Kate Bush played an important part in the soundtrack of my childhood. My sister loved her music, and we used to spend a lot of time together listening to her CDs.

But as the years went by, my musical taste changed.  I started listening to  Prodigy and heavy metal bands -- music that energized me -- instead of more relaxed music.

When my daughter was born, I started to play music from the 80s and 90s.   (I'm doing my best to make sure she doesn't become a Lady Gaga fan, people.)  And it was then that I rediscovered Kate Bush music and videos.

YouTube replaced CDs, and for my daughter, music will forever start as a visual experience.

Kate Bush was an artist, who knew how to tell deep and meaningful stories, as well as convey experiences, through a seamless blend of lyrics, music, visuals, and choreography.
In this clip, she tells the compelling story of a son's inability to save his father. Little did I know when I first heard this song that it is based on the story of Peter Reich and his Father Wilhelm Reich, a controversial psychoanalyst, who was jailed in 1957.
This clip is a great example of storytelling. Hope you'll enjoy it.

Apple released yesterday a new version of its music management iTunes. The application, that syncs apps, music and videos from your computer and iTunes store, got many new features, including Genius Mix (automatic playlist creation based on your music library), iPhone app management and more. And for the first time, Apple added a social networking feature to its core media management application - the ability to share your media on Facebook and Twitter.
And they completely blew it.
Social sharing should be an easy, one click, intuitive, almost impulsive act. That's why sharing buttons should be conveniently located at key areas of a page or application.
But Apple decided to do things differently. They hid the sharing feature so well, that I had to go to YouTube to find a tutorial. And this is a Mac application for crying out loud.

But that was the good part:

You can't share the song you are listening to.
You can't share Genius Mixes
You can't share songs you've purchased in iTunes store
The only thing you can do is, when you are in iTunes Store, share items that are on sales. And you need eyeglasses to see the small arrow that allows you to do so.

In one word - Lame.

In a whole sentence:
We all know that the guys at Apple don't play nice. Maybe they shouldn't try to be social.

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• iTunes + Facebook + Twitter: Just the Beginning? (mashable.com)
• Apple's iTunes 9 Music Offerings Lack True Genius (readwriteweb.com)
• Predictions and hopes for iTunes 9 if it's announced today (thenextweb.com)
• Apple Announces iTunes 9, "LPs," Video Camera For the iPod Nano (apple.slashdot.org)
• Apple Wows Users with New iPod Nano, Upgraded iTunes (businesspundit.com)
• Apple boss admits to liver transplant (guardian.co.uk)
• New iPods, new iTunes and more - all the news from Apple in one handy list (thenextweb.com)

How wrong can a YouTube competition get  http://bit.ly/cNKdd

Justin.tv becomes more social   http://bit.ly/1aKVNF

How can I share video on Twitter?   http://bit.ly/Jecii

Concrete news about Hulu's international expansion  http://bit.ly/18u7Aw

In the first post in this series I've reviewed the basic considerations in buying a camera for online video production. This post will cover advanced camera features, for savvy buyers (or latent video geeks like me). Understanding them can help you make better choices when buying your next video camera. Just like the previous post, I will focus on sub $1,000 cameras, as an entry level for most videographers. So let's start:

Interlaced vs. Progressive Formats

Many of the cameras you've seen state that they support 60i or 30p formats (or other combinations of this type). The letters P and I refer to  progressive and interlaced formats. I won't go into too much technical details about what is each format. The important points are the following:

1. Interlaced formats originated in the broadcast world, where basically each frame was chopped to lines that were interlaced with other images. This format is aimed at older TV sets.

2. Progressive formats are based on progressive scanning of images - the way that computer screen and flat panel TVs are analyzing images.

Why should you care? Because your videos will be watched, in 99% of cases, on progressive screens. So, if you'd like to get the best video quality, you should output your file in progressive format. Which means, that if you shoot in interlace format, you need to do a process called De-interlacing, before sending your clip to YouTube, Vimeo and such. It is not rocket science - every editing system has this feature as a video filter or encoding option. It just means that you need to spend time and resources to do it.

