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November 30, 2011 | Shawn Tennyson: 3D Digital Signage Without the Glasses

What is the current state of 3D technology as it relates to digital out-of-home media? Can the technology be used without the need for cumbersome 3D glasses?

November 01, 2011 | Lee Schwartz: YouTube: The New Cool Way To Say You’re Sorry

JetBlue committed the cardinal sin among airlines during this past weekend’s freak snowstorms—they kept people on a plane for hours. In 1991 they might not have even apologized. In 2001 they might have offered free tickets/perks to the inconvenienced passengers. In 2011, they followed the lead of several other companies by offering an apology on YouTube.

September 29, 2011 | Shawn Tennyson: Ovation Captures a Live Show for Your Digital Device

Ovation is a live digital music distribution kiosk available at concert venues. The Ovation kiosk allows you to purchase the live concert you just experienced and download it directly to your digital device or have it emailed to you.

September 16, 2011 | Paul Bourdeaux: Sanford Health Announces New Hospital With AR Campaign

Whether we’re talking about their new facilities or their marketing campaigns, Sanford Health is on the cutting of edge of innovation.  When Sanford announced plans to construct a new 371-bed hospital and clinic in southwest Fargo earlier this month, they did it with an Augmented Reality campaign that lets you view the new building from all sides.

July 06, 2011 | Lee Schwartz: Cola Wars Are Coming To Town: How Pepsi Stole Santa

Santa’s on vacation. And like the rest of us, the rules we live by don’t always apply to vacation time.

June 03, 2011 | Lon Keller: Broadband Data is the New Oil

We have known for some time how effective internet video can be. Now, CBS is in agreement. Gone are the days where the broadcast giants feared online video, worrying that viewers would dump traditional network TV viewing in favor of the computer screen. Instead, CBS has learned that putting their videos online actually drives television consumption.

In this interview, courtesy of Beet.TV, Jim Lanzone, president of CBS Interactive, says “Internet video is finally working.”

I can’t help but think that internet video is finally working for CBS because of greater broadband availability. Think about it. Did anyone truly enjoy the quality of those early internet videos after waiting an eternity for them to download?  Internet video consumers are an impatient bunch. If we don’t see our video within 5 seconds (or less) of clicking ‘play,’ we’re gone.  Do you really want to see internet video succeed? Get reliable 10 Megabit or higher data service to mobile devices, then you’ll see it take off.

May 31, 2011 | Lon Keller: HD is TV

On July 23rd, 1996, WRAL-TV in Raleigh, NC became the first commercial television station to transmit their signal in high-definition. Today, almost fifteen years later, many local TV stations, while capable of transmitting HD signals provided by their affiliated network, have still not upgraded their internal signal chain and continue to produce local content in standard definition.

As most everyone knows, every television sold today is capable of displaying high-definition pictures. So why are there still so many standard-definition channels available? The transition from standard-definition television to HD has been an odd one. I cannot recall another technological event where the level and availability of consumer technology outpaced the adoption of the content providers. For those of us old enough to remember the transition from black-and-white to color, television stations were transmitting the new color signals before consumer sets were widely available.

Now I’m fully aware that there are still many old-fashioned standard-definition tube television sets out there, and that not everyone can afford to upgrade to a new HD set. But how much longer will the majority of the public, who own at least one HD television, have to wait to see all their video content in HD? Do we need to wait until the last standard-definition TV set fails? Last time I checked, the quality of those TVs was quite impressive and could easily reach a lifespan of 10 to 20 years. Sorry, but I’ve watched this SD to HD transition for 15 years and am not willing to wait any longer.

It’s time to end the era of standard-definition, so I’m asking everyone reading this to please contact your local TV stations, cable and satellite providers and demand they provide all their content in HD. No longer should high-definition television be treated as some premium service. HD is TV, period.

April 28, 2011 | Lee Schwartz: Twitter/YouTube Shine In The Wake of Deadly Tornadoes

We’ve seen it used well here in Fargo during the worst of the flooding. We’ve seen it used well in Haiti, in Japan, and even during political conflicts.

When the power is out—or even when the government decides to censor the use of media by its people—Twitter and YouTube are still there.

March 31, 2011 | Lon Keller: Stream Live Video with The Cube

Here’s a little bit of technology I’ve been keeping my eye on. It’s a device from Teradek called the Cube. About the size of a deck of cards, this device attaches to either consumer or professional video cameras using HDMI or professional HD-SDI connectors. It encodes video using the H.264 protocol and streams your video live to the world over Verizon’s 4G network. Broadcasters will take great interest in this technology, as it allows for an instant live connection without the need for satellite or other electronic news gathering (ENG) vehicles. Now the quality coming out of this device is nowhere near what a professional video signal can offer, but the demos I’ve seen are quite impressive.

The Cube may not be a solution for every video enthusiast. While it looks inexpensive, be prepared to spend around $1,500 or more.

Cube™ native integration with Livestream.com from Teradek on Vimeo.

March 16, 2011 | Paul Bourdeaux: VLOG: Cool Mobile Tech of the Month

The first of many monthly installments in which Sundog’s Paul Bourdeaux looks at different emerging mobile technologies. This vlog focuses on Saab’s new IQon, an Android powered in dash entertainment system for their fleet of vehicles.

February 09, 2011 | Lon Keller: WebM vs H.264

I’ve been trying to follow the logic behind Google’s recent decision to drop native support in their Chrome browser for the widely popular H.264 video format, favoring instead a relatively new container called WebM which uses Google’s VP8 codec. What I have been able to conclude is that the real loser in this deal is (big surprise) us. Those of us who actually enjoy using the Chrome browser will someday need to install a plugin to watch h.264 videos. In fact, Microsoft, a proponent of HTML5, has recently released a H.264 plugin for Chrome. Anyone with an Apple i-Device will totally be out of luck as there is no WebM support. Content producers will need to encode yet another video format and pay more for online storage AND invest in new software that can encode the VP8/WebM format. Web development costs will also increase to accommodate yet another format.

January 31, 2011 | Nick Green: The Best Interactive Music Videos..so far

Last year’s “The Wilderness Downtown” music video/Google mash-up from Arcade Fire changed conceptions about what music videos could be. “Wilderness” wasn’t just a one-off. Arcade Fire has already come back with a new way to make their musical experiences interactive, and they’re not the only ones.