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PCTV coverage in City Paper Article, 5/29/02

Tom Poole, the new executive director of PCTV - 21, was the focus of a cover story in the weekly alternative newspaper. Headline: Screen Saver, Can Tom Poole revive public-access cable TV in Pittsburgh?

WIN-WIN DIGITAL MEDIA STRATEGY: LOWER THE PRICE

Marc Andreessen, co-founder of Netscape, told an audience of broadcasting and recording industry executives that it was futile for them to hope that copy protection technology would prevent illegal copying of music, movies or TV shows.

"If a computer can see it, display it, and play it -- you can copy it."

Rather, produce more copies and lower the price, a strategy that worked for the software industry. Adoption of the same strategy for digital media will yield the same results: a sales bonanza. Digital media is the biggest opportunity the entertainment industry has ever seen." San Jose Mercury News 9 Apr 2002

'MOCAPS' ANIMATION CHANGING THE NATURE OF MOVIES

Motion-capture computer-animation technology ("mocaps") uses the motions of real people to create "digital doubles" for a movie's stars or extras. "Star Wars" and the next two "Lord of the Rings" films are examples of movies that make substantial use of the technology. One of the first movies to use mocaps extensively was the 1997 blockbuster "Titanic, which filled the ocean liner with computer-generated passengers.

Technologist Jarrod Phillips says, "There's no better way to populate scenes like that. You can generate hundreds of thousands of people from a fairly small set of captured motions." He adds: "The trick is going to be producing a full-length feature film with a digital star and not be able to tell the difference. That's the holy grail." USA Today 10 Apr 2002

In The Art of News, a puppet of the show host, Richard J. Walters, is being developed for a next generation show element.

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