[Chris Blair]

I spent several years making grant supported documentary films and working at an arts and educational center teaching kids A/V skills, from animation to general camera use to making youth centered art videos and documentaries.

Perhaps you have done what I’m going to suggest, so if you have, you’re on a good path.

The first thing you need is a CLEAR plan. Nobody will give you money, equipment (or the time of day for that matter) unless you have a clear vision of what you’re trying to accomplish…in writing. Second, you need people with education backgrounds to come on board as advisors. They can be volunteers, or you could offer them an honorarium (a small financial token for their time) that would be paid after you secure funding. It would also help to have other professionals on-board who’ve agreed to donate their time, equipment or use of their facilities.

It’s also helpful to partner with an organization that already has their 501-C3 non-profit status so they can act as your fiscal agent. Granting agencies won’t give money to individuals or groups without this designation. It’s a pain to get it for yourself or your group, so partner with an agency that’s already helping kids and ask them to be handle funds. They basically will get the checks from the funding agencies, they deposit them in their account, then write you checks as you need them. It’s a pain but it also adds credibility and gives funding agencies some peach of mind knowing they’re not just giving money to an individual.

Without all of this, nobody will take you seriously. Next, you need to approach people in the local community who are already donating money, time or assistance to educational endeavors. That could be local government organizations, it could be foundations (usually with hospitals, banks, utility companies, large manufacturers and the like) or even community foundations. Community foundations are basically private organizations that have exploded in growth recently that solicit funds from local citizens. Those funds are put into one large portfolio and ONLY the profits from investing are used for grants and the like. Many of these organizations support education based projects. They are almost always called “xxx county community foundation” with the town or county’s name in the title.

Beyond that, you just need to network and let people know what you’re trying to do. Get the local school system involved to provide credibility. They will have MANY contacts in the local community that might result in financial help.

But I cannot stress enough the importance of sitting down and thinking about what you’d like to do, what you’d like to accomplish, and how the program can help kids.

Last, there are grant sourcebooks that can give you ideas on where to solicit grants, but I’ll warn you that most granting agencies outside your local area only grant to PROVEN organizations. It’s VERY difficult to get money from outside your community when you’re just starting up. The exception is if you’ve already created other grant supported programs and have a track record. Writing grant applications is also incredibly time-consuming and tedious.

https://openlibrary.org/b/OL2862169M/complete_grants_sourcebook_for_higher_education

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

[Chris Blair]

We need a lot more info. Like your original pixel size and what you’re exporting from. What application you’re using for the compression, what codec you’re compressing to and the data rate etc.

Also, there are many font styles and colors that compress poorly for the web, especially really thin or lightweight fonts, or using red in a really small font.

So if your titles are small or use thin fonts, or use dark, saturated colors against dark backgrounds, it could just be how they’re designed.

Give more info and maybe a link so people on the forum can understand and see what you’re talking about.

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

[Chris Blair]

News organizations often edit remotely and then uplink their finished stories or raw footage via satellite or send them via line of site microwave, which I’m assuming isn’t an option for you here.

TV news organizations also use what are called proxy editors in the field. They’re basically non-linear editing systems (AVID has them and Harris makes the Velocity News Force) that ingest low-resolution clips in the field where you can edit right after shooting. While you’re editing in the field, someone drives the tapes or capture media back to the station or newspaper. When you’re finished editing, you then send the project file back to the station (or newspaper in your case), where the high-resolution files are captured and automatically replace the low-resolution clips.

This probably doesn’t solve your specific problem however, as the high-resolution clips are needed to reassemble the project at high-quality. An alternative might be to purchase a hardware based encoding solution to take with you in the field. You shoot your story then capture and transcode all your footage do a lower resolution format suitable for FTP delivery. The weak link here is that you’ll be editing in an already heavily compressed format, and then have to re-encode your final edited project for insertion into the newspaper’s website.

Another alternative is to capture and edit in the field with a powerful laptop, encode the final piece, then FTP that back to the newspaper.

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

[Chris Blair]

Another thing a lot of people do is shoot for a gamma value that’s in between the older Mac default and the Windows default. I believe Macs (prior to OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard) were 1.8 and Windows PCs are 2.2.

So changing the gamma to 2.0 is a good compromise…or if your encoding app doesn’t use those values, adjust the video and black levels of your project about 10-12%.

I believe there is also a difference in how older CRT monitors display gamma (the number 2.5 sticks out in my mind)…but the majority of people today will have LCD…and 2.2 is still a good compromise.

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

[Chris Blair]

Mark,

I do see your (and Ron, Tim and David’s) points. I’ve noted several times I too believe 3D will succeed. But the value of these and other forums is getting a balanced view. That’s what I’m trying to provide here…a little perspective for companies like ours.

I’d be willing to bet the preponderance of Cow members are very much like our company in terms of size and function. I mean…look at the number of people participating in this and the prior 3D thread. There are less than a handful. So either the other people that participate on this forum are uninterested, uninformed, or simply don’t believe 3D has or will have much impact on them and their business in the forseeable future.

So I swear I’m not personalizing it. I value what all of you guys say. I just believe a lot of people disagree with how 3D will impact the industry outside of the theatrical and broadcast programming arenas. And that industry is massive outside of those two areas.

