Preserve old movies, photos, music with Digital Technology
April 3, 2008
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This last Saturday my local News Paper printed a pretty good article in the Homes section regarding preservation of old films and photos stored away in peoples attics closets etc.
Of course this article is very near and dear to my heart and actually is a good cause to write about. Recently my father passed away at 90 years old. He has a ton of old photographs many of them from vintage periods of his hey days in the 30’s 40’s, 50’ 60’s etc. So what to do with all of these photos ? Very simple for me since I am in the business of not only creating memories for clients but also in the preservation of those memories.
They are in the process of being scanned, cleaned up and categorized. In the case of my fathers photos, I will be using them as part of a documentary project on the Merchant Marines serving in WW II and the US foray into the war with our entry into the campaign in New Guinea, for which my father played an active role.
“The campaign on New Guinea is all but forgotten except by those who served there. Battles with names like Tarawa, Saipan, and Iwo Jima overshadow it. Yet Allied operations in New Guinea were essential to the U.S. Navy’s drive across the Central Pacific and to the U.S. Army’s liberation of the Philippine Islands from Japanese occupation.”
Did not mean to digress off track here, the point that the article makes as well as the one that I am talking about merge into the same theme. You see as we age, so does the media on which we’ve stored our memories and moments of the past. The older storage medium of film and photographs is referred to as Analog and the new medium of computers and DVD’s is referred to as Digital.
If you still have old film footage lying around: be it old 8 mm, Super 8 or 16mm film or even old phonographic albums - LP records old 78’s or 45s!, or even fading black-and-white snapshots, not to mention color slides and prints and lets not forget VHS tapes, then the time to transfer that over to a DVD for long lasting storage is now.
The longer you wait the more the material degrades to the point that very soon it may not even be salvageable. Basically, the preservation of old film footage should be done as soon as possible.
You might have a few questions regarding the process and cost and that is understandable.
Lets’ see if I can help here:
DIVX Exit’s Stage 6 and Disney Enters Stage 9
March 4, 2008
Another month and another change in the video landscape. Last week I received an email from the folks over at the video sharing site Stage 6 (that was run by DIVX) informing me that they were shutting down operations the end of February. With the flood of new video sharing sites on the ever expanding landscape for User Generated Content (USG) it was inevitable that DIVX would shut this service down, as it was not a money maker at all. So no surprise here. Effective March 1st former users of the DIVX site are now redirected via a link to VEOH who who has assumed most of the clients from DIVX, that is the ones that did not move their content some where else.
In a totally coincidental event with interesting timing was ABC’s DISNEY company making the formal announcement of their foray into the online video scene with the advent of STAGE 9. Where DIVX and DISNEY differ is that DISNEY is going after full on BROADBAND content vs. the USG format that DIVX embarked on. Disney is also developing projects for full series created specifically for the broadband video markets. In this respect they can achieve monetization via add revenue just because of who they are and what they will bring to the table. (The team over at NewsOXY has a good article on Disney.)
I think this year we will see a lot more firms move away from the basic garage made, USG ,YouTube type of video entry, and will see the filed morph into more professionally done video projects. The cutesy stuff on the USG sites is just that. It has not made much money for those users or for those that have created the content. If the companies that host the content are to become profitable they will all need to adopt some form of add revenue policy. This means that in order to attract advertising dollars, the quality of the content will have to increase. That is were firms like Virtual Interactive Systems based in Tampa Florida, come into play. We are working with Small to Medium Business to add video advertising content to get their products and services discovered in their local markets and beyond to even international exposure.
Related Post:
Video Sharing Landscape changes as LiveUniverse buys Revver
Video Sharing Landscape changes as LiveUniverse buys Revver
February 20, 2008
Back in January I wrote about the perennial favorite (REVVER) of many web Video enthusiast, and mentioned that they were going through some tough times that indicated a change was in the wind. Well the wind has now settled and as of Thursday the 14th of February REVVER is now part of Brad Greenspan’s LIVE UNIVERSE family. It also appears that the final numbers were quite a bit higher than originally speculated. Numbers being mentioned were closer to $5 Million dollars, and all though the final purchase price is still a closely guarded secret it appears that both sides were happy with the outcome. The folks over at NewTeVee covered the Revver story rather well and today they released a follow-up article discussing the options of continuing with Revvers business model. It will be interesting to see how the landscape evolves for us content creators in addition to what happens to the add base home front, now that Brad has three horses in the stable with: Revver Video, LiveUniverse and LiveVideo to contemplate?
