Today’s 3D headline: JP Morgan raises $700 million for 3D

[Ron Lindeboom]

You should be a TV reporter, Mark. I can hear it now, as the anchor says: “Let’s go to Mark Raudonis for today’s report…”

“Yes, Mr. & Ms. Well-Coiffed-and-Well-Dressed Co-Anchors, JP Morgan today floated a boatload of cash to speed the adoption of 3D in the cinemas. And while a few myopic naysayers over at Creative COW continued to get pummeled by the vast majority of its members who actually love the stuff, crowds continue to line-up to see Cameron’s Avatar yet again — most, watching a movie that they’ve now seen more than once. Some, like David Roth Weiss, have seen the movie in multiple formats — seeing it on the standard screen Real-D and then jetting across town to see it on the big and beautiful IMAX screen.”

“Thanks for that report, Mark,” states Mr. Well-Coiffed-and-Well-Dressed Co-Anchor.

I remember when DV first came out. I hated it. I owned my Motion-JPEG Media 100 system and the picture back then was great. Far better than DV, I assure you. But the marketplace wanted DV and they got it.

I remember sitting at a dinner once with Ralph Fairweather in New York City where he thanked me for not believing in DV. “By doing so,” he told me, “you left the door open for us to start and build the 2-pop site. If you had believed in it, we’d never have gotten it off the ground.”

So, I will ask the naysayers here: “What doors are you leaving open for others because you can’t see what’s happening here and have no interest in what the market clearly wants?”

Best regards,

Ron Lindeboom
CEO, CreativeCOW.net

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 Exupéry

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
– Gandhi

Better is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure than to rank with the poor spirits who neither enjoy much, nor suffer much because they live in a gray twilight that knows no victory or defeat. – Theodore Roosevelt

[David Roth weiss]

I just got off the phone with a good friend from a smaller market whose fifty-something, and he and his wife not only saw Avatar and loved it, but are wanting to go back to spend $15 apiece to see it again. That alone is a remarkable thing these days, when most fifty-somethings hardly ever go to the movies anymore.

And, as Mark points out, that phenomenon has obviously not escaped the attention of capitalists throwing their financing dollars at the future of our business.

And, I agree with Mark that this is the year of 3D at NAB. I’m sure that all visitors at NAB will be wearing 3D glasses most of the time this year as they walk around the exhibit halls.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.

[Chris Blair]

First off…considering the recent history of the banking industry, am I the only one it bothers that a bank is raising $700 million in cash to jump into an industry it knows nothing about?

And I continue to see references to Avatar and Coraline and fabulous previews of 3D technology setup expressly to promote it. You’re talking about a world that most of us are not familiar with. We don’t have 100 million dollar budgets. We can’t get people to dim the lights when they play their prized marketing video to a room of 300 people. We can’t get them to have the sound system turned on when they play that training DVD we spent a week shooting and editing.

We’re not against 3D or any of you and your opinions. I’ve spoken via email privately many times with people that contribute on these forums. Most of them have small to medium sized facilities like ours. We employ 8 people and do about 1.5 million in sales a year. We’ve grown steadily almost every year, usually about 15%. Yet…we STILL have a hard time making substantial profits. We make money, but it’s mostly money that goes back into the company with little distributed to the three owners. The people I’ve spoken to off this forum are in very similar sized markets and have similar financials.

It would make NO sense for our company to invest in 3D technology or know-how right now. Our clients won’t even pay for HD and further, when we produce something in HD, they don’t show it in HD, which sort of defeats the purpose. If we produced a 3D video for any of our current clients, we’d then have to educate and persuade the A/V company or internal multimedia guy at the company on how to properly play and display that 3D video. They can’t even setup and play an SD DVD properly, much less HD or 3D.

Yes…3D looks fantastic. Yes it has a bright future. But if you produce corporate video in middle America, you can hardly get decision makers to consider HD. I’d like to hear their reaction to pitching them videos (along with their higher costs) in 3D.

Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
https://www.videomi.com

Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com

[Ron Lindeboom]

[Chris Blair] “And I continue to see references to Avatar and Coraline and fabulous previews of 3D technology setup expressly to promote it. You’re talking about a world that most of us are not familiar with. We don’t have 100 million dollar budgets. We can’t get people to dim the lights when they play their prized marketing video to a room of 300 people. We can’t get them to have the sound system turned on when they play that training DVD we spent a week shooting and editing.”

Then this really isn’t for you, is it?

The old salesman said it best: sell what you can see, don’t see what you can sell.

As in every industry, there are early adopters, mid-term adopters, and late adopters.

I remember when people on these forums years ago argued that no one was making money on HD. The people that I knew who jumped in and got the bugs worked out and built their businesses around HD, ended up with the lion’s share of the market. The mid-term adopters picked up work, later on. The late adopters are still saying that they can’t get anyone to pay for it.

This market, too, will be summarized years from now in the same way. It is a normal business cycle. Nothing more.

Best regards,

Ron Lindeboom
CEO, CreativeCOW.net

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 Exupéry

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
– Gandhi

Better is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure than to rank with the poor spirits who neither enjoy much, nor suffer much because they live in a gray twilight that knows no victory or defeat. – Theodore Roosevelt

[Gary Hazen]

“First off…considering the recent history of the banking industry, am I the only one it bothers that a bank is raising $700 million in cash to jump into an industry it knows nothing about? ” – Chris

No kidding! How quickly we forget.
Maybe the government will give us TARP 2* to help pay for upgrading to 3D.
*Tax Abatement for Repressed Production companies.

[Mark Raudonis]

[Gary Hazen] “$700 million in cash to jump into an industry it knows nothing about?”

Uh, that’s how it works. Do bankers know anything about making cars? Airplanes? Hotels? Locomotives?
No, of course not. They know about MAKING MONEY! Period. It’s your job to run your business. It’s their job to make money off of it.

Think about it. They (The bankers) are VERY good at this. When they were about to lose their shirts, they successfully got the government to bail them out. Anybody here get a government loan/gift to bail you out? You may want to think about changing careers, and get into banking.

Mark

[David Roth weiss]

[Chris Blair] “First off…considering the recent history of the banking industry, am I the only one it bothers that a bank is raising $700 million in cash to jump into an industry it knows nothing about?”

Chris,

Have you ever heard of an analyst? The analysts at JP Morgan often know more about the businesses they invest in than those running the business. They don’t just give money away you know, they leave that to the government.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.

[Timothy J. allen]

Chris said: “You’re talking about a world that most of us are not familiar with. We don’t have 100 million dollar budgets.”

That’s exactly why 3D is the big news this year – because the equipment is about to dip below the price point where many (or if not even *many* at least *more*) producers will be willing to invest in it.

I’m willing to invest in it to get an early edge over the competition. But to do that, I realize that I’ll need clients that also want to invest in it in order to get an early edge over their competition. Luckily, I choose the majority of my projects in part by how forward-thinking the clients are.

(And although it’s a topic for another thread, I still think it’s important to have set criteria for “choosing your clients” – especially when the economy is bad – so you don’t waste your life working on things that don’t give you a worthwhile “return on investment” for growth in both knowledge/experience and your financial bottom line.)

Back to the topic of 3D video production… Just like HD, I’m sure we won’t use the technology for every project – it will depend on whether the technology actually adds more value to the end result than it costs. Just like everyone else, we still have extremely low-end projects where 3D won’t make any sense. That said, considering the opportunities where it will add net value, I absolutely expect to start producing 3D video products by late summer or fall of this year.

-Tim

[Chris Blair]

David Roth Weiss: Have you ever heard of an analyst? The analysts at JP Morgan often know more about the businesses they invest in than those running the business.

