HD Podcast TV

Couple of months ago Apple notfied all its podcast Itunes users requesting we export to Itunes at HDV at 640X360, as opposed to a standard many use which is around 480X270.

It's the future was the underlying postscript, because Apple's TV attached your flats screen gives you the experience of watching TV without the paraphanelia of broadcast TV.

So this morning via RSS I popped up the Washington Posts HD feeds and I cliked their latest offerings: a piece on "A Four-Star Tasting" from its food critic Tom Sietsema.

The file was around 116mb and took about 11mins to download on a 1mb broadband pipe. The video itself was 3 mins.

The Washington Post, like the New York Times has been one of the pioneers in Videojournalism and it doesn't take rocket science for anyone to glimpse the future.

It's a future where Washington Post or in the UK Telegraph TV resides as one of the main channnels on your global TV network ie the Net.

Faster connections 10mb, plus "bit torrent" type software which also facilitates faster connectivity, and more intelligent aggregating sofware will allows all to assemble their own news.

It's where you decide so intuitively what you want watch on the day .

Imagine you've chosen Dafur. You're still a stickler for 30 mins broadcast. That's how long it takes you to unwind on the dinning table. Old habits die hard.

Your RSS tells you all the Dafur posts:

BBC, Washington Post, Africa TV, Parliament TV, The People's Podcast TV. . .

"Do you want a presenter or not?"

Yes, I'll have Trveor Macdonald.

"Sorrry Trevor has limited presentation", says the software

"Ok I'll have Mary Rayner".

Mary Rayner is one of the new breed of cyber presenters, who's has been recording links for the best part of the day which gets called up by you for any number of the videos you've chosen.

If you think that's pie in the sky, it's what held Channel One together 13 years ago, a juke box held all the reporters' videos and the presenter spent the day reading links that could be pulled together by the news desk producer.

In this broadcast made in 1995 I'm presenting an item on what the newspapers say the web wil be like in years to come. It's not live. At no time did I see the report before I made my links.

So the future is a huge agency model of quality video from newspapers and magazine's being made available to anyone, almost similar to what APTV or Reuters do already.

You might even choose your TX by reporters you love to watch.

So what will we watch?

I can't help thinking we shouldn't throw away tried and tested news techniques, but the immediacy of videojournalism and its narrative, as opposed to the TV videojournalism narrative now being touted, has to be a strong draw.

British TV bound by the rules of Ofcom seeks to be impartial and objective: "He said, but she said".

There will be many cases where bound by strong ethical reporting, publications will seek to inform their audiences through opinion reportage.

Can anyone tell why they're still fighting in Dafur? What both factions want? Why the international community still waits?

Overall video will have to become more aggresive in its filming techiques and there are signs some of the broadcasters are already experimenting.

Channel 4 News recently on a piece by Lucy Manning on education, and Alan Johnston recouting his captured days in Gaza are just two examples.

No doubt as video journalism and its method of delivery expands new techniques will emerge.

It will take a brave MD or News Editor that ignores it