On the latest episode of the Critical Path podcast Horace Dediu and Moisés Chiullan talked about the future of TV. Horace said that he thinks that the future of TV is in applying software engineering tools to story and interactivity development. Apple have some tools that could achieve some of this.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Apple have decided to change their PR policy to counteract recent bad press: they’re ‘subtly increasing’ their activity.

There does seem to be a correlation between Apple’s success and the number of press releases issued per month:

PR-per-month-graph-Apple

When Steve Jobs was appointed as iCEO in September 1997, there seems to have been a change in policy. The only month since March 1998 that had over 20 releases was June 2008, which was filled with iPhone partnership announcements.

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Looking back, it’s interesting to see how the way Apple has described itself has changed over the years. Luckily for us, press releases usually include a definition of the company issuing them. I’ve been back through Apple’s site and used The Wayback Machine at Archive.org to research the evolution of the way Apple sees itself.

April 1995 – A standard mid-nineties computer company

The only distinction being a mention of ‘personal digital assistants’:

Apple Computer, Inc., a recognized pioneer and innovator in the information industry, creates powerful solutions based on easy to use personal computers, servers peripherals, software, online services and personal digital assistants. Headquartered in Cupertino, California, Apple Computer, Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) develops, manufactures, licenses, and markets products, technologies, and services for the business, education, consumer, scientific & engineering and government markets in over 140 countries.

press-release-1995

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In just over three weeks, BVE 2013 starts in London. I’ve been looking forward to it for months.

BVE is a production and post-production trade show with over 300 exhibitors and over 150 seminars. At one event you can visit Adobe, AJA, Anton/BauerArri, AutocueAvid

It is designed for editors, camera operators, producers, directors, broadcast engineers, writers… everyone involved in media production at all levels and stages.

Entry is free if you register in advance.

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Today Finnish company Lacquer updated their Conduit Live product and made it free for Macintosh users. Renamed PixelConduit, it is a video effect development system for motion graphics designers.

It was conceived as a live video performance tool. The application was designed take multiple video sources, apply many complex effects in real time and distribute the results to multiple screens. In recent years, it has been designed for more uses (from the manual at PixelConduit):

- Previewing visual effects on set.
- Theatrical shows and other video-based performances.
- Video installations.
- Compositing and other finishing work.
- Post-production workflow automation.
- Rendering custom graphics in post.
- Live graphics with custom control interfaces, e.g. for TV productions.

In order for real-time video effects to work, the UI metaphor is based on flowcharts that can be quickly manipulated while live video is being fed in:

cond_orange flow chart Read More

On Tuesday January 8th, 2013 I appeared on a webinar at Moviola.com hosted by Michael Horton of the Los Angeles Creative Pro User Group.

The web broadcast was free to watch live. The webinar is available for download on demand for $15.

Download the on-demand webinar to see me change the default settings for built-in Final Cut Pro X effects, bring the additional effects available in Motion 5 into Final Cut, and combine Motion’s advanced controls into single Final Cut Pro X effect controls.

The final effect that I make in the webinar corrects the kind of fish-eye distortion that some wide angle lenses can add to footage. I show how it corrects narrow, medium and wide angle GoPro footage.

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