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One of the pieces of technology that generated the most lip-flap out of the National Association of Broadcasters convention was the RED Camera. I’m not usually much for techno-lust over a camera, but this one is quite noteworthy. This is a camera that can shoot a 4:4:4 image (full rez luminance, as well as colour) at sizes over 4K. For example, a typical high-end HD camera have 2.1 million pixel sensors, this camera will have 11.4 million. The idea is you could ditch your 35mm film camera, and shoot a film on this thing. Total package cost with lens and everything… around $30,000. That’s right, 30-large.

The folks behind Oakley Sunglasses are the money and design guys. It’s a weird looking piece of hardware, much like some of their sunglass designs.

This is something that is either going to revolutionize the digital cinema business, putting an ultra high-end camera within the reach of the indie filmmaker. Or it’s one of the biggest pieces of vaporware ever to come out of NAB. We’ll find out.

A bit of an overview story from NAB about the hand wringing over converting production over to Hi-Def. I especially like the comment from Sony that buying HD-Cam gear is “future proof”, just like Betacam SX, the Memory Stick, etc.

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OK, you’re a big media company, and you want some way to monetize the large amounts of content you pump out the door everyday. There are a whole lot of websites out there that need content, so it was only a matter of time before clip syndication services would start to come online. Attach a little ad to the front of the clip, sign up small websites to show the clips, and you’ve got yourself a pretty wide audience. I guess it remains to be seen whether or not the future in media is a whole bunch of small websites or the single, powerful brands that have traditionally driven audience. It’s going to be fun to find out.

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Every once in awhile I like to read a little bit of a pep-talk about being an entrepreneur. He’s correct in saying that not every business has to start as a capital-intensive full-time operation. With modern technology and the current trends in the working world of contracting and freelancing, I think there’s never been a better time for starting a small enterprise.

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There has never been a better time to be a sports fan. Sure we can all be turned off by the escalating salaries, the outrageous ticket prices, the $5 hot dogs, but the ability to sit and watch a game on any day of the week is great. Remember, it was not that long ago that sports was something that could only be seen on weekend afternoons, and on a five-minute highlights roundup on the 11pm news. Today through the wonder of cable TV, we can watch our favourite hockey team miss the playoffs with games in their entirety on a daily basis.

Now, through the wonder of the internet, we can now subscribe to streaming video of live games as they happen. I have recently subscribed to MLB.TV, a service of Major League Baseball that allows you to watch any out-of-market baseball game over the internet for $80 a year. So far, the service has been fabulous, the streaming quality with a high-speed internet connection is very impressive.

This may be a glimpse of the future of sports television delivery. Instead of subscribing to scheduled channels and sharing revenue with rights holders, a sports league could offer the games directly to consumers on this kind of pay-per-use model. Whether or not this is in the best interest of the league all depends on how much risk they want to assume that consumers will want to pay directly for the coverage. When teams sell their television rights to a broadcaster, the risk for generating an audience is then transferred to the broadcaster, and can be spread out amoungst all their holdings. For example, if baseball attracts a large audience, it can offset losses on basketball. If the league is selling directly to consumers, they had better hope that the audience will sustain the operation, as they can’t rely on that NASCAR revenue to pick them up when their audience is down.

But at the end of the day, I can watch any baseball game out there for a reasonable price. So the fan will win in the end.