ART image file format

ART is a proprietary image file format used mostly by the America Online (AOL) service and client software.

Technical details

The ART format (file extension ".art") holds a single still image that has been highly compressed. The format was designed to facilitate the quick downloading of images, among other things. Originally, the compression was developed by the Johnson-Grace Company, which was then acquired by AOL. When an image is converted to the ART format, the image is analyzed and the software decides what compression technique would be best. The ART format has similarities to the progressive JPEG format, and certain attributes of the ART format can lead to image quality being sacrificed for the sake of image compression (for instance, the image's color palette can be limited.)

Usage by AOL

The AOL service used the ART image format for most of the image presentation of the online service. In addition, the AOL client's web browser also automatically served such images in the ART format to achieve faster downloads on the slower dialup connections that were prevalent in those days. This conversion was done in the AOL proxy servers and could be optionally disabled by the user. This image conversion process effectively reduced the download time for image files. This technology was once branded as Turboweb and is now known as AOL TopSpeed.

Art Attack

Art Attack is a British children's television series revolving around art hosted by Lloyd Warbey on Disney Junior. The original series was one of CITV's longest running programmes, running from 1990 to 2007, and was presented throughout by Neil Buchanan.

The new series launched on Disney Junior (UK & Ireland) on 6 June 2011 and was presented by Jassa Ahluwalia. Each show involved Ahluwalia voicing-over footage of an artist producing three works of art, taking the viewer through the various stages of production step by step.

History

The programme was originally a TVS production, devised by two TVS employees, Neil Buchanan and Tim Edmunds. Buchanan and Edmunds met each other at Southern Television in 1978, and worked together on No. 73 and Do It!.

The first Art Attacks were a strand within No. 73, and this segment proved so popular, Nigel Pickard the executive producer of children's programming at TVS green lit the pilot. The Art Attack pilot was shot on location at a disused swimming pool in Gillingham, Kent in 1989, and the series began the following year.

The Walt Disney Company (India)

The Walt Disney Company India is the Indian subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company of the USA and is a premier entertainment company in India. The Walt Disney Company (India) is a public limited company, which develops and produces motion pictures and videos for children. The company is based in Mumbai, India and operates as a subsidiary of Walt Disney Company.

Background

Walt Disney India was formed in August 1993 with licensing agreement as a joint venture partnership between The Walt Disney Company and Modi Enterprises. Disney filed in October 2001 with the Foreign Investment Promotion Board to create a wholly owned subsidiary company to launch the Disney Channel in India. The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion granted Disney an initial approval for the subsidiary but with Modi protesting due to similarities to their joint venture. When the 10 year licensing agreement ended, Modi and Disney could not come to a new agreement, thus ending the joint venture agreement in August 2003.