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2010 Predictions and Resolutions
Just for fun, because these are almost never right, and always funny in retrospect a year later. Cue Criswell:
Prediction: Due to a trade war, bluray prices will plummet and BD recorders will finally start getting traction in the US market.
Prediction: there will still be betaSP decks in daily use somewhere in the US thru 2015. And in 2010 you will still be getting dub requests for that formet.
Prediction: AJA or Blackmagic will market a black box for up-rezzing that SD betaSp junk at a price point an order of magnitude below current levels. It will become a ubiquitous device in cash-strapped analog/digital shops.
Prediction: Autodesk will say: “Combustion? Never heard of it”. Avid will make a play to buy it from them, but will be rebuffed. Smoke sales will be tenuous because the sticker shock is much greater than AE with a raft of good aftermarket plug-ins.
Prediction: Apple’s new tablet computer comes out, and it will have FCP-based video production apps on it that rival what a laptop with Adobe On Location can do; the tablet video apps will not just make it an instant teleprompter, scopes, and HD video and multitrack audio mixer/recorder, it will become the on-set version of a real Star trek Tricorder: it will also be a DMX lighting controller, a streaming workstation, and able to act as a multicam SDI HD switcher with a touch-screen program bus interface. The battery life will be crap, and nobody will care, because it can do most every job except Craft Services. Oh, and it will break Quicktime again.
Prediction: the RED camera folks will kill the market for using DSLR’s in video-film production, when they make their own very cheap version of an HD “Flip” camera, with better optics and sound. Aftermarket manufacturers will make all manner of absurd matte boxes and viewfinder extensions for a camera that looks like a fat deck of poker cards. Six months later, they debut a 3-d stereoscopic version that becomes an instant hit with sports and indie film makers. It also becomes huge with Special Effects makers, because you can use a new algorithm in post to use z-depth cues to vary actual focus in post, AND do 3-d chromakeying without any colored screens, simply by defining the back plane in z-space in post, everything past a set distance in the z-axis is automatically matted out, without any special lighting or treatment, all in post, no roto or motion tracking needed. It will revolutionize keying and bring a new freedom to field production for SFX shots.
Prediction: Another codec improvement hastens the death of satellite ENG thru replacement by FTP acquisition, and FTP really begins to boom when somebody with authority in the industry finally agrees on one common standard. News vans and trucks shrink to a guy in a 2-door sedan with a fly-away FTP rig. So does that guy’s pay.
Prediction: News coverage will continue to shrink and be replaced by pundit shows. PBS will be hired by the other networks to single-source actual news.
Prediction: Joss Wheadon will yet again with infinite trust come running up to kick the programming football held by Fox, only to have it yanked away after three episodes. Wheadon’s fans stage an intervention at the next Comicon.
Prediction: Adobe will include some of their up-to-now voodoo visual lab tricks into CS-whatever.
Prediction: a micro come-back for scripted drama happens as audiences start to feel burned-out on reality programming, crime shows, and real-estate-bubble-fueled “flip my house” shows, but it won’t be the same as pre-strike, when the networks try to side-step the WGA yet again and crowdsource their scripts over the internet. Google and Facebook will vie to represent the crowdsource screen writers in cooperation with the Guild.End credits for shows will triple in length. Harlan Ellison will complain they stole the idea from him.
Prediction: People from both factions of the health care debate will bankroll medical drama series on major networks, all of them based in some way around the Universal Health Care issue.
Prediction: “SYFY” will shorten its name to “FY”.
Prediction: Howard Stern drops sat radio for a plain internet show. Nobody will care.
Now, the resolutions. They say if you publicize them to friends, you’re more likely to keep them.
Resolution: Shorter but funnier posts. ……Just kidding. Psych!
Resolution: Learn AE and more detail on Motion this year.
Resolution: get a soprano ukelele, and learn to play at least one song on it.
Resolution: label everything, and not just in Klingon.
Resolution: play with hard lights in 3-point again, been too long and out of practice.
Resolution: get back to working on that spec article for WIRED.
Resolution: make something worthy of the COW’s reel section.
Resolution: Put the sailboat in the water at least once by May, four times by September.
Resolution: be thankful for every day you get.
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7 Replies
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[Mark Suszko] “Prediction: Another codec improvement hastens the death of satellite ENG thru replacement by FTP acquisition, and FTP really begins to boom when somebody with authority in the industry finally agrees on one common standard. News vans and trucks shrink to a guy in a 2-door sedan with a fly-away FTP rig. So does that guy’s pay.
Prediction: News coverage will continue to shrink and be replaced by pundit shows. PBS will be hired by the other networks to single-source actual news. “
Happy Merry!
A new “online” network will begin to coalesce based on live news coverage. It’ll be a few years before it overtakes cable news (short of cable news itself shifting). Live streaming and especially streaming from cell phones is growing quickly. Within the last few days Ustream and Qik (streams to Livestream) iPhone live streaming apps made it through the Apple/AT&T gauntlet to the iTunes App store. Many other phones are already supported.
Gannett is a big venture capital investor in Livestream. Livestream recently made “Livepack” available which is the ganging of cell phone cards which allows broadcasters to stream on location sans satellite truck and wifi. It dynamically finds the best signal across multiple carriers if necessary.
Live news will become the ultimate “reality” show.
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[Mark Suszko] “Prediction: there will still be betaSP decks in daily use somewhere in the US thru 2015. And in 2010 you will still be getting dub requests for that formet.”
