Broadcast Books

I normally choose books written by well-known authors. Timothy M. Todreas is not one of them.

What made me buy this book was the title, and its content: Just as mp3 and the Internet have revolutionized music and information, digital television will revolutionize the whole TV experience as well as the industry.

This book held me captive from page one to the end, because it holds the answers to so many questions in my line of work, which is a consultancy services for digital television!

I recommend it to anyone who is interested in where television is coming from, where it's going and what the h_ll you should do about it!

Having spent much of my career in the television industry I found this book fascinating. I would be surprised if it did not, over time, become a secret playbook for those in the industry interested in getting a leg up on their competition -- or at least in understanding what the future holds. My only minor complaint is that some of the forays into high-level MBA-type analysis were hard to follow for someone without a background in economics. Yet those occasions were rare (two actually) and did not detract much from this otherwise thought provoking and well written book.

Mr. Todreas brilliantly slices through the mountain of speculative bunk written about convergent media. The author concisely argues that value in the Digital Television Era will shift from distributors to certain branded content creators and established packagers. Supported by easy to read tables and a relaxed writing style, Mr. Todreas scores solid hits up and down his analysis.

I recommend that all television and media professionals, as well as consultants, read VALUE CREATION to better understand their opportunities as we begin to break free of the distribution bottlenecks of the Cable Era.

I have trained two radio announcers with this book as the text. Wonderful, masterful radio announcing textbook.

Reading this book and working through the cd won't exactly make you a broadcasting star, but it definitely guides you at the required talents and qualifications for conforming to industry standards.

The cd-rom consists of video and audio segments or snippets as they are quite short on the average; it includes voice commentaries, installation videos, teleprompters, and practice media for you to develop your skills.

The book is and entertaining read with chapters on the history of broadcasting, the various types of broadcasting( radio dj, television, cable etc), the great broacasters, interviews, the biology of the human voice mechanism, techniques and the like.

Overall this book is definitely helpful in guiding towards the broadcasting industry and could be useful for students of mass communication and media studies.

This is a great purchase for those who really need a foundation in the world of broadcast design. I have purchased other material from rich and glen before and they have really helped me out in alot of directions so once again my hat goes off to them. You get so much more for the price they charge and this book needs to be on your shelf. Great tips and insights!!!!!!!

The latest On The Spot book from CMP Books titled Broadcast Graphics, their very informative and short book of the hottest tips, was very informative with great nuggets of useful information. Not too much in any one gulp yet still gives you the "aha" factor. This book focuses mostly on Photoshop and After Effects in the broadcast arena (hence the title) and they even say this book is for those in television. However, the book also delves into keying, Illustrator, and script automation - so there's a little something for everyone. Let's face it, as a filmmaker you need to have a solid understanding of just about every facet of production and post-production and this book, with it's quick tips, can be helpful in a pinch. It's another arsenal in your toolbox. I only wish they had a quick index listing their tricks so when I'm really in a pinch I don't have to search thru the book trying to remember what chapter I saw the helpful hint. All in all, a great productivity time saver and quick read.

I was a student of Bob Papper's at Ball State University and was among the first classes to use this book. Today, I'm a television news producer in a top 50 market, and I still refer to it often. It's easy to read, straight-forward style makes it ideal for students or professionals wanting to brush up on their technique. I am constantly lending it out to other producers and reporters in my shop

Bob Papper sent me a copy of his book after it was published in 1994. I enjoyed reading it, recognized many of the valuable lessons he taught me and the other students at The American University School of Communication back in the early 80's, and felt inspired to continue on the path cleared for us by this great Journalism teacher and broadcasting consultant. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to know anything about the subject.

This book covers some new and interesting topics in interactive digital multimedia industry, such as Digital TV, Metadata, Digital Broadcast, Digital Rights Management, Ambient Multimedia, and so on. This book provides you a broad and comprehensive view about the current multimedia application and service industry. It's the first book I have ever seen to cover so many key words and state-of-art technologies in this field. It's really a useful book for both beginners and advanced readers.

Besides the key words above, the book also covers many critical standards, from MPEG-2/4/7/21 to DVB/MHP. However, the author efficiently combined the standards, theories and practical examples, explains these profound things in a extremely simple way, which prevents you from tedious and difficult studying of these standards.

The authors focused on both the technologies and the applications. The vivid examples, and the coherent technology clue, make the reader easily get involved into the scenarios in this book. In addition, so many useful links and references make you easier to go deeper into specific topics. Furthermore, a web site has been create for this book. You can find more interesting information there.