So, if possible, choose a camera that supports progressive formats - less work for you in post production.

You can find more information about interlacing here.

White Balance

White balance is a simple feature - the camera automatically identifies white objects, and correlates its image parameters to that definition of white. All cameras do it automatically, but there are cases you'd like to do it on your own. In some cases because you'd like to give the image an artistic look, or because you believe that the camera doesn't calibrate automatically well enough, or because you want to fool it to think that there is more or less light than its sensors indicate. Most sub $1,000 cameras do not support manual white balance but some do. If you can, choose one of those. This flexibility is important for your production value, and is not complicated to manually white balance your camera if it supports it.

Zebra Stripes

We all love Zebras. They are cool animals, with funny stripes. But in the video world they have another important role - they tell us when our video is over exposed. Video, just like film, can be "burned" by too much light. Every camera has its own sensitivity to light, and you will see many videos where the skies are white, or bright elements look completely white. These elements are over exposed. Some cameras have a function called Zebra, that shows you in the camera's viewer which areas are over exposed.

If your camera has manual exposure control, you can reduce the exposure to the right level. In other cases (for example if you'd like to get the Apple ads look of white space) you'd like to do just the opposite - over expose parts of the shot. Zebra lines can help you light and configure your camera properly to get this look.

Frame Rate

in every camera spec you will see parameters such as supports 30p, 60i, etc. We reviewed the difference between the i and p, but frame rate has its own importance. First of all make sure that your camera supports either 30 or 60 fps (the cool way to say frames per second). The reason is that most online video sites reduce video frame rates in multiples of 15. This way, if your video is for example in 50 fps, it would look choppy a bit when uploaded to YouTube.

Now, there is a holy grail of frame rates, the El Dorado of video makers, the most coveted frame rate ever (you got the picture) - 24fps. Why people are so hot for that frame rate? Because many videographers really want their video to look like film (what the cool kids call cinematic look). I am one of those guys. And film frame rate is 24 frames per second.

But things get a bit more complicated. Most cameras in the $1,000 price range don't support 24fps at all, but not all of those who claim they do, do it in the same way. Some are supporting it natively, meaning, they really shoot in 24p. But some require an additional step in the way before this 24p material could be edited, that is called Pulldown. We won't go into to many details on why this process is needed, but it is important to remember that if your camera requires this step in 24p formats, it means you need to do another encoding process, that takes time.

Digital and Optical zoom

You know those cameras that have X40 digital zoom, and tons of people buy cause this number is huge? Well, don't be one of them. Digital zoom is just a manipulation of the captured images, which, in short, sucks. Optical zoom is king. Most cameras have X10 optical zoom - which is great for most use cases.

Shoe

A shoe is a slot on the external body of the camera, used to attach accessories to it, such as external lights, microphone and so on.

Like in any industry, some of the camera companies have their own shoe, while other use a standard shoe. If you are planing to use accessories, especially external mike as I've recommended in my previous post, make sure your camera has either a standard shoe, or buy a mike that fits it.

Manual Controls

The more manual control you have, the better. However, most sub $1,000 cameras don't have a lot of those, and they are not as easy to reach and use as in pro cameras. Look for the following manual controls: Focus, Zoom, Exposure, Shutter, and Aperture.

Sensors

Digital camera sensors are capturing images, instead of the traditional film. There are two sensor technologies - CCD and CMOS. Comparing sensors between cameras is not that straight forward, but the following thumb rules can help:

1. The bigger the sensor is, the better low light performance the camera will have.

2. CCD cameras with one sensor are inferior to cameras with 3 sensors (labeled as 3CCD in the specs)

3. Some say the CMOS sensor is less battery intensive, though I take this fact with a grain of salt.

Note that bigger sensor doesn't mean that the image would look better. . Each company has its own image analysis algorithm, that improves the overall video look,

What isn't important

All camera vendors cram their low end cameras with tons of features that look great on paper but are either useless, or the same effect can be achieved easily in post production. These are the features I couldn't care less about when evaluating a camera:

1. Digital zoom

2. Digital transition effects

3. Digital image effects such as Sepia and black and white

4. Quality or features of onboard microphone

Summary

This way too long post provided a bit more in depth view on camera features, and adds some more insight to the first post in this series. In the next post we will review some of the popular cameras today.

