Web Site Makeover

It's spring cleaning time here at DMAF. Every file and folder in the web site is being dusted off, cleaned and polished. Some will be archived; some will be moved; some will be created anew. But everything will be ready for our June 6 celebration.
You may need to refresh your cache to see some of the changes though hopefully this will be kept to a minimum. Watch this space, our blogs and our forums.

Full Sail Campus is all a-Buzz

Nationally Syndicated Morning Show to Relocate to Full Sail Campus 
The Daily Buzz Moving to New State-of-the-Art Facilities

 
WINTER PARK, FL, May 15, 2007 – Full Sail Real World Education and ACME Communications (NASDAQ: ACME) announced today that The Daily Buzz, ACME’s leading nationally syndicated morning show, will move to the Full Sail campus in Winter Park, Florida beginning June 2007. As part of the relocation from its original location in Orlando, The Daily Buzz will move to a new facility with state-of-the-art technology on the Full Sail campus.
 
Launched in 2002, The Daily Buzz is a three-hour morning news program that has successfully become an alternative to the common older-skewing network news and paid programs. The Daily Buzz reaches a much younger demographic (18-49 year olds) and currently airs on 144 stations, including all of ACME’s CW Network affiliated stations, The CW 100+ Cable Group, and many of the CBS-owned CW stations. The program currently reaches approximately 39 percent of U.S. households, or 44 million television households.
 
“The Daily Buzz is succeeding in changing the way typical morning news programs are produced and delivered, while providing stations with new and better inventory for advertisers,” said Doug Gealy, President and Chief Operating Officer of ACME Communications. “That mission has remained unchanged and our ongoing commitment to the show is reflected, after a national search for a new facility, in our decision to move to Full Sail, a dynamic and creative epicenter in Central Florida. We look forward to settling into our new facility and expect a long and fruitful relationship with Full Sail.”
 
“We greatly appreciate that The Daily Buzz and ACME Communications values the education of young professionals. Having The Daily Buzz on the Full Sail campus brings numerous opportunities to our students each day,” said Ken Goldstone, COO for Full Sail. “The ability for students to participate in the production of a successful nationally televised live broadcast is invaluable and is consistent with our real world education philosophy.”

“This is a great move for the state,” Paul Sirmons, Florida's film commissioner in Governor Charlie Crist's office, further added. “We not only get a very popular, nationally syndicated TV show to remain in Central Florida, but students at Full Sail get hands-on experience. That kind of credit on a resume will really help those students once they graduate. It's truly a win-win situation.”

Digital Content Creation Market to Grow to Nearly $5 Billion in 2012

Source RedOrbit
Jon Peddie Research announces the release of the 2007 Digital Content Creation Report. This year's report includes sections on 3D modeling and Animation, 2D Animation, Digital Video, Graphics and Imaging, and Audio.
The digital content creation market has seen a healthy period of growth.
The total DCC market grew 16% from $2.6 billion to reach more than $3 billion in 2006. The fastest growing segments in the future will be interactive development and video as the web offers new distribution networks and new programming approaches such as AJAX to enable small compelling applications to be developed that extend the power of individual web sites.

Jon Peddie Research predicts the market will reach $4.9 billion by 2012 reflecting a compound annual growth rate of 10%.

"We are seeing big shifts in the digital content creation market. For example there have been game changing moves by Adobe with the acquisition of Macromedia and Serious Magic, Autodesk's acquisition of Alias and Colorfront and Google's acquisition of Sketchup and YouTube. The landscape is changing right in front of us all. It's all good, but companies are going to have to be nimble to adapt," says Kathleen Maher, Senior Analyst at Jon Peddie Research and author of the DCC Report.

Read more

Financial Incentive Bill Passes Third House Committee Unanimously

FINANCIAL INCENTIVE BILL PASSES THIRD HOUSE COMMITTEE UNANIMOUSLY. 

