mediageek

Author: Paul

  • How Do You Sell Neutrality?

    Josh Breitbart of MediaTank and Clamor has been blogging lately, and raises a really good question about the framing of the network neutrality debate: Only a Democrat would think people could get excited about neutrality. What’s the opposite of “neutral”? Non-neutral… Partisan… In gear…? The same issue has been bugging me, but I haven’t been…

  • Happy 50th Birthday to Videotape

    I missed this story last week: Friday was the 50th anniversary of the debut of modern videotape. While there were many attempts at recording television to magnetic tape or record platters going back more than 20 years prior, April 14, 1956 was the first public demonstration of a videotape recorder using a rotating drum head.…

  • mediageek video blog #1: a minor pledge drive adventure

    WEFT‘s spring pledge drive started more than 10 days ago, but April 7 was the first pledge drive show for mediageek. I went early to help with hosting the Courier, which starts at 4 PM (mediageek goes on at 5:30), and decided I might drag along a camcorder to document a little of what goes…

  • Why Cable TV Franchises Are Important

    The main component of the telecomm legislations bouncing around Congress right now is the creation of a national franchise for new entrants in the cable TV market, aimed at smoothing the onramp for the big telcos like AT&T and Verizon to begin offering TV services over their broadband lines. One of the big problems with…

  • New Jersey Nostalgia

    FMU’s Beware of the Blog alerts me to a little piece of Jersey nostalgia in the form of the website of Randy Now, former promoter for the great City Gardens club in Trenton, NJ, where I went to college in the early 90s. And Randy’s still at DJ at WTSR, radio station for The College…

  • Sanyo Xacti HD Camcorder: “don’t get suckered”

    Camcorder Info is one of the best review sites for consumer camcorders. Unlike a lot of reviews you’ll read, they’re critical of picture quality and take a look a features like manual controls. Yesterday they took on Sanyo’s new Xacti “High-Def” camcorder that records to SD memory cards, and find that while it’s a good…

  • Net Neutrality All The Rage this Week

    They haven’t killed net neutrality yet, but I think House Republicans are pulling out their hatchets. Public Knowledge’s Policy Blog takes note of several events in Congress this week where net neutrality is at the forefront. It all starts Tuesday at 5 Pm when the House Energy and Commerce Committee‘s Telecommunications and Internet Subcommittee starts…

  • Sudden Positive Interest in Minidisc

    It’s strange, minidisc had been pretty much left for dead by the mainstream, despite a pretty big installed user base. Now Sony defies expectation by releasing a new recorder that sheds just about every drawback of the format and a few positive articles pop up in the geek mediasphere. About a week ago, the Crave…

  • On Friday’s Radioshow: Immokalee Workers Using Independent Media to Fight for their Rights

    The Coalition of Immokalee Workers is on the McDonald’s Truth Tour 2006: The Real Rights Tour! Today they stopped in Champaign-Urbana for the afternoon, making an appearance on the U-C IMC‘s low-power station WRFU and joining a community potluck dinner at the IMC. A couple of folks on the tour were also nice enough to…

  • New Minidisc Recorder Confirmed, and Even Better than Expected

    Minidisc.org has confirmation on the new minidisc recorder, MZ-RH1, that I blogged about a couple of weeks ago. The new unit is remarkable both because it’s a sign that Sony isn’t ready to kill minidisc just yet. But also, this model does away with several bothersome limitations. The MZ-RH1 now allows any audio recorded via…