Absolutely. Our UVW-1800 lays off almost as many masters as does our HD decks.
[Mark Suszko] “Prediction: AJA or Blackmagic will market a black box for up-rezzing that SD betaSp junk at a price point an order of magnitude below current levels. It will become a ubiquitous device in cash-strapped analog/digital shops.”
I don’t know. At $1,500 for the Kona LHi, that’s pretty darn cheap for broadcast quality upconversion.
[Mark Suszko] “Prediction: Autodesk will say: “Combustion? Never heard of it”. Avid will make a play to buy it from them, but will be rebuffed. Smoke sales will be tenuous because the sticker shock is much greater than AE with a raft of good aftermarket plug-ins.”
Smoke is an interesting one because the interest level I’ve seen across the forums is high, but from my long experience on the Cow, most folks on here cringe at spending $999 for FC Studio. So I wonder when all the whining is going to begin as they realize they are going to have to spend all this money to get a single tool.
Personally I’m very excited to have Smoke on the Mac as it just adds another tool for the toolbox when I need it. I don’t use Smoke, I don’t see a need for it in our current workflow, but it’s nice to know that if the time comes that we require it and have an artist that is proficient in it, it’s just a software install.
[Mark Suszko] “Prediction: Apple’s new tablet computer comes out…”
Yep, saw that the stock jumped again on the rumor it’s coming out in January. This is going to be an interesting product to see just exactly WHAT it will be able to do. If it has the guts of a MacBook Pro, well then you’ll be able to do pretty much anything with it. But as you said, the battery life most likely WILL be crap if they’re anything like the current MacBook Pro batteries. They’re great for about four months and then just stop working correctly.
[Mark Suszko] “Resolution: be thankful for every day you get.”
That’s the best one of all.
My primary resolution for this year: Continue to make my wife smile as often as possible.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media“Foul Water, Fiery Serpent” now in Post.
Creative Cow Forum Host:
Apple Final Cut Pro, Apple Motion, Apple Color, AJA Kona, Business & Marketing, Maxx Digital. -
awesome resolution, man. I’ll subscribe to that one.
I seek fullfillment and the revoloves around my wife’s smiles.
Predictions? Man, I predict the industry will continue to change far greater and faster than I can predict. The economy will get worse, making video more creative than ever.
Bring it.
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The economy will get worse, and aggresive businessmen, who never got the opportunity to do real shows, will get this opportunity, because they are cheaper than the established guys. This will continue, as broadcast and cable TV becomes more divided, and more specialized. More producers who are will to go out there and SEEK OUT THE WORK will get shows that they never dreamed of getting, because budgets are lower and the big established production companies will refuse to work for those “low rates”. The bad economy will be a boom for the small production business.
Technology will continue to change and evolve quicker than ever. Those that embrase this change will continue to move forward, while those that refuse to learn new products will continue to fall away.
Opportunities for new young people will be greater than ever.AND THE BIG PREDICTION – Creative Cow will be the only “magazine” left in our industry. (ok, Maybe Broadcast Engineering will still exist, but Cow can expand as well into these areas).
Bob Zelin
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[Bob Zelin] “AND THE BIG PREDICTION – Creative Cow will be the only “magazine” left in our industry. (ok, maybe Broadcast Engineering will still exist, but COW can expand as well into these areas).”
During our strategy sessions here at COW Headquarters — known as “The Barn” — we’ve been watching the signs and have been saying that for a couple of years now, Bob.
Thanks for noticing. ;o)
Coming from you, we couldn’t be more flattered.
Best regards,
Ron Lindeboom
Creativity is a type of learning process where the teacher and pupil are located in the same individual.
Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
– Antoine de Saint ExupéryFirst they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
– Gandhi -
I am amazed at the diverse and great responses on this one. It’s what the COW is all about.
Bruce
Bruce Bennett
Bennett Marketing & Media Production, LLC
Creative Inspiration
Documentaries for those who love to create … and to be inspired. -
Industry Predictions:
As flash media becomes nearly free, the cost of SxS cards and P2 cards will actually increase, making people go back to tape. Used Z1’s go for $10,000 on ebay.
Given the cyclical trend of retro styles, the five computers in my basement ranging from an 8088 to a 486 processor will become very valuable. Wired Magazine will buy my Dell Pentium 133mhz machine for a cover story on why fast computers are overrated.
Along the same lines, analog video purists will talk up the warmer feel of 1″ tape vs the cold digital nastiness. Again, the miles of 1″ tape in my basement becomes a hot commodity.
Seeing a trend here…?
As the youtubification of the world continues, Google will release a free editing app that combines the best of FCP and Premiere. And since it is open source, the video enthusiast programmers of the world release thousands of free plugins.
The US Postal Service goes bankrupt, making online video delivery more relevant than ever. FedEx and UPS start online video sharing services to facilitate delivery of spots to the networks and local affiliates.
Seriously, I think the best prediction to make is:
Small business owners will further capitalize on the changing business world’s needs, becoming more creative and useful than ever before. If you run away from bad economic times, you will not be prepared for the recovery. And if there is no recovery, you make opportunities with the reality that you are faced with. It will be scary for some, a challenge for all. Welcome to the 21st Century. This world of tomorrow feels a lot like the past. The Carousel of Progress moves slow sometimes.
Have a Happy New Year.
Mike Cohen
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