Podcast Blog Part 2 (week 9)

The material covered in the second half of week 8 pertained to audio and podcasts.  A podcast a series of audio broadcasts that are downloaded off of the internet.  Podcasts can either be downloaded for listening to in the future or streamed for listening live.  Podcasts use Ogg vorbis or mp3 as the audio files so it isn't very difficult to find a device that can play the files.  The name derives from the idea that it is a broadcast originally designed for the ipod.  Podcasting is still relatively new, only catching real attention since 2004, but it is gaining steam quickly and has become a key word in the technology vernacular.


Podcasting can be important in my major and profession.  Marketing is very important for films and obviously commercials.  Podcasts are another way to reach the desired audience.  Many podcasts have thousands of listeners, this is very lucrative for advertisers.  Podcasts have yet to really define themselves in terms of how they want to make profit but advertising on them is certainly an option.  Podcasts are also ways to relay information out to the public about a project.  Pixar's "Cars" for example used podcasts to release a series of behind the scenes clips to start to promote the movie and shows like "Battlestar Galactica" provided podcasts with the creators talking about the show and their inspirations.

http://blog.experiencecurve.com/archives/uncommon-uses-podcasting

I found a very interesting site that details some uncommon uses of the podcasts.  People are using podcasts to broadcast serial plays and novels that people read in parts.  Unofficial museum tours are being podcasted so that people can download the  file and go to a museum and listen to a tour on their own IPOD or MP3 player.   Music lessons are also being podcasted in segments so that people don't get overwhelmed by a full course, as if in book format, and their progress is steady.  It seems that podcasts are still so new that the possibilities are seemingly endless at this point.  I'll be interested to see how the podcast evolves in the future.

Week 8 Material Blog Part 1

The first part of week 8's material focused on digital technology as a subcategory of digital storytelling.  Digital technology uses representative data consisting of 1's and 0's to represent what either a picture, video or audio clip is that can be later translated and reconverted to its original medium.  Analog technology is a pure physical representation of the source.  The advantage to digital is a much smaller less expensive result that, for most purposes, suites the need of the application.  Digital has been improving and coming closer to being indistinguishable from analog by utilizing higher resolutions with more mega pixels or faster sampling rates for audio at high bit rates.  However analog is still way ahead when it comes to pure quality.

This all is very relevant to my major as camera's and sound are the most important tools for film production.  Knowing what decisions to make regarding the use of digital and analog is very important as it determines costs and quality.  Where it is much cheaper to use digital, analog sources, like film, offer much higher quality.  Having directed and worked on both analog productions using 35mm and 16mm film, as well as digital medium in the form of uncompressed HD it is clear that both mediums have their pros and cons.  Understanding the differences is crucial to making your final product effective whether its a commercial production or a film.

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/tg-daily-hands-4k-red-camera-unwrapping-lamborghini-video-cameras,5156.html

The website I found is a description and review of a very interesting relatively new digital technology for a camera called RED.  Where HD uses 1080p resolution, RED uses 4000p resolution.  This is important as it is a big step for digital in approaching analog quality.  Where film is still unmatched in its contrast and technical factors, digital is getting very close and to the common viewer is virtually identical.  This means lower cost for films and an easier more fluid shooting environment.  On a production using film, time has to be taken out every 10 minutes of filming time to load new film into the cameras.  With digital it is possible to continuously film uninterrupted.