
“Change is our friend,” so said Brent Christensen president of the Minnesota Telecom Association at its 102nd Annual Convention in Minneapolis this week. With the retirement of former president, Randy Young, Christensen and the MTA have undergone many changes since last year’s conference. From the vantage point of an outsider, this was a smooth transition and the association continues to do an excellent job representing its telecommunications members. It was an honor for ViodiTV to be part of MTA’s program, literally part of the program, as we enhanced the event via video coverage on the hotels’ television channels. Click here to read more.
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The HomePNA Alliance’s announcement of an enhanced specification that supports coax distribution in Multi Dwelling Units (MDUs) and Hospitality markets should be no surprise for anyone who heard Michael Weissman speak at the Parks Associates’ Connections Summit at CES 2011. In this video interview, captured at that event, Michael Weissman, Corporate VP of Marketing for Sigma Designs, discusses an unusual use for HPNA technology; as a an alternative to higher cost Cable Modem Termination Systems. According to Weissman, this unique use of HPNA is gaining traction in fast-growing markets, such as Brazil and China. Click here to view.
Energy Metadata Privacy & The Impact of Vehicle Electrification
Who owns your energy data? In California, the customer does. The California Public Utility Commission is currently determining how PG&E can release that data to 3rd parties and still respect customer privacy. This will be key to enabling real-time monitoring of energy consumption. In this interview, Andrew Tang of PG&E addresses this topic, as well as the seeming contradiction between California’s tiered rate structure and the coming wave of electric vehicles. He talks about the challenges the grid faces with the ongoing electrification of the transportation system. Click here to watch part 2 of our video interview with Mr. Tang.
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TIA Predicts Solid ICT Spending Growth with U.S. Lagging by Alan Weissberger
According to TIA’s 2011 ICT Market Review & Forecast, “The telecommunications industry in 2010 began to recover from the global recession that led to a decline in spending in 2009. Spending in 2010 rose 4.7 percent, more than reversing the 3.3 percent decrease in 2009. The United States was affected more than other regions and experienced an 8.2 percent decline in 2009 and a 2.4 percent advance in 2010.” Click here to read Weissberger’s analysis.
AT&T Acquisition of T-Mobile has Huge Impact on U.S. Telecom Industry! by Alan Weissberger
With subscriber complaints multiplying about AT&T’s inadequate mobile broadband infrastructure, the company was likely pressured into this deal as a quick fix. Yet, T-Mobile USA does not have a clear path to delivering LTE. Therefore, we think that AT&T plans on using T-Mobile’s AWS spectrum to complement its own 700MHz licenses as it evolves its mobile data network to LTE. Note that MetroPCS already has a live LTE network operating in the AWS band, so there’s precedent for it. Click here to read Weissberger’s analysis.
Some Tweets and Short Thoughts
- Support and Warm Messages to our friends in Japan
- One subtle impact of the new Comcast-NBC – cross-promotional b-roll of NBC shows in Xfinity commercials. Will competitors get the same access?
- Funny one from Shawn Nunley – “Newsflash: AT&T to wed T-Mobile. Following the ceremony, there will be no reception.”
The Korner – Revealing a Fast Video Editing Program
Through our ViodiTV efforts, Roger and I have learned a great deal about producing a daily, 30 to 45 minute program that is broadcast on the hotel TV channel. What used to take us into late in the evening can now be finished by 5 or 6 PM, just in time for people to catch our coverage of that day’s conference highlights. Still, every so often we run into issues where the speed (or lack thereof) of the hardware and software cause us consternation .
For instance, on Monday of this week, we forgot to edit out 3 seconds of me talking nonsense in one of our interviews. Our choice was to continue to show me for the conscious incompetent I am or delay the program for another hour. The decision was a no-brainer, of course, as we felt the interviews with our speakers were more important than trying to hide my imperfections (an impossible task). Still, it made me think that if we had a faster way of rendering files, we might have been able to do our edit and still make our self-imposed deadline.

This brings us to the Moovee video editing software. Roger and I interviewed the founder of Moovee at CES 2011 and saw a truly amazing demonstration of video editing that rendered high-definition video in a fraction of the time of what we typically experience. In the video that follows, Terence Swee, CEO of Muvee, explains his product, edits a video and renders it to an MPEG-4 file format in a matter of a couple of minutes.
We have not had a chance to try the software, so it is not clear that it would work for what we need. Regardless, it points to the continued direction of powerful software running on an array of computing devices doing things that would have required machines worth tens of thousands of dollars a few years ago. Click here to watch the demonstration of this video editing software.
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