Our Video, Interactive Media and Content Development folks got together and produced this tidy company capabilities overview. It introduces some of the major concerns our federal clients are currently confronting, and outlines our portfolio of solutions.

We like how it turned out, but we’re biased.

Let us know what you think!

Three great examples of the educational potential of new media:

1. This visual dictionary of 53,463 nouns in the English language on one page

2. This incredible video that gives a visual representation of the Civil War in four minutes (please Google it if you have trouble with this version)

3. This animation of the Bayeux Tapestry

Notice the effect in each case of the use of multimedia to compress time and space, relate the visual and the semantic, and give a big-picture perspective.

In the case of the Civil War, for instance, we’re given an instinctive sense of the relative length of its major stages that would be hard to get from a written narrative, as well as an animated representation of wins and losses as control of territory: the time between Lincoln’s inauguration, Southern secession, and the beginning of hostilities; the seeming border stalemate through the middle of the country that begins early on and lasts for most of the war; the significance of certain battles for the control of territory; the seemingly glacial pace of the North’s acquisition of territory, as it moves like an amoeba across the map, until Lincoln’s second inauguration, after which the rate seems to increase exponentially. Meanwhile we get a running tally over time of the war’s cost in human life.

The dictionary is the most obvious case of the relationship between visual and semantic meanings, since it both matches images to words and orders words by the relatedness of their meanings. So you might learn that “Jell-O” and (oddly) “substance” are semantically close and then go on to explore visual similarities or differences.

Finally, there are some good reasons to animate a representation of the Bayeux tapestry: for those of us who haven’t gone to France to see it, it’s nice to get something of the experience by video. But then we need some compensation for the loss of the power of actually being in the presence of a 260-foot-long 12th century work of art—especially one that is also a historical narrative of a central event in English history. Since in this case the new medium—video—is a barrier between the audience and its subject; it needs to overcome that distance by drawing on its strengths. One of these strengths is movement: but what’s needed is more than a long (and potentially boring) pan of the tapestry. The new medium must tell the story in a compressed space that the old medium unfolded along 260 feet. So it’s helpful to have both a long pan of the tapestry and an animation of its content.

We all know about “the war.”  The DVD replacement has yet to be decided—will it be Sony’s Blu-Ray technology or Toshiba’s HD-DVD technology?

This week, the war came to the forefront again. With what Toshiba must surely view as “impeccable” timing (read: sarcasm), Warner Brothers announced their intent to drop HD-DVD from their future plans just days before the Consumer Electronics Show. It caused enough rumbles in the HD-DVD camp that they canceled their press conference for CES. As of later this spring, Warner will go exclusively with Blu-Ray. This isn’t small news. Warner was the only major studio that hadn’t picked a format—they were going with both. Their decision to go Blu-Ray leaves Paramount as the lone major content holder still going with HD-DVD.

MacWorld starts next week. One of the rumors (and it is just that—a rumor) is that Apple is going to announce support for Blu-Ray. Apple has been a member of the Blu-Ray coalition for quite some time, but they have, for all intents and purposes, sat on the sidelines while the battle raged.

Is the writing on the wall for HD-DVD? While it may still be premature to make the call (Microsoft is still in the HD-DVD camp…and we can all agree they are not a mom-and-pop operation), I will make the call.

Blu-Ray wins!

Actually, Blu-Ray should have won a long time ago. The storage capacity alone makes it a no-brainer. Currently, HD-DVD has 15GB/30GB discs. Blu-Ray has 25GB/50GB. HD-DVD has approved a standard for 51GB discs (I guess that single gig makes it the format to go with). Blu-Ray has the capability of putting 200GB on a disc.

What is HD-DVD’s advantage? Online content. Your HD-DVD player can connect to the Internet. Now, I may be long out of my teen years, but I hardly find that a compelling reason to go with HD-DVD. Regular DVDs often have bonus material—including the ability to get you to online content. Of all the DVDs I own that have “bonus” online content, have I ever accessed it?  Not even once.

Who is the real loser in all this? The conventional wisdom says it is the consumer. I disagree. Except for the early adopters, the consumer has sat and waited. To me, that is actually pretty impressive. The early adoption phase has simply lasted longer. The real losers are both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD. Neither has gained a foothold, and there is the real possibility that they’ll both get passed over for online content. That’s a lot of development money to be throwing down the drain.

Have we learned our lessons yet, Toshiba? Of course not. They are still fighting the battle. They will for some time.

Now let’s remember this a year from now and see if I was right or if I will be eating crow.

