-Newsweek Stations Inc. and Raycom Media today announced plans to form a standalone joint venture to develop a new national mobile content service. Utilizing existing broadcast spectrum, the service will allow member companies to provide content to mobile devices, including live and on-demand video, local and national news from print and electronic sources, as well as sports and entertainment programming.  ¶  Broadcast spectrum to be utilized for the new mobile service will come from the three owned-and-operated station groups -- Fox, NBC & Telemundo, and ION -- and the nine local broadcast groups, which are Belo, Cox, E.W. Scripps, Gannett, Hearst, Media General, Meredith, Post Newsweek and Raycom. Separately, these nine local broadcast companies formed Pearl Mobile DTV Company LLC as a vehicle for their involvement in the venture.  ¶  By aggregating existing broadcast spectrum from its launch partners, the new venture will have the capacity to offer a breadth of mobile video and print content to nearly 150 million U.S. residents. In addition to broadcast spectrum, the partners will commit content, marketing resources and capital to the new venture. The service will employ ATSC-M/H, an open broadcast transmission system developed by the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) specifically for mobile devices. …

Link:  PR Newswire. 

Here's Brian Stelter's story in the NY Times:  Local TV Stations in Venture for Mobile Programming.  Link:  New York Times.--Dennis

The Shirky Principle

Kevin Kelly has a good post introducing what he calls “The Shirky Principle.”  Clay Shirky states:

Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are a solution.

Kelly writes:

Shirky made his quote in a recent talk, a bit from his upcoming book Cognitive Surplus. Shirky also referred to a similar idea in a recent blog posting about the ways in which media companies and the media industry are often constitutionally incapable of changing because they are still solving the last problem.

Link:  The Technium. 

Those of us in the media should go on to Shirky’s blog post, The Collapse of Complex Business Models, linked here and above.  In it, Shirky writes:

… In the future, at least some methods of producing video for the web will become as complex, with as many details to attend to, as television has today, and people will doubtless make pots of money on those forms of production. It’s tempting, at least for the people benefitting from the old complexity, to imagine that if things used to be complex, and they’re going to be complex, then everything can just stay complex in the meantime. That’s not how it works, however. … ¶ … Some video still has to be complex to be valuable, but the logic of the old media ecoystem, where video had to be complex simply to be video, is broken. Expensive bits of video made in complex ways now compete with cheap bits made in simple ways. … ¶  When ecosystems change and inflexible institutions collapse, their members disperse, abandoning old beliefs, trying new things, making their living in different ways than they used to. …

--Dennis

Mark Schubin: What Is 3D? (& Why It Matters)

Mark has twin superlatives as a television production engineer and as an effective and prolific communicator.  For a long time, I had a link to his long-running Monday postings to the OpenDTV list here on this blog, but I lost track of him during my 2+ year sojourn in radio at NPR.  So, was happy to find out that he’s now doing a blog called Schubin Cafe, full of good information for the television engineering community.

Many recent posts deal with 3D television, and he’s posted a PowerPoint and audio portion of a keynote from this month’s NAB Show with the above title.  Yes, there is a lot of technical information, but I recommend it to both engineers and other broadcasting executives interested in what 3D television does, how it works, some amazing history -- and also explains the mechanisms of the discomfort that I and others have experienced with 3D television.

Link:  Schubin Cafe.  --Dennis

Making the case for broadcasting 720p60

Tore Nordahl makes a very interesting case in his Executive HDTV Report for moving over-the-air broadcasting from 1080 interlaced to 720 progressive, with benefits for mobile DTV (ATSC 8VSB M/H) and 3D.  Link:  coax.tv.  --Dennis

Samsung Cautions About the Possible Side Effects of Watching 3D TV

I posted on March 31 about my personal "motion sickness" experience viewing one of the new 3D televisions.  Samsung has issued a warning about this.  Ranjan Bhaduri writes:

... The Korean electronics giant has warned that a section of the viewers may develop certain side effects if they watch 3DTV for extended hours. It can pose health threat to children, the aged lot and pregnant women, according to the caution. ... According to Samsung, the viewers may be subjected to epileptic fits and nausea. Those who do not get adequate sleep have also been asked not to watch programs on 3D HDTV sets. ...

Link: Thaindian News.  Thanks to Tom McMahon on the OpenDTV list for the tip. 

Updated 20 April 2010:
Here's more from Daniel Carty at CBS News.  --Dennis

WCCO’s The Wire timeline news browser

Very cool way to browse/display/comment on local station news, tweet and other content.  I have no idea whether The Wire translates into increased web usage, but it should.   I listened to WCCO(AM) for Twins games as a teenager.  They’ve come a long way.   Steve Safran has more info at Lost Remote.  --Dennis