Online Video Sharing

Congratulations! You’ve just purchased a new digital camcorder. Although you may have used a camcorder before, the new features and technology of a digital video camera can sometimes be overwhelming. It’s a good idea to get to know your camcorder a little bit before you do the fun part — record video! Some of the terms may not be familiar to you, but reviewing them will help you to become a skilled videographer in no time!

As you know, there are many different digital camcorder models out there. Your camcorder may not have some of the functions or features mentioned here. For those of you who are familiar with digital video cameras, some of these terms may be an overview, but for those of you that are not, now is the time to learn!  Here are the core digital camcorder basics you need to know:

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Proper camcorder white balance will ensure that your video looks the best that it can.  Luckily, white balancing your camcorder is very easy to do.

What is White Balance?
Digital camcorders use the color of white as a basis for the rendering of all the other colors that it records. When you set your camcorder white balance, your camcorder will be able to properly record other colors accurately as well.

When Should Your White Balance?
You should set your white balance on your camcorder whenever your lighting environment changes.  For example, if you are videotaping a wedding, you might go from a dimly lit ceremony, to an outdoor receiving line (with lots of sun!) to an evening reception.  If possible, you should white balance at the beginning of each of these scenes.

How Do I White Balance My Camcorder?

Most digital camcorders will have a white balance button.  If yours does not, read through your camcorder manual to see if yours has a menu option available to white balance.

Once you have located your white balance button or found the white balance menu option, find something in your room that is white — a white wall, or a white piece of paper (Hint: Carry a white hardboard card with you to make sure you have something white with you at all times) — and zoom in until all you see in the viewfinder is your white object.

Then press your white balance button, and you’re done!

Before jumping into the world of digital video, you need to understand the difference between digital and analog video and why analog video should no longer be considered an acceptable form of recording your video memories when there is a much higher-quality alternative available.

Analog Video vs. Digital Video
Analog video camcorders use an electrical signal to capture images on magnetic tape. A digital video signal is a pattern of 1’s and 0’s that represent the video image. There is no variation in the original signal once it’s captured, and the image does not lose any of its original sharpness or clarity—it’s an exact copy of the original. Due to the major advances in digital technology, I highly recommended that you shoot with a digital video camera over their older analog video counterparts.

Here’s why I recommend Digital Video over Analog Video:

• Analog video degrades with each copy you make.  Digital video quality begins and remains digital from your digital camcorder to computer via FireWire cables.
• Digital video resolution is higher than analog because you can choose how many pixels, some of which offer as much as 410,000 or more pixels per Digital CCD (charged couple devices). No matter what digital video format you choose, they all have excellent resolution quality. Although some digital formats have higher quality than others, the quality of analog can deteriorate only after 5 years.
• Analog recordings are highly susceptible to deterioration. Although a regular analog camcorder may be cheaper in price, it is imperative to use digital video with digital camcorders so that preservation of your video lasts and remains in the best condition.

The Digital Hollywood Media Summit started today with opening remarks from Terry McGraw followed by a keynote interview with Barry Diller of Interactive Corp.

An international audience of media executives listened in the standing-room only auditorium as the two executives both discussed the convergence of technology and content and the impending shakeout as growing amounts of money are chasing markets and opportunity that are not limitless.

Terry gave his views on the differing roles and values of content & producers vs. audiences and consumers.  With the explosion of media on the Internet and the tearing down of walls, consumers can grab what they want.  Consumers increasingly are wanting open doors and open content, but with accuracy and easy ways to find and sift through the mountains of information.

The discussion with Barry Diller was moderated by John Burn of Business Week. Here are my notes from the keynote.

On Ask.Com
Ask is the glue between all of our businesses.  They had a market cap of $1.6B.  A unique way of searching - content and community over popularity.  We liked the technology, but could we movie it up in position relative to other search engines?  Search is a media market, not a winner-take-all market.  We’re all in trouble if Google captures the monopoly.  Media models have multiple players, and that’s a good thing.  It may not be us, but the market shares will balance out over the next 5-10 years.

On Viacom - YouTube

Viacom just tole YouTube to take down their content.  Are they being shortsighted? In contrast to the music business, availability is not an issue.  Viacom has every right to say that YouTube can’t have it, but we’ll make it available through the right medium.  The issue is availability, and Viacom has said that they won’t go into the Google/YouTube market where they will get too strong and be the only avenue for online distribution.

Smart for Viacom, but how do you get paid?  Subscription? Advertising? Micro-transaction?  Don’t know if I would do it, but you are not going to take my content and control it for other people.  I don’t know what we’ll do, but you won’t do it.

On Social Networking // Match.com

We’re not in social networking, other than Match.com, but that has a paid subscription.  Social networks are an upgrade to the Mall or the phone for people to gather and talk to each other, but is it easy to sell advertising in that medium?  Maybe for promotions, but not sure about traditional advertising.  They are definitely an advertising business model, just not completely evident how successful it will be.

Match.com got into trouble because it added too many social networking bells & whistles and confused our audience. We went from 1+ million subscribers down to 880K subscribers before we stopped it.  We got back to our core and back to 1.3+ million subscribers.  They leave us after a while, but as life goes, they tend to come back.

On User Generated Content

We should not get all crazy about this.  Is there a limit to UGC? Anything interactive is UGC. What isn’t? The user posts things online and is part of an active process.  But after you’ve seen the cats or the people tripping around, what else is there.  There are only so many talented people who can create things that lots of people want to see.  It’s not 100, but it’s also not 1 million, I can assure you.  Stuff for your family isn’t anything — just scrapbooking.  That’s not business.

The professional talent will create the content that will make you laugh, cry, etc.  it’s not the long tail. A very short tail will create the content that massive audiences will watch. Professional content will retain its value.

On Collegehumor // Acquisitions

We liked what they did (along with their 5+ million uniques), but also the team.  They created Vimeo on "spit".  We want to invent product, starting with 23/7, a comedy news site. We’ll invest a few hundred million in capital in these kinds of services over the next few years.  It’s the perfect time now that there’s a pipe large enough for video, data, etc. 

We prefer starting things to buying things, but we’ll buy anything that walks if we thing it’s good. Valuations right now are not rational, and I prefer trusting people in your own house vs. people that are trying to sell something.  Most of the time buying things for more than they are worth doesn’t work out.

You judge valuations based on how much you can lose, not how much you can make. The height of craziness is to read forward projections and put money into it.  The only thing I can do is look at how much capital I’m putting out, and how much will I lose if it doesn’t work out vs. how much I love the opportunity.

On MySpace

I don’t care what we don’t do.  We passed on MySpace.  We didn’t get it, and don’t care that it worked.  If we don’t think it’s of value, then it’s someone else’s good or bad fortune, and not ours.

On Television

I don’t thing the TV business is lousy to be in right now, but it will be tremendously challenged by creative destruction in the next few years.  Some of these things will evolve.  I can’t tell you the tight distribution models will exist in 10 years. I don’t think they will.  This is a radical revolution, and there will absolutely be both destruction and creation.

That’s it for now.  Off to the first round of sessions.