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2014 Predictions thread
Just for fun, here’s a thread where we make predictions for the coming year, so we can come back a year from now and laugh.
My predictions:
Newspapers are going to become more like local TV stations, printing fewer pages and concentrating more and more on online media clips over text reporting. At the same time, local broadcast TV will try to push viewers to station websites more and more. Those HD sub-channels made available by the switch to digital, will remain largely unused, but may become a haven for local community-based LPTV operations and Hispanic language network feeds.
Fewer Ku uplink trucks will be bought, the ones that are, will be mostly for sports, and fewer OB/broadcast microwave-equipped vans will be bought, as more field production switches to IP-based fiber and wireless cell modem-based field transmission, and smaller portable switcher/encoder streaming media production packages.
4K will remain more of an “elite” level of production, lacking much demand in corporate or broadcast, but it will continue to gain ground in serious theatrical production.
A mini-renaissance in projection TV will happen due to hybrid LED/laser light sources that have ridiculous longevity, over thousands of hours, and gamers will use that for affordable immersive, wall-sized gaming viewing.
Prototype LED/laser-based hybrid sources, adapted for use as video and stage lighting units, will test-market.
3-D production is going to stay about level, neither fading way nor growing too much. But more interest will grow in post-production 3-d conversion, rather than field production, mostly as a way to extend a movie’s revenue-generating lifetime. And kid-related movies will be most likely to get 3-D treatment. We will see a lot of mediocre 3-d work where the director didn’t shoot to use it to best effect in the original.
Amazon and Netflix in-house productions are going to grow, due to strong niche fan bases (Alpha House and House of Cards totally ROCK)
Cloud-based storage is going to keep getting cheaper and easier, and demand for it is going to drive ISP’s to build faster network services in self-defense. Google is going to drive this.
Blu-Ray may see a small resurgence thanks to h.265 compression giving it extended capacity.
This is going to be a breakout year for Apple FCPX, where it will start to win back some of the folks that went to Avid or Premiere. But I think sticker shock is going to depress sales on the new tubular Mac Pro for the large middle-market segment for the coming year.
This will be another year of contraction in corporate/government media, reducing staff and using younger, less-expensive help. Media specialists will be reserved as freelancers for high-importance projects, and current staff will be expected to make their own media, more and more. Look for more outsourcing across borders for “simple” tasks like editing and making custom animations. Purchasing will center on making media tools easy and accessible for average office workers, “dumbed-down” with a lot of automation and “wizards” to turn crummy cellphone video and powerpoint slides into “corporate presentations and training”. A lot more ugly, low-to-zero-budget stuff will be produced this year, by people new to the process. A smart marketer may make money offering to “fix” these bad videos for a price.
YouTube. Googl will offer to automatically edit your videos for you, based on a range of templates.
Look for a “wearable” $25 Go-Pro HD in stores for next Christmas season, competing with a simplified and more streamlined Google Glass.
An aftermarket gadget for pro cameras wil use IR laser ranging to record z-axis metadata in your video, enabling you to use depth as a sort of alpha/chromakey channel. Green-screening without the screen, so to speak, adjustable DOF in post, including just eliminating objects a foot ahead of and behind the subject in focus.
Adobe is going to release some of the cooler projects they’ve been keeping under wraps in development, as a way to entice more people to get on the Creative Cloud train. Z-depth keying or an app to automatically generate a 3-d model from flat imagery, may be some of the new toys.
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4 Replies
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I predict that Mark Suszko will continue to write the longest and most interesting posts on the COW and we will all continue to wonder where he gets all that time.
Oh, and Thunderbolt.
Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media Inc.
Video Production, Post, Studio Sound Stage
Founder/President/Editor/Designer/Animator
https://www.tiltmedia.com -
Waiting for renders, usually 🙂
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My prediction is that in going forward into 2014 and beyond, there will be only one attribute that will retain value. And that attribute is TRUST.
With a zillion content creation gizmos and a hundred zillion people able to use them – we will all be reduced to pushing up any required quality slope by knowing not WHAT to trust, but WHO.
Your reputation will be everything. And that reputation will be incredibly hard to build – and in the new social era – astonishingly easy for others to try to tear to shreds.
Also, and I hate saying this – no mater how stellar your reputation might be – the DOLLAR VALUE of quality represented by clients willing to pay a single percentage point beyond “the least they can” for any work of any quality will continue to be pushed toward zero.
The chance to move beyond that will again, be found in relationships. I will do my best to keep around me and pay at the best rate I possibly can – those who were with me when the money wasn’t flowing – when and if that flow improves – and not forget the people who helped me climb higher.
Yes, I know that some will fall away because they simply can’t work within the new higher quality environs, but even given that – I will do my best to remember those who backed me up when I didn’t have near as much to give.
I will do my best to contribute to the whole team – top and bottom. Not just use everyone to increase my personal take.
That’s my mantra going into 2014. Thinking “we” will, in this new hyper connected era – make me stronger than just thinking “me” at least if the jungle telegraph still works.
In sum, I want to be seen a “fair” producer. Not the richest one surrounded by other rich ones comparing how much better than everyone else our little clique is doing.
Probably naive – but such is life.
Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.
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“The DOLLAR VALUE of quality represented by clients willing to pay a single percentage point beyond “the least they can” for any work of any quality will continue to be pushed toward zero.”
This scares me to death.
“I want to be seen a “fair” producer. Not the richest one surrounded by other rich ones comparing how much better than everyone else our little clique is doing.”
This “mantra” gives me hope that it is possible to keep our little engine going.
Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media Inc.
Video Production, Post, Studio Sound Stage
Founder/President/Editor/Designer/Animator
https://www.tiltmedia.com
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