Adobe just announced it’s open screen project, which is their initiative to get the flash runtime on as many devices as possible - tv, mobile phones, etc.

TechCrunch has a good article on it here.   This is exciting news for us and our industry for a number of reasons.  First, Adobe will be opening up it’s runtime.  This means we’re going to start seeing some major innovation in the flash player scene, much like we saw with the PDF platform a few years ago.

Secondly, more players from different vendors always means good things - competition and creativity is going to drive more efficiency in the player itself, and having the tech specs for SWF and FLV is going to provide a lot of insight to people trying to push the boundaries with flash technology.

We’re experiencing some amazing things happening the Flash world, specifically related to gaming.  For example, check out this 3d engine put together by a Russian group: http://blog.alternativaplatform.com/en/

Projects like these can only benefit from a more open and accessible flash specification.

Here’s Adobe’s list of what Open Screen Project is about:

    * Removing restrictions on use of the SWF and FLV/F4V specifications
* Publishing the device porting layer APIs for Adobe Flash Player
* Publishing the Adobe Flash® Cast™ protocol and the AMF protocol for robust data services
* Removing licensing fees – making next major releases of Adobe Flash Player and Adobe AIR for devices free

Some of the newer triple-A games have incredible web persistence layers that add a lot of depth and, well, persistence to their players’ experience even when the player can’t be playing the game.  Anyone who has played Halo 3, or World of Warcraft has experienced this.  Halo has Bungie.net where players’ daily stats are tracked like kills, deaths, favorite weapons, favorite maps, etc.  World of Warcraft’s Armory has similar web apps for its PvP stats and equipment/character management.

What if there was a white-label web service that emulated a lot of the best features of these big-budget sites?  Stuff that every game, no matter how small or large, can make use of like leaderboards and individual player stats.  Think a service like google analytics for games.

We think there might just an itch here that could be scratched, and we’re bringing our rich internet app experience to the table with a new passion project, StatForge.com.  Don’t look just yet; heck we’ve only just bought the domain name!  But soon we’ll be releasing more information about the service and what it can bring to the web gaming world.

Check back soon!

Aral Balkan has an in-depth article on the google app engine and how to work with flash. http://aralbalkan.com/1307. He promises some flex examples next… can’t wait.

Anyone else frustrated they didn’t get into the limited beta? 10,000 spots and they are gone within literally an hour. Ouch!

Microsoft has announced it’s attempt to buy Yahoo for a cool 44b or so. Read about it here and here.What does this mean for RIA developers like us?

On the surface, this deal seems inconsequential to rich internet application development, but then one has to think back to all the support Yahoo has given to the flex/flash platform with their own apps. Besides their recent snafu with Yahoo maps, services like Flickr and Pipes have always been flash friendly with fully supported APIs.

Then Microsoft comes along, and what do they happen to be pushing hard right now… ? - their very own Rich Internet platform, Silverlight.What’s going to happen to all the flash friendly apps hosted by Yahoo? Will they go the way of Yahoo maps?  Will Microsoft slowly replace those services with silverlight? Aral Balkan wonders the same thing.

Anyways, the windfall of this possible acquisition should be interesting no matter how it plays out for the rich internet application world.  We here at Figaro Interactive would be sad if Microsoft killed the innovative and flash friendly culture at Yahoo!.

Oh and anyone else get excited when Aral asks, If Microsoft buys Yahoo!, will Google buy Adobe?

Sun just announced their intent to buy MySQL for a whopping $1bn! This has the potential to affect all of us in the web development business. On his blog, Sun’s CEO, Jonathan Schwartz, explains that he hopes to continue MySQL’s current business model. Hopefully for all of us, that remains true!

Here’s the full announcement.

We’ve just finished our first marathon gig with the National Cheerleading Association…

We spent all three days of the event at the Dallas Convention Center in the main arena capturing, editing and transcoding each performance - there were over 150! This competition was a bit overwhelming (ever seen Bring It On with Kirsten Dunst? umm… not that I have… but anyway - this competition is the same one featured in those movies!) - even with the scale and logistics of the event we managed to pull it off and it seems to have been very successful (more than 20,000 streams in the first two days!).

