Hey television... remember the public interest?

Media Mike will present this clip and others, along with his media reform pioneer guests, at the upcoming National Conference for Media Reform in Minneapolis. If you're attending, please stop by The UpTake's booth. We're unveiling a new design, talking to people on video, and plugging you into our citizen journalism borg.

Addicted to High-Def

Help me. I'm turning into one of those "once you go high-def, you can't go back" kind of people.

The object of our adoration is the Panasonic TH-42PX75U, a 42" plasma screen with glare-resistant coating. I decided 1080p wasn't that big of a deal, considering the extra cost and how close our couch is to the TV. I got it at Circuit City, and they ended up throwing in a free Panasonic DVD recorder/player that upconverts to 720p or 1080i. Is that enough techno gobble-gunk for ya?

Suddenly, we can stare at flowers on PBS HD for infinity. And we're totally not even high. Slo-mo bullets and blood in Iraq? Yeah, awesome. We'll watch that. The hard part, of course, is all the stuff we wish was in HD. We're getting our Comcast DVR switched to the HD model this weekend, but that meant having to suffer through Lost in suckass standard definition. There was one theoretically breathtaking scene of rainclouds rolling over the island beach where Lori and I simultaneously gasped, "I bet that would look awesome in high def."

DVDs have been problematic, too. There seems to be a wide range of encoding quality, or maybe sheer compatibility. Strangers with Candy looks terrible, with lots of interlacing or some sort of jaggy artifacts. Season six of Sex in the City looked pretty darn good, but an earlier season didn't hold up. Anybody have advice in this arena? We'll eventually get a PS3 for the Blu-Ray player (uhh, yeah, just for that) but obviously we still want our library of olde fashioned DVDs to look good.

Of course this means I want to start offering my online video productions in HD. I've got my eye on the lil' Canon HV20. Cameralust is not a treatable condition.

NORTH STAR: MINNESOTA'S BLACK PIONEERS

North Star: Minnesota's Black Pioneers airs tonight on tpt-2. I'm so proud to have worked on this, and to know visionary documentary filmmaker Dan Bergin. I was at a special screening for the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder and was in awe of their reaction. I can only imagine what it must feel like to have your forgotten history unearthed, to hear stories of those that walked before you on the same streets.

Star Tribune editorial

BEST. SHOW. EVER.