Pravda on Media, Technology, and Rebel Filmmaking

Training

Kfir Pravda — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 21:37:52 +0000

Training for Eyeblaster

Moving To A New Server

Kfir Pravda — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 07:12:42 +0000

Dear Readers,

My blogs are moving to a new server (with a new upgraded design). During the next 24 hours, you might experience some issues with accessing the site. These are temporarily setbacks that should be solved shortly.

Thanks, and see you with a new blog soon.

Kfir Pravda

Friends, Weeds, HD and Final Cut Pro

Kfir Pravda — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 17:23:29 +0000

Ben Kozuch called me a while ago to inform me that he is doing another post production event in Israel. Ben is the co-founder of Future Media Concepts, Apple certified training center with several branches worldwide, one of the producers of NAB, and a major player in the certified training area.

When I went to see the speakers, I liked what I saw- especially seeing David Helfand as a keynote speaker. You can see the rest of the speakers here.

The event covers many topics, but personally I am waiting for the ones about advanced editing techniques, HD workflow, and advanced keying. The speakers are also top notch. It is not a cheap deal – but it worth it from my perspective, as it is not that common to see trainers of this caliber in Israel. If you are attending – come and say Hi.

Disclaimer – Pravda Media is a marketing partner of the event. And we always market things we believe in.

Unified Communications Experts meet in San Francisco

Kfir Pravda — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 14:11:57 +0000

IMTC is having its annual event on the 12th and 13th of November. The event is focused on unified communication and the way it supports business processes in the enterprise, as well as the blurring lines between corporate systems and online applications.

We have great speakers at the event – starting with Joe Burton, CTO of unified communication group in Cisco, Matt Collier, SVP of LifeSize communications, Ty Wang, Senior director of Product Marketing at Oracle, Sridhar Vembu, CEO of Zoho, Hakon Dahla, CTO of Tandberg, and Anatoli Levine, IMTC President. The event covers both cutting edge technologies (such as the world beyond H264, Scalable video coding today, and conformance methodologies) as well as business issues such as unified communication beyond click to call, social networks and the enterprise, Multimedia and tele-health and many more.

It is an exciting event, taking place in an exciting location – St. Regis hotel in San Francisco (personally I am asking myself where is the nearest Apple store, after today’s announcements). I am moderating several panels in the first day, and will be there through the event.

If you are in this business, or want to meet in San Francisco, you should come and say Hi. Here is the agenda, and you can register here.

BoinxTV Offering Low Cost Alternative for High End Post Production Tools

Kfir Pravda — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 13:42:08 +0000

BoinxTV, a software video mixer with high end features, is about to be released in November 11th. The product, by the award winning company Boinx, is pushing the envelope in semi-pro video productions and live events.

The product enables users to mix up to three sources (pre-recorded media, or live cameras), add transitions, lower thirds, overlays, logos, and live elements to the video feed and record it as a quicktime file or upload it to Apple’s podcast producer.

When you launch the software, you can chose a show template – news, hi-tech, sports, or blank template.

Based on your choice, a complex and unintuitive interface is opened, that allows you to define which overlays should be used, titles, lower thirds, transitions and logos.

Though filled with options and out of the box graphics, it took me a while to learn how to operate this tool. Having said that, it is still much simpler (and cheaper) then learning After Effects or other post production tools.

This application is very appealing to churches, local football teams, schools, and other communities looking for a cheap and easy to use tool that will give their video production a bit of a boost. The same goes for video podcasters. However, it has some major disadvantages:

1. It doesn’t support live broadcasting – unlike CamTwist, BoinxTV is only for recording media, not live broadcasting. This is a major disadvantage as its live mixing abilities are impressive, and could make the life of blogtv and ustream broadcasters much simpler, and improve their production value.

2. The interface is not easy to use at all. it took me a while to get the UI concept – even though Boinx make some amazing apps.

3. Many of its features can be found in free alternative, though online, such as Mogulus.

4. And on a personal note, I don’t really like applications which promise too much before they are able to deliver it. They do make post production easier, for a very specific segment of users, but this is still not a substitute for post production applications such as After Effects. Therefore, their notion of “Say Goodbye to Post Production” is a little overdoing it in my opinion.

You can follow the application’s twitter account, watch an interview with the company, and read more about the application here.

