Month: January 2008
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TV News Technology
Today’s Broadcast reveals that Channel 4’s News At Noon now has a new on-screen touch set that allows the presenter to playout items. Krishnan Guru-Murthy is able to “play material directly from the ITV broadcast server, including live rendered graphics and flash sequences. He can also play in sound bites and pre-cut pictures or bring…
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British Version of Wallander
It’s taken an awfully long time to arrive, but Broadcast magazine this week reports that BBC1 has commissioned a three part series based on Henning Mankell’s Wallander novels. The three novels being adapted are Sidetracked, Firewall and One Step Behind, although Broadcast speaks of them as the “first three novels in the series.” That’s not…
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Pandora and Internet Radio Services
If you’re interested in this sort of thing, then you’ll already know that Pandora is shutting down in the UK. The full email sent to Pandora users is on James’ site. As the email explains, the service has been shut down because they were unable to come to an agreement with the music rights organisations…
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Ordinary Song
A good song, with a very good and very “radio” video… Via Why That’s Delightful
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Proposed Changes to UK Copyright
This is pretty important. Back in 2006, Andrew Gowers published his review of intellectual property in the UK. It was a pretty intelligent look at the state of play in this country, although not everyone was happy with what he was recommending. Anyway, a year has passed and now intellectual property minister Lord Triesman has…
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Digital Switchover – USA
Reading Robert X Cringely’s 2008 predictions, there’s one that I’m 100% certain of: 2) This one is really for 2009 but I know we’ll see the effects in 2008. The DTV conversion, where U.S. analog broadcast television stations are turned off in February 2009 and we all have to switch to digital TVs or to…
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For All Your Homeopathic Needs
Get your pills here!
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Blade Runner – The Final Cut
By now, if you’re like me, you’ll have bought the 5 DVD boxset of Blade Runner with every version known to man including this new “Final Cut.” But before Christmas I did actually see the film projected in the cinema, and it really was a sight to behold. This film does have a bit of…
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Gone Baby, Gone
Gone Baby Gone is the directorial debut of Ben Affleck and stars his brother Casey. When you learn that, you’re probably thinking that things don’t bode well for this film. Well in fact that’s not the case. Based on novel by Denis Lehane, and set in a very realistic feeling working class Boston, it involves…
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Michael Clayton
Michael Clayton is another film I saw a while ago, but didn’t note at the time. George Clooney is a bit of a fixer for a law firm who ends up in a convoluted story involving a major class action lawsuit. It’s another one of those films that’s constructed in a non-linear fashion as we…
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On Chesil Beach
As with my feebleness in reporting back on films I’ve seen recently, I’ve also neglected the printed word. That is to say, I’ve not listed the books I’ve read recently here. Now this may have little to do with media, TV, radio, or any of the other random things I tend to talk about here,…
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Tamara Drewe
One of my favourite sections in The Guardian is the Review section – largely made up of book reviews. For about 18 months, the section featured a weekly extract in the ongoing story of Tamara Drewe. Initially I didn’t read the strip. Then I realised that I needed to catch up, but didn’t get around…