The Hustler Seeks the Funny In Revenge
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The Hustler stars Mark Feuerstein (the token good Republican from season three of The West Wing) as the eponymous character, a sullen man who has been robbed of a prized football record. In the first several episodes, The Hustler focuses his attention on two kids, stepping stones to his greater plan. These initial forays suffer from a lack of clear motivation and an abundance of awkward moments, but they get a boost from Feuerstein’s energy and charisma. He charges in like a young Leonard Smalls in the pilot, then serves up some tasty dancing moves at a bar mitzvah. If he doesn’t completely save these early stretches, Feuerstein at least makes them watchable.
Episodes three and four feature a face-off with his archnemesis, and finally an explanation of The Hustler’s big vendetta. Considering there are 11 episodes already produced, the third entry seems early for the confrontation; nevertheless, this is a good choice. After turning a tennis match into literal murderball, The Hustler is free to broaden his range of targets. Unfortunately for The Hustler (but fortunately for The Hustler), the archnemesis has a grandchild, and so the cycle of vengeance continues. Read more of this story
Minoru Webcam Lets You See the World in 3D
Is it a Webcam or a mini-robot? That’s the question the Minoru 3D Webcam had me asking. This red and silver camera uses two eyeball-like lenses to capture images in 3-D, and it does a decent– though imperfect — job at that task.
The Minoru 3D Webcam attaches to your Windows Vista or XP machine (no Mac version is available) via USB 2.0 only. You plug it in, pop in the CD, and the drivers install automatically — which is a good thing, because the sparse set of instructions that came with the camera contained no text, only a set of vaguely confusing images. The instructions reminded me of the diagrams you get with furniture purchased from IKEA; luckily the Minoru handles most of the work for you.
Once you’ve installed the camera, you need to adjust its settings. The process is a bit more detailed than setting up your average, 2-D webcam. Here, you have to manually adjust the focus of each lens — best not to think of them as eyeballs when you’re twisting them! You then have to adjust the horizontal and vertical alignment in order to get a true 3-D effect. The video capture windows shows two images of your subject: one in blue and one in red. You have to merge both the red and blue images until they overlap exactly; you do this using on-screen sliders, which are easy to operate, but I found it difficult to get an exact match. Once you’ve lined up your subject both horizontally and vertically, you can begin capturing 3-D video. Read more of this story
Catching up with The Burg: Is There Hope for Hipsters?
A little over two years since NewTeeVee came online, we’re catching up with some veterans who’ve been working with the medium since before Google paid off YouTube’s VCs, Hulu was just a glint in News Corp. and NBC Universal’s eye and Apple hadn’t taken up their set-top box hobby.
Hipsters in bread lines — that’s what it’s come to in “Depression,” the very special Christmas episode of The Burg, the long-running web series produced by Dinosaur Diorama’s Kathleen Grace and Thom Woodley devoted to lovingly mocking the foibles of the young and hip in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The All-For-Nots (the faux Billyburg band featured in another eponymous production from Grace and Woodley) even pop in to spread some holiday cheer and drop some final product placement mentions. But it’s not all faux: When Paul (woodley) mentions Vuguru founder Micahel Eisner, Courtney (Kelli Giddish) asks, “Wait, you guys actually make money doing this?” And as unbelievable as it sounds, the answer is yes.
However, it’ll be a while before Grace and Woodley — or anyone on the show’s cast or crew — are in danger of becoming trustafarians. Street cred may have paid off, but it’s still no way to fund a 401k.
Vid-Biz: DTV, Veoh, Super Ads
DTV Delay-related News; according to Nielsen, more than 5.8 million U.S. homes (5.1 percent) are unprepared for the DTV switch (Nielsen Wire); the Consumer Electronics Association warns that the recent push back to the DTV switch could result in a shortage of converter boxes. (Broadcasting & Cable)
Universal Music Group Can’t Sue Veoh’s Investors; judge throws the part of UMG’s complaint that accuses Shelter Capital, Spark Capital and Eisner’s Tornante Company of “vicarious copyright infringement” and “inducement of copyright infringement.” (TechCrunch)
A Breakdown of Super Bowl Ads Online; 4,000 clips of ads from the big game have been uploaded and have received more than 75 million views. (Visible Measures)
SAG Feud Goes to Court; drama over the ousting of the union’s former executive director and chief negotiator continues, judge denies SAG president’s request for a restraining order against the union and the national board. (The New York Times)
PlayOn Releases Beta; software moves Hulu, CNN and other content from Windows PC to TV-connected boxes like Xbox 360, PS3 and other DLNA and UPnP devices. (Zatz Not Funny!)
Jaman Gets Indie Distributor E1’s Titles; deal will expand movie rental company’s library with roughly 3,000 feature films, documentaries and TV shows. (The Hollywood Reporter)
Blinkx Changes Up its Homepage; new buttons such as “Entertain Me” and “Inform Me” deliver automated entertainment and news streams. (Contentinople)
What the NetfliXbox Numbers Don’t Mention
Netflix announced today that 1 million Xbox users have downloaded and activated the Netflix streaming service since its launch on the game platform in November, and in less than three months more than 1.5 billion minutes of content was watched.
