Dispatch from London

Exciting London DVDA Chapter Meeting

Submitted April 8, 2005

By Bernie Mitchell

Yesterday afternoon the London Chapter of the DVD Association held a terrific meeting.The meeting location was the recently renovated British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) located near Piccadilly Square in Central London.The festivities began at noon with a reception of tea, coffee and sweets.This gave everyone a good chance to renew old friendships and meet new colleagues.

At 12:30 we were ushered upstairs into the beautiful Queen Anne Theatre for the presentation part of the meeting.

I started the meeting off with a welcome and quick overview of the DVD Association; our goals and activities and our new membership drive.There were roughly 100+ people in the theatre and interestingly enough for over half of them this was their first DVDA meeting.

Our first presenter, was Tom Moran of WAM!NET.

Tom did a very good job of explaining the WAM!NET services and how it is applicable to the DVD Production Workflow.

Tom then introduced his colleague, Tom Van Sickle also of WAM!NET who discussed the network and the all important question of who is on the network and how are they using it.To view both Tom’s presentations, just enter your member user name and password at the Members Only section.If you are not yet a member, join online.

After the informative WAM!NET presentations, we turned the stage over to Mike Kavallierou, of Sony, who presented the new Sony Play Station Portable (PSP).

Since the PSP has not yet been released in the UK, this was of great interest to the audience. Mike spent a lot of time discussion the developer’s tools and the importance of the Universal Media Disc the small DVD like disc that plays in the PSP.He discussed how the video quality and interactivity of the menus, both are quite impressive.Mike also had 3 demo units so everyone could get a good luck.I think the PSP could be a great marketing presentation tool and yet another platform for the DVD Association members to take advantage of in creating compelling content.

After everyone settled back down from the Sony excitement, Bob Auger (co-director of the UK DVDA Steering Committee took over the podium to discuss the direction and structure for the Chapter.

He brought up Andy Evans (co-director of the UK Chapter) who encouraged folks to join the Association and help guide the UK Chapter.Andy then introduced Aleen Stein, of the NY Chapter who shared her experience on how the NY DVDA Members have held vibrant and exciting meetings for over 5 years.

Thanks to the generosity of Ralph LaBarge, Doug Dixon, and Peggy O’ Neil Jones, we had some nice DVDs and Doug’s Book to give away.Abbey Road Interactive also gave us a number of their wonderful DVDs to give away and the meeting’s sponsor WAM!NET also contributed to the festivities.

The meeting was deemed a great success and we broke for a buffet lunch and refreshments in the David Lean Room courtesy of WAM!NET.

I might have thought the meeting was over, but in typical English style we then moved to a local Pub where the conversations continued for a couple of hours.

Thanks to Andy Evans, Bob Auger, Catherine Crowley and Jean-Luc Renaud for the organization and logistics of the meeting.Thanks to WAM!NET for sponsoring the meeting, and BAFTA for allowing us the use of the space, and thanks to our wonderful presenters.

Based on this afternoon , I am very sorry, I will not be able to attend all the UK meetings.The next meeting details will be posed here on www.dvda.org as soon as they are finalized.

If any of our members from other parts of the world are in London during one of these meetings, I strongly recommend that you plan to attend.You will be very glad that you did.