Tag: media
0 Adam’s Video Picks – Ep. 100 Special Edition
As we celebrate the week of our 100th podcast episode, it seems an appropriate time to recap some of my favorite videos from my weekly video picks series. It’s been great fun hand-selecting these videos for you, and I’ll be glad to keep rolling these out for your viewing pleasure. As always, enjoy!
1. Jaguar Project 7
Looking back through the weeks, I still found this car to be absolutely gorgeous, and the way it’s filmed in this clip makes the most of its excellent qualities.
2. Let Me Breathe – Samuel Truth
This song still gets stuck in my head – in a good way – from time to time and I love the Japanese animation from 1929. Samuel Truth’s music just keeps getting better and better. If you haven’t already, be sure to check him and his music out of SoundCloud.
3. Pumpcast News – The Tonight Show with Jay Leno
Still funny, and this guy and his lady are great entertainers.
4. The History of Typography
Fascinating, informative, and well-done stop-motion.
5. OVERVIEW
Last, but not least, I had to post this one again for the perspective and beautiful insights it has to offer.
Thanks again for watching/listening and here’s to 100 more episodes on the Buffering Podcast!
0 Adam’s Weekly Video Picks – Vol. 10
Welcome back, ladies and gents, to a week that can only be described as “the week after the 4th of July weekend”… pretty self explanatory. But don’t let the lull after the fireworks get you down! Get your spirits up with some imaginative bike riding, discover the instrument behind that weird word you’ve maybe heard an older family member use, and get a guffaw or two from a few humorous contributions in this week’s colorful set of videos. Enjoy!
1. Interview with a One-Year-Old
Clearly, some solid parenting. Cute!
2. Danny McAskill’s Imaginate -Red Bull
I remember playing with toys like this in my room…
3. Hurdy Gurdy: Mancell Minuets – Dante Ferrara
Not just a fun rhyming word, also a bizarre instrument!
4. Ho Hey Harry Caray
And finally, one from Dan.
0 Adam’s Weekly Video Picks – Vol. 8
Zounds! It’s time for me to post another set of videos I’m certain you’ll enjoy. For this round, we’ll start with some A Capella, relive some 90’s greatness, see some game show ridiculousness, and again, relive some 90’s greatness.
1. Sonic 2: Chemical Plant Zone A Capella – Smooth McGroove
There are plenty of videos out there of guys singing all the parts to a song in this split-screen arrangement, but Smooth McGroove is a cut above the rest. The vocals are so crisp and the sound is great. He has a ton of songs from video games on his page (Zelda!) as well as a few covers of some popular Indy rock songs. Go check it out!
2. Will & Jaden Smith, DJ Jazzy Jeff and Alfonso Ribiero Rap! – The Graham Norton Show
Nostalgia much? This is why Will Smith was one of my heroes growing up. Awesome.
3. 1 Hour of the Funniest Game Show Answers Ever
I was very amused.
4. Wild & Crazy Kids – Episode 42
Remember this show? We were talking about it on the podcast this week. Classic Nickelodeon!
Thanks for watchin’! See you next week!
0 Adam’s Weekly Video Picks – Vol. 6
Hello! So nice of you to pry yourself away from watching the new season of Arrested Development to check out my picks for this week! Maybe some of you already finished them (I was done in two quite full evenings), so I’ll welcome you back to the part of the internet that isn’t about the Bluth family. This week, we’ll learn about the history of typography and sit in on a few hilarious and interesting panels!
1. The History of Typography
Fascinating, with well-done stop-motion.
2. Wil Wheaton & The Science of Star Trek – StarTalk with Neil deGrasse Tyson
It’s so neat to see how fact and fiction mesh in this panel.
3. Game of Thrones Emmy Panel 2013
We didn’t get an episode of Game of Thrones this week and I know many of you are fans, so here’s something to hold you over until next Sunday! Peter Dinklage is so awesome and I laughed out loud many times watching this.
There we have it! I’m just posting three this week, since the two panels are so long (well worth your time, though!). See you next time!
