Wide Angle

It apparently was necessary for Friedrich to reformat the original NASA 8K footage because it wouldn’t play on the Samsung 8K TV that he initially tried it with. Why not? According to Friedrich, “The whole encoding was not optimized for playback with CE-devices: wrong video levels, incompatible MPEG profile, critical bitrate.”

It's summertime, and that means outdoor concerts. Here in the far other end of New York state, we typically get to lay out our blankets and take in a predictable bunch of touring acts from the '70s and '80s. Peter Frampton? Check. Huey Lewis and the News? Check. Yes? Yes. The Jesus and Mary Chain. Um, did you say "The Jesus And Mary Chain?"

The 2002 film version of Spider-Man was a success on many levels, but most of its magic can be attributed to director Sam Raimi (he of Evil Dead fame), who put his distinctive visual stamp on the production. Spider-Man is also perfectly cast, with Tobey Maguire playing a wide-eyed Peter Parker, Kirsten Dunst as Mary Jane, and Willem Dafoe chewing up the screen as Spider-Man nemesis Green Goblin.

Sometimes the mere fact of something being inaccessible can enhance its value — a lot. Take Spotify, for example. For years we’ve wondered when music labels would finally allow the European online music service to make its supposed 15 million-track library available here. That day has finally arrived.

SRS, a company best known for audio processing used to improve the sound of on-board TV speakers — and one that was recently acquired by movie sound bigwig DTS — has been steadily promoting its Multi-Dimensional Audio (MDA) concept over the past two years, demoing the audio creation/distribution platform to movie studios, music labels, and journalists alike. This spring saw the establishment of version 1.0 of the MDA spec, along with the release of MDA Creator, a plug-in designed for a range of popular audio workstations that enables sound mixers to store audio in the MDA format. Now, the company has added the MDA Director app to its list of new things for 2012.