Currently browsing posts by Lou Lesko.

This is huge, YouTube won its case against Viacom.

This was just posted on the YouTube blog.

Today, the court granted our motion for summary judgment in Viacom’s lawsuit with YouTube. This means that the court has decided that YouTube is protected by the safe harbor of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) against claims of copyright infringement. The decision follows established judicial consensus that online services like YouTube are protected when they work cooperatively with copyright holders to help them manage their rights online.

This is an important victory not just for us, but also for the billions of people around the world who use the web to communicate and share experiences with each other. We’re excited about this decision and look forward to renewing our focus on supporting the incredible variety of ideas and expression that billions of people post and watch on YouTube every day around the world.

I haven’t researched the details of this story enough to deliver any sort of informed opinion, but I’ll do some digging to see how this affects the independent filmmakers utilizing the web as their distribution channel.

Behind the Scenes of Night and Day Pixar’s New Short

YouTube Online Editing

Could be good for journalists. As is the Google way; “it may be a little rough around the edges.”

Ebert on why you should hate 3D.

From one of the most respected voices in the movie industry, Roger Ebert, comes a balanced assessment on the 3D craze that Hollywood is currently going through.

That’s my position. I know it’s heresy to the biz side of show business. After all, 3-D has not only given Hollywood its biggest payday ($2.7 billion and counting for Avatar), but a slew of other hits. The year’s top three films—Alice in Wonderland, How to Train Your Dragon, and Clash of the Titans—were all projected in 3-D, and they’re only the beginning. The very notion of Jackass in 3-D may induce a wave of hysterical blindness, to avoid seeing Steve-O’s you-know-what in that way. But many directors, editors, and cinematographers agree with me about the shortcomings of 3-D. So do many movie lovers—even executives who feel stampeded by another Hollywood infatuation with a technology that was already pointless when their grandfathers played with stereoscopes. The heretics’ case, point by point:

To his point, when I saw Alice in Wonderland I loved every bit of that movie except for the fact that I felt like I was watching it with my eyes half closed because the image on the screen was darkish. It didn’t seem like a style choice by Burton, because he does well lit dark really well. It kills me to find out that it was a marketing choice to make the film look like that.

Read the full Ebert article here.

APA Raises Awareness About Corbis Copyright Issue

Reprinted with permission from the APA.

Do you have images with Corbis? Did you sign the Corbis Copyright Assignment Affirmation Declaration? If so, you may have invalid copyright registrations.

Steve Jobs on why Flash is not on the iPad

In what will undoubtedly be the hit read of the week, Steve Jobs has written a fantastic piece on why Apple has not included Adobe Flash in their mobile devices. One thing that resonated with me the most as it applies to PhotoCine News readers is his comment on H.264 and how web browsing via an Apple mobile device does not hinder a users access to the web as Adobe suggests.

Planet 5D, day job ends, full time blogging begins

Mitch Aunger who owns the Planet 5d web site announced today that he is giving up his day job to pursue Planet 5D full time. It’s an awesome move from an awesome guy. We here at PhotoCine News wish him all the best as he ventures forth reporting on this rapidly exploding industry.

For those of you wondering why we would wish our competition well, it’s simple; Mitch is a friend first and competitor second. Besides if things get too competitive, we have video of Mitch partying last week at the PCN rock star compound in Las Vegas.

Well done Mitch.

Hulu To Start Charging 9.95 Subscription Service As Soon As May

The Los Angeles Times’ Company Town blog is reporting that online TV service Hulu will be offering Hulu Plus to customers for 9.95 month.

Under the proposal, Hulu would continue to provide for free the five most recent episodes of shows like Fox’s “Glee,” “ABC’s “Lost” or NBC’s “Saturday Night Live.” But viewers who want to see additional episodes would pay $9.95 a month to access a more comprehensive selection, called Hulu Plus, these people said.

The “these people” in the quote above are identified as “people with knowledge of the plans.” You can read the LA Times piece here.

Rumors have indicated that the introduction of Hulu’s subscription service is going to coincide with the release their iPad app. Unfortunately, much to the chagrin of Hulu CEO Jason Kilar, ABC released their iPad app and is giving away content that’s available Hulu for free.

One of my favorite tech commentators, Peter Kafaka, has a good piece on Hulu’s 9.95 plan here.

Online television viewing is moving at a breakneck speed, which has the potential to offer PCN readers opportunities that were historically unavailable to independent filmmakers. If Hulu’s subscription model works, we’re going to see some new and interesting business models for viewing films online.

HTML 5 is looking more and more like the future for online video

This just knocked my socks off.

Have a look at the live video here. It was created in HTML 5 by Sean Christmann over at Craftymind. Sean admits that it takes a bit of “hackish code” to get it to work, but to me it demonstrates the potential of HTML 5 which seems to be gaining more and more ground especially in the wake of the revelation that the iPad does not support Adobe Flash. Sean admits that not all browser render the code well.

Lastly, I’m learning very quickly that not all browsers are created equal when it comes to performance, it’s a crapshoot when it comes to heavy video+image manipulation. Safari and Chrome work well with h.264, Firefox slogs along with Ogg Theora, and Opera is somewhere in the middle.

But, this is a step in a very exciting direction.

Big muchos gracias to Daring Fireball where I first learned about Mr. Christmann’s demo.

Alternative Apps

Ever since Apple “updated” their Mail application to include Notes and ToDos a few years ago I have loathed it’s very existence. Google “recursive inbox Apple mail” and you’ll see that I have a considerable constituency of like minded peers. Sadly because email isn’t a glamorous global position reporting social networking application, it was unlikely that a company was going to pursue creating a better way to manage email for the Mac.

By the same token I put off installing Adobe Photoshop on my new MacBook Pro because I don’t need a starship to drive to the cafe. The thought of spending time on the phone with Adobe to sort out licensing issues because I switched computers had me cringing almost as much as I do when my computer starts to crawl because the absurd Adobe updater is gleefully bouncing in my dock uninvited. My laptop is meant to be a field tool. And in the field, I need to be quick and agile.

So I set out on a hunt to see if alternative applications existed to these seriously entrenched pieces of software. I’m happy to tell you dear reader that I have returned triumphant.