About

For a community measured in hours and days it's rare to come across a podcast channel with history. Our podcast is based on the Toronto Digital Image Fest founded in 1994. Welcome, or welcome back!

Our mission: to create high quality, unique, timely and compelling content of interest to computer animators, designed exclusively for the video-capable 5th Generation iPod (iPod) and Playstation Portable (PSP). New, timely content will be automatically sent to you as CGI news happens when you have a spare moment. In co-operation with the artists, we're also proud to offer the unique Wayback Playback, a sample from our vast library that spans over a decade. 

We hope you enjoy the podcast and encourage you to contact us with your comments and suggestions.

History of DIF

The Digital Image Fest has its roots in Toronto (TAZA, the Toronto Animator's Zoetrope Association) in the mid 1980's, easily a pioneer in celebration of groundbreaking computer animation. In 1994 an annual Festival grew out of TAZA and ran for eight successful years.

Today's Digital Image Fest is more global in scope and has been defined as "A computer animation festival to go".

Before the Internet we know today, the Fest was a place to tack collaborative online comic panels on the wall of the Rhino Bar and Grill. More often than not, our phone line on the fledgling dialup BBS The Command Line hosted by Nick Poliwko was busy, so it was the best way to meet and greet our peers.

In 1999 we created a compelling program including a collaborative project with the Toronto Animated Image Society called "Y2K - Render While You Can!" compiling humorous accounts of the end of life as we knew it in the 90's. We also teamed with the Toronto chapter of SIGGRAPH to present the "History of Computer Graphics" in HD, blown up to the big screen at the new Paramount Theatre in Toronto. The audience agreed it was the best TDIF ever, we sold out the entire space.

For the seventh annual show in 2000, TDIF commissioned local programmer and computer animator Charles Blaquiére to create a Palm base festival planner that was a tremendous success, spawning a channel on the Avantgo network, which subsequently opened TDIF to the nascent cel-phone and wireless PDA market.

In 2001 the lineup included a 3D Expo, daily workshops, and nightly screenings including an offbeat Midnight Madness.

Future of DIF

As of January 2006 our initial pilot phase of three shows is complete (the last show release date January 16, 2006), and continues to be a tremendous success on iTunes and with other RSS services. We're now investigating the options that will allow us to continue podcasting to you! In the mean time please drop us a line and tell us what you think of our show.