0 Adam’s Weekly Video Picks – Vol. 5
I’m back with week five, presenting a handful of videos I hope you won’t immediately forget you watched moments after you watch them, as is the case most of the time when surfing this Grand Interweb of ours. Because of the unfathomable volume of content out there to consume and the ludicrous level of convenience by which it is delivered, our attention spans are so short that sometimes it can feel like a chore to commit more than ten minutes to one video when you could simply scroll to the next post in your News Feed or click the “Stumble” button for the umpteenth time. That’s exactly the kind of thing I’m aiming to avoid in my little series here, selecting quality stuff that I think you’ll enjoy or find educational and perhaps even reflect on later. This week, we’ll go for a drive with Sir Patrick Stewart, join some skiers/snowboarders in the mountains, look at a new spin on coming out to your parents, and hike Machu Picchu with full 3D sound. Avanti!
1. Carpool – Sir Patrick Stewart
It seems I’ve found the British precursor to “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee.” There a few more notable big names in this series, but for the most part, you’d probably have to be from the U.K. to know who the rest are. I love this interview format! It’s easy to imagine what it would be like to go on a car ride with Patrick Stewart while watching this.
2. Searching for Spines // Episode Two
Just some all-around excellent skiing/snowboarding footage with great music and some exciting first-person views.
3. Coming Out Straight – Josh Healey
Hilarious! I laughed out loud, especially when he’s describing the liberal parents.
4. 3D Audio Machu Picchu – Smarter Every Day
Put those headphones on! The Binaural sound adds a great immersion factor.
Thanks for joining me for this week’s picks! See you next week!
0 From The Basement: Polished, Honest, Intimate Music Performance
Not long ago, I stumbled upon a video of Gnarls Barkley singing a down-tempo, mellowed-out version of Crazy. It was so heartfelt and intimate – the version showed me a side of the song I hadn’t seen before. That was when From the Basement first got my attention. When I discovered the long, impressive list of artists who have already been on the show (Radiohead, The White Stripes, Foster the People, The Raconteurs, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Feist, The Shins, Andrew Bird, Fleet Foxes – I would love to go on), I became a believer.
For music lovers who enjoy live or acoustic versions of songs, there are several different sources producing great versions of our favorite tracks. NPR has their studio sessions, Big Ugly Yellow Couch provides performances by up-and-coming bands, and so on. From the Basement started as a podcast, but grew up quickly into a TV show streaming on Crackle and DirecTV’s 3-D channel 3net.
Nigel Godrich, the visionary music producer most famous for his work with Radiohead, takes the helm in this endeavor. Since its humble beginnings in 2006, transition into a UK Television show in 2007, and on into the present where season 3 is being broadcast in HD in 2-D and 3-D, Godrich’s intent has been to “authentically document the pulse of music being made today.” In a recent interview with Entertainment weekly, Godrich says, “I think what happened was MTV came along in the ’80s and destroyed the way that people film music on television. The performance ended up in the edit, and it wasn’t very direct. It’s a selfish thing, really—as a music fan, I really wanted to see people performing on television, so we went ahead and did it. Musicians hate doing TV because it’s such a different world and a horrible environment for them, so wouldn’t it be cool for me as a music person to do a TV show? Then I could get something out of them that TV shows wouldn’t get.” To that end, Godrich uses an intimate basement setting with no audience (except a few HD cameras), making the artists as comfortable as possible to get the best, purest performance possible.
It’s like PBS’s Austin City Limits, but better.
The thing I appreciate most about From the Basement is that it displays the great musicianship of the artists in a way that hyper-produced studio recordings and blasting live performances cannot. You get to hear and see in stunning detail just how soulful a singer Cee-Lo is, or how beautifully blended Fleet Foxes’ harmonies really are. There’s no Auto-Tune, no backup tracks, and absolutely no lip-syncing – just pure performance chops at work. From the Basement is quality proof that there are wonderfully talented artists making great music today.
0 Episode 64 – Happy “Ocarina of Time” Episode!
(Get it?)
So Adam, Bennett, Frank and I had a great time this week in the Wheels Brewing Co Studio, where Bennett and Frank turned out to be a great pairing, due to their common bond over “League of Legends”. With Bennett joining for the first time, and Frank having not been on in ages, it was great to get a fresh perspective on how other people devour streaming media compared to the diet Adam and I follow consisting primarily of Netflix.