HB1325 passed unanimously through the House Policy & Budget Council Thursday afternoon, April 5.   The bill is now ready for consideration to be voted on by the entire House chamber.  The amended version of the bill will be posted soon to the following website http://www.myfloridahouse.gov/Sections/Bills/billsdetail.aspx?BillId=36416& .  More information about Senate version of bill coming soon.

House Incentive Bill Update…

[from FilminFlorida] --
HB 1325 will indeed be heard tomorrow (Thursday, April 5) in the Policy and Budget Council of the House of Representatives, its final stop before going to the floor of the House for a final vote.  Meeting is scheduled from 9:00AM to 4:00PM in room 212 of the Knott Building, a wing off of the Capitol buildingin Tallahassee.
 
The bill will feature a few technical amendments and keep the $75 million total tax credit funding over three years, allocating $25 million per year.  If the total allocated credits exceed the aggregate amount in a year, the excess will be considered as having been applied for in the next fiscal year.  The bill also retains the ability to roll forward any unused tax credits from one year into the next year.
 
Chairman Dean Cannon will present the bill on behalf of Rep. Don Davis.  The Policy and Budget Council is chaired by Chairman Ray Sansom of Ft. Walton Beach.
 
The Council will be hearing quite a number of bills in addition to ours.  Here is the agenda:

HB 129 -- Community Contribution Tax Credits 
HB 135 -- Local Business Taxes 
CS/HB 229 -- Guardian Ad Litem Program 
CS/HB 251 -- Regional Transportation Facilities 
CS/HB 271 -- Contracting for Efficiency or Conservation Measures by State Agencies 
CS/HB 289 -- Textbook Affordability 
CS/HB 395 -- Surplus State Lands 
CS/HB 455 -- Organ and Tissue Donation 
CS/HB 461 -- High School Athletics 
CS/HB 463 -- Pub. Rec. & Meetings/Drug Tests 
CS/HB 475 -- Local Business Taxes 
CS/HB 507 -- Dependent Children and Youth 
HB 531 -- Online Dating Services 
CS/HB 575 -- School Safety 
CS/HB 651 -- Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services 
CS/HB 807 -- Domestic Violence 
CS/HB 967 -- Physical Education 
CS/HB 1041 -- Children's Zones 
CS/HB 1083 -- Homelessness 
CS/HB 1117 -- Personal Identification Information 
CS/HB 1121 -- Florida Health Information Network Corporation 
HB 1123 -- Pub. Rec./Florida Health Information Network Corporation 
CS/HB 1181 -- Foster Care and Related Services 
CS/HB 1231 -- Prostitution 
CS/HB 1325 -- Entertainment Industry Economic Development 
CS/HB 1363 -- Organized Criminal Activity 
CS/HB 1401 -- Access to Health Care 
CS/HB 1451 -- Procurement of Personal Property and Services 
CS/HB 1457 -- Recreational Vehicle Manufacturers, Distributors, and Dealers 
HB 1483 -- Local Government Revenue Sources 
CS/HB 1579 -- North Okaloosa Fire District, Okaloosa County
 
Still waiting to hear about the Senate’s next step for SB 96.  We will let you know when we learn more!

