Internet TV | Main / ChannelFrederator

Critique #2 Channel Frederator Episode #54 on computer & iPod Video By: Anh Nguyen

Frederator is a cartoon RSS website that delivers weekly episodes of short animations from around the world. You can download the episodes directly off their website www.ChannelFrederator.com or you can grab the episodes off applicatoins like iTunes, Democracy player, FireAnt or anything that understands RSS and then you watch on your computer, iPod vidoeo or PSP. Filmmakers submit their animations at no cost and they are then included in the weekly episodes, which ranges from 10-15 minutes.

When watching a Frederator episode I am reminded of Cartoon Network's Adult Swim because of their text-only interstitials where you cannot help but read their aloud in your head. Sometimes they have commercials with people in them (who I assume are the makers or are friends of the makers, so it is very DIY). I first watched the episode on my computer with headphones and then borrowed a friend's video iPod to compare the viewing experiences.

I will review the Frederator episode first, which was a specially themed "Dia de los Muertos" for Halloween season. There were only 2 animations in this episode: "Day Off the Dead" and "Dia da los Muertos".

The first was a 3D computer generated animation which mimicked the look of a puppet stopmotion. The animation and computer graphics were pretty good, but the short stories really sucked. I've found this trend typical of most 3D computer animations, where the graphics and animation looks great but the underlying idea and storytelling techniques really lacked substance. I found the various segments sophomorish in humor and boring.

The second animation "Dia da los Muertos" uses traditional puppet stopmotion and had a much slower, more thought out approach. 3D graphics are introduced as the ghost characters, who are fast moving and hyper-animated as compared to the puppet living people who are very slow and methodical. Their is no dialogue in the animation, but a visual story of the day of the dead, which really illustrates the idea of the dead coming to life on that day. I liked this animation much better, which kept my internal quality rating of frederator at an acceptable level.

I feel most people naturally implement an internal quality control rating for web sites, videos, etc. There is so much out there that if you run across something that doesn't pass your qaulity control, it will be written off just because there is so much to be explored. Abundance makes us viewers very picky and unforgiving of mediocre material. Forunately for Fredeartor, it hasn't sunken below my quality measurement, thus I will continue watching future episodes when I find more time away from school.

Watching videos on an iPod is new experience for me, which I found novel and interesting. The experience is very private in the sense that the screen is meant only for you. I didn't mind the small screen and was able to see most everything in the episode, even the subtitles. However, I feel the compact size is only suitable for short videos. It would be a pain to watch a full length movie and I doubt anyone would do so unless they are forced to from being in a car, plane and etc. Kids on the other hand will probably not mind this and will watch all sorts of videos on small devices with no reservation. I wonder how much eye damage future generations will endure from starring at such small screens? Personally I think it is technologically amazing that these tiny devices can play video and do so much, but feel the long term effects are more negative than we expect. A.D.D. and continuous partial attention syndrome will be so widespread that technologies will have to be developed to counteract these side effects.

Overall though, I thought this was an average episode of Frederator and enjoyed watching it on the iPod mainly because I've never done so before. The fastforward and rewind features worked pretty well, but not as fast as music, which I am sure will be improved in the near future.