Bencredible

I am a terrible blogger. How long has it been since my last update? Wow! Well a lot has happened in the last 2 months, some of which I probably should not blog about.

On the Spacevidcast front a lot of really great stuff has been happening.  First we have live High Definition coverage of STS-125.  As far a I know we are the only Internet stream that is doing shuttle launches in HD.  Even NASA does not do that!  During the launch coverage we have some pretty stiff competition from SpaceFlight Now’s live web stream as well as from traditional TV.  For the first time we were able to crush most of our “competition” which was pretty cool.  Of course I don’t really view anyone as competition because I believe all ships rise with the tide and I’m excited to see more and more people trying to show off human space flight!  It was also nice to have the largest number of concurrent viewers though.  Made it feel like all of the work, pains and effort was worth it.

At the end of this month I’ll be leaving for Orlando!  The first part of the vacation has nothing to do with Spacevidcast and will be the first time I have had a real vacation in… years!  The second half will be for ISDC 2009.  We will have live coverage of ISDC 2009 streaming on Spacevidcast (as far as I know the only ones) and we will also be hosting a New Media panel.  To say I’m excited is an understatement.  I hope we’ll find some good sources there to help relieve some of the financial burden that is Spacevidcast.  Monetize or die. I would hate to see Spacevidcast die, I truly believe it is vitally important that we get humans psyched up about human space flight again, and fast!

Sooooo close!!! We had peeps standing in line for hours and STILL only made standby. Noooooo!

I was a wee bit disappointed at our local news stations in Minnesota. Every year we have the Minnesota State Fair which has the highest daily attendance of any state fair in the country. This is where the Minnesotans are, this is what Minnesotans care about.

While a local news station isn’t required to broadcast from the fair, I would expect that the people reporting on my community and telling me what is relevant in my community would be in the largest event the community hosts. If they don’t even understand that little bit, how can they even begin to deliver news that I would want to watch, that I would feel is relevant?

Sure, you can broadcast the same news stories from anywhere, but it is nice to see a station go to the extra effort to be with the people they are trying to connect with. This year was a huge dissapointment from almost all the stations. Here are some pics taken between 10:00pm and 10:30pm Friday, August 29th.

KARE’s 10:00pm news program at the state fair:

WCCO’s 10:00pm news program at the state fair:

KMSP’s 10:00pm news program at the state fair:

KSTP’s 10:00pm news program at the state fair:

KSTP – Channel 5 Eyewitness News was the *only* station that had a full broadcast going on at the state fair. Taking a look at the pictures you can see that it draws quite a crowd and I would fully expect their ratings to climb because of this.

Television news shouldn’t be about just reporting on fires, shootings and other depressing stories. Local news can be about bringing communities together, reporting on stories that people care about and making a difference in the community to which they serve. I’m impressed with KSTP (even if they are not HD yet, slackers) and very disappointed in KARE, WCCO and KMSP. Frankly this is out of character for KARE who usually tries to immerse themselves in the community. Maybe they are losing their touch and the new king will be KSTP?

Dunno, but kudos to KSTP for caring enough to actually make the effort, unlike your competition.

Jason DeRusha of WCCO has a nifty segment called “Good Question“. I thought it would be funny to give him a hard time and ask why WCCO broadcasts some shows in HD but won’t broadcast their news in HD. I didn’t expect an answer and I certainly didn’t expect WCCO to air any part of my question. To my surprise on 02/18/2008 on the 10:00pm news WCCO decided to explain exactly why they don’t broadcast their news in HD. Here is that segment:

WCCO 4 news Good Question Segment on HDTV

You may have noticed a few edits in that segment where I came in. That’s because my original question was a lot longer and clearly not designed to ever hit air. For fun here is the original I submitted to Jason in its entirety:

Original question for WCCO 4 News

Fun things I noticed:

• It looks like WCCO uses SlingBoxes as a confidence monitor to ensure that KCCO and KCCW are playing nice
• The shot as Jason watching me ask my question as he sits at his desk makes him look very Dr. Evil. I was expecting him to turn around and say “MWAAA HA HA HA HA HA HA”
• I submitted the segment in 720p h.264 HD and they decided to record it off the screen via a camera rather than bring it in to the NLE
• The VTRs look like DVCPRO decks, I would guess DVCPRO 25
• Even if KCCO and KCCW are not ready for HD today, so long as the metro area is ready it is possible to broadcast HD here then donconvert for the other markets
• If you look at my desk you can see a mixer which shows that yes, I actually do have wiring closets “in my house”
• While I am happy that Jason thinks I have the best looking home office ever, in fact that was my actual desk at the real office (with studio lights)
• WCCO’s segment was a blast! Cariann and I laughed all the way though. Well done guys, well done indeed!