DVDs are passe?

[Bill Anciaux]

During the recent unveiling of iLife '08 and the upgraded iDVD application in particular, Steve Jobs spoke of DVDs as a rather outdated way to share and view videos. I believe the quote was "DVDs are so 2004." (Truthfully, I didn't see his presentation but read about it in a MacWorld article, but it made me feel a bit behind the times.)

Do you agree with him about the DVD format? Have you begun delivering your product in other ways? Are you planning to? Have your customers asked for copies to view on their iPods, cell phones, etc.? Do you offer web delivery? What other creative things have you tried for customers wanting something more accessible and portable than DVDs?

In what ways do you think you'll be delivering your product 5 years from now?

Just wondering,
Bill

[Bill Ravens]

while there's some element of truth to his statement, I think it's clearly a case of Jobs doing his best to create a market and hasten the demise of DVD

[Martin Pauly]

Originally Posted by Bill Anciaux

In what ways do you think you'll be delivering your product 5 years from now?

I can't imagine that a physical product that I can deliver to a customer will go away in the next five years. Whether that physical product is a videotape, a DVD, or some high-definition media - well, that's a different question. Convenient or not, most people enjoy holding or touching something they paid money for, as opposed to just knowing that they purchased the right to view or listen to a clip. I always ship a CD-ROM or DVD at the end of all my projects, even if electronic delivery is all the customer has asked for.

- Martin

[Dale Stoltzfus]

I agree with Martin - a physical storage device will always be needed. I think DVDs will only go away when hi-def disks of whichever format wins become prevalent. Remember, Mr. Jobs and his company could certainly benefit from more non-physical data storage and transfer. His company being the trend-setter that it is, it only makes sense for it to try to influence buyers away from technologies that aren't as beneficial for the company.

[Sean Johnson]

As far as I know, most people still watch movies on DVD at home.(the majority of the time)

I can understand why a lot people might request formats they can play on their iPod or on the internet.

But to say that DVDs are outdated...what?! Not yet.

[Noa Put]

That would be nice, watching a wedding on an ipod or cellphone :) you could just skip the titles because nobody could read it.
Don't think it will go as fast as Stevy wants it to go, I'm not sure if it was Steve but some years ago I also heared someone speaking about software and books being outdated; why go through all the effort to go to a store and buy it when you can just download it right from your lazy chair.
In fact, I still prefer a real book instead of a pdf copy that I can read on my pc and I still like a real box with a dvd and a nice manual.

How long does vhs exist now? 25-30years? and dvd? 10years? I think dvd will easily last another 5 years before it will be pushed out of the market by blue ray or another hd variant. 2 years ago I still had clients with a vhs player but this year non, so it took dvd about 10 years to overtake vhs completely. The only reason to own a vhs player now is just to copy old vhs tapes to dvd.
With blueray and hddvd coming I think that the switch will go faster once the players will become equally cheap as dvd players now, newly weds will buy a hd variant immediately as most wide screens today are allready "hd ready". In 5 years though I would expect at least 50% still having a plain dvd player.

As for ipods and cellphones I don't see any reason for people asking for it in Belgium in the future, having the possibility to see your complete weddingvideo in full hd resolution directly streamed from a secured webpage to your tv or pc might be the next big thing. Think about the possibilities if you provide something like that to your clients, they could share the video with all their family and friends as soon as you place it online. I'm sure that one day the internet will be fast enough to provide that, only when? In 5 years? 10? In any case, I think people still want to have it on a deliverable format that they can hold or look at or place in a cabin.

[Dana Salsbury]

Go Jobs, and good point Bill.

It does astound me that in 2007 we still rely on physical media that won't play right if we put a FINGERPRINT on it. In many ways, we're not far beyond the old vinyl records that could be scratched. Someday we'll have media that you can scratch, run over, stomp on and set on on fire without loss.

[Sean Johnson]

Originally Posted by Dana Salsbury

Go Jobs, and good point Bill.

It does astound me that in 2007 we still rely on physical media that won't play right if we put a FINGERPRINT on it. In many ways, we're not far beyond the old vinyl records that could be scratched. Someday we'll have media that you can scratch, run over, stomp on and set on on fire without loss.

that would be a wonderful day. disc media can be so sensitive. they rival my wife.

[Victor Kellar]

Watching a wedding DVD on an iPod or cell phone? That's the day I get out of this business. While we deliver our corporate content on a wide variety of media, including web, watching a wedding video is a totally different experience.

The past several years has seen a move to a more "cinematic" approach in wedding videos as people invested in high quality, large screen LCD TVs and plasmas ... not to mention surround audio systems. Curling up on a couch and watching your day unfold in a larger screen, large sound environment seemed to me to be something special; and something people paid for.

