commandN is a twice monthly (formerly weekly) tech news video show with hosts/producers Amber MacArthur

Amber MacArthur

Amber Dawn MacArthur is a Canadian television and netcasting personality. MacArthur is currently the co-host of BNN's App Central....

, Christopher Dick (producer), Lara Killian, and Jeff MacArthur

Jeff MacArthur

Jeff MacArthur is a Canadian netcasting and tech personality. MacArthur co-created the popular commandN.tv technology/social media video podcast with his sister, Amber MacArthur Jeff MacArthur is a Canadian netcasting and tech personality. MacArthur co-created the popular commandN.tv...

.

commandN Episode 1 was released on 28 June 2005, with a new video release each week available for download at their website. Guests have included Frank Gehry

Frank Gehry

Frank Owen Gehry, is a Canadian American Pritzker Prize-winning architect based in Los Angeles, California.His buildings, including his private residence, have become tourist attractions...

 and David Cronenberg

David Cronenberg

David Paul Cronenberg, OC, FRSC is a Canadian filmmaker, screenwriter and actor. He is one of the principal originators of what is commonly known as the body horror or venereal horror genre. This style of filmmaking explores people's fears of bodily transformation and infection. In his films, the...

.

Episode 69 was the last episode Mike Lazazzera

Mike Lazazzera

Mike Lazazzera is a television and video podcast personality. He is most noted for his appearances on the TV show Call For Help hosted by Leo Laporte, and for his collaborations with Amber MacArthur in video podcasting....

 appeared as a regular host.
In 2008, Christopher Dick starting shooting commandN on a regular basis starting with episode 131 while Brian McKechnie (producer)

Brian McKechnie (producer)

Born on 12 August 1978 in Scarborough, Ontario, Canada, Brian McKechnie is best known for his work as an online film critic and reporter for Citytv in Toronto, Canada....

 continued to edit them. Since episode 142 Christopher Dick has both shot and edited each episode as well as producing features on iJustine and a Las Vegas

Las Vegas, Nevada

Las Vegas is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and is also the county seat of Clark County, Nevada. Las Vegas is an internationally renowned major resort city for gambling, shopping, and fine dining. The city bills itself as The Entertainment Capital of the World, and is famous...

 cab driver who tweets from his taxi cab.

Content

The video covers a wide range of technology news, trends, tips, and how-to segments. Various links to stories and resources are mentioned and displayed during the video and in the episode notes on the commandN website.

The video is split into six segments as described below, although in some episodes some segments may replace others.

• headLINES: This section discusses all the latest news in technology, including product releases, announcements by companies like Google, Microsoft, and Apple.
• hotSTUFF: This section generally reviews or illustrates a how-to or use tutorial of a product, service or program.
• inSITE: This section features a web content, design or usability tip.
• spotLIGHT: In this section an interview is conducted with various people in the field of technology, web design, geek culture, or relevance to a technology trend.
• techTIP: This section features a short tip or tutorial to enhance and improve your technological experience regarding a specific topic (generally computers).
• webPICKS: In this section, Amber discusses an interesting website or freeware
  Freeware
  Freeware is computer software that is available for use at no cost or for an optional fee, but usually with one or more restricted usage rights. Freeware is in contrast to commercial software, which is typically sold for profit, but might be distributed for a business or commercial purpose in the...
  
   program.

Distribution

commandN is found in various websites/programs including iTunes

ITunes

iTunes is a media player computer program, used for playing, downloading, and organizing digital music and video files on desktop computers. It can also manage contents on iPod, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad....

, Veoh

Veoh

Veoh is an Internet television company based in San Diego, California. It allows users to find and watch major studio content, independent productions and user-generated material. The company is a subsidiary of Israeli start-up Qlipso....

, Google Video

Google Video

Google Videos is a video search engine, and formerly a free video sharing website, from Google Inc. Before removing user-uploaded content, the service allowed selected videos to be remotely embedded on other websites and provided the necessary HTML code alongside the media, similar to YouTube...

, YouTube

YouTube

YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....

, Viddler

Viddler

Viddler is an interactive online video platform for uploading, sharing, enhancing, tagging, commenting on, and forming groups around videos. Viddler no longer provides a free service for non-commercial users and now requires all users to choose one of the three paid plan options...

, Dailymotion

Dailymotion

Dailymotion is a video sharing service website, headquartered in the 18th arrondissement, Paris, France. According to Comscore, Dailymotion is the second largest video site in the world after YouTube....

, Revver

Revver

Revver is a video sharing website that hosts user-generated content. Revver attaches advertising to user-submitted video clips and originally offered to share ad revenue with the video creators. Videos could be displayed, downloaded and shared across the web in either Apple QuickTime or FLV format...

 and podcast directories. It's distributed in video formats and audio formats that include, H.264, mp4, m4v

M4V

M4V is a file container format used by Apple's iTunes application. The M4V file format is a video file format developed by Apple and is very close to MP4 format...

, WMV, mp3

MP3

MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...

, and avi

Audio Video Interleave

Audio Video Interleave , known by its acronym AVI, is a multimedia container format introduced by Microsoft in November 1992 as part of its Video for Windows technology. AVI files can contain both audio and video data in a file container that allows synchronous audio-with-video playback...

 on the main webpage commandN

Popularity

• commandN has been highlighted as a featured podcast in the iTunes Podcast Directory, and in Wired Magazine's May 2006 print edition as one of the web's most popular video podcasts.
• commandN was featured in the May 2006 print edition of Wired Magazine as one of the web's most popular video shows.
• A commercial study found that commandN was the fifth most downloaded podcast among surveyed Canadians.
• As of January 18, 2007, it was the 14th highest ranked podcast on Digg.
• It was featured on the CBC
  Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
  The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly known as CBC and officially as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian crown corporation that serves as the national public radio and television broadcaster...
  
   documentary The End - TV which originally aired on 13 May 2006.
• Karl Kerschl
  Karl Kerschl
  Karl Kerschl is a Canadian comic book artist, best known for his work on DC Comics books, including Adventures of Superman, Majestic, All-Flash and Teen Titans: Year One.-Early life:Kerschl was born in Toronto and raised in Niagara Falls...
  
   drew a character in Adventures of Superman (March 2006 issue #648) in a commandN jacket.
• One fan has created a searchable database of all things commandN http://searchcommandn.com, searchcommandn.com

Formats Supported

As of August 2011 commandN is distributed in a large and small size H.264 video format. In the past commandN was distributed in a variety of video formats: H.264, MPEG-4

MPEG-4

MPEG-4 is a method of defining compression of audio and visual digital data. It was introduced in late 1998 and designated a standard for a group of audio and video coding formats and related technology agreed upon by the ISO/IEC Moving Picture Experts Group under the formal standard ISO/IEC...

, .m4v (iPod Video), XVID

XviD

Xvid is a video codec library following the MPEG-4 standard, specifically MPEG-4 Part 2 Advanced Simple Profile . It uses ASP features such as b-frames, global and quarter pixel motion compensation, lumi masking, trellis quantization, and H.263, MPEG and custom quantization matrices.Xvid is a...

, and .M4p

M4P

The term M4P refers to an approach in aid and development known as 'making markets work for the poor'. The approach utilises systems analysis as a means of diagnosing and addressing the constraints that face poor and disadvantages households and communities in accessing goods and services...

 (PSP

PlayStation Portable

The is a handheld game console manufactured and marketed by Sony Corporation Development of the console was announced during E3 2003, and it was unveiled on , 2004, at a Sony press conference before E3 2004...

format). As of May 1, 2006, CommandN no longer supported the .M4p format for space reasons.