All Things Digital Mac
Reporter's Notebook. The D Conference uses Macs, almost exclusively, to produce digital content for the Web. |
Following last night's D6 opening ceremony, I visited the conference's audio-visual production room. John Paczkowski, who invited me, referred to the room as NORAD. Cute.
John produces the only videocast that I'm willing to watch. My schedule is simply too busy to watch Web video. But John's Digital Daily is funny and provocative. He blogs besides video blogging.
John invited me by e-mail, which we exchanged soon before co-organizers Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg introduced Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates and CEO Steve Ballmer. I visited NORAD after dinner.
My immediate reaction: "OMG, there are so many Macs!" I counted four Mac Pros and perhaps twice as many Apple monitors. Mobile count: About a dozen MacBook and PowerBook varieties and one, maybe two, Windows laptops. Ha, I even saw someone using a 12-inch PowerBook. Classic!
John worked on a 17-inch laptop, maybe a MacBook Pro but I think a PowerBook, next to a stack of burgers. The dude sitting beside him used a black MacBook. Next to him, another person watched video of the Bill and Steve show in QuickTime on a large Apple monitor attached to (I think) a MacBook Pro.
It was one hell of a Mac setup. The room was mighty busy, too. As of this posting, the D Conference AV crew had post seven videos since last night. Video production quality is excellent, I must say. See for yourself.
John said that D5, the first conference for which D produced ongoing video content for the Web, was more difficult. For D6, the staff is seasoned and there are "more Macs" for processing, producing and publishing videos.
John also is charged with blogging, including content that isn't yet available on video. For example, D6 has two highlight reels from the Bill and Steve show, but John's supporting blog covers more content. For example, John summarizes some of the Mac and Vista sales discussion not available in the video highlights.
I'll blog that later.