I can't imagine charging the same for a video to be displayed on a crappy little hand held monitor into a pair of ear buds. And I won't charge less than what I do now. And it make me cringe to see my carefully crafted videos displayed in such a way

Maybe in the future purely electronic delivery like some sort of super speed fiber optic internet that streams directly to your wall sized wrap around TV would be possible ... and we make a hard copy on some kind of multiplexed depth crystal. OK.

Until then, I'm hanging out to see what happens with the whole HD disc fiasco ... if they ever get their acts together, then we could do something

[Adam Hoggatt]

Steve (Jobs) is not living in reality if he thinks that. Although technology-wise DVDs a a poor and inefficient way to handle media distribution, they are mainstream and consumers wouldn't know what to do without them.

[Jonathan Jones]

Originally Posted by Victor Kellar

Watching a wedding DVD on an iPod or cell phone? That's the day I get out of this business. While we deliver our corporate content on a wide variety of media, including web, watching a wedding video is a totally different experience.

It can be....and often probably only should be....but at times, watching it at all is the only experience they are looking for.

To everything there is a season...turn,turn,turn.


The first wedding video I ever shot involved a last minute ceremony, with the groom's family arriving from Germany, and the bride's family arriving from Korea. The groom's father was unable to attend having just suffered a debilitating stroke and was increasingly failing health.

The video itself wasn't very long as the entire event was extremely compressed for multiple reasons, but that left alot of room on the disc to add a good deal of DVD-ROM content.

While they were able to put the DVD into a standard DVD player and view their event in full quality, beautifully crafted cinematic glory, there was an Extras menu that informed them that at their convenience, they could also insert the disc into a DVD compatible MAC or PC computer and have access to the DVD-ROM contents containing compressions of the feature compatible for sharing via posting in famliy websites, Flash players, and several others (including 3GP which I admit is nearly unwatchable) They were so touched that they were able to post the video almost effortlessly to their own personal website, and let the groom's father view it (even in a small web window) while he was still able.

Sometimes its just a shift of priorities.

I began offering an additional iPod compatible compression option to a number of my client productions in October of '05 when the 5G iPod came to market. I don't charge extra for the service on some contracted productions, but rather think of it as a forward thinking addition for some clients who will eventually use such devices (for better or worse) as their preferred medium of choice.

Twice in the last month, I recieved notes from clients thanking me having done that....they completely didn't expect it. One was a bride who apparently was gathered with co-workers in her lunchroom and wedding stuff eventually came up.....she began to go on and on about how much she loved her wedding video...and then in the middle of the conversation, she suddently remembered that she had a copy of it on her iPod (she very easily dragged it from the DVD-ROM files right into her iTunes) and she said they were all duly impressed (although whether this was by the quality of my production or just the fact that she could show them her video from her iPod...she didn't say.)

I agree with you about wanting clients to be able to exclusively the highest quality possible to reflect the hard work and skill involved in a beautiful production. But it is clear that with the quickly growing society of 'grab n go' new media, Media producers have a fence to walk.

-Jon

[Victor Kellar]

Jonathan your points are all valid and of course, one always does what one can to give more to your client

Working in long form weddings, around the 60 to 90 minute mark, I don't feel comfortable offering alternative compressions for free due to the work involved, not of the whole video anyway.

We do offer trailer type videos for the web and have encoded the wedding highlight section so people can share it on the web or on mini devices; people like it and we generally don't charge for it

I suppose in the future, if market demands begin to really grow for having full wedding prods available for the web, iPod etc I would of course go that route; though I would change my style quite a bit. I think this is more appropriate for shorter edits but in an almost documentary style, simpler and less extravagant so nothing is lost during translation

As I said, we have been doing this for corporate clients for some time. For them, accessing the videos whenever/wherever is the important thing. That is getting the message out. We position our weddings for more emotional impact.

But when the client talks ... well, we walk that walk, don't we

[Bill Anciaux]

Amazing isn't it how people seem equally enamored with viewing something on their 58" plasma as they do on the 2" screen of their handheld device. They both are captivating in their own way apparently. Are they watching totally different types of content on these two different screens? Do wedding videographers need to deliver a product for both types of viewing experiences? Should we?

[Jon Omiatek]

Originally Posted by Sean Johnson

that would be a wonderful day. disc media can be so sensitive. they rival my wife.

Thanks for making me laugh!! Mine too.

[Marcus Marchesseault]

Semaphore is the future. Learn how to sew now or your competitors will eat your lunch.

Broadband is too slow to make HD disks irrelevant any time in the near future. Also, a great deal of people still don't watch video on their computers. Go to the electronics store in the U.S. and you will still find 19" tube televisions.