Author: DOuG pRATt

TV as you like it… for now

The Web site name TVonline.cc was registered this past February 2, by somebody in Iran — if the domain administrator information is to be believed — and the site supposedly originates in California, west of Reno, Nevada. Wait! Now it’s in Germany. I don’t know where the video I’m watching now is coming from. What’s the video? Last week’s installment of Breaking Bad.

TVonline

This isn’t a Torrent site, and it’s offering free embedded videos of popular TV shows that play through Flash, like most everything else does in a Web browser. I don’t know how they’re getting their material, but the quality is excellent, even in full-screen. I can’t imagine that any of the programs have been licensed, and I have to wonder how long TVonline will last before it’s forced to shut down.

Google Calling

Google has produced a documentary about — huh? — the Clash. Okay, sure, what the heck. Denro saw them live in their prime. I saw the Ramones, but never the Clash. These guys were a full musical generation behind the Beatles, Stones, Kinks, Cream, etc., and now they’re old men too. The three surviving band mates, anyway. Strummer’s been gone for over ten years.

The Clash biography that I have is Return of the Last Gang in Town, by Prue Bury’s friend Marcus Gray. To see the Clash as the angry young men they were, there’s the semi-documentary Rude Boy.

Screaming about streaming

Next February with be the 20th anniversary of when I first connected to the Internet from home by dialup modem, and yet being online still seems like a new thing to me, maybe because streaming media is still in flux. Netflix started its streaming video service in 2007, and the turmoil in TV land continues with Aereo, the DVR in the Cloud. It’s taking way too long for broadcasters and cable TV providers to adjust to online services that challenge their out-of-date business models.

Covering the boys before Bieber

Ann Moses was the right girl at the right time in the right place, as an editor for the popular teen magazine Tiger Beat.

DavyJones Ann Moses

Denro says this about Ann.

Her writing was friendly and enthusiastic, fact-based and not sensational, so the readers saw her as a pal who was “on the inside” and gave them access to cool things without playing up her own personality, thereby not generating any hate or envy.

I’ve added I used to be… Ann Moses to my Links list. Her posts confirm what Dennis says about Ann’s writing. I would love to see a complete collection of reprinted Tiger Beat articles by Ann.

TheWho AnnMoses

Ray Dolby, 1933-2013

Another audio technology pioneer has passed away. Ray Dolby started at Ampex, working on magnetic tape recorders that were based on German machines captured at the end of WWII by Jack Mullin. Later, Dolby made major contributions to Ampex’s development of the first video tape recorder. In the 1960’s, when recording studios went from four to eight tracks — leaving less surface area on the tape for each track — hiss was the result, and the Dolby A noise reduction system was developed to alleviate the problem. Dolby B was the consumer version of the circuit. Today, every HDTV has Dolby Digital decoding built in. I know somebody who worked at Dolby Labs. I’ll see if I can pry out a comment about the man.

Addendum: Somebody who worked at Dolby Labs says…

He was a very very nice man, quiet, extremely intelligent, good-natured. The company under his leadership was a marvelous place to work, where engineers had the ability to follow ideas, where the technology was cutting edge. He was also an extremely good businessman, and understood the power of licensing. His engineering contributions to early recording were ground-breaking.

… and the comments at this link are recommended.