A Major Victory for Blu-Ray. . .

. . .in the HD video format wars.

According this Wall Street Journal article, the Blu-Ray format has just scored a major win in its battle for adoption over competing format HD-DVD.

Lead paragraph:

"LOS ANGELES -- Blockbuster Inc. will rent high-definition DVDs only in the Blu-ray format in 1,450 stores when it expands its high-def offerings next month, dealing a major blow to the rival HD DVD format."

More British Talent

Since Jon brought us that great YouTube clip from "Britain's Got Talent," I thought I'd offer a favorite of my own. You may have already seen this, but if you haven't, have a look.

It is a non-descript cell phone salesman about to sing one of the least popular genre's in music. The results are, well, remarkable. . .

Remembering Ruth Graham

Ruth Graham, wife of Billy Graham, passed away yesterday. She was 87.

I only have one Ruth Graham anecdote and it is a second-hand story. But I find it very meaningful nonetheless.

A few months ago I was having lunch with one of the Graham's grandsons, who is about my age. He told me about a recent visit to his grandparents' home in North Carolina.

His grandmother's eyesight had been progressively failing and when he went to visit her in her bedroom, he found the walls lined with scores of sequentially-numbered three-ring binders on shelves. He had never seen those there before so he asked about them.

She told him, "The worst thing about my eyes going bad is that I haven't been able to read my Bible every day. I especially miss being able to read the Psalms. So Billy has arranged to have every chapter in the Psalms printed out in gigantic type so I can still read them."

My friend looked around the room and realized he was looking at 150 three ring binders. One for each chapter of the book of Psalms. He said he walked away from there feeling a strange mix of admiration and shame. Admiration for his grandmother's love and commitment to the Word of God. Shame in the realization that he has a dozen Bibles lying around his house, a perfect set of eyes for reading them, and much less evidence of a genuine hunger for the life in the words on those pages.

As he recounted the story. I must admit, I felt it too.

Thank you Ruth Graham for the example. Well done. Now Billy Graham goes on alone for a season. But reunited soon enough.

Generals International Chooses H|S

Under the dynamic leadership of Mike and Cindy Jacobs, Generals International has chosen us to help them with their communications efforts here in the USA. This growing ministry is working to change global society through intercession and the prophetic. We are honored to assist.

Simon Says

Can "Idol's" Simon ever like anyone? Watch this clip from Britain's TV show, "Britain's Got Talent."

Re: Threat to Christian Networks

Peter Suderman at NRO has expanded on why he thinks mandated a la carte cable television pricing is a bad idea. For background, see the post below.

A Threat to Christian TV Networks

Background
From time to time, someone in Congress or at the FCC proposes forcing TV cable companies to offer "ala carte" pricing (pay per-channel for only the channels you care to receive) instead of the tiered/package pricing that is now standard (basic, expanded basic, digital, digital gold plus, etc..)

This has always been promoted as a benefit to consumers. However, Christian TV networks such as TBN and Daystar have vehemently opposed it because they (accurately) see it as a threat to their very survival. If only the people who really, really want to receive Chistian networks enough to pay for them, get them--the distribution of those networks will plummet overnight.

To be honest, I'm not sure I would pay for them. I'm in the media ministry business and I consider most of Christian TV a vast wasteland.

Why I Mention It
As this post on NRO's "The Corner" points out, the FCC Chairman is pushing this initiative again.

Follow the links in that post for more info and for a good case for why the idea is bad for consumers, no matter what it means for Christian networks.

The Move to Mobile

Recently, we had a number of long discussions about our clients’ desires to get their programming to mobile devices. Anytime a new technology comes along (especially if it’s “sexy” and getting a lot of media attention) the tendency is to think that this new technology will immediately solve some audience growth challenges.

My mantra is and continues to be: It’s a great time to be a programmer. The avenues of distribution continue to grow and we must constantly be reevaluating our portfolio of media options.

Still, exploiting new media requires some careful thought and sometimes a little restraint. A recent article in Advertising Age explains that so far, the cost of reaching the mobile viewer is high and the results are low. (Of course, that observation was probably said of color TV and I still hear it about the Internet!)

So, does that mean that we should abandon a move toward new distribution options? Of course not, but it does mean that we must carefully plan what time and resource we will put toward it. Also, we cannot not ignore the current distribution streams that most folks use.

The upcoming release of Apple’s iPhone will probably usher in a giant step forward for delivering content to the viewer. With its larger screen and more sophisticated features, it may help move the mobile delivery option decidedly forward.

In the meantime, we are working with our clients to be aware of the trends and appropriately prepare for them now. Not only are there distribution and marketing plans to be made, but operational ones as well. For example, from a production perspective, it will demand a return to the “Close Up.” Watching a parade of wide and head-to-toe shots on a screen the size of your Post-it® note can be a little annoying. Moreover, the lack of close-up shots may actually destroy any opportunity to develop intimacy (that traditional TV often delivers) between the audience and the program.

Here’s to the future!

Re: That Pre-Echo Thing

I checked with one of my high-end-tweaky-audio-engineer friends and, as it turns out, there is an audio phenomenon called Pre-Echo.

First of all, it doesn’t have anything to do with the space-time continuum. It’s actually an artifact of the digitization of audio files. For your consideration:

Exhibit A

Exhibit B

So, Pre-Echo exists, but doesn’t have anything to do with temporal shifting or the distortion of reality (and cool stuff like that).

I still hold to my theory of Print-Through for the "Twilight Zone" mystery.

But pure Pre-Echo comes from bad coding. Who would have figured that it was implicated in the great Led Zeppelin "Whole Lotta Love" controversy that capped the last century?

Exhibit C

(OK... in that case, it was analog echo and not the evil kind we've explored here, but I thought it would be cool to give the link!)

Far out.

A Steep Postage Hike. . .

. . .for small ministry mailers. As this article points out, postal rates for non-profit mailers with lists too small to capture bulk discounts are about to get clobbered.

One strategy for avoiding this increase is to pool mailings together with other small ministry mailers and thereby quailify for better bulk discounts.