Sure, the name of the site may be Create Digital Motion, but don’t get me wrong — we know digital is evil. Or, specifically, digital gets real evil at certain times. There are the latency-inducing, problem-causing HDMI cables when VGA or S-Video or Composite would do the job, the “look at our brand, new storage format” trend that turns out to be “look at the hideously onerous, new copy protection method we’ve just invented.”

We know a little bit of our soul died when we brought in all this digital tech to our work. (Happy side note, though: my eyes now glow red. It’s totally awesome at parties.) So, we now proudly present The Battle for Analog, a completely nonsensical look at the analog world we might leave behind. (Well, unless you carry some mobile VHS decks to a gig, which could be a great idea … a little magnetic distortion live, anyone?)

And to kick things off, we’ve got a look back at VHS’ stand against the puppy-killing DVD, via our friends at the All Retro, All The Time, Retro Thing. So, at the risk of “boneheaded nostalgia” as someone described this in comments on RT, I present this mock VHS PSA from musclebeaver, with music from the Transformers music proudly playing in the background:

And, uh, yeah, it does appear to have been crafted in After Effects. Where is that Export to VHS option in CS3, anyway?

PS - I think Blu-Ray winning out over HD-DVD is finally Sony’s revenge for losing on superior Betamax.

Stores like iTunes (and all those Windows Media-based alternatives, if anyone ever uses them) aren’t just the domain of major labels. Indie artists and smaller labels are finding their way onto these services, courtesy the power of distributors and other conduits. (For music, tools like CD Baby have been a big boon.)

But part of the potential of all of this technology was supposed to be video content as well as music. TuneCore has stepped up to the plate with a beta service that lets artists sell music videos via iTunes. Many artists, I suspect, will prefer to use videos as promotional tools only, but what’s nice here is you get iTunes to cover bandwidth for higher-quality downloads and get a little revenue stream, to boot. TuneCore explains the arrangement:

Delivery of the video will be completed with a flat, upfront fee paid to TuneCore and, as always, TuneCore customers receive 100% of the revenue from the sale of their music in a non-exclusive agreement that they can cancel at any time.

Here’s one example, a music video from Grammy winner Ziggy Marley, “Love is My Religion”, now available for purchase via TuneCore. (And I expect this could be commonplace: promote on YouTube, sell on iTunes, etc.)

TuneCore