Related Post:
Video Sharing sites and your business
Video Sharing sites and your business
January 18, 2008
So you know about You Tube and Google Video and maybe three or four other sites that will let you post your videos for free?. Now let’s ad to the mix with the Social Networking sites like MySpace and Facebook to name a few and soon the numbers start to swell to over a hundred. These sites are often categorized into different arenas based on usage of the content and the services they provide such as user generated, video sharing web sites, video sharing platform / white label providers and web based video editing.
The landscape on these sites continues to ebb and flow like the tides and as the New Media Generation continues to evolve, new names will pop up and some businesses will be swallowed by the larger video fishes of the media ocean. Some will survive, as You Tube was purchased by Google last year and thrives. Some will die and some will morph into other businesses or be bought and merged into existing service providers.
Last year’s big buzz of course was You Tube…..right now all the talk is centered on another shake-up in the developing video sharing sites. One of the originators of the user generated content form Revver Video may be going through some changes.
It appears the Revver had an executive shake-up in December 2006 that resulted in two of its three co-founders, Ian Clarke and Oliver Luckett, along with some of the support staff, leaving. There is speculation now regarding the site’s well being and it is being fueled by the rumored departure of their CEO Steven Starr. This could very well signal trouble for the video-sharing site. Some have even speculated that Revver would be taken over by Live Universe. “Los Angeles-based LiveUniverse is run by MySpace founder Brad Greenspan. Though its flagship site is the somewhat obscure LiveVideo, the company would add Revver to its network of video sites.”
Revver has had problems with attracting the kind of traffic that You Tube enjoys. It is one of the first sites that took on the revenue-sharing model. Will it be able to continue in its current model if it continues to lack in traffic or if its CEO departs?
With the recent inclusion of ad-sharing revenue models, this year will prove even more difficult for video-sharing sites to compete with the like of You Tube. Guba is another video-sharing site that has seen some execs leave, in this case to start their own video-sharing site and .
Whatever the outcome, you can be sure the Virtual Interactive and the good folks over at Get Found Now will be right in the thick of things. When it comes to promoting your business or products, Video Sharing Sites can add real buzz to your business with very little impact on your bottom line. The key here is keeping track of who does what and when in the over all landscape of the Web 2.0 , Social Networks and New Media world. You can rest assured that when it comes to any thing Video related we are on top of it. This is the marketing edge that separates us from our competitors and that our customers have come to expect and where we will consistently deliver on.
Related Posts:
Wall Street Journal: Online Videos can increase your business
Adding Web 2.0 Services will increase business
Virtual Interactive Team adds Internet Presence Management
January 2, 2008
The Virtual Interactive Team has a new addition to our service offerings that NOW brings Leading Web 2.0 Internet Presence Management services to our clients VISIN will be providing clients with Media Tools and Services that will leverage Video Production and Audio Marketing Techniques to further promote their customers products and services across the Internet and the Blogosphere.
The addition of Viral Video and Audio content combined with our Total Internet Presence Management will provide a synergy that will propel clients business to new heights.
Virtual Interactive Systems is dedicated to spreading information about audio and video podcasting, blogging, and other new media technologies to it’s clients to increase their revenue earning potentials beyond traditional bricks and mortar methods. VISN specializes in the Small to Medium Business segment.
we are “The NEW MEDIA”
December 19, 2007
We are undergoing a transformation from a Static Entity to a living breathing
Viral - Video - Social Presence.
Virtual Interactive Systems - VISION of NEW MEDIA:
“The New Media will eventually surpass the Old Media as the dominant forms of entertainment and information. “
Check back often as we prepare to take flight!
Thomas Townsend
New Media Guru
Virtual Interactive Systems
If you can Visualize It – We can do it ™
