Andrew Kimery
Forum Replies Created
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[Bill Davis] “To shoehorn the discussion into movies and similar entertainment content, I think misses the point.”
How did I shoehorn the discussion by making a tongue-in-cheek observation and how does my saying that TV set makers are continuously looking for the ‘next big thing’ to keep sales from stagnating or declining miss the point?
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I predict that 4k will become the norm because manufactures will simply stop making HDTVs (just like they stopped making SDTVs to speed up HDTV adoption). That’s not going to be for a while now because of manufacturing costs, but it’ll happen. And people will watch HD content on their 4k sets and rave about awesome 4k is! 🙂 4k is also an easier sell then 3D because it lacks the problems 3D introduces.
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[Walter Soyka] “I do know that distributors have, in recent history, resisted changes to their business models that ultimately provided new sources of revenue (like home video or music downloads). They forget that the customers pay the bills and therefore have a say in how the market works, too.”
As cable and TV contracts start expiring in the coming years I think that’s when we will see things get really interesting. I mean, I’m sure HBO would love to sell HBO Go on the side for a monthly fee to people that don’t have cable subscriptions but obviously the likes of TW and Comcast wouldn’t be keen on that idea. And, honestly, I wouldn’t be either if I paid top dollar for the right to carry HBO’s programing. Maybe a future contract will lower HBO’s carriage fee in exchange for HBO being able to sign up it’s own subscribers via HBO Go directly.
Being an Ameican football fan I’m curious to see what happens in 9yrs when the freshly signed TV contractions are set to expire. Will the NFL start venturing out on its by own streaming games or will the billions of dollars they get from ESPN, FOX, CBS & NBC keep them tied, in some way, to those broadcasters? Will ESPN, FOX & CBS follow NBCs lead and simulcast games on line?
I think traditional TV distribution has peaked, but it’s not going away anytime soon, IMO. For example, in the US, legal music download sales toped CD sales for the first time ever last year (IIRC 51% to 49%) and this is with CD sales being in a free fall for the better part of a decade.
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[Walter Soyka] “I don’t see how it’s in HBO’s best interest to build their own online store, either, any more than they should run their own wires to people’s homes.
Exploiting other existing venues for distribution is another question entirely.”
I wonder how much liberty they have to do that though given their current contracts? Releasing on DVD/BR is one thing but cable companies might have exclusivity windows that bar HBO from putting their content on iTunes and Amazon streaming until the new season comes around.
Also, down the line, maybe HBO has plans to break out on its own and be a streaming rival to Netflix. If that’s the case it is in their best interests to keep their original programing close to their vests as a way to differentiate themselves from their competition (even if it’s only possible future competition at this point). For the same reason I doubt Netflix, Hulu and YouTube are going to be farming out their new original IPs out to other distributors.
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[Walter Soyka] “There’s apparently a huge audience that wants the content, but HBO is doggedly pursuing their old distribution model:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/05/09/hbo-has-only-itself-to-blam...
Didn’t Apple win in music by making it easier to buy a song at a reasonable price and in a format people wanted than to steal it?
“Did you see the follow up article the author wrote?
Basically, he back tracks all the way home with the realization that HBO makes a metric ton of money from being on cable TV and they probably aren’t ready to kick that cable $$$ to the curb and go it alone. At least not yet.
There’s a huge difference between being a middle man (Apple & iTMS) and being the one footing the bill to produce the content itself. The iTMS was designed as a loss leader to sell iPods. If Apple went all music label and started funding bands we’d see a whole different business model. Same thing with Netflix and Hulu. Sure, they are successful, but they are successful selling content other people paid to make. Neither companies’ current business model could survive if they had to fund all the content they distributed.
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[Bill Davis] “And for that to be a successful long-term strategy – they’ll have to find a way to continue to make their users feel simultaneously “comfortable” and also secure that they’re not missing something else by not heading as rapidly into the new territory that Apple was willing to redesign their vehicle to get to.
I can see your point. Maybe Apples’ competition are heading there just as rapidly, via a path I can’t see. But it puzzles me how they can do that easily if they keep believing that “job 1” is taking care of existing customers who are driving traditional sedans and can only use the superhighways they’re used to traveling on.