After long negotiations, ABC are becoming a stake holder in Hulu, the Internet TV company funded by NBC, Fox and Providence Equity Partners. This deal further strengthens Hulu's position as the leading premium online TV provider, with 27 partners, and newly extended 2 years exclusivity of the main players' content.

Hulu is proving that great content is king. The site, that was launched a little more than a year ago, has shown meteoric growth and is the third largest online video site in the US. However, as Jeff Zucker, NBC's President,  mentioned in his NYC Media Summit interview, the site is still not profitable.

This deal has a profound effect on YouTube, the queen of video UGC. The site, which is losing hundreds of millions of dollars annually, is facing a huge challenge, that puts it in a collision course with the TV networks' prodigy.

UGC videos are less attractive to advertisers, as many of them do not wish to associate themselves with acts of stupidity caught on video. This leads to lower CPM in these sites. However, video streaming is still an expensive operation. This is why I believe that UGC is not a viable business model in the video world, and this equation is the biggest challenge to YouTube today.

YouTube is trying to change the equation, by introducing premium content on its platform. Some of the first moves in this direction was the introduction of HD player, and hosting videos longer than 10 minutes. The company also announced a deal with MGM, a major move in this direction.

After creating the online video revolution, and empowering users across the globe to broadcast themselves, YouTube has to play the big media game.

And in this game it is facing the biggest challenge of all - beating the TV networks in the online market.

Would they succeed to leverage their huge user base? Time would tell...

Recently I've been asked by several people which video camera should they buy in order to shoot online videos. So, instead of answering only on Twitter I've decided to write this post series. This post will cover key considerations, and the next one will review some of the models sold today. I will focus on sub $1,000 gear considerations, which is around the amount of money new entrants are willing to spend on such an equipment.

But, before we start, let's put one thing straight:

No camera can save a bad script, horrible talent, or plain bad experience — some great things are done with cheap cameras (1938 Media for example), and some horrible pieces of moving pictures were done in huge budget (did anyone say "The day the earth stood stil[5.6/10 rating][5.6/10 rating]l"?)

Equipment can make your life easier, make some things feasible, but that's it. Nothing can replace talent and knowledge. in other words - IT IS NOT WHAT HAPPENS WITHIN THE CAMERA THAT IS IMPORTANT, IT IS WHAT HAPPENS IN FRONT OF IT.

Ok, with that out of the way, let's get started:

Number 1 Consideration - Audio

Yes, it sounds strange but the most important thing in video is actually Audio. If your image is not that good but your audio is excellent, people would watch, or at least listen. However, you can be Gordon Willis and have amazing images, but bad audio will make people just close the browser.

So, when you are considering buying a camera, check if it has an audio jack. It doesn't have to be a professional XLR input (three pins socket), it can be a plain 3.5 mm one. But without it you will have to count only on the external mic of the camera - which is usually awful. This is one of the reason that I am not a huge fan of Flip Mino, Xacti, Kodak Zi6 and so on. They are great for mom and pop videos, and maybe for very hot news coverage, but personally I won't recommend them for other uses (unless you figure out a way to connect an external mike to it). A way to bypass this issue is by recording audio with a separate mike, and then sync it. If you have the equipment, time and patience - that's great. But then it might be worthwhile just to buy a different camera.

High Definition (HD) vs. Standard Definition (SD)

True - in many cases the web is not exactly the best HD experience. But with Vimeo, HQ YouTube, and podcasts, more and more people see online originated HD videos on their computers. So if you buy a camera now - go HD. Which brings us to the next consideration

My choice - I've bought an HD camera, didn't think twice.

