Following up on my previous Portal posts, here’s Escape from City 17 part 2, a Half Life which boasts a city in ruins, striders, zombies, headcrabs and more. THe creators of this film claim they spent less than $1,000, which sounds doubtful given what’s on screen.

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.

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.

But in order to do so, I had to work past a few mental hurdles of my own. Through much effort I’ve taught myself Final Cut and quite a few other high-end post production programs, and I didn’t really want to leave my comfort zone to create video podcasts. So for Fruitygamer 11, I actually recorded my video, Todd’s video and our audio sperately, then after converting the video into DV files used the multiclip tool in Final Cut Pro. That approach worked, but it chewed up hard drive space and meant doing the show once then doing it again, and slower.

So for episode 12 I decided to once and for all tame BoinxTV and make it do my bidding. BoinxTV turns your Mac into a powerful video switcher, but it has a really unfortunate interface that is at once confusing, overwhelming and obtuse. However it’s a better set up than Wirecast, Ustream Producer Pro or Procaster, with much more flexibility.

The biggest challenge was to get individual lower thirds underneath different camera shots.I managed to do so by assigning the same keyboard shortcut to the lower third and a camera angle in the Interview layer, which lets you go to Camera A, Camera B and a “two shot”. I also piped the Skype audio for Todd in through Soundflower and my own audio came from a cheap USB headset I picked up at Yodobashi Camera in Akihabara. Normally the iSight camera on my Macbook Pro doesn’t like to share its image across applications, but by using the excellent and free Manycam application I was able to get both my sot and Todd into the interview layer.

From there it was a simple matter of hitting “record”. I save the file using Apple Intermediate Codec and then throw it into Final Cut Pro, where I add pre built opening and closing credits and b-roll where appropriate. I master the file at its native resolution (640 X 480) then convert that file into an .mp4. I strip the audio to an AIFF file, convert it in iTunes to mp3 and upload and post the audio podcast via the Powerpress plugin on Fruitygamer.com. I upoad the video to Blip.TV, though I will in future expand the reach of the podcast by putting it on as many video sites as possible. As of right now it isn’t possible to put the video podcast on Youtube because the site has a strict 15 minute limit which I regularly break.

So that’s it! Hope that’s of some help to those of you out there looking to create your own video shows on the cheap, and don’t hesitate to ask me questions or add comments if you want more information.

Andrew Marr, host of the excellent Start the Week and former political editor for the BBC doesn’t like bloggers. While I see his point about abusive, nonsensical and and angry commenters, his outright dismissal of new media as a legitimate medium is laughable at best.

More to the point, it’s the typical elitist broadcasting reaction to a democratized media world. The playing field, while still imperfect, is much more level than ever before, and traditional broadcasters do not like the fact that they now face competition from all corners. Some of that competition is indeed “pimply, aggressive and single” but that’s always been true. The larger point is that the self-appointed position of cultural curator has been snatched from the hands of broadcasters and put into the hands of the people. It might not be pretty, but it’s reality, and no amount of bitching from upper-class talking heads will change that.

Having worked in broadcasting myself, I completely welcome this change. Broadcasting has its role and will continue to provide a valuable service, but it’s long past time we were able to create our own content, express our own opinions, and transmit our own shows. The expansion of mobile into every corner of our lives will only accelerate the process. And if Andrew Marr doesn’t like it, tough.

Max Headroom was one of the best television shows of the Eighties. In fact, it’s fair to say that Edison Carter is one of the reasons I got into television, along with Doctor Who director Graeme Harper.

Well, Wired has a tribute to our pixelated forefather, and the article makes the very good point that with the rise of Youtube, video blogging and web series we have all become Max. Everyone is a digital sound-bite, but the difference is we aren’t in thrall to all powerful television networks as portrayed in the show. Instead the internet has made everyone into a network, for good and ill.

I’ve been working through various ways to create compelling internet content, and I’ve explored various options including scripted material and making elements for FInal Cut Pro so I can film, drag and drop. All off this comes from the idea of minimizing the inputs while maximizing outputs…but it would still involve a lot of work. Putting together the two Fruitygamer pilot episodes required about half a day of work for each segment, in addition to being down at E3 in the first place and filming the interviews.

That’s all well and good, and there’s no reason I can’t use that same methodology for special episodes. But if I want to create a lot of content quickly the way to do it is live and streamed. So I looked at BoinxTV as a viable option. I got Boinx when I bought one of the MacHeist offers for $40 a while back, and as the program is normally $299 I got a pretty decent bargain. But since I had no use for it at the time, Boinx sat on my computer unused, until now.

After studying the best way to create content efficiently, it seems the “Leo Laporte” model (for lack of a better term) works best. Leo records video of his podcasts, adding value by using the usual elements of live television such as lower thirds, graphics and other elements. He also streams live, allowing interaction with an audience. But while Leo spent upwards of $50,000 for his studio (which is really, really cheap, and also way more than I have at hand), I can do a small scale version of the same thing for next to nothing. I already have an older Macbook Pro, BoinxTV and an old HDV camera hooked up via Firewire. Add Skype videochat and stream to Ustream and I have a broadcast studio wherever I want to be. And I can ?strip out the audio and export it, creating both audio and video podcasts, all for next to no cost.

