First Feature Film for Internet Distribution Only – Girl Walks Into a Bar, directed by Sebastian Gutierrez, is the first feature-length film to establish a new path for the around 2000 low-budget independent films being made annually today, and to help them find a substantial audience online. It is a comic noir mystery consisting of ten scenes of ten minutes each, enabling commercial breaks – supplied by sponsor Lexus in its YouTube release. The film was shot in 11 days and was designed to be less raunchy than usual keeping in mind possible children viewers. The producers hope the film will open up future revenue streams such as DVDs and pay-per-view. They hope this may provide a new place where budding directors can make movies for less money and get them seen by lots of people. By the way, the recent excellent Oscar-nominated shorts – live action and animated – have not been available on DVD since 2006 but may now be downloaded at iTunes for $1.99 for the standard and $2.99 for the HD versions. We recommend the live action short God of Love. (Unfortunate those can’t get the increasingly present short commercial prior to the video so they could also be free.)
Another Symphony Orchestra Launches Its Own Label – Music Director Nicholas McGegan and the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra now have a new label – Philharmonia Baroque Productions. The first release showcases the late Lorraine Hunt Lieberson in Berlioz’s Les Nuits d’ete and Handel arias. The orchestra is observing their 30th Anniversary Season this year, and will release two other recordings later. One are the Haydn Symphonies Nos. 88, 101 and 104, performed in concert over the last several years. The other will be an all-Vivaldi disc with violinist Elizabeth Blumenstock doing The Four Seasons plus three other Vivaldi violin concerti. No information was given as to whether the releases will be SACD format as with most of the other symphony labels.
CEA Begins Standards Process for 3D Glasses – This is good news: the Consumer Electronics Association has announced a new standards process for interoperable home 3D glasses. They seek to standardize 3D active eyeware using the infrared (IR) synchronized interface, by requesting proposals from consumer electronics manufacturers – by creating a 3D Technologies Working Group. The hope is that creation of a standard for 3D active eyeware will help break down consumer barriers to purchasing 3DTVs and increase the expansion of 3D into the home. (Interesting that no mention is made of shutter glasses – the system used by Samsung and some others.)
Pioneer Home Audio Supports Apple Ecosystem – Pioneer has introduced four new mainstream-series AV receivers, including the first three to be certified by Apple to connect and charge an iPad, the first with Apple’s Air Play wireless audio streaming technology, and the first to be compatible with the new iControlAV2app – which turns iPads, iPhones and iPod Touches into full-function remotes controlling all features of the Pioneer receivers and Blu-ray players. Stimulus for Pioneer’s move was that they found over 62% of their AVR owners own an Apple product, and 49% own at least three. These developments make it unnecessary to purchase an add-on dock to stream audio, and also eliminate expensive universal remotes. The top receiver of this line adds DLNA certification, allowing streaming of audio, video or photos from a networked DLNA-compatible computer or network-attached storage device. It also comes with setup instructions on a CD-ROM and has the ability for up to four people at a time to use the free AirJam app to connect their iPod Touch, iPhone or iPad to the AVR to jointly create master playlists of songs to be streamed to the AVR from their mobile devices. They can shuffle, select and control the selection’s volume. (An optional Bluetooth adapter is required for this.) Pricing of the three new AVRs ranges from $349 to $549.
