Freyburg

I’ve just come back from a four month sojourn in Japan and China, and a pleasant side effect of this trip was a break from North American media. I say that, but I had pretty much unbroken contact with any media I decided was worth watching, I simply didn’t access it through traditional means.

Japanese television, despite its charming commercials and genuine enthusiasm for the absurd, was nothing I could watch consistently. Instead I relied on downloads and streaming media, sometimes through a VPN connection. The VPN allowed me to access American sites like hulu.com along with the UK iPlayer app, all by telling these services that I’m actually in their country of origin.

In China this solution was less effective for streaming media, because China’s internet is slooooow. But since a VPN was an absolute necessity to access Facebook, Twitter, anything hosted by WordPress and practically anything else China’s Internet censors whimsically decided wasn’t harmonious, I didn’t feel cheated.

Now that I’m back home the VPN is the cornerstone in my plan to cut cable television out of my life. Since I can watch BBC shows live or on demand, and since I’ve just discovered a pile of great documentaries and indie films on Netflix.ca, I don’t really feel any need to watch the paltry offerings available through Canadian broadcasters.

In effect, this move to on demand media is no different than my shift away from radio a few years ago. The only radio I listen to anymore is courtesy of the CBC Radio app on my iPhone. Local radio is completely irrelevant to me, supplanted by podcasts about topics ranging from the Mac to the media to video games to philosophy.

I’m an outlier. But it’s only a matter of time before more people take the same step. More and more people are perfectly comfortable with watching films on their laptop and short videos on their phones. Being in Canada may actually accelerate this process for many people, because Canadians are online more than anyone else in the world, and because our old media dinosaurs are hell-bent on keeping the public from watching anything they actually want to see and would rather fight tooth and nail for their obsolete business models. Canadians are savvy enough to work around these arbitrary restrictions, and one way or the other I’m sure we’ll see a dramatic decrease in cable subscriptions in the next few years.

In the meantime, I’ll continue to save money and enjoy great content. I don’t think I’ll miss cable in the least, and I’m betting soon others will join me in cutting the cord.

Holiday cheer and general merriment abound as the boys cover World of Goo on the iPad, EA’s iOS fire sale, Battlefield: Bad Company 2 on the iPhone, the confusing and pointless Playstation app, predictions for 2011, and Doctor Who: Mazes of Time. Neat!

No video this week, due to weak internet capabilities in China. Next week, quite possibly some video.

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After a week’s delay, the boys are back to cover Infinity Blade, the iPad 2, Google vs. Apple, the future of publishing, and Angry Birds. Also, achievement whoring.

Note: no video this week, China’s bandwidth is somewhat lacking. Solutions are being looked into by top men.

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You may have noticed over the past few weeks that things have taken a turn towards video (specifically FruityGamer) on Freyburg.com. The reason for that is twofold. Most of the links and quick thoughts I used to jot on the site have moved to Twitter, where it’s easier to carry on an online conversation and I can quickly and efficiently fire off thoughts and whimsy. The second reason is that I’m becoming more focused on video generally, and I’d like to showcase that on the site as well as make it a compliment to Freyburg Media.

The end result is that you’ll probably see less updates but richer content on this site once I start ramping up the video production. I’ve wrapped my head around BoinxTV so it’s pretty easy to create “live switched” content fairly regularly. I’m also looking at creating regular segments involving me mocking some aspect of pop culture, media or the internet, though it’ll take me a while to come up with the segment structure and a decent workflow.

Besides that, I’m also trying to ramp up my After Effects knowledge and wrap my head around some other higher-end creation tools, so expect to see some experiments in that regard in the next few months as well. And of course I’ll continue to showcase the work projects I’m tackling on Freyburg Media.

Steam, Zen Bound, The Daily, our impressions of iOS 4.2, and a new and improved title sequence! All for you, dear listeners, all for you.

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Aralon on the iPhone, Lego Harry Potter, developers, iOS 4.2, GTA, and a lengthy Scott Pilgrim discussion. It’s a grab bag of Fruitygaming, Fruitygamers!

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Infinity Blade, Gears of War level games on iOS, Capcom Freemium games, Apple and the Kinect, and Super Mega Worm. That’s a lot of stuff, and it’s all here for your Apple game lovin’ pleasure.

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Precisely none of you may be wondering how we make FruityGamer here at Freyburg Media. Well, I’m here to tell you the thinking, process and methodology I used. My methods and tools may differ from what’s available to you, but you’ll at least get a general idea as to how to pull of your own video podcasts.

When myself and my business partner made “This is Yaletown” we did so thinking the internet would soon push up its production values to the levels of television, and that we’d better be ahead of the curve. But in fact this has not proven to be the case. People watch internet shows for many reasons, but slick production values (to a point) doesn’t seem to be a necessary part of the equation.

I figured that given my experience creating Radio Free Skaro there was no reason I couldn’t create similar podcasts on video and in audio form, and do so in such a way that they’re quick and easy to make.

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Games are the main thing being downloaded on the iPad, but you won’t be able to grab iDOS and play old DOS classics anymore on your iPad. Movie games, Batman, Trainyard and Todd rides Bane (in his mind). And for the second week in a row, video!

Games are the main thing being downloaded on the iPad, but you won’t be able to grab iDOS and play old DOS classics anymore on your iPad. Movie games, Batman, Trainyard and Todd rides Bane (in his mind). And for the second week in a row, video!

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