Public broadcasting in the future

eirikso3 Comments

Back in the twenties John Reith, the first general director of the BBC said that their most important mission was to “inform, educate and entertain”. If Mr. Reith had defined this mission today, would he said something else? Has the internet changed the main mission of a license funded public broadcaster?

There is no doubt about the fact that the internet is a perfect place to inform, educate and entertain. And it is possible for a public broadcaster to reach it’s goal without much change even when it is starting to utilize the internet to deliver information, education and entertainment.

But should license funded broadcasters like the BBC, the NRK in Norway, SVT in Sweden and DR in Denmark do something in addition to this when they start using the internet to deliver their content? Should we add some words? The internet opens up a totally new way of using content. A couple of words that pop up in my mind are share, participate, open, facilitate, make available…

I don’t think inform, educate and entertain cover the mantra of content, conversation, context and control. Or simply how to be successful on the internet. What do you think? Will the internet give public broadcasters new and important roles? I most definitely think so.

The comments are open. (And if you want to discuss this in Norwegian more or less directly related to the NRK I have also posted this article and opened for discussion over at NRKbeta.)

Public broadcasting in the future

The new way of reading the web

eirikso5 Comments

Actually, it’s not new at all. But for those of you that haven’t started using this strange thing called RSS this is the best introduction i have seen. I have tried to explain something about feed readers and stuff here at eirikso before, but all you need to get started is this video.

http://www.blip.tv/scripts/flash/showplayer.swf?enablejs=true&feedurl=http%3A%2F%2Fthecommoncraftshow%2Eblip%2Etv%2Frss&file=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Eblip%2Etv%2Frss%2Fflash%2F209879&showplayerpath=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Eblip%2Etv%2Fscripts%2Fflash%2Fshowplayer%2Eswf

Yes. And you can see the RSS symbol up there besides the “Subscribe“-link. Still, if you simply want to use your email inbox you can subscribe to my email update and other services here.

And by the way. Some feed readers and email clients don’t show embedded videos. So if you’re reading this in a feed reader or email you might have to click thorugh to read the article on eirikso.com. You know, the old way…

(Via teknisk.ofring.no)

The new way of reading the web

Speaking

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Some of the events I will be presenting at this autumn:

IFA, Berlin (Sept 1.)
Presentation at the Consumer Electronics Trade Foundation press conference on Saturday

EBU Finance Assembly in Marrakesh (Sept 5. – 9.)
Economics of New Media

IT-Tinget, Tønsberg (Sept. 19.)
Your employers take control!

Nordic Sound Symposium (Sept 28.)
Audio production and new media

Social Media And User Generated Content, Stockholm (Oct. 18. – 19.)
Social media an professional broadcasting

Speaking

More design experiments

eirikso27 Comments

I had some issues with the design I implemented earlier this summer so I went ahead and found a new one. Then I moved all the tailored code and spent some late evenings having fun with CSS, HTML and PHP. You should see the result in this blog right now.

Please click around and have a look. I still have some issues in Internet Explorer 6 (surprise!). If you use that browser I apologize. I will probably do some more adjustments, but the real solution is to switch to Firefox, Safari or Opera…

The current theme is based on a theme called Durable from Blaze New Media. Or, to be precise, it’s based on the widget ready version of that theme.

As you can see I have done quite a bit of adjustments and will probably keep experimenting. Feel free to comment on any errors, change requests etc.

More design experiments

Why on earth write in English?

eirikso9 Comments


This image is the map overlay showing where my visitors come from. Green = more visitors. No visitors at all from the countries marked with white. For the last 30 days it adds up to 38,539 visits from 164 countries/territories.

And this article is an answer to the Norwegian comment here. He’s complaining about the fact that everything written on this blog isn’t perfect english.

Some background:
I am the author of this blog and I am Norwegian. Meaning that my native language is Norwegian. Meaning that I write better Norwegian than English.

But the main point of this web page is to share information and get in touch with people that have thoughts on digital media, marketing, technology and the other topics I cover. If I write in Norwegian I can reach about 10 million people. The 4.5 million native Norwegians and possibly some people from Denmark and Sweden.

When I write in English we’re talking a potential of about 1.8 billion.

Still, because I am Norwegian about 6% of my readers are from Norway. For a blog in English that’s more than average. But switching to Norwegian only would leave out 94% of my current readers.

