The Extratextuals

So I actually have three more posts worth. This one’s a hodgepodge, the next one’s about my set visits, and the third is a little more unified and analytical. Anyways, here we go:

Super Tech Geekout Section

One of the highlights of the trip was when they took us into their screening room and showed off the 3D that they’re working on. The glasses have little batteries in them and flash at an ultrafast rate, while the film runs at 144 frames per second, interlacing left and right eye frames. This is meant to hurt the eyes less than traditional glasses, and to offer a better 3D experience. It did. They showed us bits of the NBA All-Star Weekend in 3D and it was beautiful. They had talked earlier of experimenting with playing college games in theatres for admission price, to great success, and I can see how the two of these could go together well. It really does feel like you’re courtside, and they discussed how they’ve learnt to keep the stadium sounds on, rather than use play-by-play guys, to recreate the feeling of being in the stadium. Their screening room is kind of small, so extrapolate that experience onto a bigger screen, and I could see this being very popular.

They also showed us a few other tech goodies, by far the coolest being this tiny little screen, called an Organic LCD (OLCD). Our guide insisted that you could grind it up and eat it without harm (“fresh pepper, m’am? Parmesan? Organic television screen?”). But its contrast ratio was a truly remarkable 1,000,000: 1. Sheer beauty. More after the fold …

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conferences 3D, Blu-Ray, Digital Media Summit, Disney, Full Episode Player, iTunes, mobile media

For those waiting for part 4 of the Malawian media consumption saga, I promise it’s coming. In the meantime, though, I wanted to write about the 2008 Disney and International Radio and Television Society Foundation’s Digital Media Summit in Burbank, CA. This was a three day event that I attended last week. In this post, I’ll set the thing up and give some data about Disney’s online Full Episode Player. In the next, I’ll list some random things overheard, and I’ll yabber on about the hazy line between promotion and creativity.

Granted, at times I felt like I was in a cult indoctrination program, with some insisting that Disney was the only true source for all that is good on this planet. However, it was also a fantastic opportunity if not to see behind the curtain, at least to be allowed into the front row, where peeks behind the curtain were possible. I met some tremendously helpful individuals whose brains I picked with joy. I finally got on a TV set (take that, Bob Rehak! Sorry to anyone not at MIT’s MiT5 conference: an inside joke there). I got a bunch of data. I saw some cool new tech toys. I met Damon Lindelof and got an Apollo candybar t-shirt. I got fed well. I got to hang out with Jenn Holt and Kevin Sandler. And as much as cynical Jonathan could gripe, I’m very thankful for the experience, and applaud Disney and IRTS for shelling out the time and money to produce the thing.

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conferences, ratings Desperate Housewives, Digital Media Summit, Disney, Full Episode Player, Grey's Anatomy, Lost, Ugly Betty