Thinking out loud: Why not Divx?

So it's a lazy Sunday over in the newsroom, I guess it's another effect of that buffer created by the holidays.

So naturally my mind has started to wander and I'm starting to Think Out Loud again...

How come Divx never took off with newspapers? Higher bitrates translating into higher quality, even web native HD. More standardized across the interwebs means a larger community behind it creating neat-o plug ins. You can even create DVD style menu systems and language controls to allow users to navigate. Plus instant full screen that doesn't interpolate the image, but actually maintains resolution.

I'm not saying we should all abandon Brightcove (which seems like the emerging newsroom standard), but I'm just saying I've noticed no ones experimented with Divx. And personally I think it's a pretty nifty conductive.

Again, I'm just thinking out loud, I've been researching Divx the last couple days and it just kinda dawned on me.

In other news, isn't it funny how we decide how to read a newspaper?

While flippin' the paper this morning I ended up reading a story not because the picture drew me in, or the headline grabbed me, or the San Fransisco dateline, or someone's lede or by-line hooked me... no I ended up reading a story about MC Hammer and his endeavor into viral videos because I know the AP photographer who took the picture.

Haha, kinda funny how when you're away from home, seeing a familiar name in the newspaper brings a smile to your face. (Hey Jeff Chiu, it's Hammer time indeed :)

Finally, can someone please tell me, why do birds suddenly appear, when you're near?

Seriously I'm getting tired of washing my car, can't you like... iono... turn it off?

Thinking out loud: We need some new tricks

So here's a thought. When we were just starting out in multimedia a short 2 (3?) years ago, we were all giddy and excited and couldn't wait to play with our new toys. And very quickly we started experimenting and trying new things and after a short gestation period with the basics many of us started thinking about how we edit in four dimensions rather than just two, or three when it came to layout. All of a sudden we had Time to deal with, and that made everything a lot more interesting.

So we started doing fancy stuff like tiles, fades, cross-fades, pans, and then we got even fancier with split screens and flipbooks (or if you prefer a more avant guard, montages), but what since then?

It's like we're running out of tricks. Maybe it's just me, but I haven't seen anything new. When I started playing around I used all the basic film editing tricks I had picked up, and by the time everyone else was doing the basics I moved on to experiment with flipbooks, and when others started doing that, I had already started experimenting with split screens and selective crop-ins and other goodies.

I felt that each time I had managed to stay ahead of the curve and was trying something new, but now I'm just not seeing it. I'm still doing flipbooks and split screens and pans and whatnot, but now so is everyone else. It's like we've all run out of new tricks.

We're all doing the same thing, I mean EVERYONE is flipbooking today! And it's starting to get stale and homogenized.

I think that may be because we're still looking to film for our guide map. Perhaps it's time we stop looking to mimic everything that's come before and start creating.

We need some new tricks.

*Thinking out loud is where Shaminder just blabs about whatever pressing thought is on his mind.... so in other words it's just like Twitter, but he refuses to remember another pair of passwords and log into another program everyday. He also refuses to say 10-4 on the Nextel, but that's another story.