So in the next few weeks and months I’ll try to roll out some new shows for your enjoyment and edification. It’ll be a work in progress, but I’m confident I can pull this off pretty easily with practice and maybe even (given enough time and content) make a buck or two.

When I started Freyburg Media, I wanted to create videos for clients that brought TV-level quality to web video. I’ve been lucky enough to accomplish that with a couple of different projects including working with The South Granville Business Improvement Association on a number of videos. But while I love doing work for clients, I like creating original programming even more, and I think that’s where the future of online media is headed.

To that end, I spent the last couple of weeks trying to figure out how to create niche websites targeting things I’m interested in and could blog about regularly. But what I found is that while I’m perfectly comfortable zipping around FInal Cut and creating a video, all the attendant WordPress setup, ad network crafting and other bits and pieces of “making money from a website” drives me mental. It also occurred to me that while many people can and have created websites in order to bring in income, significantly less do so with video and audio (Leo Laporte and a few others spring to mind) because of the much higher barrier to entry.

Fruitygamer is my first effort to create a niche program for an online audience. Mac gaming is finally coming into its own, and the iPhone and iPad are becoming portable gaming platforms rivalling Nintendo’s dominant handhelds. It makes sense to target that audience, I think.

In the next few weeks and months I’ll be rolling out more programming, but for now enjoy the two episodes of Fruitygamer from E3. I’m looking forward to putting out more content soon.

When I worked at Superchannel in the mid-90′s, I pined for the day when cheap hardware and software would allow anyone to start up their own television station, free from the restrictions of both the CRTC and TV execs who continually aimed straight down the middle at the lowest common denominator. THere weren’t any shows that seemed to address what I was interested in, and no way to use my talents to cover interesting niche topics because there simply wasn’t a venue for that kind of content. Remember, this is before Youtube, when Realplayer was as good as it got for online video (ie. terrible.)

But there was one exception to this rule, a show produced in Vancouver called the Electric Playground, made for gamers by gamers, and at the time the only media in the mainstream that treated gamers with respect instead of derision. At the time I vowed that one day I would work for the show….and against all odds, one day I actually did just that.

The road to EP involved Macworld, working with Leo Laporte and a bunch of other details I won’t go into, but suffice it to say I got to write, produce, edit and occasionally shoot for some really cool projects. But within a year I quit to form my own company. Sound odd? Well, it all has to do with what I see as a radical change in the media.

In fact, I should go back to Leo, because his decision to leave “The Lab with Leo Laporte” was part of why I decided to strike out on my own. Leo had worked for decades in broadcast, particularly the ill-fated Tech TV, but big media wasn’t really allowing him to concentrate on technology. At the same time, he was finding increasing popularity online via podcasting, and as of mid-2008, he decided to strike out on his own with the TWIT network, a move which has paid off in spades.

At any rate running my own business has had its share of ups and downs, and at the same time I’ve been freelancing for gaming sites like Eurogamer and Gamepro. I figured it made sense to head down to E3, THE game industry conference of the year, and make as many contacts as I could.

But once I got there I soon realized that the games industry is Ground Zero for the sweeping changes in media. There were kids (literally, in some cases) all over the press room, all of them reporting for gaming blogs, and many of them toting broadcast-level video gear.

Now, this either means a lot of rich kids have an expensive hobby, or there’s some sort of business model to the madness. The most stark example of the shift from professional media to so-called amateur was at the Sony press conference, where the broadcast riser was choked with cameras from websites from all over the world…and a few tv stations and EP in the middle.

Looking at this forest of cameras, it occurred to me that it doesn’t even matter if all these websites were staffed by wealthy dilettantes. The fact is, the media could once rely on being the only voice for news and event coverage, and right there in front of me was the proof that this is most definitely no longer the case. All of this information is going directly to the same people (including myself) who used to rely on television, and it’s not coming back. THere won’t be a grand consolidation or some sort of rollback, because that just isn’t how information technology works.

More to the point, this sort of thing is happening with gaming and other edge-case nerdery right now, but it’s only a matter of time before it happens to any area of interest. The tools will get a little cheaper and easier to use, and all of a sudden Fashion TV or even niche sports networks will have something to worry about.

And I for one am all for it. Within the TV industry, nothing’s changed from the days where I sat in Master Control. No-one in charge wants anything to change, even as their entire industry morphs around them. At least in this changing media ecology, I stand a fighting chance, which is more than I can say for my prospects under the old order.

Snoop Dogg and Daft Punk interacting with Kenobi and Greedo. Brain just exploded.

The New York Times has an article up about the coming wave of mobile TV headed to North America. Asia and Europe have had mobile TV on their phones for years, and it’s frankly surprising that we haven’t followed suit.

Or maybe it isn’t. Canada’s mobile industry is woefully behind the times, and one more deficiency isn’t in the least bit surprising. Bell offers a Mobile TV app, and Rogers presumably has some weak-assed mobile version of RODO in the works, but frankly I have better luck rolling my own media solution on my iPhone. I have Al Jazeera English, NHK World, Livestation Mobile’s numerous streaming news channels, and the TWIT network, and that’s without even trying.

I think before North American carriers get around to providing mobile TV, appmakers and content providers large and small will work around them and provide their own solutions.