Apple Unveils Higher Quality DRM-Free Music on the iTunes Store

DRM-Free Songs from EMI Available on iTunes for $1.29 in May
CUPERTINO, California—April 2, 2007—Apple® today announced that EMI Music's entire digital catalog of music will be available for purchase DRM-free (without digital rights management) from the iTunes® Store (www.itunes.com) worldwide in May. DRM-free tracks from EMI will be offered at higher quality 256 kbps AAC encoding, resulting in audio quality indistinguishable from the original recording, for just $1.29 per song. In addition, iTunes customers will be able to easily upgrade their entire library of all previously purchased EMI content to the higher quality DRM-free versions for just 30 cents a song. iTunes will continue to offer its entire catalog, currently over five million songs, in the same versions as today—128 kbps AAC encoding with DRM—at the same price of 99 cents per song, alongside DRM-free higher quality versions when available.
"We are going to give iTunes customers a choice—the current versions of our songs for the same 99 cent price, or new DRM-free versions of the same songs with even higher audio quality and the security of interoperability for just 30 cents more," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "We think our customers are going to love this, and we expect to offer more than half of the songs on iTunes in DRM-free versions by the end of this year."
"EMI and iTunes are once again teaming up to move the digital music industry forward by giving music fans higher quality audio that is virtually indistinguishable from the original recordings, with no usage restrictions on the music they love from their favorite artists," said Eric Nicoli, CEO of EMI Group.
With DRM-free music from the EMI catalog, iTunes customers will have the ability to download tracks from their favorite EMI artists without any usage restrictions that limit the types of devices or number of computers that purchased songs can be played on. DRM-free songs purchased from the iTunes Store will be encoded in AAC at 256 kbps, twice the current bit rate of 128 kbps, and will play on all iPods, Mac® or Windows computers, Apple TVs and soon iPhones, as well as many other digital music players.
iTunes will also offer customers a simple, one-click option to easily upgrade their entire library of all previously purchased EMI content to the higher quality DRM-free format for 30 cents a song. All EMI music videos will also be available in DRM-free format with no change in price.
The iTunes Store features the world's largest catalog with over five million songs, 350 television shows and over 400 movies. The iTunes Store has sold over two billion songs, 50 million TV shows and over 1.3 million movies, making it the world's most popular online music, TV and movie store.

DIGITAL MEDIA DAYS A BIG HIT IN CAPITOL!

[Reposted from FilminFlorida.com]

"Our digital media industry, led by Digital Media Alliance Florida (DMAF) and their members, did a bang-up job of educating our legislators with their multi-booth set-up on the Plaza level of the Capitol building. Exhibits from the DAVE school, Electronic Arts, Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy, Engineering & Computer Simulations, Inc., and Web Wise Kids were among those on both sides of the main entrance to the Capitol, capturing the attention of everyone who came through security – or were heading for the Governor’s office. 

"DMAF had legislators, staff, regular folk and kids playing games and getting involved in the latest types of computer games and simulation. Lt. Governor Jeff Kottkamp even stopped by to take a personalized tour! All the exhibitors said it was well worth the effort to set up for the two-day display, which was arranged by the Governor’s Office of Film and Entertainment. The second day was only one half of the plaza level, but still attracted plenty of interest. 

"The capitol media also stopped by to check out the scene. Here are a couple of articles that are out now: 

Orlando Sentinel - http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_politics/2007/03/video_games_ove.html 

Palm Beach Post - http://www.palmbeachpost.com/politics/content/state/epaper/2007/03/15/a14a_XGR_eagames_0315.html 

"Film Florida, Inc. will have the same plaza level space in the Capital to represent the film industry on April 18th. Contact Film Florida at (877) 434-5635 or email info@filmflorida.org if you have interest in participating."

Mobile Media Multitasking Mania

As a gadget-freak with a long history of multitasking (I started playing the drums at age 10, and would be lost with out my Palm Treo's phone/pda/MP3 player/camera/videocam/IM/web/email/reminder capabillities...) Steve Lohr's article in the March 25th NYT, "Slow Down, Brave Multitasker, and Don’t Read This in Traffic", was of particular interest to me personally.
As our industry explores, develops and encourages the many uses of mobile digital media devices (see DMAF's June 2005 DiMeNar, "Digital Media Content on Mobile Devices and Platforms: What does the future hold?" and "Digital Media is..." multimedia segment we must make a concerted effort to remain aware of the latest research that addresses the effects, benefits and risks of their use under a variety of conditions, in a variety of situations. Future research in this area is bound to be controversial and the subject of future legislation, so DMAF will endeavor to identify and hightlight materials that allow our members to make and encourage responsible decisions.
If you run across any articles, blogs or video features on this topic, please send them along and we will post the information.

— Jud French, Executive Director, DMAF