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

[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

[Chris Blair]

Richard,

Not sure what happened to your Lacie drive, but there are lots of good recovery software apps out there that have actually brought failing and corrupt drives back to life for us.

One that has worked on multiple occasions is SpinRite. It’s only $89 (last time I checked) and is worth every penny. The drive cannot be dead, meaning the bios still has to see the drive and the mechanisms inside have to still be functional. But we’ve used it on drives that wouldn’t mount, that were making horrible clicking noises…and it restored our data.

It doesn’t work every time, but it’s worth a shot if your data is important. If the drive is dead, meaning it doesn’t even show up in the bios, then SpinRite can’t work on it and you’d need a recovery service, which can cost a few hundred to a few thousand dollars.

Anyway…$89 and a couple hours of your time would sure beat having to recreate an entire video from the raw footage!

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

[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

[Chris Blair]

Mick Haensler: They bought 2 high end 8′ LCD panels that must have cost gobs of cash and they’re going to feed them with FREAKIN GL2’s!!!! They can’t even do 16×9 SD…I have no fear of having to upgrade to 3D any time soon….

Mick summed up the point I was trying to make in my two lengthy posts in just two sentences!

We’re not pessimistic about 3D TV. We’re pessimistic about convincing corporate America to pay more for equipment and technical know-how than they’re paying now. We’re pessimistic about people who make decisions about making videos outside of the world of network and cable TV (and it’s a HUGE world outside it). We’re pessimistic they won’t pay the extra money to produce 3D programs.

And I’ve seen all the posts about Sony and others sponsoring 3D programming on the upcoming launches of the various 3D networks. That’s far different than what we’re talking about. In most of America, corporate people haven’t even adopted HD yet…so regardless of how fantastic 3D TV looks, it will take them years to adopt it.

We’re pessimistic about the general public figuring out what Ron and Tim have figured out about their current TVs and the capabilities of HDMI. If there are 10 million HDMI sets in homes today, I bet 9.5 million of them ARE NOT hooked up via HDMI to any device. Most of those people don’t have a clue what HDMI is. They can barely hook up their DVD player using analogue cables. And keep in mind that consumer electronics stores price HDMI cables at ridiculously high prices that certainly discourage the average consumer from adding it to their purchase. The cheapest HDMI cable in Best Buy (I was in there today), was $39.95. You can get the same cable on Monoprice.com or Ebay for about $6….yet most people don’t know that.

And still no-one is mentioning the artistic side of this. At some point the novelty and/or amazement at the images will wear off and people will still want great stories. I’ve seen Coraline mentioned several times in this thread. It has to be one of the best movies (animated or otherwise) I’ve seen in years. My 5 year old daughter, who’s fallen asleep within 5 minutes at every single movie she’s gone to since she was 3 years old (they number in the 30s), stayed awake and on the edge of her seat through the entire thing. It wasn’t the 3D. She took her glasses off after 5 minutes. It was the story and the incredible art and direction of Henry Selick.

We’re not pessimists and we’re not ragging against anyone who’s an enthusiast about it. We’re simply looking at the economics of it as it applies to the buying public and corporate America. If it takes off…I’m all for it. But I’m with Mick when it comes to the bulk of video work that’s done outside the entertainment and sports industries.

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

[Chris Blair]

I have to side with Craig on this. Every single press release I’ve read while doing a quick Bing.com search implied that to watch the 3D programs that will be on ESPN 3D, Discovery and the other networks taking the plunge, you’d have to buy a new, 3D capable TV. There were even quotes from electronics industry CEO’s and technical VPs about how soon they could ramp up production.

I couldn’t find a thing about current televisions that were already capable of viewing the type of 3D that these networks are proposing to broadcast.

There must’ve been a two dozen different news articles, industry press releases and even a couple of “white papers” about the future of 3D, and all noted that it would require new television sets. There was no mention of firmware upgrades or adaptors or of any TV that’s currently capable of receiving the 3D signal that they’re proposing.

So I too would be interested in where this 200 million 3D capable TVs claim comes from. There are also articles about how expensive it is to do 3D production well, from all of these networks having to have 2 COMPLETE productiion crews and equipment, to the cost of the cameras and the cost of post etc.

Again…I think it will be a great technology with a place in the entertainment industry, but I cannot imagine that given the costs, in production, in that consumers have to shell out money for a new TV, and that local affiliates will have to invest to broadcast the 3D signals from networks…that it will achieve a high penetration anytime in this decade.

Like most discussions, the future is probably somewhere in the middle of the predictions of the enthusiasts and the pragmatists. I mean…look at the iPhone. It’s a fabulous device…but most current figures put iPhone worldwide sales at roughly 40 million, with projections from Apple of 80 million by 2012. And keep in mind, that’s not USERS…as one report estimated 40% of iPhone users have already upgraded from their old phone to a new one. Another report put nearly half of iPhone customers annual incomes at over $100,000.

Sure that’s a lot of phones, but there are 5 billion people in the idustrialized world and that’s a fraction of total phone sales and certainly suggests that a huge part of the potential market just cannot afford one. Now if people can’t afford an iPhone, how they gonna afford a big, honking new 3D TV?

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