One way to determine the level of growth of a research field is to assess the availability of relevant conferences, journals and books. In particular, the latter is a good measure of the maturity of the field, since they provide an overview of a critical mass of published work. In the interactive TV field, there been more than a few conferences and special issues in journals, but books are still scarce. So, it was a pleasant surprise to discover the book "Digital Interactive TV and Metadata", which was written by a very active team of researchers from the Digital Media Institute at the Tampere University of Technology, in Finland.

The first part of the book (Theory) begins with a short overview of DTV standards and the respective applications types that are enabled by this basic set of industry standards. Next, the book surveys the fields of Web, multimedia, DTV, in order to provide an extensive overview of metadata standards, which is the core focus of this work. Having laid the background theory, the authors present the "Digital Broadcast Item Model", which they have helped define, in the context of the MPEG21 standard. The first part of the book closes with a discussion of the implementation requirements for metadata in DTV systems.

The second part of the book (Application) begins with an interdisciplinary analysis of DTV in the fields of business strategy, consumer behaviour and narrative, all of which are put in a metadata context at the end of the chapter. Next, the authors describe the application of metadata in several DTV fields, such as digital rights management, production, interactive TV content, and personalization. The book closes with a discussion of a few innovative applications and future scenarios for DTV.

Overall, it is a rather accessible technical book for DTV and metadata. It is suitable for researchers and developers of DTV systems. In a field that is in constant growth it would have run the risk of missing recent developments, but the book is coupled with a web site that offers additional and up-to-date information (http://www.digitalbroadcastitem.tv/). Moreover, the website offers complementary slides, handouts and exercises that can be used for teaching a DTV and metadata module in university programs.

This is not the cheapest book you'll find on DBS satellite technology, but I have found no other books to date that go to the depths of detail that this one does, especially on MPEG2 encoding for satellite broadcast. Mr. Mead was there at the beginnings of DirecTV in 1990, and his years of experience show through in the vast amount of technical detail included in this book. From the discussions on modern satellite RF design, to error-correction schemes and conditional access encryption of transmissions, through the uplink facilities designs and subscriber decoding equipment, it's ALL THERE! Even the last two chapters of the book are devoted to "future" DBS technologies like MPEG4 and Global Broadcast Service.

This book will be on my reference shelf for some time to come!

For those who want to understand the main principles of the satellite communications system construction. The author provides a comprehensive explanation of error correction, MPEG compression and even RF issues important in a context of the modern DBS system. The book is very easy to read and is NOT intended for the developers!

Fibber McGee and Molly were a popular radio comedy duo from 1935 through the 1940s. This CD includes two radio shows from 1941 as noted by another reviewer (and listed on the current cover picture) rather than those in the product description. Part of the charm for me is that the original commercials for Johnson's wax are included. The CD has excellent radio-level sound quality. One comical song is an ode to the radio sound effect man. Give yourself or a friend an authentic 1940s radio experience with this CD.

Wikipedia describes the Fibber McGee and Molly series as "a pinnacle of American popular culture from its 1935 premiere until its end in 1959" and links to sites where you can download hundreds of public domain episodes if you are so inclined.

The CD is excellent but the product description is incorrect. 5 Stars for the CD. One Star for the Amazon listing robots.

The description of this cd is totally incorrect. Actually this cd has two shows to enjoy, not those shown;

Amusement Park 06-17-41 & Off to Hollywood 06-24-41.

Both are excellent, if you're a Fibber McGee & Molly fan.

I have owned this cd for a few years having purchased it directly from Radio Spirits. I was hoping to get new shows as stated in the description.

This companion to the PBS program is a fine armchair read for any fascinated by railroads and travel: it takes a cross-country trip behind the scenes of American roads, presenting eight chapters which celebrate multi-day rail journeys. Rail history and scenery alike are presented in colorful, photo-packed chapters.

TRAINS Magazine says this book is top-notch reading for anyone who has heard the call of the rails, and I have to agree.
The rail adventures profiled in this volume celebrate the beauty, history, and romance of railway travel. View coastlines, canyons, mountains, rushing rivers, Native villages and world-class cities. This book is for anyone who has a passion for riding the rails and for the curious. Come take an armchair ride on The Alaska Railroad, The Adirondack, view Copper Canyon, The American Rockies, The Canadian Rockies, ride the West Coast's Coast Starlight, ride the rails through the American South, and thrill to the narrow gage Gold Rush Train out of Skagway --
enjoy your own Great American Rail Journey. GREAT GIFT!

Why did some people get swept away and others keep their cool? Why did some people understand it was fiction even after tuning in late? Why did some jump to conclusions? Was it because of inadequate education? Were some people looking FORWARD to the changes that the invasion would bring to their lives?
This is a serious study that anybody wishing to understand what happen that night in 1938 should read. It also has a copy of the radio show, along with a chapter on the historical setting to help frame the event.

i need this book it's al