Posts filed under 'press&media'
March 27th, 2008
This years NetSquared featured projects includes metavid along with 20 other proposed or in-development net mashups for social change. Featured project developers and social innovators will meet up in late may for the net squared conference. More from the site:
The NetSquared Conference, will be on May 27 and 28, 2008 in San Jose, CA. As in the past two years, the two-day event will bring together innovators in social benefit initiatives, business models, funding for philanthropic initiatives, software development, and technology to advance social change around the globe using social networks and social Web tools such as blogging, podcasting, and virtual communities.
dale
March 13th, 2008
We are pleased to announce that MetaVidWiki (link) is now in open beta. We look forward to you comments, suggestions, and bug reports on this new free platform for community audio video participation.
We have put together a new extended screen cast demoing MetaVidWiki features available here on metavid. (also available on google video, and xvid copy here (23 megs) ). Editing on MetaVidWiki site is now open to anyone that can pass a audio or visual captcha test…
So check out the demo video, try some searches, and then try improving the archive by syncing a transcript or improving some text content 
Simultaneously we are releasing the software that powers metavid: MetaVidWiki extension (v.01). It has been packaged and released for other cool re-uses of the code base. The Mv_Embed package has been updated to version .7 and released as well.
Read on for Technical Feature overview:
MetaVidWiki extension (project page)
dependencies: MediaWiki, mod_annodex or oggz-chop, LAMP stack
recommend: the Semantic MediaWiki Extension.
- Adds namespaces for Streams, temporal stream metadata, and sequences.
- Adds interfaces for editing multiple sub-name-spaces of temporal metadata per Stream or layers. Enabling the separation of transcript languages, annotative layers or the defining of other layer types.
- Adds a media search engine based on page semantic properties and defined layer types.
- Extends Categories, Page Histories, and Semantic result sets with inline video playback.
- Adds an in-browser sequencer for editing and creating sequences from clip segments.
- Exports to video rss for categories & searches. Exports CMML for temporal metadata.
Specifically for the legislative archive:
- Auto-completes media searches with likely people, bills, issue groups or full text search.
- massive data scrape from open secrets, maplight, govtrack, and others to populate base data set.
- template based display of people, bills, & interest groups (separating data from display while remaining flexible with user contributed structured data)
Mv_Embed (full feature list)
- Is a stand alone javascript library used for video playback in MetaVidWiki
- Abstracts all ogg plugins to a near html5 spec, letting web developers target a single abstraction for multiple underlining plugin or native video support systems.
- Supports draft ROE (Rich Open multitrack media Encapsulation) spec for xml distribution of media.
- Supports playlists in xiph xspf , rss or inline format.
dale
February 26th, 2007
Here are some minor corrections to the article Which Videos Are Protected? Lawmakers Get a lesson published on February 26th.
The article quotes “C-Span said that it had for first time asserted its copyright against a video-clip site, ordering YouTube to take down copies of Stephen Colberts pointed speech…” This neglects a the smaller players that have been affected by C-SPAN take down notices see the C-SPAN and intellectual property article on Wikipedia.
Additionally the articles does not address the trademark issue. Although the floor footage is public domain the only copy the public has access to is encumbered with C-SPAN’s trademark and this has provided a grounds for which C-SPAN has requested sites take down otherwise public domain footage. Our site metavid has been hosing this public domain footage with the trademark removed. Metavid’s conversations with C-SPAN in early 2006 showed that C-SPAN would leverage its trademark rights to force the removal of floor footage. The real story here is one of selective enforcement, and how citizens have no real, reusable, permanent access to committee footage.
Update: As boing boing pointed out today Carl is working to change the situation of limited archival access to committee footage. Check out what he has grabbed so far.
dale
December 26th, 2006
A few days ago, the NY Times editorialized in favor of relaxing the rules regarding cameras on the floor of the US Congress. This comes on the heels of an open letter (PDF File) by C-SPAN president Brian Lamb calling for independent media cameras (particularly C-SPAN’s) on the floor of the House. In addition to editorials on his behalf, Lamb appeared on numerous media outlets including this interview on NPR’s Talk of The Nation to lobby for these changes.
