Visualizing data
Earlier this week the NY Times ran a piece about the experimental website Many-Eyes.com. At first glance the site is every statistician’s nightmare — the marriage of complex visual interpretation and social networking. Being a believer in the wisdom of the crowd, I don’t expect this harm public discourse in the least. As this election cycle proves, there’s really nowhere to go but up in public debate of complex issues.
As an editor and motion graphics artist, data visualization is hard to get right and impossible to do inexpensively, requiring both sides of the brain to fire on all cylinders. If it was possible to post a data set and tap the collective knowledge of the audience to parse it and visualize it meaningfully, we might be on to something.
At it’s most basic level, the tool streamlines the process of data visualization. You can take a look at this view of Olympic medals won by each country from 1896-2006.
It’s also useful as a tool to verify editorial conclusions. For example, one data set on the site created a word tree for all Obama’s references to McCain in his acceptance speech at the Democratic convention. Add some phoneme capabilities, and data visualization could be visually interesting — in real-time. Click image to see full size.
New Review and Approval Tool
After blogging about the YouSendIt NLE plug-in, I received a comment from MediaSilo — a polite, shameless plug for its review and approval system. Having founded Xprove, review and approval remains near and dear to my heart. (I no longer have a financial interest in Xprove, though I should disclose I remain close to my co-founders who remain.)
There’s no denying that MediaSilo has a superior, and sufficiently Web 2.0ish, user interface. It also has some features Xproves lacks, such as server-based FLV encoding. But it’s no slamdunk for MediaSilo. Its monthly fee per gigabyte of storage and bandwidth — especially bandwidth — is much higher than Xprove’s. Even more surprising is the limited number of workspaces per account.
Having been through the usage logs of Xprove, I’ll be surprised if MediaSilo’s $79 and $99 plans gain traction with independents. As slick as MediaSilo is, Xprove also wins on ease of use.
Currently the review and approval market is so underserved, there’s more than enugh room for both services. Each is a great value relative to the level of work required to build your own approval site, or get Final Cut Server working for web-based R&A.
Old technology lives! 4:3 forever!
Syllabi are like time capsules. Looking at my course outline from my first post production workshop in 1995 it’s not so amazing what’s no longer covered (3/4″ videotape, CMX editors, Dolby noise reduction). But it is amazing what survives. Who thought we’d still be dealing with EDLs in the age of metadata?
Great article in the New York Times exploring why old technologies such as mainframe computers hang on for years after pundits ponder their demise. Just like the old IBM Selectric typewriter we kept around for tape labeling. What the PC couldn’t do, P2 might, because if there are no tapes to label…
What are the common traits of survivor technologies? First, it seems, there is a core technology requirement: there must be some enduring advantage in the old technology that is not entirely supplanted by the new.
The venerable 4:3 aspect ratio isn’t so much a technology as a form factor. How many have predicted its demise? When we discussed the challenges of moving to 16:9 acquisition in the mid-1990s, we never thought we’d still be dealing with the issue almost a decade and a half later. But there it is in my fall 2008 syllabus.
Of course in 1995 we didn’t consider the iPhone, the ATM screen, and the airplane seat back as presentation media. As Austin Powers would say, “Convergence, baby.” 4:3 provides a better text display screen. It fits better on a variety of mobile phone form factors. And it’s simply more flexible for displaying text and images in combination.
Clearly I’ll be talking about video aspect ratios well into the next decade. And this nearly decade-old spoof on the 4:3 adaptation of Lawrence of Arabia will still be funny.
Back to school
The katydids are out. As a kid the sound was the harbinger of the end of summer. To teachers their song is “write your syllabus.” This year is very different. Working at Avid will surely have a profound effect on how I teach FT504-Video Post Production I. Previously I’d always taught the class, quoting my lecture notes, as “Avid-centric, but Final Cut tolerant.” Meaning I used Avid Media Composer for classroom demos, but would answer Final Cut Pro questions.
Beyond loyalty to my new employer, and pride in my new position as Senior Product Designer for Media Composer, my Avid knowledge is deeper than ever, so I’m obviously tempted to make it an Avid-only curriculum. I can teach my students some pretty neat Media Composer tricks. But is that the right thing to do? Should I put more focus on Avid just because I know (and love) it better? Probably not.
This semester I’ll continue to be “Avid-centric” and include Final Cut Pro in some form in my teaching – not just to do right by my students, but to do right by my colleagues at Avid. Everyone should keep an eye on the competition.
Fare thee well, Jim Tierney
Last week’s news that Digital Anarchy sold its video effects software to Red Giant is disappointing. Though I’m sure Red Giant will be a good home for some of my favorite After Effects plug-ins, I’ll sorely miss Jim Tierney and Debbie Rich in the video community.
Jim was always a good interview back in my DV Magazine days. He wasn’t a walking press release at trade shows. He’d speak candidly and on the record about the industry, his competition, and how Digital Anarchy stacked up.
Digital Anarchy will continue supporting and developing its Photoshop plug-ins and digital photography tools.
Good luck Jim and Debbie. You’ll be missed. Thanks for all the great stories and great advice when I was launching Xprove.
From the press release:
This asset sale will allow Digital Anarchy to focus on their other core market, Photoshop plug-ins for photographers and digital artists. Since 2004, the company has released tools that help professional and hobbyist photographers to uniquely create a fully digital portrait studio. The company has recently focused on software that provides custom graphic effects, and plans to release new innovative products by the beginning of Q4 2008. Digital Anarchy is also considering development for related host applications like Adobe Lightroom and Apple Aperture.