The California DMV has shifted into a new gear by posted a number of training videos on YouTube. There are over 100 videos on YouTube that cover “Rules of the Road,” “Top Ten Reasons for Failing the Driving Test,” and specific questions from the test. When I first heard about this, I was skeptical that the videos could both inform and entertain today’s crop of drivers-in-training. The YouTube channel is doing just that. According to the New York Times,

“Since the department’s effort at youtube.com/californiadmv began last month, some of the clips have been viewed nearly 5,000 times.”

With those numbers you can certainly consider this experiment a success, especially since YouTube is a free service. Conversely, the DMV’s MySpace page is less popular. It currently boasts fewer than 40 friends, despite having a Q&A section called “Ask George.”

Last month Avid Technology issued a press release stating that they will not be exhibiting at NAB 2008.

My initial reaction was, Oh no! What? No Avid display at NAB? That’s crazy!

I figured they must be in trouble. I mean, after all, Avid has been a big NAB exhibitor for years, setting up a huge display and occupying a very nice piece of the showroom floor real estate. It’s really quite impressive. And expensive, I’m sure.

All of my doubts come from many other factors, which include the layoffs, CEO changeover, and lack of new upgrades, updates, and tools. Also, I felt like Apple kicked Avid’s butt last year at NAB with introduction of Final Cut Pro’s ability to mix frame rates on a single timeline.

So what’s really going on? Is Avid in trouble? Have they stopped caring?

The press release indicates that the decision is strategic, not financial. They say they are listening to their customers and need to connect with them in new ways.

After taking some time to digest this news, I have come to the conclusion that it might actually be good news. Maybe they do have a plan and will actually benefit from removing themselves from the Expo.

Even though I’ve been angry with Avid lately, I have much more faith in Avid systems than any other NLE out there, despite all these issues going on with them right now, the biggest issue being the unknown future of the company.

Avid has said that they are going to reveal some kind of strategy plan to the public in February. I really hope they are working on getting their act together and will have something impressive to report come February and put Avid users minds at ease.

They’ve managed to create quite a buzz with the decision to not attend NAB; now let’s see if they have anything substantial to tell us. Overall I’m hoping to hear some kind of reassurance as to the future of the company. However, some of the more specific things I’m hoping for include an upgrade to allow mixed frame rates on a single timeline for all DNA systems, Nitris support for native DVCPRO-HD—which is currently very buggy—and finally, HD-SDI Output option for Media Composer’s software version. Honestly, I have no idea what to expect, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

My latest OnlineMediaDaily newsletter pointed me to a Catherine Holahan article at businessweek.com about the seeming downward slide of user-generated (read “amateur”) video on the Web. Amazing, considering we really just got started consuming user-generated video in 2005 when YouTube launched. Can it really be a flash in the pan?

A highlight:

Over 57% of U.S. Internet users say they have watched or downloaded online videos, according to a July study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. But they’re not flocking to home videos. According to the study, viewers are most interested in news videos, followed by comedy bits and television shows. Research by Burst Media, an Internet ad network that studies the video market, echoed the findings, ranking news clips, movie trailers, comedy sketches, music videos, and TV shows as the top categories. The category that includes clips produced by users placed ninth out of 11.

I’m not surprised by that ranking, are you? But it’s not about from where, or by whom, the video is generated. This is about quality of content. And in that sense, sure, professionals have the upper hand. More years in the game, bigger production budgets, more contributors with proven chops as writers, editors, and directors. That’s not the point. The point is that user-generated content can be powerful, and can have a hell of a lot more impact than we currently expect from it.

I get that with the birth of user-generated content, the Web was flooded with, as Holahan put it, “skateboarding dogs and beer-drenched parties.” That crap will die down eventually, and good content will both rise up and find niche homes online. I leave the term “good content” vague purposely. I mean the really funny, the really unusual, the very passionate, the very dramatic, the most relevant.

In the past two weeks I’ve talked with folks about using user-generated video to help promote a park by letting visitors post video of their reactions and comments online. I’ve talked with folks who want to build a virtual museum from user-submitted interviews and stories. And I recently posted about Amazon allowing customers to submit video product reviews. All three are great applications of user-generated video. But in all three cases it still comes down to quality of content. People mooning the camera at the park, uninspired museum interviews, and lame product reviews would each render the respective intents worthless. BUT enthusiastic raves about the park, passionate storytelling, and insightful product reviews would each have greater impact than any professionally produced marketing piece could ever hope for.

Don’t write off user-generated video—just help it find its purpose.

My MarketingSherpa e-newsletter landed the other day. Students of email marketing (and video producers) may want to check out their lead story about how adding video to an email marketing campaign scored a larger conversion rate. Let’s face it, folks L-O-V-E video on the Internet. But in this case I don’t quite get why it worked.