Much of the discourse around these proposed changes is a critique of the cinematography of C-SPAN, particularly on the head-on closeups that the House Rules require. Furthermore, Lamb suggests that relaxing the rules would be more consistent with House Speaker Pelosi’s “most open, honest and ethical congress ever,” with an implication that the government may be covering something up through these tight controls.
On Friday, Pelosi rejected these proposed changes and will leave the House in charge of the cameras. There are a few issues at work here, I’ll address them briefly and what they mean for this project. More after the fold.
Metavid is able to re-use the video footage of the House and Senate floor that C-SPAN airs because it is a government work. When a government employee creates something as part of his or her job, the resulting content is public domain. As Lamb’s letter references, C-SPAN already has its own cameras in committee chambers. C-SPAN’s coverage of committee hearings, such as the Alito nomination in the Senate Judiciary Committee, is perhaps more nuanced than the head-on shots found in floor proceedings. During some of the tougher questions, cameras captured the reactions of his family — that would not be possible under the current house rules. I would love to link to a clip in our archives illustrating the difference, but the fact that the cameras are privately held has another effect; the footage is copyrighted.
Under current copyright law, C-SPAN’s recordings of the Alito hearings will not enter the public domain for 95 years, meaning January of the year 2101 assuming there are no further extensions of copyright term (an unsafe assumption in the current IP climate). Until that time, C-SPAN exerts their authority over this footage by applying these restrictions (from c-span’s archive):
A license is needed for: Public Performances (Showing in a group or unrelated individuals with or without a fee); Documentaries, films or television programs; Multimedia applications; Corporate video uses; Presentation at association or corporate meetings. C-SPAN does not permit the following uses: Duplication licenses (ask about bulk copies fees); Any posting or streaming from an Internet site; Airing on public access or local cable television channels; Fundraising Use; Commercial/Advertising.
In an age of YouTube and video blogging, it’s absurd to restrict access to video documents so central to public policy. Allowing a century of monopoly over congressional footage to media corporations goes against the very notions of public accountability and political sunshine that brought the cameras to the floor in the first place.
aphid
May 12th, 2006
The Beyond Broadcast conference is happening this weekend covering topics related to reinventing public media in a participatory culture. I highly recommend checking out the conference site http://www.beyondbroadcast.net/
They have gone to great efforts to make the entire conference very web accessible for virtual attendants, including public question space, irc channels, live video broadcasting and even a space in second life 
The question space is particularly impressive, you can watch the webcast and add in questions for the panel to answer.
dale
April 28th, 2006
Breaking news from our Better Late Than Never department: we sat down with Scott Shawcroft back in March to talk about Metavid for his Open Road Trip project. He has posted a video of the interview and demo. Check out some of his other interviews too, others from the bay area leg of his road trip include Larry Lessig and Rick & Megan Prelinger.
aphid
March 18th, 2006
on march 3rd aphid and I did a radio interview with Timothy Jordan. An mp3 of the radio program is now avaliable. Show Summary excerpt:
This week Aphid and Michael Dale join us to talk about their C-SPAN [re]mediation project, Metavid. Monsters Are Not Myths play their song of the week, ‘Customer Service.’ Alec Stefansky covers the weather, the Patriot Act, and gives the Award of Excellence to some control freaks.
dale
March 13th, 2006
Check out the spring06 UCSC review which features an accessible article on Metavid. Here is the opening quote
“One evening last year, UC Santa Cruz graduate student Abram Stern logged on to the C-SPAN web site to gather information for an art project. Stern knew that the cable television network had been providing live, gavel-to-gavel coverage of U.S. Senate and House of Representatives proceedings for more than two decades as a public service, and he was looking to obtain some older footage from its archive”
dale