That’s certainly the fast way to travel. But if “on road” is the main value you peruse, then you can only end up where the road builders decide you want to go.”
I think you are setting up false dichotomy where the only way to change and innovate is to blow the whole thing up which just isn’t true. The past 5 years or so Avid and Adobe have been making huge strides into new workflows (including file based and the cloud) but it just doesn’t get as much fanfare as what Apple does.
To me all the NLE makers are creating automobiles (to keep going w/the tired and flawed analogy we all love to hate). The basics are all there (wheels, engine, drive train, breaks, etc.,) but the differences have mainly been in types of tech used (gas vs diesel vs electric, rotary vs in-line 6, etc.,), features and performance. I think the biggest thing that FCPX did, that the others didn’t, is taking a very new approach to the UI. While all the other cars have a steering wheel, clutch, break, & gas pedals (left to right), a gear shift under your right hand, etc.,. where as FCPX’s car uses something radically different… like voice controls and an iPad (or whatever).
My point is, if you keep everything that’s new about FCPX but put a more traditional GUI on it and everybody would love it. I think the single most controversial thing w/FCPX-car isn’t the new, high performance tires or powerful electric, direct-drive engine it’s that when you sent down in the driver’s seat theres no steering wheel, pedals or gear shift. The new control scheme is different, it works… but is it necessarily better?
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I think Apple TV, whatever it may be in the future, has a much tougher road ahead of it than any of Apple’s other products.
First, the HDTV / Home theater market doesn’t seem to be sitting on its butt and slowly upgrading like other tech sometimes does. I mean, the push for 3D in the home that started a few years ago and that’s not really going gang busters so this past CES multiple companies were showing off 4k TVs that look less like prototypes and more like ready for the showroom. It’s also common for TVs now to be Internet ready and come with apps for everything from Netflix to Pandora to Facebook (sub-$100 blu-ray players do this too). Some TVs are also already coming w/voice control, gesture & facial recognition and gaming services like OnLive and Gaikai that allow you to play PC and console games in the cloud via your TV (plus a controller of course).
Second, there’s content. Content is king and w/o an impressive lineup of exclusive content I don’t think Apple TV can break out from the pack. And right now, with things like HBO GO, NHL Game Center, Netflix, etc., the trend is for content providers to get their ‘channel apps’ on as many devices as possible.
Third, have you seen what the PS3, 360 and, to a lesser extent, the Wii / WiiU have to offer in terms of being home media centers & streaming devices? Microsoft has even made deals with traditional TV distributors like Comcast and Verizon to make some of their content available on Xbox Live as well as a deal w/AT&T to pipe their content directly through the 360 instead of using AT&Ts cable box. Not to mention Microsoft’s SmartGlass that they showed at E3 this year. It’s basically a feature that will allow AirPlay-like functionality (and much more) between a 360 and Android, iOS & Windows 8 mobile devices.
Lastly, the raging success of the iDevices is in part built on a large portion of the user base upgrading every 12-24 months. I just don’t see that happening with TVs (especially large, this-is-nearly-eating-my-living-room sized TVs). If a cornerstone of the future Apple TV is being a key part of the Apple ecosystem they are going to have to give it much longer legs than an iPad or iPhone. I mean, the original iPad, a device barely over 2yrs old, isn’t even qualified to run i0S 6 (and the iPad 2 only gets limited support of iOS 6). People just don’t cycle through TVs like they do cell phones or even computers (not yet at least).
I’m not saying Apple TV will never break out of hobby status, as Apple likes to call it, but I think it is going to be a big up hill climb. Of course, Apple’s secret weapon is usually taking existing things and stream lining the user experience so we’ll have to wait and see if that will be enough this time around.
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Yeah, it’s 29.97.
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Thanks for the info Ben.
With regards to the bug, toggling external video on/off has always fixed it for me.
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No exaggeration, I’ve media managed dozens ( possibly even hundreds) of projects w/FCP 5-7 and I’ve never seen that message before. I’ve always used ‘copy’ and not ‘use existing’ so that might have something to do with it. Use Existing actually deletes the unused media from your computer and that’s not something I’ve ever wanted to do.
What codec is your footage in?
It sounds like the warning is basically saying that if you don’t hit ‘add’ some of the media you are using might get deleted.