I know that I can write more, faster and better in Norwegian. I could focus more on local issues. But as mentioned, that would leave out most of my current readers. Of course I wouldn’t do that.

And I love the fact that people comment and take part of the discussion. I have comments from people all over the world. Comments in perfect English from people in the US and UK. Comments in not-so-perfect English from people in Spain, Italy, Norway, Slovenia, Russia, Japan and you name it.

I love that. All the comments are an important part of this web page. So please keep commenting. Even if you don’t feel completely comfortable when you write in English. People understand your point. If they don’t understand it they ask. Other people will help you out by emphasizing your point. It’s no problem.

And, if you want a Norwegian blog with Norwegian comments I am publishing in that language over at NRKbeta.no. Some articles that are more or less a Norwegian version of articles I write here and some NRKbeta-only articles.

Keep reading, keep commenting. And please feel free to correct me when I write really bad English. That’s how I learn.

And for the statistics junkies. Here are the numbers for the last 30 days on eirikso.com:

Why on earth write in English?

HDR from one single image

eirikso3 Comments


The original exposure

My article about high dynamic range photography was more popular than I had expected. Here’s a quick follow up for the people that are hooked.

You can also make an HDR image from one single exposure if you have a camera that can shoot RAW images. These files have more luminosity information than a finished JPG and through HDR you can bring out some of it.


Three versions from the same RAW image

You simply make two or three versions of the image from your RAW editing software. One under exposed where you adjust for the highlights. One normal. And one over exposed where you adjust for the shadows. Then you use your HDR software to put them together and tonemap.


The final image. HDR from one RAW exposure.


And compared to a true multi exposure HDR to the left.

HDR from one single image

Lego Space revisited

eirikso8 Comments

The question is how many of my readers that will get full of nostalgia when they see these images? I’m a typical “have to keep this, can be useful sometime”-person. I keep way too much rubbish.

But some things are worth keeping for decades. “Lego Space” from the late seventies / early eighties. In pretty good condition, and huge amounts of fun for my son. Born in this century.

Oh, you didn’t keep yours? And want some. eBay to the rescue! Or maybe you want to go all the way and build something with more than 5000 pieces?

Or you want to indulge in info and history? Lego Space in Wikipedia. The complete collection. Lego Space on Flickr.

Lego Space revisited

HDR photography

eirikso46 Comments

There are three main factors that influence the quality of a digital image. The resolution is probably the most common. How many megapixels is your camera? Then, we have the compression. If you compress an image to make a smaller file using the JPEG-system you will loose some quality.

The third factor is the so called dynamic range. Can you take care of the details in both the highlights and the shadows? Here’s an example. You have a scene where the sky is dramatic and interesting. But you also want some details on the ground. In the following image I adjusted for the sky. And as you can see the ground is only a silhouette.

So you need to let in more light. Open up the aperture or add some time to the exposure. Very nice scenery, but no dramatic sky. As the next image shows.

Seems like you can’t have it all. Or maybe you can? There are actually a couple of solutions. One of them is called HDR, or High Dynamic Range photography. To put it simple, you combine several exposures into one using some magic mathematics. And the good news is that you don’t need to understand much of the mathematics, there are several tools to make HDR images and you can use most digital cameras when shooting for HDR.

For the image in my example I actually shot three versions. One standard exposure, one with +2 stops and one with -2 stops. All the three exposures are loaded into the HDR software to make an image that will show both the dramatic sky and the forest.

What do you need?
When you’re out in the field you need a digital camera that let you manually adjust the exposure value and a tripod or something to support the camera. The three exposures need to be identical. Or at least nearly identical. Some of the HDR software out there will try to adjust if you have moved the camera slightly between exposures.

When you get back you need a computer and some HDR software. I am using Photomatix Pro. Available for both Mac and Windows. For Mac you can also try the free DRI maker. It doesn’t make true HDR images, but will help you with that difficult dynamic range by combining several images in a different way.

And if this quick introduction was interesting you can go further by having a look at the HDR group on Flickr. Lots of examples, tips and links.

Update:
Oyvind adds two good links to tutorials for HDR in Photoshop in the comments. One from luminous-landscape.com and one from backingwinds.

And you can have a look at some of the other HDR images I have made recently. These three are from the beautiful Røisheim Hotel in Bøverdalen in Norway.

HDR photography