Behind the scenes: producing BCS videos after the game
Last night, Oklahoma lost to Florida 24-14 in the BCS National Title game in Miami. David Jones and Paige Dillard met me in the OPUBCO Studios about 10 pm to watch the final mintues. The Oklahoman’s Mike Sherman sports editor came down to the 7th floor from the 8th to tape three segments.
I had three videos pre-produced: graphics and script. Paige pulled photos from The Oklahoman’s staffers in Miami ready for our videos. Jones prepared the studio for the three shoots.
We knocked out the first video, a post game show that lasted about five minutes talking about the game.
Then we rearranged the sets and taped two segments – one about Sooner coach Bob Stoops and quarterback Sam Bradford.
We finished taping around 11:30 pm. We record and edit using Final Cut Pro. We encode the FCP .mov files into .flv files using Adobe Flash Encoder. Exporting and encoding is by far the lengthiest part of the production.
We left the office two hours later after posting the videos and editing NewsOK.com and NewsOK.tv to properly display the videos.
Buy for Less videos
And they’re back! One of the most popular video series of 2008 was the Gourmet Grille at Buy For Less, hosted by local chefs and business owners Sean and Cathy Cummings.
I just posted the first video from the GG for 2009. We’re talking chili today. Cathy’s mom’s chili.
Todd Fraser and I shoot these segments about every six weeks or so at the Buy For Less on NW Expressway in OKC. 2-3 segments are taped. We spend about an hour to 90 minutes setting up, shooting and tearing down.
The food always looks great, smells great and, from what I’ve tried at home, tastes great too.
Thunder wins, reporters get comfortable
The OKC Thunder held off New York last night at the Ford Center. NewsOK.tv’s Tim Money was there to get reaction from players and coaches. And he taped Mike Baldwin and Darnell Mayberry for some analysis, sponsored by our friends at Jackie Cooper BMW. Mike and Darnell really do a great job. They know their beat cold.
But what cracked me up is the setting of this video. Check out Mike and Darnell reporting from the Nicholson seats as they talk about the big lead the Thunder almost surrendered.
Video at the Ford Center
Before each Thunder home game, the Ford Center plays a short segment called “The Oklahoman’s 3 Pointer” on the big screen over midcourt. Sports Editor Mike Sherman and reporters Mike Baldwin and Darnell Mayberry (of new short ‘do fame) provide 3 Points (original, huh?) about that night’s game.
We usually tape a day or two in advance. Tonight, the Thunder hosts the New York Knickerbockers. We taped tonight’s 3 Pointer at 10:30 am today.
This is the Knicks’ only trip to town, and a chance for OKC to see how coach Mike D’Antoni’s shoot in Seven Seconds or Less philosophy is playing on Broadway. It worked wonders in Phoenix. The Knicks, who are in the midst of an Extreme Roster makeover, are 13-19 and are coming off their first win over the Celtics in four years. Hungry New York basketball fans aren’t complaining.
We tape here at the OPUBCO Studios. Todd Fraser converts them to tape and runs them down to the Thunder offices at Leadership Square.
The latest all-in-one phone: Pomegranate
I’m passing this along from Tanner Herriott. On the surface, it’s the most complete, oh-mama phone out there, the Pomegranate phone: browser, phone and GPS. But then it offers more: coffee brewing, shaver and harmonica.
And then you realize after watching all the cheesy scenario videos about the whizbang features…. it’s all a marketing site for…. Nova Scotia. That’s right, Canada.
Eh?
First, that’s kinda cool. Second, they reeeally have a lot of time on their hands to build this site and create the videos.
And apparently I have just enough time to write about it.
Internet-ready TVs
Interesting. More people are watching video, from YouTube to full length TV shows on their laptops. The rage recently was IPTV, with Apple and others offering set top boxes for consumers to watch their multimedia stuff on their big screens.
And few bought the set top boxes.
But what if it were built-in to your flat screen?
Now that makes sense. The Wall Street Journal breaks down how TV companies are exploring the sub category of Web ready TVs, coming to a living room or lounge near you. Perhaps soon.
We’ll hear more about these TVs from this week’s CES show in Vegas.
Amid other developments pegged to this week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Yahoo Inc. and Intel Corp. plan to announce support from several major consumer-electronics companies to sell TV sets that come with software, dubbed widgets, that make it easier to call up Web content on TV sets using ordinary remote controls rather than computer keyboards.
Imagine the impact on the cable companies, or even the network or local affiliates:
Still, the topic remains a hot one in high-tech circles because of the potential impact on existing business models in the entertainment industry. Instead of the often expensive packages of video content from cable and satellite providers, the Internet could theoretically deliver a much wider array of entertainment and information choices — many of them free.
This article mentions TV Widgets, something Yahoo! has been developing:
TV Widgets are small Web applications that make it easy to surf your favorites sites with your remote control. Watch Web videos, track your favorite teams or stocks, interact with friends and family, and stay current on news and information by clicking on the compact, interactive apps that sit on top of your normal TV picture.
And here’s more from newteevee.com:
Watching web video on your TV set isn’t anything new. Set-top boxes like TiVo and the Apple TV have been offering web video options for a while, but recently we’ve begun to see where it’s heading. YouTube HD streams on an HDTV look pretty sweet, and Netflix, which is already streaming content (some of it in HD) to a host of set-top boxes, will soon be streaming content directly to LG televisions with no external box required.
And it’s not just the web video content that’ll be showing up on oldteevee. Intel is also working with Yahoo to widgetize TV sets, offering weather updates, ticker symbols, Flickr integration and more.
And finally, another post from newteevee.com on Netflix’s big announcement today:
Netflix announced today that its streaming service will be embedded directly into broadband-enabled LG HDTVs coming out this spring. This marks the first time that streaming Netflix content to a television set won’t require an external box like the Roku.
Now imagine when all those TVs start offering all those video services (and more!). You could watch new release content through a la carte rental, courtesy of Amazon; library titles through your Netflix subscription; and your favorite web video through YouTube — all with the push of a button on your remote (I pity the UI designers tasked with making all that content navigable and searchable).