Tape vs. Tapeless, HDV and AVCHD

Now we get to the juicy part, that is not an issue only for amateurs and semi-professional creators but for the whole industry. There are no clear rules here, but let's start with explaining the differences between these methods:

Tape - an established, cheap to use media. You can buy a MiniDV tape in almost every electronics store, and the best thing about it — it is a great archive solution. Now, MiniDV tapes were originally created for SD format, but, there is an HD format called HDV that records an hour of HD on a MiniDV tape (the same as in SD format). So, if you go tape, you usually go HDV. The main pitfall of tape is the capturing process. When you will need to deliver the footage to your editing system, you'll need to play the material from the camera to the system, a process called capture. This process takes the same amount of time as your footage length. Another pitfall with Tape based cameras is that they can't be too small as they have a limitation — the tape size.

Tapeless - tapeless cameras are using different media for storing its footage — hard disk, flash memory, or DVD. These cameras allow you to connect your camera to your computer and drag and drop the images to your editing system. It saves a lot of time, as you don't need to wait for the capturing process. However, the main issues with tapeless are:

1. There is no good archiving solution — remember when you lost all of your old MP3 in the latest HD crash? The same can happen to your footage — your videos are just files on an HD. This is an industry wide issue, not just for us, prosumer guys.

2. The format is very resource intensive (meaning, not so much fun to edit) — most HD based cameras are using a format called AVCHD. In short, this format is heavier on the processor, and requires a stronger machine. Mac users also know that many of the editing applications automatically convert the files from the camera to an Apple Intermediate Codec, a time consuming process as well. So all in all, I am not certain that the reduced capturing time worth the editing hassle later on.

3. If you are in a long trip, or have no way to offload your camera, you might be stuck with a great tapeless camera with no room for new footage. With tape based solution you just put in a new one—.

My decision - I've bought a tape based, HDV camera. BUT if you are not editing a lot, have a strong enough computer, offload your camera a lot, and not concerned with archiving your material — tapeless might be the answer for you.

Tripod and Monopod

Tripod, like audio, is the kind of thing that goes a long way in improving your production value (a cool way to say looking better). Make sure that whatever you do you get a camera that can be connected to a tripod. You might not buy one now, but you need to have the possibility to do so.

In the next post in this series I will review some of the popular cameras out there, up to $1,000. You can see my equipment in this post.

Last week I attended the New York Media Summit, done by Digital Hollywood. The event, featuring keynote speakers such as NBC's CEO Jeff Zucker and Microsoft's CEO Balmer, had a somewhat depressing message: We are all going to die.

Well, I might be a bit too dramatic. But the conversion of analog dollars to digital cents is still a major challenge to the industry.

Jeff Zucker, besides bashing Jon Stuart, expressed his concern of lack of effective multi-platform audience measurement, and said that media companies must experiment, as traditional models didn't work anymore:

Vanity Fair's Michael Wolff, AP's Michael Oreskes, Kevin Young from YouTube and Ellen Weiss from NPR discussed the way that technology effects the media business - and basically killing the newspaper industry. Clay Shirky's words were in many aspects the underlying theme, even if not intended:

Round and round this goes, with the people committed to saving newspapers demanding to know “If the old model is broken, what will work in its place?” To which the answer is: Nothing. Nothing will work. There is no general model for newspapers to replace the one the internet just broke.

Jeff Jarvis, who attended the event, was given as an example of the future journalist, as well as contributed a lot to the discussion itself.

In another panel, I asked Richard Jalichandra, the CEO of Technorati, how do advertisers utilize social media in their activities, as there are no social media campaigns, only slow relationship building and got the following answer:

Well, they ask for the whole social media stuff, but at the end, when they realize that it doesn't have an immediate impact, they go back to the usual media buying behavior.

Janet Eden-Harris, VP Marketing of Umbria, was a ray of hope in the room, when she described some best practices of social media analysis for marketers.

As the world of media is changing, it seems that there are still more questions than answers.

