Author: Philip

Categories
Distribution Item of Interest Media Consumption

If TV Companies Released Authorized Torrents with Ads, Would People Download Them?

If TV Companies Released Authorized Torrents With Ads, Would People Download Them? http://t.co/j6iEg9o

Other than legal constructs that make them different, in practice a download with embedded ads and a real-time broadcast with embedded ads should be the same thing. And yet, no-one in the TV industry has even thought of the possibility, despite it being a very old idea.

For years, I’ve been referring to Mark Pesce’s Hyperdistribution model – both here in the blog and also in some of my public presentations – as one viable alternative to the current situation that would allow more consumption flexibility without changing the economics.

The responses are mixed. There are, certainly, a lot of people who insist they would never do that because they hate all advertising. I still think those people really just hate bad advertising, and don’t realize that they actually like good advertising (for example, the TV shows they download? They’re just “advertising” for other episodes of that TV show). But there are two types of answers that stand out and are seen throughout the comments. The first are that some people would agree to do this, having no problem supporting the TV folks. The second are people who say they hate commercials and wouldn’t do this, but that they would pay for a similar thing without commercials.

I generally dislike advertising, although more correctly I should say that, like others, I dislike irrelevant advertising, so I’d prefer to pay the equivalent (not the inflated prices attempting to be charged via iTunes et. al. ) but might be prepared to receive relevant advertising. Now, I don’t have children, am happy with my current car and already know what will replace it, not planning on going out to dinner or movies anytime soon, really don’t buy many clothes, don’t buy cosmetics…  I am a little non-consumerism, so just what advertising won’t be horribly intrusive and irrelevant?

Categories
Item of Interest The Business of Production

What are your postproduction nightmares?

What are your postproduction nightmares? Preparing for my DV Expo session http://t.co/fLI7QFU

If you’ve got a post-production nightmare let me know in the comments so I can make sure I address it in my “Avoiding Post Production Nightmares” DV Expo session.

Categories
Item of Interest Media Consumption

Online video finally chipping away at broadcast TV?

Online video finally chipping away at broadcast TV http://t.co/LLmZhYg

There are some hints that the traditional US cable subscription may be in decline, but not only in the US but around the world are moving toward  more online video and less real-time broadcast.

The survey, which was conducted in Australia, Austria, Brazil, China, Germany, the Netherlands, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, the UK, the U.S. and South Korea, consisted of 22 qualitative and 13,000 quantitative interviews, and represented almost 400 million consumers. The conclusion is that the Internet has changed the way we watch TV, but hasn’t cut down much on demand for broadcast television. However, it’s not the demand that’s an issue, but figuring out monetization strategies for what is essentially a new and fragmented delivery platform that’s leading to high drama and various strategies that make finding content a crapshoot for consumers.

We’re not there yet, but we’re heading there.

Categories
Apple Pro Apps Interesting Technology Video Technology

What is the secret to Final Cut Pro X’s color management?

In the mid 1990’s my Australian company made the decision to purchase a Media 100 system. That remains the best business decision I ever made (and selling it to jump to Final Cut Pro 1 was the second best business decision). It also meant we were migrating from Amiga computers to Macs. Given that I already had a graphic designer on staff for titles, illustrations and animations, I decided to delight clients by having our designer create a full color slick for the (then) VHS deliverables. (Masters simply got descriptive labels.)

Until that point we’d only done black and white printing, and it’s easy to proof what you’re going to get on a B&W laser printer. Not so with color. Color output wasn’t as common then as it is now and we didn’t get the first Kinkos until very late in the 1990’s, so we really only had one choice for our runs of 2-3 covers for each job.

This became a serious problem when – while developing a food product for my parent’s company during the period I managed it (in addition to my own two companies) – we needed a very specific purple on mockup packaging we were presenting to food buyers at the national department store chains in Australia. Cadbury – Australia’s biggest chocolate company – have always used a specific purple in their packaging, and had just spent several million dollars on a campaign that heavily featured this purple. Since the new product was a chocolate variation on a traditional English Christmas Pudding, having the purple match was beyond important. And we got blue-purple, and red-purple: seemingly every color except the one we wanted.

Continue reading “What is the secret to Final Cut Pro X’s color management?”

Categories
Business & Marketing Item of Interest Monetizing

Just How Rich Are These YouTube Stars?

Just How Rich Are These YouTube Stars? http://t.co/o0F6gIm

The rankings go from just over $100,000 a year up to $300,000 a year. Even for team productions that’s still a decent income from online video. And just like the traditional market, a few people are making good money, and a whole lot more people are making little to nothing from their online video efforts.