The case study is about a florist that regularly uses email marketing. In addition to offering the usual photos of flowers, this time around they did two things relating to video. First, they bought 15 seconds of stock video of tulips, and they provided a link to that footage in the body of the email. Second, they included the word “video” in the email subject line. Aside from mentioning video in the subject, they also used some good copy to call folks to action in the email headline. OK, launch email.

Conversions—which in Web analytics speak means sales coming from that email campaign—jumped from the usual 1.35% to 2.8%. Nice, particularly since they learned that using “video” in the subject line seemed to dissuade folks from opening the email. Usually 16.5% of recipients open the email, but this time only 14% did. Perhaps they were afraid they might open a large embedded video file or even a virus. So that leaves us with fewer folks opening the email, but more actually buying. Thank you, stock tulip footage!

And now I’m back to why I don’t get it. To sum up, we just learned that 1) users are willing to make the extra click to see tulip video, and 2) are swayed by a video of tulips more so than by a single attractive photo of tulips. They’re flowers, people, they don’t move!

Oh, the sweet promise of Internet video.

The recent layoffs at Avid Technology, as well as the departure of CEO David Krall, have brought about speculation as to the future of Avid itself. There’s been a lot of debate as to whether or not Avid should discontinue their lower-end systems and instead focus on what it’s really known for: high-end editing solutions and media management.

I’ve been singing Avid’s praises for years and have had many heated “Avid vs. Final Cut Pro” debates with fellow editors. Recently, however, my singing has become more of a low hum.

I was disappointed in Avid’s showing at this year’s NAB convention. I didn’t actually attend, but I did sit anxiously at my computer following news and unveilings from the trade show floor of the Las Vegas Convention Center. Sadly, the announcement that caught my eye was from the Final Cut Pro booth. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate the Final Cut Pro system, but I don’t really take it seriously either. When I use the Final Cut system I remap all the settings to make it an Avid, mainly because I spend most of my time editing on the Avid. It’s what I’m more comfortable with.

When Apple announced Final Cut Pro’s new ability to mix frame rates within a single project on the same timeline, I was shocked. How could Final Cut Pro come out with this before my precious Avid? This feature is not offered on any Avid system—not even my super-fancy Avid Symphony Nitris can achieve this task. Sure, there are things that can be done—cross converting, etc.—but it’s just not the same.

The Symphony Nitris is a great system and I love it, but like any editor, I want it all. I shouldn’t even be comparing a Symphony Nitris to a Final Cut Pro since I could get a row of Final Cut systems for the price of one Symphony Nitris! Therefore, I must have that feature. Avid owes me that feature!

I assumed that Avid was scrambling to add this function following the NAB event, but I was wrong. Instead there were major layoffs in July. Now it’s October and I’m. Still. Waiting.

What I would like to see from Avid is the introduction of a better lower-end, affordable, user-friendly editing system that can really compete with the Final Cut Pro. Some serious upgrades and advances for the higher-end systems wouldn’t hurt either.

Avid is a great system, but it has received plenty of criticism because of its cost; now, more and more, performance is entering the picture. It would be a mistake for Avid to ignore the lower-end editing market. If I had to buy a personal editing system today, I’d have to choose Final Cut Pro, on a shiny new MacBookPro. What if I really started liking Final Cut Pro, then did the unthinkable and converted? How frightening!

Come on, Avid, get your act together!

Sony has recently announced that they plan to sell the first OLED TV during the holiday shopping period this year. OLED stands for Organic Light-Emitting Diode. That’s right, I said organic! This new technology uses a film of organic compounds that emit colors. The new technology doesn’t require back-lit LED and uses way less power.

Will Wheaten, my buddy from Star Trek: TNG (although I liked him better in Stand By Me), explains it better than I can:

It’s not all sunshine, though. OLEDs have limited lifetimes and are easily damaged by water. But maybe the coolest thing about OLED TV is you can bend it like Beckham! Get ready to trade in that old plasma screen. That’s already old school compared to the emerging OLED world.

It looks like the major networks have bought in to the web video phenomenon, at least until the next ratings book comes out. Witness the new ABC show i-CAUGHT, which I did in fact catch the other night. The concept is to highlight what is most popular on the web. We’ll see how long it takes for the network to make money from these clip-sharing folks (or maybe they already are).

I’m interested to see if this marriage between Internet video and broadcast TV will last. It looks like it has potential. One of the more interesting viral segments asks people to submit videos for inclusion in the show. The concept is to put in three words how your week has gone. The first round got my attention.

I enjoyed this idea so much I had to submit my own. Here’s hoping I make the cut next week!