Since this is a late posting, you get a BONUS Bonus Track right now! We had a fantastic riff after riff Mic Check this week, roaming from 90’s TV on Nickelodeon to “Machete” to Christmas trees, and on, and on, and on. Lots of great laughs in that Mic Check.
We also taped an instructional audio clip tied to “Movie Bluff” so we no longer need to explain it in EVERY episode (this means more time for GAMES!). We’ll make a lot of noise (a la postings) when it is available.
Until then, enjoy the Mic Checks for Episode 64.
0 Episode 63 – The gang’s all here!
First, sorry for the delay. With today’s weather-related traffic, and technical issues plaguing the studio this week, it took a few extra minutes to get everything up and running.
The good news? Now you get EVERYTHING from this week AT ONCE! All bonus tracks, and the episode have been posted simultaneously to give you hours of entertainment while you avoid the Minneapolis roads during the first legitimate snow of the year. (To all those in not-so-snowy areas, I wish I was there)
As I mentioned above, we had a few tech issues this week with John Egan joining via Skype. It was the run-of-the-mill “signal cut out a lot” stuff, so we’ve learned our lesson for the second time, and will put all of our energy toward FaceTime in the future, if we opt to phone guests in.
But that technical issue gave way to an additional bonus track this week, so go listen to that. And, of course, we have our Mic Check available on our site. We talk about beer. Preferred beers, to be specific.
AND, if you enjoy the “Buffering …” Podcast, go vote for us on Vita.MN’s “Best of 2012” list for Podcasts. You can check out the list, and vote, here. Vote! Vote! Vote! We don’t need first, but we’d love to hit top 10 in our second year! Voting ends on 12/9.
0 Disney’s exclusive deal with Netflix
Netflix has returned from another content hunt with massive bounty as the result of a huge bidding war. They have locked in an exclusive streaming contract with Disney for a large catalog of content, including movies from Walt Disney Animation Studios, Pixar Animation Studios, Marvel Studios, and Disneynature, according to CNN Money.
The catch? Netflix users won’t see a lot of this content until 2016, when Disney’s current agreement with Starz (a la Sony) expires.
This reads a lot like the deal between Netflix and Dreamworks to post their computer animated library by 2013. It’s also mirroring that deal, as Disney has already provided Netflix with some recognizable and notable content, including “Alice in Wonderland”, “Pocahontas” and “Dumbo”, to name a few.
The deal also includes many sequel-heavy series, like the “Air Bud” sequels, and the “Brave Little Toaster” sequels, but not their originals.
A big piece of this agreement is that it yanks a lot of future content out of the hands of premium cable TV channels like HBO, Showtime and Starz, as they lose access to new Disney/Marvel/Pixar content released after 2016 that would usually linger on their channels between each film’s exit from the theater, but before they hit DVD/Blu-ray. It also blocks streaming sites like Amazon Prime and Crackle from access to the content as well.
It’s nice to see Netflix experiencing success through this agreement (including a recent rise in the company’s stock), but there will still be the gaggles of nay-sayers uninterested in waiting four years for the overall payoff.
At the same time, there are speculators wondering how this will affect Disney’s recently acquired gold-mine of the Star Wars universe. Although LucasFilm was not listed among the content providers (as far as I have seen), the release of Episode 7 in 2015 may lay the groundwork for future negotiations and deals to continue to feed us desired content.
I am, personally, among those excited now, as two of my childhood Disney favorites, “The Great Mouse Detective” and “The Rescuers Down Under” are among the titles already available on Netflix. The fact that the voice talents of Bob Newhart, Eva Gabor, John Candy, and Vincent Price are just a click away makes me wish I wasn’t at work so I could start a Disney binge right now.
Still, there are a number of additional Netflix releases to look forward to this month, as we’ve discussed on the show before, including “ParaNorman”, “Looper” and “The Campaign”. All three of these will be on Netflix around Christmas or New Years, according to movieinsider.com.
Looks like we have at least 1,121 days until we will reap the benefits of this deal, but we’ll keep an eye on things here in the Wheels Brewing Co Studio.