Hmmm..somehow the events of the last 18 months lead me to believe that isn’t true. So why did those analysts make such poor decisions about the mortgage industry if they knew so much.

Ron Lindeboom: The old salesman said it best: sell what you can see, don’t see what you can sell.

I’m not exactly sure what that means? As for early adopters, mid-term adopters, and late adopters…we’ve pushed HD for the last few years. Clients do not want it, nor are they willing to pay for it in our market. Had we invested in HD equipment, all we would’ve had is a bigger debt load, when the SD equipment we have now (that was paid off last April) has worked perfectly well for every single one of our clients. The only debt we have now is our building, and even though we still suggest HD when it’s appropriate for projects, clients in this part of the country are simply not using it. None of them use it in their trade shows or training or marketing presentations. Not a single corporate client (several are huge, well-known companies) have HD capable playback in their presentation rooms or auditoriums.

Plus, only a handful of the broadcasters in a 200 mile radius of us accept HD for spot delivery. That includes Nashville, Indianapolis, Louisville, and St. Louis. Barely 1 in 4 accept HD spots and several of those take your HD spot and DOWNCONVERT it to ingest into their playout server! That’s right, you’re better off just giving them an SD version of your HD spot.

I’m not saying 3D isn’t for us or me. I’m saying in our market it would be folly to invest money and time into what’s obviously a new and confusing technology. I went back online and spent an hour reading about 3D and viewing capability in homes. I read news reports, technology based websites, industry based websites, more white papers etc. And every single one of them states that consumers will need new TVs to view the type of 3D that will be broadcast by ESPN and Discovery. So is this just propaganda to sell more TVs? Industry analysts (there’s that word again) all say current TVs (read TVs made up through 2009) cannot decode the 3D signal that will be delivered by these new services. If they want people to watch, don’t you think they’d promote that you can view them with current TVs??

Tim mentioned that reading on the internet isn’t the best place to get news. Perhaps, but where do you think the millions of consumers interested in 3D will turn to find out if they’re current TV can decode the new 3D broadcasts? Yup…the internet. I’m smart enough to know that everything you read online doesn’t add up to the truth. But why can I not find ANYTHING that confirms the claim that millions of TV will be able to decode these new broadcasts??

I love the information that’s available here on the Cow, but why are people with dissenting opinions almost always treated as if they’re somehow narrow minded business people?? I’m all for 3D TV. I’m all for the people that want to invest heavily in it. I just don’t think it makes good business sense for a company like ours to be one of them…especially considering how confusing the technology is and how uncertain the ability to view it is.

Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com

[Mark Raudonis]

[Chris Blair] “why are people with dissenting opinions almost always treated as if they’re somehow narrow minded business people?”

Chris,

I don’t think you’re narrow minded. I read your posts. You obviously have succeeded and thrived in
your market. You’ve explored, installed, and benefitted from new technology (Shared storage). But,
in this case, you’re “personalizing” the debate. You’re correct in deducing that 3D is probably NOT for you right now. That doesn’t mean that you should cast a blind eye to the tsunami of technological change that is sweeping the industry. I understand that HD is a rare beast in your world. That WILL change. It’s going to be the same with 3D. It may not be appropriate for your business model, but it WILL be a common format for main stream entertainment sooner than later.

Just like Sony, Panasonic, JVC etc make different levels of cameras for different markets, so too will the
implementation of 3D become stratified by market segment. There are expensive (Avatar) ways of creating 3D programming and cheaper ways (2D to 3D conversion). That’s just the way it is.

You can bet that the camera makers, NLE makers, and display makers are going to do their best to PUSH this new technology, ’cause it will SELL product. That alone is the biggest factor contributing to
the proliferation of this trend. Once the HD upgrade is complete nationwide, the next wave of “upgrade” will be 3D.

Conclusion: 3D will happen with or without you. Only you can decide if you want to participate.

Mark