WGA explains strike with YouTube video

The WGA explains the writers strike in a YouTube presentation and a video blog, United Hollywood. Apparently they want downloads to count and an extra 4 cents on every $20 DVD, as understood from the strike 20 years ago. (via)



Update: Splice Here has more in AMPAS and Intellectual Property and Putting Residuals in Perspective with the co-creator and head writer of “Lost.”

Troubleshooting + versioning After Effects

Jonas Hummelstrand posted some useful tips recently at his General Specialist, including the tricky Opening After Effects Projects in an Earlier Version. Even more useful is Troubleshooting After Effects, which has been updated with new tips and links.

Update: The Edit Blog explains how to keep versions of FCP working (for projects in different versions without an XML export and import).

U.S. National Debt = $ 9,083 Billion

U.S. NATIONAL DEBT CLOCK says:
The Outstanding Public Debt as of 06 Nov 2007 is about:

$ 9,083,000,000,000.

That's $9 trillion.

The estimated population of the United States is 303,462,000, so each citizen's share of this debt is about $30,000. The National Debt has continued to increase an average of $1.43 billion per day since September 29, 2006. Debtor nations are subject to austerity programs under external control!

Update: Some people think that the deficit was a surplus under Clinton, but that was a brief period of yearly budget surpluses. Deficit spending became popular from the time of Keynes, especially with ex-prez Nixon who tried to hide the costs of the Vietnam War.

Joseph Stiglitz, a leading economic educator and professor at Columbia. explains The Economic Consequences of Mr. Bush in Vanity Fair:

Think of the interest we are paying, year after year, on the almost $4 trillion of increased debt burden—even at 5 percent, that’s an annual payment of $200 billion, two Iraq wars a year forever. Think of the taxes that future governments will have to levy to repay even a fraction of the debt we have accumulated. And think of the widening divide between rich and poor in America, a phenomenon that goes beyond economics and speaks to the very future of the American Dream.

Hacks v. Flacks

Beet.TV has an short section of a 10-month old interview with Chris Anderson of Wired about video and "the long tail." The original interview, available as parts 1 & 2, was quite good.

Beet's actual topic though was commentary and links on a skirmish between journalists (“hacks”) and publicists (“flacks”), this time after Anderson published flack e-mail addresses he blocked. It's an interesting way to peek into those worlds. Anderson himself followed up, and even the New York Times jumped in to downplay damage to PR -- but at least giving Sheldon Rampton and PR Watch rare coverage.

China bans unapproved reincarnation

China bans unapproved reincarnation!

I missed the news of this new law in August, which aims at keeping future religious leaders of colonial Tibet pre-approved by the Communist Party.

Live blog.tv people

NewTeeVee notes that the lifecasting site BlogTV launched a new Flash video player, which includes live broadcasting, fullscreen controls, chat, and embedding into other sites. Lifecasting as is won't replace the deadtime of a writers' strike -- here's an example of a live show recorded:

Premiere Pro 3.1 posted, with P2 support + Intel SSE4.1

The Premiere Pro 3.1 update has been posted on the Abobe site for Windows & Mac. This update adds Panasonic P2 MXF compatibility plus a few bug fixes. Note that P2 MXF support in AE is not included.

The update has been available via the Adobe Update Manager, which hasn't been showing updates for some people who used the public beta. Details on the release were posted here previously in AE & PremierePro's P2 support, 3.1 upgrade available.

Update: The EditBlog discusses Editing P2 media on Avid.

Update 2: Adobe has a Premiere Pro Update for Intel SSE4.1 on Adobe Labs, "In November 2007, Intel released the Penryn family of processors that support new instructions called SSE4.1. These processors are identified by the 45nm production technology and one example is the Intel Core2 Extreme Processor QX9650. These new instructions are very helpful for working with video data. This update is completely optional and is meant to be a preview of the optimization work that is currently under development for the next release of Premiere Pro."