0 Soundtrack your life with Songza
Originally, the article was going to include a sub-title: “Why don’t you have Songza yet?”, because, really, why don’t you have Songza yet?
During a conversation in Episode 62, Matt Walstead mentioned that he was using Songza (www.songza.com) as one of his recent primary streaming services, and based on his description, I decided to investigate.
I had mentioned Songza on the show before, from a news story long past (most likely a launch story, or something of the like), but I had never played around with the iPhone app or the web site.
It’s AMAZING. It’s what a song discovery service SHOULD be. It’s the contextualizing of music into the rest of your life, based on “Playlists by Music Experts”, as the site claims, and, honestly, they are not giving the playlist generators enough credit.
For example, there are SEVEN different ways you access these playlists, including lists based on Genre, Activities, Moods, Decades, and Culture. After messing around with this app, I’ve determined my favorite playlist group is aptly named Record-Store Clerk, as its suggestions of playlist sub-groups include “Dance Music That’s Not Assaultive”, “Indie Music That’s Not Too Weird”, “Mustache Music (Or: Cool In The ’70s)”, and “This Will Piss Your Parents Off”. It really is that organization of music that you expect to find in the hipper realms of metropolitan areas, in the mostly deserted record shop where the staff knows exactly what you’re looking for, based on the two notes stuck in your head.
ON TOP OF THAT, there’s MORE. I know what you’re thinking: “But Dan, there are TOO many features already. This is too good to be true.” And you would be wrong, generic infomercial seeded audience member. For there’s the Concierge service. Based on time of day, with a dash of societal paradigms, the Concierge service will suggest genres FOR you. For example, I am writing this on a Friday night, and the Concierge is offering me the following options: “Bedtime”, “A Sweaty Dance Party”, “Pre-Gaming with Friends”, “Putting on Your Party Dress”, “Creating a Cool Atmosphere”, and “Unwinding”. Seeing as I already have my Party Dress on, in a manner of speaking, I went with the Cool Atmosphere one, and, as a result, it is narrowing down the tunes I should listen to into ANOTHER six categories, this time based on genre.
I spent the work day today bombing through the multitudes of dubstep available, to give it an honest chance, and I was really impressed by the volumes of music available in these playlists. But that’s the catch that I’ve mentioned a number of times: it’s a pre-set collection of playlists. You don’t experience the flexibility of Pandora’s lists, or the “control EXACTLY what you want to hear” of Spotify, but when used properly, it fits comfortably into most situations.
Like most streaming music sites these days, there is a social media aspect included, where everyone on Facebook knows you’re listening to the “Cry Yourself to Sleep” playlist, unless you disable the feature. It isn’t as invasive as Spotify’s “POST EVERY TRACK” setting, but it’s also not a feature I’d actively seek out.
There are also a few extra clock-related features, where you can set a specific playlist to start playing as an alarm at a certain time, and the ability to play music while displaying the app’s built in clock, but they aren’t anything to write home about. I imagine you could go through the Concierge service (which you can also set different days of the weeks, and times of day, kind of like looking at future traffic on Google Maps) and set certain appropriate playlists to pop up when you expect to be commuting to work, or doing housework, or what have you.
Right. So it’s great, right? Now let’s get down to brass tack. It’s available for iPhone, Android, Kindle, and computers for free (with clickable, but not audible, ads). So far, I’ve played with the iPhone app and the web site, and the user interface is nice. Not too complicated to navigate; not to noisy to sift through. “Nice” is really the most appropriate word for it. It also has the Pandora “You’ve Skipped Too Many Tracks For Now, But If You Switch Over To Another Playlist, You Can Keep Skipping” license restrictions, but with the number of playlists available, this shouldn’t hold you back.
I don’t think it’ll replace my iCloud use, or the occasional Spotify use, but I do think this may replace Pandora in my eyes, at least until I exhaust the playlists I am actually interested in hearing. I say it’s worth checking out to see how well the Concierge matches your moods, and to laugh at some of the playlists and categories. It’s not like it’ll cost you anything. I’m with the folks on the Apple App Store: 5 Stars for this one.
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