Agtel

Agtel features on Basecamp Product Blog

We love Basecamp and have been using it to help us manage productions for nigh on three years at this stage. It helps us keep on top of the stuff that needs to happen to make sure a production runs smoothly - to-do items, deadlines and assets.

It’s great as a collbarative hub where everyone can see where a project is at all of the time so we were delighted and just a little honoured to hear we’ve been featured on the Basecamp Product Blog giving an insight into how we use the product.

We don’t mind saying that we feel just a bit famous now…

When will producing 3D video be affordable?

We’d all love to be producing 3D content, but when will it really become affordable?

James Cameron has added 16 extra minutes to Avatar at a whopping cost of $1 million per minute. That’s a little bit too expensive for most people, and it’s not something you can "cheat" in post production either. According to Cameron, you have to shoot it - 3D can’t be "fixed in post" as the saying goes, so it doesn’t look like the costs are going to tumble any time soon.

Oh and he thinks we’ll all be wearing those silly 3D glasses for a while yet.

Gizmodo have posted this really interesting short article summing up James Cameron’s strong opinions on 3D:

Glasses-less 3DTV is "Eight to Ten Years Away" From Taking Off, Says James Cameron

While glasses-less 3DTV is already winging its way to Japan in the shape of Toshiba’s two tiny TVs, James Cameron reckons it’s "eight to ten years away" until it autostereoscopic 3DTV properly takes off. For now, we’re stuck with glasses.

He spoke about 3DTV at the Blu-Con 2010 conference today, and shared some interesting details on the extended version of Avatar—apparently those extra 16 minutes ended up costing Fox $1 million per minute, which is the reason they chose to re-release it in cinemas, so as to try and recoup some of the costs.

Cameron has previously harped  on about how the industry needs to shoot more in 3D, rather than applying it post-production like the studio of Clash of the Titans, and the latest Harry Potter movie did—or attempted, in the latter’s case.

"You see another stumble with the most recent Harry Potter movie from the same studio making the same mistake - except really getting spanked for it now because they didn’t get the film done.

They announced it in 3D - threw a bunch of money trying to convert it to 3D in post-production and it simply didn’t work. They just didn’t get it done."

Cameron’s signed on to do Avatar 2 and 3, which he’ll begin working on next year. While I do feel that particular story’s been flogged to death, Avatar was  probably the greatest example of 3D. While I’m not personally a fan of the format I do await the day when I don’t have to squeeze a pair of 3D glasses onto the top of the glasses I already wear—nor fork out over $100 per pair of glasses. [BBC and TechRadar]

Agtel Produces Web Videos for TCD Pharmacy Unit

Whether because of migraines, coughs or in search of dental floss, we’re all regular visitors to the local pharmacy. Trinity College Dublin prides itself on the level of expertise its Pharmacy students graduate with and its new state of the art ‘Practice of Pharmacy Unit’, the first of its kind in the country, is a testimony to TCD’s commitment to hands on training.

Agtel produced a series of three mins web video clips available on YouTube and as podcasts on iTunes U, to enable prospective students to learn about the unit and hear staff and students talk about what its really like to study at Trinity.

Would you miss watching TV?

Turns out UK consumers would miss watching tv the most when given the choice between tv, mobile phone use and surfing the web.

Ofcom have just published some fascinating statistics on this, showing that tv is holding its own even with so many people spending time on the web these days. How’s that? Well, one reason is that half of people are multi-tasking - they’re watching tv while they’re on the phone or have the laptop out in front of them. And maybe unsurprisingly its mostly young people (16 - 24 year olds) who are leading the way in this…

CONSUMERS STILL ATTACHED TO THEIR TVS

Although media multi-tasking is widespread, half of people consume only one type of media in the evening.

This peak-time evening media use is driven by people watching scheduled live television through their TV set, an activity mainly undertaken on its own rather than with other media.

The time people spend watching TV remains stable alongside internet growth with the average person watching 3 hours and 45 minutes of TV per day.

Despite the growing choice in technology and services available,  watching TV remains the activity that most adults would miss the most.   Compared to 2007, a growing number of 16-24s (8 percentage points) and over 55s (7 percentage points) say that watching TV is the activity they would miss the most.

Catch-up TV usage grows

It’s not just scheduled live television which continues to be popular.  Ofcom’s consumer research from the first quarter of 2010 shows that almost a third (31 per cent) of households with internet access  used it to watch online catch-up TV – up 8 percentage points over the year.

Nearly a quarter of people (22 per cent) say they have bought a HD-ready TV set in the last 12 months and sales of HD ready TV sets have now passed 24 million in the UK.  Five million households have now also signed up to HD services through pay TV, freesat and Freeview services.  Although the continuing demand for TVs could be partly explained by falling prices and digital switchover, it also suggests that consumers are as attached to their TVs as they ever were and are hungry for more channels and better picture quality.

And buried deep in the report is this interesting nugget on people making their own videos…

Young people were most likely to have engaged in user-generated content activities online. For example, while a quarter (26%) of 16-24 year olds claimed to have made a short video and uploaded it to a website, only 2% of people aged 55+ with internet access make the same claim.