But at least it can be done, and young Lucas Cruikshank (a.k.a. “Fred”) with an estimated $149,000 income this year, probably doesn’t have to worry about college tuition fees, if he even wants to go to college.

In other news, Goodnight Burbank has secured a “real” TV deal with Mark Cuban’s HD Net. That’s in addition to the Hulu distribution that they’ve already had. Don’t know what sort of money is involved in the deal, but it’s a long way from the first Goodnight Burbank episodes.

Trivia item: My interview with Hayden Black on the Digital Production BuZZ in October 2007 was his first media interview about the show.

 

 

Categories
Item of Interest

The Terence and Philip show tackles Transmedia

The Terence and Philip show tackles Transmedia in Episode 34 http://t.co/NgMw9W7

In this show Terence and Philip tackle Transmedia, the successor to “multi-media”. Transmedia is the extension of a program to more ways for the audience to interact with the program, story and characters. Is Transmedia the future of television?

Categories
Business & Marketing Item of Interest

Copyright Infringement and Theft – The Difference

Copyright Infringement and Theft – The Difference http://t.co/Q4U7Tat

The US Supreme Court has ruled that:

In 1985, the Court ruled in Dowling v United States that copyright infringement is not theft, even when dealing with physical objects, such as vinyl records.

And yet, despite that 1985 ruling so-called “intelligent people” – including VP Biden – have blatantly referred to Copyright Infringement as “theft, plain and simple”, in complete contradiction to law and precedent.

In reality the last thing the RIAA and MPAA want is for copyright infringement (a civil issue) to be prosecuted as theft (criminal).

Firstly, the standard of proof is “beyond reasonable doubt” and it’s very, very unlikely that the discovery process in copyright cases would pass muster. It’s never been proven to be reliable in any court anywhere in the world. An IP address does not identify an individual, no matter what the fantasies of the legacy industries in music and film distribution.

Secondly, the penalties are much more reasonable.

Regardless of your opinions on copyright infringement, in the USA, it’s not theft. Personally, I’d prefer “beyond reasonable doubt”. The article compares the Jammie Thomas case as it has proceeded under copyright infringement and how it would have proceeded had it been tried as theft: bottom line – a much smaller fine (with the potential for a short prison term, although unlikely for the very small amount of value “stolen”, as the criminal case works on actual real value: 99c a song!

Good push back against the ever-growing threat to civil liberties by the RIAA/MPAA and the disastrous PROTECT IP proposed legislation, which has the potential to “break” the Internet as we know it. And that’s exactly what they want, and we don’t.

Categories
Item of Interest The Business of Production

A Response To Felicia Day On How Video Gets Funded

A Response To Felicia Day On How Video Gets Funded In A Fragmented, Digital World http://t.co/mdtcKaD

Felicia Day has had some success in the online video with her The Guild series. Initially fan funded (poorly) and now sponsored (by Microsoft is my memory is accurate) Felicia has a reasonable position as both a participant in the traditional TV series world (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and online. She asks the question on Google Plus:

Continue reading “A Response To Felicia Day On How Video Gets Funded”

Categories
Random Thought Technology Video Technology

Why is making software smarter “dumbing it down”?

Shortly after I first arrived in the USA, I was teaching some Final Cut Pro classes for Intelligent Media. It was just before Final Cut Pro 2 was released, which I had been beta testing for some months, but 1.2.5 was the release version we were teaching. At that time it was challenging for new users to get settings right, particularly getting a good match between Capture and Sequence settings, so the first half day was dedicated to teaching settings and making sure they were right. It was personally frustrating because I knew that the about-to-be-releaseed version was much smarter about settings.

As it turns out, Final Cut Pro 2 was released early the next morning, so the first thing I had to do in that second day of class was tell my students that what we had learned the day before was no longer relevant for version 2 because the software had become smarter, and that made it easier for people to use Final Cut Pro and no doubt contributed to its success.

Continue reading “Why is making software smarter “dumbing it down”?”

Categories
Item of Interest Metadata

Metadata looms large at IBC

Metadata looms large at IBC http://t.co/gUiIvHX I’ll be teaching Metadata & Asset Mngmnt #dvExpo dvExpo.com code SFC11 to save money.

As expected, metadata is going to be a dominant topic at IBC, whether identified as such, or under the heading of Media Asset Management (MAM), because all media management is done using metadata, which is why I’ve combined them in my Using Metadata For Production and Asset Management day at DV Expo. (Check out my other sessions at DV Expo.)

Continue reading “Metadata looms large at IBC”