Memories Are More Global Than You Think

Kfir Pravda — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 13:26:08 +0000

At Geekcon 2008, Myself and a small team did a project called All I Remember. We wanted to capture the memories that are a part of almost every culture – first kiss, first love, parents, songs and so on. As a part of the project, I filmed some of the participants, and edited it to a short, Hebrew speaking piece. The whole process took less than 10 hours (shooting and editing) in one day or so, so everything is a bit rough. However I believe it delivers the experience we all felt while doing this video.

I hope you’ll enjoy it – and if it brought a smile to your face, or made you remember your own related memories, please leave a comment…

Just For Fun – Things To Do While Rendering

Kfir Pravda — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 07:41:15 +0000

If you are in the editing business, and don’t have a super computer, you know how annoying it is to wait for your computer to render your piece. So I’ve compiled a short list of things to do while rendering:

1. Look at the progress bar and think about your life.

2. Read that book you always wanted, but never had the time for

3. write a blog post about things to do while rendering

4. Play bubble shooter

5. Clean your editing room. Table could be a good start

6. Make dinner

7. Watch YouTube clips

8. Clean your iPod from those songs you never listen to

9. Call your parents

10. Look at the progress bar

11. Go to Apple’s website and fantasize about buying an 8 core Mac Pro.

12. Fix your wife’s Windows based computer and remind yourself how happy you are that you have a Mac

13. Look at the progress bar and think about bad things you want to do to your processor.

14. Do pushups and sit ups. After rendering multiple effects you will be closer than ever to a six pack

15. Drink coffee. and then another one – this time very slowly

Two Major Events In November

Kfir Pravda — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 15:17:56 +0000

As some of you know I was busy in the last several months in making these two amazing conferences – both of them are open for registration:

IMTC Forum – IMTC, an international video consortium, is having its annual event in San Francisco this year. on 12th-13th of November, speakers from key video and unified communication companies, will gather to share their vision and exchange ideas about the future of unified communication. More details here

Rosh Pina Festival – just a week earlier, in Rosh Pina, digital media executives will meet celebs and TV moguls, to discuss the future of digital media. More details can be found here. Register ASAP, as the first 500 get 20% discount!

Hope to see many of my readers in these events, and stay tuned for more information about speakers and program in this blog.

Shana Tova!

Microsoft Releases New Ads – Admits Apple’s Marketing Superioruty

Kfir Pravda — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 05:46:30 +0000

Ok, so I am a bit obsessive about the new Microsoft ads, waiting for something interesting to happen. After they kicking Seinfeld out, Microsoft is jut reaping off the Get a Mac campaign. It starts with a Microsoft employee, who says that PC made into a stereotype, and show others who are using PC. Back to lame kingdom.

Technology, Media and Celebs Meet at Rosh Pina Festival

Kfir Pravda — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 05:45:55 +0000

A gathering of international speakers from US and European media industry, startups, technology companies, interactive agencies, investors, TV stars and executives is taking place in Rosh Pina, Israel, on 5th-8th of November.

In the last 8 years, Rosh Pina Festival was all about the TV industry, positioning itself as the place to be for executives, creators and business people.

This year, Ami Giniger, head of Taya Media Group, the main organizer of the event, decided to extend the festival to digital media – and cover the effects of technology on the international media market. As a part of this change, Yossi Vardi became co-chair of the event.

Therefore, I was thrilled when asked by Taya to be the principal organizer of the digital track. For me, it is like being a kid in a candy store – creating an international conference in the topic I am so passionate about. Though require a lot of heavy lifting (and if you follow my twitter you know that), it is an exciting role, and I am happy to say that we are going to have an amazing event, with speakers from the local, US and European media and digital industry, research companies, and a lot of innovation and startups. And, yes, a lot of TV starts and celebs (let’s face it, geeks are cool, celebs are…. at least as cool…)

Some of the speakers are well known in the Internet TV circles – we managed to get Mike Hudak from blip.tv out of his lavish NYC offices to the stages of Rosh Pina, as well as Robert Millis. Jeff Pulver will talk about disruption in the media industry. But that’s not all. IDC Research will present NBC’s Internet strategy, ESPN will present its multi-platform activities, H3G will present mobile TV case studies,Newtek‘s CEO, Jim Plant, will discuss live broadcasting, and we are expecting some exciting presentations from Microsoft.

We decided to add a lot of innovation to the event. Therefore, after every panel, we will present a startup that is changing the media landscape. This angle makes the event the place to be for startups, investors and VCs.

Please email me for more information (kfir@pravdam.com). If you are interested in blogging about it, let me know, and please tag all relevant content with the following tag: Roshpinafestival08

Feel free to join our Facebook group as well.

Stay tuned for more info about panels, speakers and cooperation opportunities.