JOHN'S
INDUSTRY
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01-21-2010
Hello 2010 ! - Goodbye DVDs - Hello Visual Effects
It's begun......
Well, In a nutshell, It looks like I was right on the money. As I predicted, all that needed to happen for broad band
to really get rolling is for a company bringing it to your TV. Apple is doing it, but has a few snags. However,
NetFlicks made a better mouse trap with there streaming box as well as streaming on the computer. Netflicks has
added many ways to get movies to the customer and it's working. Good for them. Way to go Netflicks.
So the lengthy battle over the High definition DVD formats caused people to stay away from the format not to mention
general confusion. Although back when this war started, 4 years ago, no one cared about watching movies on a computer
screen or streaming movies of any kind beyond apple TV and iTunes. However, by taking 4 years to determine the winner
of the High Definition DVD format (Blu-Ray) the DVD industry allowed Broad band to sneak into position and all it needed
was an economy shift and suddenly people were not adverse to watching movies or TV shows on their computer especially if
it was free.
In turn the economy made DVD sales drop, broad band picked up and suddenly the studios put on the breaks and cut and
slashed DVD budgets and bonus materials etc. No longer are the studios after super duper featuers to draw you in, they
don't want to spend the money. However, with Blu-Ray's BDJ and BD-LIVE the format seemed poised to generate new interest.
Unfortunately the first foray into BD-LIVE was a flop at best and it caused the viewers to take a step back, way back.
Which caused the studios to pull budgets and slow way down.
Which also helped Broadband.
The main problem with the studios diving into BDJ and BD-Live was that the studios were totally unprepaired. You've got over a
decade of people doing business in the SD DVD world which is faintly interactive at best and actually the format is not even capable
of running a program of any kind (yes, SD DVDs could not even play a truly interactive game of tic tac toe without building
5gb of graphics which would include every possible combination in the game and therefore not even have enough room for the
movie or any other bonus features at all.... DVD was basically a better quality VHS that you could skip to different locations
like an 8 track tape or maybe a record, but everything is prerecorded and nothing is truley interactive unless you think skipping
the next song on an 8 track tape is interactive..) So they created a world and understood it's limitations and went marrily along.
However, when Blu-Ray came along it had the ability to run a program. Yes an actual program with code and everything.
You could display graphic elements based on user input and even play a real game meaning the format could now calculate scores and a player could actually affect the outcome of games.
Just to put this in perspective, this format is far far from say, a Playstation 3 game, but also far far from an SD DVD's skipping
technology.
So, to me, this means trouble. Big trouble. The studios were walking into a mine field with there heads held high.
What they didn't realize or respect was that they were dealing with software development. And if the studios have DVD producers,
in fact, everyone in the DVD division were not programmers and had no experience with software development, then you've got a
major problem on your hands. Now they have major research and development to do and they don't really know where to start and
they aren't even sure who to hire and even who to trust. With things like this along with the bad economy, needless to say,
Blu-Ray wasn't going to get the extra kick start
it needed.
Moving ON...
So with budgets plummeting, the scope of creative extras diminishing and just general production schedules greatly reduced,
this gold rush has all but turned into a ghost town.
So now, instead of producing material for DVDs Gork is producing the material that the DVDs are made from.
Gork is doing Visual Effects for Ugly Betty, LOST, Castle and other shows waiting in the wings.
Stay tuned for updates showing clips and once the LOST season starts we can reveal what we've worked on for that shows first episode
of season 6.
JOHN ROSS |
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4-16-09
YouTube, studios strike deal to stream films (says the Hollywood Reporter)
Not to be outdone by Hulu.com, YouTube is moving away from the mountains of amature, brain shriveling, content and making deals with Hollywood to show highly produced brain shriveling content.
This is going to take another huge toll on the DVD industry. Perhaps not significantly in the beginning, but as soon as a company can connect this service to the TV instead of just a computer screen, then I think we'll see a larger shift in how we watch things. But who can do it?
Who knows, but Apple is poised and already in the living room. Leave it to the Godfather of computers, Steve Jobs and his staff of geniuses, Apple TV is already in place, sitting in the living room, offering access to the internet through the TV and in High Definition no less, Wow! YouTube is already offered as a service on Apple TV. However, Apple may resist this type of programming because it will eat into the iTunes revenue. Why buy it or rent it if you can just watch it for free any time? I say, let the advertisers pay. Losing some revenue in one area will bring in revenue from another. When people begin to realize how cool this type of service is and if someone like Apple can wrap a simple user interface to it, then the viewers will come in droves and the advertisers will soon follow. There's also an opportunity for some creative new viral marketing that I'm sure the advertisers will exploit also.
Now, if they can add TV shows like Hulu and the free moves from YouTube, all on Apple TV, then I'll most likely cancel my satellite service and just watch whatever I want whenever I want. Oh the joy of not having to rush home to see a show or not having to remember set your recorder to record it. Oh, and get this, you won't even have to fast forward through all those commercials becaue there won't be as many commercials.. some shows only have a few commercials for an hour long show.
I'm drooling....
JOHN ROSS |
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4/4/09
Turns out the delayed roll out of Blu-ray has been over shadowed by
the bad economy. In order to adjust, the studios seem to be trying to commoditize the creative process to save money.
Leaving companies like ours frozen in there tracks.
Along with this, is the fact that BD-LIVE suffered huge set backs from a sort
of gold rush effect. Like the Kondike Gold Rush of
the late 1890's, the rush to make their fortunes froze many a miner as they crossed the Chilkoot pass unprepared and
badly equiped. So too, have the studios rushed
to be the first to draw viewers into BD-LIVE and hopefully generate revenue. Unfortunately the value of BD-LIVE is not
as clear cut as digging up chunks of gold.
So home video divisions embarked on the Internet world, thinking is was easy to conquer, but nature of the
Internet and the complexity of programming, left the studios at the top of the mountain with no idea how to proceed.
Frozen and dying, most studios have greatly reduced there BD-LIVE efforts, budgets and some are revamping completely and
will hopefully make the gold rush again, better prepaired. At the risk of sounding like I know what I'm talking about, may
I suggest a simple username and password as the ONLY registration necessary. MySpace, FaceBook and YouTube have successfully
prospered with this recipie for access to there community.
The economy may not have played such a big factor had the manufacturers not gotten to greedy. No one learns from history.
DVD profited from making a clear decision to support only one format.
But Sony and Toshiba never got over the VHS vs Beta war.
So, precious years were spent trying to win the format war as neither company wanted to back down. So consumed with honor,
they didn't
realize technology was not going to wait. This time, Sony won the battle with Blu-ray, but the DVD industry is
going to lose the war.
With Broad Band and On-Demand on the rise, this may be the beginning of the end for DVD and Blu-Ray.
Call it bad timing, bad business, greed or just all of the above.
... JOHN ROSS |
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