HotDocs has posted the 2006 Programming Schedule here.

It will also be in this weeks Now and Eye which come out on Thursdays.  I plan to pick up tickets as soon as I have a copy of the schedule that I can read through.  Tickets for the good ones go fast!

I've heard more than one person I know who is very technically experienced describe how television will not be delivered over the Internet anytime soon because the bandwidth is not available, its costly and the most inefficient way to deliver television.  Most recently, I read this point being made at Mark Cuban's blog 

When I hear and read these comments, it makes me remember the nay-sayers of the millennium.  You recall those people who said that it wasn't really the millennium because of the way we count years and decades.  They were right of course, but man, they were going to miss a good party to make a point.
And so I feel this way with Internet delivery of television.  Cuban states a caveat that he views IPTV (which he thinks is a going concern) as different than delivery of television over the Internet.  So using this distinction, the difference is now between IPTV / Cable / Terrestrial transmission versus Internet streaming.

Recently when we were on the YouTube site, the T. and I found a clip we wanted to watch but it took forever to download.  The T. said, 'Its like dial-up all over again!'
I had an instant flashback to when

(1) people said 'Yeah I downloaded that at work, the connections way faster'
 and
(2) a 12 year old I was supervising at volunteer work said to another 12 year old, 'I want a T1 at home'.  I said 'T1?  You want 24 channels plus 1 for signalling little man? Do you?  Do you?' [It was 2000 and I was tired of hearing teenagers use technology terms that they didn't understand] He said 'Ermm... I don't know...  Those are the fastest connections on Napster'.

So the T. and I killed some time talking about this while we waited for Rush's Subdivisions video to download.  And then we rocked out.

Even if its slow, people will watch television on an Internet connection.  Why?  Because the nature of the internet will change how and what we watch.  When we watch it.  How we share what we watch with other people.  I have walked into my lunchroom at work more than once and heard people talking about how great Google Video is.  No one cares about bandwidth cost and speed (but they will complain when its slow).  When they start to enjoy something, they will want it.  And someone will figure out a way to do it better. 

HotDocs has organized their general volunteer orientation.  I got an email about it today.  If you would like to volunteer for HotDocs then sign up at their site.

Or you can just sign up to be notified when the festival schedule goes live!

Back in the Napster hey-day, I knew an IT manager who, rather than have his individual employees suck up bandwidth with their oh I have to hear that song, installed a bunch (and I mean a bunch) of MP3s on an internal server.  Music a-hoy he said.  Bandwidth (and virus) problems solved.

So why is the network so slow these days?  Is your CBC Radio stream of Matt Galloway dropping out?  Blame March Madness.  CBS is offering the NCAA basketball championship on stream from an Internet site.

Its become pretty common for news to be offered as a stream off a site.  CNN recently opened up their video streams and just inserted commercials (rather than having premium content) kind of like traditional broadcast.  CBS is offering March Madness as an experiment.  Yes the PR team has been hard at work to promote it but believe me this is the new way of video watching.

Everyone I know is searching through You Tube and Google Video in much the same way we did with Napster.  At least, CBS is ahead of the curb by offering it directly with their own advertising inserts.  A year and a half ago none of this was available.

Here are the best docs that I saw at Hot Docs 2005:

Street Fight
When I studied American history, a prof I had suggested that we were likely in a watershed period in race relations.  Now, its not about being Black or White but being rich or poor.  George Bush cares about Black people Kayne, he doesn't care about poor people.  Street Fight examines some of these issues as it follows the mayoral race in Newark, New Jersey.  The two candidates - Sharpe James, - conservative, 4-time incumbent, self-made 65 year old Black man, the other Cory Booker, a liberal, Harvard grad, 32 year old Black man.  Street Fight really tries to look at these assumptions around race relations and entitlement in many US (and a few Canadian cities).

A Decent Factory
How is your cell phone made?  The Nokia social responsibility division travels to China to find out and brings a documentary film maker with them.  The factory conditions are not great but not terrible.  The film shows the reality that it is not great to work in a factory, the work is boring and repetitive. But in China, workers (who come from the farmlands all over the country) have to board at the factory and pay to live there!  The most interesting aspect of this documentary are the standard social conditions of working at a Chinese factory.  How sustainable are they?

Napoleon For A While
Ah Wolfgang.  An Arbeitsloser.  Wolfgang once did a 15 mm. movie about Napoleon.  He never married, never had kids or moved out of his mother's house.  He got laid off from his job at a factory.  Napoleon For A While follows the story of Wolfgang.  He is incredibly like able and this documentary follows the story of someone who doesn't quite get into a regular pattern of life and tries to be famous.  This was one of my most favourite docs at Hot Docs.


Grizzly Man
Directed by Werner Herzog, this is an excellent documentary but very disturbing.  It follows the story of Timothy Treadwell who lived for years amongst the bears of Alaska and was killed in a bear attack.  What is our relationship to wild animals?  Do we give them the respect and distance they need?  Or have we Disneyfied them to the point that we don't know how to protect ourselves?

I created a Hot Docs category.

Hot Docs is coming and this year I fully intend to blog it!  In the spirit of retro-active blogging, I have posted on the best docs I saw at 2005.  I am pretty much relying on memory so these are the films that really stood out for me.

If you know me, you've heard me talk about volunteering with HotDocs.  I truly recommend it.  It was an excellent experience for me.  Arts events like Hot Docs cannot happen without the volunteers.  And the Hot Docs staff is incredibly pleasant, approachable and appreciative of volunteer efforts.

HotDocs is important to me because the documentaries shown at HotDocs tell stories that traditional Hollywood film makers would not tell.  It is important to get these stories out, it makes a difference, it educates and it entertains.

Want to volunteer, go here.