 

[via ENN via FT]

Google rolls out Video Sitemaps

Google is keen to index video content and have been publicising Video Sitemaps as a way to create better searches.

Nelson Lee, Video Search Product Manager, explains how:

Agtel Streams Live Event for Enterprise Ireland

Last month Agtel had the opportunity to stream a live broadcast from the Enterprise Ireland headquarters in Dublin using an innovative streaming technology. In conjunction with Tyrell CCT  we demonstrated Live U, the ‘Satellite truck in a backpack’, from the SME event, part of a series of eight business finance seminars hosted for Irish SMEs. LiveU has developed a revolutionary hand-held video uplink device that enables anyone to broadcast live video instantly, anytime, anywhere. Tyrell CCT was recently awarded the exclusive Irish distribution of this innovative mobile video delivery solution. This technology preview demonstrated the outstanding quality and `reliability of broadcasting via 3G networks with the entire seminar delivered live to viewers in Enterprise Ireland offices around the world.
 
Organised  by  Enterprise  Ireland,  the Small Firms Association, IBEC, the Irish  Taxation  Institute  and  the County Enterprise Boards, the SME seminar series was developed to assist SMEs to gain a greater understanding of  financial, employment, tax and business supports information to manage and grow their business. The Dublin seminar, which coincided with European SME week, was host to a number of high profile speakers including the Minister for Trade and Commerce, Billy Kelleher.  Tyrell CCT provided Agtel with the LiveU LU30 backpack system and offsite technical backup to broadcast the Dublin based event in real-time to a global Enterprise Ireland audience. Viewers in locations ranging from Milan, Stockholm and Tokyo provided live feedback via web chat facility and testified to the picture and sound quality. Following the keynote speeches the Agtel cameraman equipped solely with the LU30 backpack conducted a Vox Pop style session with the seminar delegates moving easily around the venue, including the underground car park, to push the limits of the technology.
 
“The use of the LiveU technology at our Dublin event was very valuable as we were able to connect with our colleagues in global Enterprise Ireland offices in real-time and provide them with key information and on-the-ground insights from the SME community in Ireland”, commented Alan Hobbs, Head of Communications, Enterprise Ireland.  “We were particularly impressed with the immediacy of service and high quality picture and sound. It is very easy to see how this technology could make a big difference to Irish companies connecting with their audiences worldwide.”
 
“In today’s dynamic business environment, every organisation is a media company with a need to communicate with their customers, business partners, shareholders and staff,” according to John Cummins, Managing Director, Agtel. “LiveU offers organisations of all sizes an affordable option to transform their communication strategy and reach large audiences by delivering live feeds and videos on their websites. We found the system very easy to set up and use -from arrival on location, the live broadcast can be accomplished literally in a minute or two.”

The broadcast was streamed with Livestream and is available here.

Launch of ‘Ireland and the EU’ DVD

Agtel were delighted to attend the official launch of the Agtel produce  ‘Ireland and the European Union’ DVD at the Dublin headquarters of the European Commission Representation in Ireland by Tánaiste Mary Coughlan TD. The DVD provides a concise introduction to the European Union, its origins and development and the tangible benefits of membership for Ireland. The resource, aimed at seconary school students, can be viewed in Irish or English and gives an overview of how the institutions work and how decisions are made at European level.

Also in attendance was Director of the European Commission Representation in Ireland, Martin Territ.

The Future is Green: Agtel Environmental Work

What happens to that plastic bottle after you pop it in your ‘Green Bin’ ?  As part of their new website project, the leading waste, environmental and re-cycling company, Oxigen, commissioned Agtel to produce a short web video to tell the story of a heroic Green Bottle that lives a very full, eventful and green life.  

Ireland and the European Union

Whether you travel by LUAS around Dublin or spend Euro coins on holidays abroad, you’re benefiting directly from Ireland’s membership of the European Union. These and other advantages of EU membership are outlined in Agtel’s recent production for the European Commission Representation in Ireland. 
 
The European Union plays a role in all our lives and has had a huge impact on the development of Irish society for almost forty years.  This new and exciting DVD outlines the expansion of the EU from the 1950s to the present day and uses contemporary footage to highlight the many positive aspects to Ireland’s involvement in European affairs. Aimed primarily at senior/secondary school students, Ireland and the European Union is intended to create a sense of the EU and Ireland among young  Irish people. Working closely with the European Commission office in Dublin, Agtel devised a visually engaging production to illustrate the functions of the EU.  From the day-to-day workings of the European Parliament to EU involvement in overseas aid, this DVD gives an insight into the many ways in which the EU operates on a local and international level.
 
Ireland and the European Union will be viewed at the European Commission’s office in Dublin, at information centres around Ireland and will also be distributed on DVD.

It can be viewed on the site here.

Training for Safe Practice in Radioactive Environment

We were in the Sunday Business Post on Sunday, announcing our new contract to produce a radiation safety production for EU DG Energy and Transport.  Check-out the article at  http://www.sbpost.ie/themarket/firm-to-make-safety-film-for-nuclear-plants-46591.html

2010 is a year during which we are going to focus on technology enabled learning as a means of increasing productivity, competitiveness and making stretched budgets go further.  Our EU win is a great start to the year.