Our workflow consisted of two MacBook Pros running Final Cut Studio 2… One was dedicated to capturing footage and the other was editing and running Compressor in the background to create the FLV’s. Everything was uploaded to The Platform once we were finished. The second day we were fortunate enough to receive a feed from the Fox Sports truck that was covering the event (multi-cam with a jib - wooo!).

The intended workflow included a Digital Rapids Stream-Z for encoding/transcoding but our demo unit didn’t show up so hopefully we will get a chance to try it out before our next gig - Nationals at Walt Disney World in Orlando, FL.

Thanks to Tom Post at Postman Productions for hooking us up with the gig - it was a fun time even if we heard “The Final Countdown” once too many times…

One of our more visible entertainment clients, HIT Entertainment, has recently begun packaging their children’s shows for iTunes.

One slight problem though - the specs that Apple requires for iTunes video submissions are a bit unusual:

• Program Stream MPEG-2 @ 15 Mbps
• 640×480 frame size
• Multiplexed MPEG-1/Layer 2 Audio

I say unusual because Compressor 2.x won’t allow you to create Program Stream MPEG-2 files… luckily we just upgraded to Final Cut Studio 2 which includes Compressor 3.0…

Glad to see they decided to change the UI. I had always hated using Compressor in the past - a much needed program with one of the most worthless interfaces ever designed…

The new interface isn’t perfect, but it’s a huge step in the right direction. I noticed that the only settings I had to change on the Program Stream preset was frame size (from NTSC to 640×480) and field dominance (from Automatic to Progressive).

Another great thing about the new Compressor is how easy it is to share presets in the form of Droplets. I created a droplet that I was able to share with a couple of the other editors up at HIT and all they have to do is drag files onto the droplet and let Compressor do the heavy lifting…

Now I’m off to encode about 30 five minute episodes into Program Stream MPEG2…

In case you’re wondering why we haven’t posted in a few days we’ve been slammed trying to get a few projects launched before the new year - we’ve also been working on an editing/encoding workflow for varsity.com/wired.  We’ll make a post soon about our experience at the Dallas Convention Center - but for now check out this tutorial on setting up Apple’s Compressor to use multiple processors as virtual clusters - it was invaluable in our workflow.

I broke into the world of television production early on… I was actually still a senior in high school when I began my post production gig at a company in Dallas. During those formative years I learned a very valuable lesson from a teacher (more than a teacher really - now a good friend):

“You never know who you’re talking to…” he told me once.

That short sentence has become a motto during my career.This week I received a phone call from a photographer I had briefly worked with during my time at a local news station (KDAF) as a broadcast designer. He had a corporate training gig for his production company that he needed to add some pizzaz to. He commissioned Figaro Interactive, LLC. to create several animations of CAT5e and Fiber Optic cables.

It had been a while since working in 3D… My first real gig in the biz was as a junior 3D animator (working in Newtek’s Lightwave). I had to knock the rust off in a hurry (five day turnaround).The modeling was fairly simple - I tool several reference photos and dropped them into the background of Modeler and came up with some fairly convincing models quickly enough. The real challenge was working with Lightwave’s incompetence at animation snake like objects.A quick google turned up a useful (and free!) plugin called Trailer. Here’s a tutorial by Kevin Schmitt that explains what it takes to deform a cable along a path.

And here’s what we came up with:

Get the Flash Player to see this player.

In a world that is constantly getting smaller and more inter-connected it’s very important to remember that at the end of the day connections are really what drive creative business and everyone you meet is a connection waiting to be made.

One of our most recent projects has been TrailersDirectUSA.com - a Haulmark Trailer reseller that specializes in customizing trailer configurations for your exact needs. The approach to this web app is extremely interesting in that it’s taking something relatively “old school” like trailers, and putting a very high-tech, user-friendly, and approachable customization layer on top.

We’ve all done it - we sneak onto a site like apple.com or any vehicle manufacturers site during our spare time and customize their products to our exact specifications. Add an option here, upgrade a spec there. It’s instant gratification at our fingertips, and a great marketing vehicle for the companies wanting you to take their products for a virtual spin.

That level of accessibility and instant gratification was our primary goal with this trailer customization app.

Give it a try for yourself with this Grizzly Fifth Wheel Trailer.

And, as always, if you know your business will benefit from bringing this sort of interactivity and accessibility to your customers, give us a shout! We’d love to meet with you and see how we can apply this cutting-edge technology to your business.

projects@figarointeractive.com

214 - 636 - 1616