First, let’s take a moment to be impressed. We knew from Netflix CEO Reed Hastings’ earlier statement that “millions” of people were watching streaming video through Netflix, now we know where at least a chunk of those users came from. Those 1.5 billion minutes work out to 25 hours per person. While I’ve read reports comparing this to Hulu, I’m not sure that’s fair. Hulu is predominately enjoyed on a laptop, which is a much different experience than settling into your couch and watching on the big screen.
These NetfliXbox numbers are impressive, but also incomplete. We don’t know how sustained the use of streaming was over those three months. How many of those minutes were front-loaded as people enjoyed the novelty of the service, but then tapered off once they realized there wasn’t that much to watch, or how cruddy the quality can be? Or vice versa, did the number start out small and grow over time as people got more into the service?
Mapping the World of Piracy
The folks at the Pirate Bay released a Google Maps mash-up Wednesday that illustrates its worldwide user base, with exact percentages by country. It’s a pretty fascinating project in that it helps to dispel certain myths about BitTorrent, namely that while piracy may be a global phenomenon, swapping movies via the Pirate Bay definitely isn’t. For example, did you know there are roughly as many BitTorrent users in Portugal as there are in all of the African countries put together? And that downloaders in Spain are neck-in-neck with those of the U.S. for the No. 2 slot?
Of course, a map like this doesn’t tell us everything. It’s only a temporary snapshot of the Pirate Bay’s user base, which could change any day. Previous studies have also indicated that folks in some countries just tend to prefer other P2P protocols to get their movies and TV shows. But the information it provides can help us map out the world of online piracy.
Where the Hell Is Matt’s Next Act: Actual Dancing
Matt Harding of Where the Hell is Matt? readily admits that he is famous for dancing badly around the world. Harding has made three videos over the last five years of him flailing about in 80 countries, alongside thousands of other people. The videos are hypnotic and happy and they have garnered, as Harding puts it today in Palm Springs at the TED conference, “100 bajillion views.”
Harding even got someone — Stride gum — to pay him to travel around the world and make the last two videos. But he wants to keep the dream alive, so he’s been working to find a twist good enough to merit a fourth edition.
Saving the Earth, One Beautiful Documentary at a Time
Making documentaries about the earth’s fragility may have at one time been a unique idea. Al Gore needed only a dramatized slideshow, and we’ve all admired a crazy beautiful IMAX film or Planet Earth DVD set by this point.
That was made all the more clear at the TED Conference today, where two talks in succession both presented new fantastically beautiful documentaries. Even more of a coincidence, they were both made by French filmmakers. Though one is perhaps more interesting to the NewTeeVee audience, as it’s going to be released primarily online.
Allio Packs a PC Into Its TVs
Set-top boxes that let you view the contents of your computer on your big-screen TV can be really handy — if you can get them set up. Too often, the process is complicated and messy. But a company called Silicon Mountain Holdings is hoping to ease your set up woes with its line of all-in-one PC/HDTV devices, called Allio. The company is aiming to expand the market for its Allio products with a new line of lower-cost devices, but questions remain. First, is the lower price low enough? And, second, is any price low enough to convince buyers to purchase one of these odd-duck devices?
Allio Lite, the new lower-cost line of Allio devices, comprises two models: A 32-inch (720p) model that sells for $1,299, and a 42-inch (1080p) model that goes for $1,599. Both look like regular old LCD TVs, but packed inside they have the guts of a computer. Both include an Intel Atom processor, a DVD/CD writer, a 250MB hard drive, and 2GB of memory, and both run Windows Vista Home Premium. Read more of this story
New Zune Revue: Microsoft Does More Originals
After unleashing original horror shorts for the Xbox, Microsoft is going further into original productions, this time using content as a means to boost interest in its also-ran media player, the Zune.
According to Variety, the debut original Zune series, Cinemash, is being co-created with Mean magazine and will premier in May. There will be eight episodes that run 3-5 minutes long, each one featuring celebs playing roles they wish they had gotten. Microsoft wouldn’t give us any production budget numbers, but did say that along with the rest of the content being produced for the Zune, Cinemash will be ad-supported and free for users. After its initial run on the Zune platform, the series will make its way onto MSN and Xbox Live.
According to a Microsoft rep, “The series are developed and produced by the Zune team in conjunction with writers, producers and actors.” It sounds like Microsoft will have a lot of input early on, which is precisely why I have low expectations for this project. This is, after all, the company that created the Songsmith commercial. Shudder.
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- Does Microsoft Have a Mobile Open Source Strategy Up its Sleeve? [OStatic]
- Minoru Webcam Lets You See the World in 3D [NewTeeVee]
- JAJAH (Kinda, Sorta) Brings Phone Calls to iPod Touch [jkOnTheRun]
- DEVONthink Professional Office 2.0 Beta Review [TheAppleBlog]
- Catching up with The Burg: Is There Hope for Hipsters? [NewTeeVee]
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