Recently in Entertainment & Media Category

Saw the trailer for this last week in front of “A Prophet”. Looked interesting, although I have a natural bias towards anything banksy-related.

Exit Through the Gift Shop - Movie Site

Out here in LA I tend to watch less television than I did before, view more feature-length films (especially because I’m working on projects related to the industry) and drive a whole lot more.

Last week I had my high speed modem installed, but I decided not to subscribe to cable television, which saves me about $100 a month in service fees. Instead, I’m going to try using a Mac Mini, along with a number of parts and accessories, as a home media center that depends on the Internet, and eventually Over-the-Air (OTA) digital broadcast television, to satisfy my video entertainment needs.

I want the system to take care of the following tasks:

• Play from streaming media sites such as Hulu and Netflix
• Play DVDs and downloaded video from services like iTunes
• Play edited HD home movies to the television, in HD
• Provide an easy-to-use interface to my MP3 collection and streaming audio online

I also require that it:

• Be stable as a rock. Never crash. I want continuous uptime measured in months, broken only by the need to restart to install a system update.
• Have minimum maintenance and upkeep - this in particular is why I am using a Mac over Windows, it reduces update hassles and hardware compatibility headaches. I want an appliance, in essence, not another system to babysit.
• Be quiet. No loud fans - I’m looking at you, Xbox 360.
• Conserve energy. At 13 watts, the Mini burns far less power than my Tivo HD and Cable Box used to.

As I work my way through the process, I’ll continue to extend this post with relevant information and links to the parts and software I’m using.

“See, now this is mockery.” - John Gruber

Coming soon to your local design-fetishist arthouse movie theater. Immediately added to my Netflix "saved" list in case I miss it in theaters. (Here's the film's Netflix page if you want to do the same.)

Specifically, what if The New York Times goes out of business — like, this May?

The Atlantic has a worthwhile article pondering the (very real) possibility that the NYT print edition might cease to exist by the middle of this year given their current financial situation.

One comment on the article -- it posits the HuffPo as a model for what a new, non-print NYT could be like. I hope that's wrong, given that the HuffPo for all its attention captured less than half a million dollars in revenue last year (and could make half that this year, given the lack of an election and a declining ad market.) Sure, the Times reaches 20 million online per day versus the HuffPo's 8 million or so per month, but even a multiple of say 10x the uniques isn't going to generate enough revenue to support their operation.

"The Magliozzi Brothers are qualified. They both went to MIT, and Tom has an MBA and Doctorate of Business Administration from Boston University. They have long railed against SUVs and called for increased fuel efficiency. Tom doesn't even own a car, and Ray drives a 1987 Dodge Colt Vista, which he bought for $100. These guys are not automotive industry insiders and will be on our side."

- John McGrath in the Facebook Group "Click and Clack for Car Czar"

If we're going to blow $15 billion on Detroit, we might as well at least get a laugh or two out of it. One things for sure - they can't do any worse than the current guys in charge. As someone who worked with these guys many years ago (on the original version of CarTalk.com), I wholeheartedly endorse the nomination.

A delightful, entertaining talk by Hodgman from this year's TED conference. Perhaps not quite an illuminating or informative as the usual TED video, but well worth watching nonetheless.

You might have to be a little bit of a videogame industry wonk to find this amusing, but the creative team that developed Battlefield: Bad Company came out with post-launch video clips poking fun at the sometimes overly intense Rainbow Six, Metal Gear and Gears of War franchises. I'm surprised they haven't posted one for Call of Duty yet - it seems ripe for the picking.

Alone in Tokyo HD from Philip Bloom on Vimeo.

There's something really remarkable going on right now around the ability of consumers to create truly remarkable HD content and distribute it via the Internet. We've reach a moment where the production gear costs have dropped low enough, a fairly "average" computer like a MacBook Pro can edit in HD, and there are ready channels to distribute to the world, both in terms of technology (sites like Vimeo,  which hosts the above video) and the bandwidth and capabilities of end users.

HD video is leaps and bounds ahead of standard video in terms of how "film like" it can get, and the tools are now arriving that let individuals record very high quality HD video for as less than $2000 - cameras run $600-800, and a $1000 adapter called the Letus Mini lets you connect SLR lenses for "film like" depth of field and fous effects, and a $2000 laptop with iMovieHD (free with new Macs) is all you need to edit, output and upload.

Right now this is leading to a lot of playing around on sites like Vimeo's HD Channel, but it won't be long before folks are producing their own documentaries, etc. using this. It's going to lead to an explosion of niche HD content, plus I'm sure a lot of more widespread hits as well. And it's going to have a real impact on traditional broadcast media - when a home user can produce niche content with quality twice that of a DVD, you're going to see a lot of competition for all those low-budget cable shows trying to survive out there right now.

It's very exciting, and I'm looking forward to see how it plays out over the next year or two. One thing I know for sure - this means I'd rather have a full on computer, like a Mac Mini, attached to my HDTV rather than something like the AppleTV where I'm locked into only a few distribution channels.

The recent Gatorade "Big Head" commercial has to be one of my favorite television ads in a long time. It's a great little set piece (I suspect it's a one timer and not a long-term campaign), with a lighter attitude than their previous efforts. A nice little reminder for all the adults about everyone started out playing the game.

(A detail I didn't notice on the first viewing was fastpitch softballer Jennie Finch's remark -- "why don't you throw it underhand?" Nice.)

All day, baby, all day.