Notes On Video

A report on MacNN suggests that Apple won't ship any iMac that supports Blu-ray until 2008 . Whether the same holds true for the desktop line is unclear. I've been eagerly awaiting Apple shipping hardware and software that supports Blu-ray (or HD DVD even!) so it's a little dissappointing; though it does mean I don't have to worry about finding the money to actually buy the hardware for a while!

TalkingPointsMemo has an interview with John Kerry about his new book. Whether that's your thing or not, watch to the end of the clip to see a bit of back stage at The Colbert Report . It's particularly interesting to see Colbert checking to see that Kerry understands the show, and explaining a 'bit' that they might do.

News.com is reporting that Google is close to releasing a filtering system that would prevent copyright content from being uploaded to YouTube . The system, called Claim Your Content, will automatically identify copyright material - though how it does this was not explained.

Always wanted to put together your own television series? Well, here's your chance: The “ Xbox LIVE Originals” contest will invite a wide range of artists and Xbox users to create a 5 to 15-minute pilot episode introducing an original television series. The pilots may be live-action, animated or both. All entries must be submitted before June 29th, 2007. A selection of standout finalists will be featured exclusively on Xbox LIVE Marketplace starting in July. The winner of the contest will receive a $100,000 deal with Xbox LIVE to create a six-episode series based on the short pilot as well as an exclusive screening event at the 2007 New York Television Festival.

Well, it's NAB, so that's hardly surprising, but there's a bunch of interesting things that caught my eye: a) Apple announced Final Cut Studio 2 . Another upgrade expense, but as always they seem to throw in some cool new features that you feel like you just have to have . I haven't looked too closely, but the feature that is supposed to remove camera shake sounds very neat. b) Microsoft wants everyone to stop using that pesky Flash format for streaming video. So they have come up with Silverlight , which is cross platform (for the moment; I'm sure once they put Flash out of business they'll dump that pesky Apple support.) The big plus for this one is it's support for HD, but if it just fixes the many synch problems that Flash has, then people will probably jump at it.. c) Meanwhile, Adobe wants to bring Flash video to the desktop . The Adobe Media Player (hmmm...interesting name) will "let users subscribe to and play video podcasts published with RSS (...