Wired News has an article about how independent and community media activists are using the net to distribute video programming. What’s interesting to me is that the focus is not just on streaming video, but also on using the net to distribute video from producers to public access TV stations.
The video group at the Urbana-Champaign IMC is currently trading programming with other producers around the world via snail mailed videotapes. On top of the time and cost of int’l snail mail, we have to deal with the problem of different TV standards (PAL and NTSC). This article reminds me that with a little more bandwidth and server storage we could set up a independent video archive similar to the A-info radio archive.
Especially with video, the last mile is still a problem. While a growing number of people are getting broadband Internet in the devleoped world, its penetration doesn’t come near matching TV and cable TV. But using the Internet as a medium for getting video from producer to TV stations helps leverage the net to close that gap.
I think it’s important to not always see the Internet as the end-medium, but to realize it’s potential to hook up and network traditional media, like print, radio and video.
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