- 12Seconds is testing vide rooms. Seesmic is doing the same

MTV changes embedding policy

11% of Americans read or post Status updates

Kangaroo, the UK Hulu, closed by UK competition commission

The friend connect war intensifies with Google's new social widget

Have a great day!

One of my favorite podcasts is Meet The Experts by Pixel Heads Networks. The reason is simple - the value to noise ratio here is huge. Almost every episode taught me about a product or workflow I should know about, and at least once affected my buying decision. So, I took the opportunity to interview Marcelo Lewin, the guy behind this and other shows for digital media creators.

What's Pixel Heads Network? Which shows are a part of the network and who is their target audience?

Pixel Heads Network is a Internet Media Network dedicated web shows for digital media creators. We create shows that entertain, educate and inform digital media creators. Currently we have 5 shows:

Meet The Experts, is a show were we interview experts in new media and we go indepth on topics that affect new media and digital media creators.

EXPOzed covers all the expo shows, including NAB, Macworld, CES, HD Expo, DV Expo, plus many others. We interview all the vendors with in-depth questions on their products.

Digital Media Quick Tips is focused on the "how-to" for digital media creators. We show you how use a variety of different applications and get in-depth on the topics. We usually start with a problem (e.g. How do you capture AVCHD on Final Cut Pro) and end with a solution.

Tame The Tube concentrates on YouTube and how video producers can harness its power for media distribution and marketing.

And Mac-411 which is dedicated to Mac users showing them how to use the thousands of applications that are available for the Mac.

Wow, pretty impressive. Many podcasters can't make a living out of this hobby - is this your full time job, or just a part time thing?

PHN was a part time thing (along with my full time job) until December, when it was acquired by a company called ProMAX Systems, which provides digital media solutions to digital media creators (e.g. Full systems for video editing, web development, audio engineering, etc.). Our match was made in heaven. We both complement each other and have the same customer. Now that we are part of ProMAX, we will continue to provide quality shows (and remain fully editorially independent from what ProMAX sells) to both our viewers and the ProMAX customer base. And our viewers now will have access to purchasing the best digital media solutions anywhere.

How do you gain access to all those great people in your podcasts?

It's funny because many people always ask me this. But I have one rule in life. Ask. Just ask. What's the worst that can happen when you ask? You get denied and you move on. What's the best that can happen when you ask? They say yes! Besides that, another great thing I learned is to make friends and treat PR people real well. Why? Usually, you have to go through a PR representative to get to a CEO or COO or high profile person. If you do a good job with them and then you do a terrific job with the interview, the person you interview usually tells their PR person it was great. Then the PR person usually will get back to you and offer you other people they represent. It's all about building relationships with people, treating people fairly and right.

How do you work with advertisers and sponsors? What are their main concerns? How do you address them?

Advertisers are moving away from traditional media and moving many of their dollars into new media. The target market we go after, digital media creators, are usually well educated, affluent people, so it doesn't take that much to convince a vendor that provides digital media creation tools to sponsor our shows. Our viewers are their potential (or even current) customers. It is very important, though, that you know who your audience is, and be able to define it properly and, have enough statistics to show a potential sponsor who your audience is, what they are watching, the # of views per video, etc. Also, if you can get a high profile sponsor (even if you charge them very little or even nothing), it will help you in the future get other sponsors. No one ever wants to be the first one...but if they see others are in on it, they'll jump right in.

Now that you guy(s) were bought how would your network operate?

Now that we are part of ProMAX, my title changed from CEO of Pixel Heads Network to General Manager of Pixel Heads Network and also Director of Interactive Media for ProMAX. My responsibilities will continue to be the same for PHN, but I will take on additional responsibilities managing all the aspects of interactive media for ProMAX including all eMarketing efforts. It's definitely an exciting time and I look forward to continue to bring quality content to digital media creators while at the same time, working in an environment (ProMAX) which highly values digital media creators!

Wow. That's what I thought when I saw Google's strategy presentation: