[thequality-update] November 2000

[Michela Ledwidge]

thequality.update 11/2000 

TOP LINE

This newsletter contains updates on thequality.com projects and clients.

thequality.com is seeking additional partnerships and clients to further
the development of online filmic content.
http://thequality.com/whatweare

PROJECTS 

* Discussions are underway with Brilliant Digital Entertainment to
co-produce content based on BDE's leading-edge 3D technology. This month
BDE opened a new division, Brilliant Music, to develop 3D animated
digital music videos. 
thequality.com created a feature-length interactive movie for BDE in
1998.
http://www.brilliantdigital.com

* Middlesbrough Football Club has become the first UK Premier League
football club to switch to the Premium TV content management system
(Story Server, Oracle, Real). The system thequality.com helped design
will enable rapid deployment of web sites for Premier League and 1st
Division UK club sides. http://www.mfc.co.uk

* bibliography.com conceptual design and information architecture phases
(managed by thequality.com) are due for completion in December. The
e-book and reference portal is due to be launched first quarter in 2001.
http://www.bibliography.com

* And finally, the October launch of SCAPE - Australia's newest youth
culture web site was greeted with widespread criticism for its overly
opaque interface (designed by Razorfish). http://www.scape.com
thequality.com contributed a dance music toy which persistent users may
one day find in the site's Music section by moving their cursor over a
vertical line...
DANCER is mirrored at http://thequality.com/muzak/dancer

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

DivX ;-) try saying that backwards...

"DivX ;-)" is a video codec (compression/decompression format) that has
the motion picture industry stirred up in much the same way as MP3 first
affected the music industry. Beneath all the hype about copyright
infringment, this is clearly a valuable new marketing model.
Peer-to-peer networks like Napster will provide virgin territory for
savvy viral marketeers. If you can crunch your video down to a handful
of megabytes, the masses will happily distribute it for you wholesale.

We recently put the theory to the test, locating and downloading all the
relevent software in little more than half an hour (noting that the
infamous DeCSS DVD ripper software is only 56K!). Tests not only
confirmed the ease with which DVD encryption can be circumvented but
also produced an hour's worth of feature film in a 170Mb AVI file (640 x
352 resolution). 

ABOUT 

thequality.com is an interactive agency specialising in bridging the
creative / technical divide in cross-cultural new media. The company was
founded in Sydney in 1993 and moved to London in 1998.


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