Jan 7
Artists’ Essentials DVDs now shipping!
It’s finally finished — all three Arists’ Essentials DVDs are complete, as pictured above. I’ve shipped more than 35 sets away to our folks who have preordered, and the word coming back is overwhelmingly positive. Donna is taking them to workshops and meetings and seems to sell another set or two every time.
The last two weeks have been crazy — why did it have to fall over the holidays? — as I’ve been printing DVDs, burning them, slipping them in Donna’s fantastic covers and shipping them out. It was slow at first, but then again this is my first attempt at mass production. Eventually, we would like to send these off to a printer to do all the work for us, but to minimize risk and expense, we decided to do the first few batches ourselves. There are now about 45 of these sets in circulation and they’re already picking up a nice word-of-mouth buzz.
It’s been a year and two months from beginning to end, concept to delivery. I can’t say it’s been much of a struggle, although there have definitely been a few frustrating moments between the both of us. Donna has tweaked and fiddled with the covers like crazy, and I’ve been designing and redesigning the DVDs, adding menus items, changing the structure, adding titles, etc. That’s because we’ve been relentless in soliciting feedback from Donna’s close circle of artist friends who have helped and encouraged us to polish the final project.
It usually takes a new project to motivate me to do something new. It’s been a year since we started this journey — from concept to completion — and I, for one, feel like I know all the ins and outs of the DVD format by now. Maybe that’s because we’ve added so many goodies to this set that we had to pull out a few tricks to make everything work on the technical side. It’s great to finally see this job literally "pay off" for us.
Speaking of which, I have to say we’re reconsidering our pricing scheme. The content is so good, and it’s so feature rich, that we’re beginning to wonder if we’re selling ourselves short. So if you’re even considering owning a set for yourself, you may want to wander over to www.artistsessentials.com and order a set, because the price may be going up soon.
Now, I can finally move on to the next project waiting in the wings: Editing the documentary we shot last April. I’ll kick it off by posting some goodies next week. Things are starting to get interesting at red40, so bookmark this site and stay tuned!
No commentsJan 5
The Format Wars Begin
Okay, okay – maybe I spoke too soon. Microsoft has thrown its weight behind HD-DVD. Toshiba announced it is releasing the first players to the American market in March. Many companies are saying they will support both formats. Finally, according to this article, five studios have pledged they will release more than 200 movies in HD-DVD format, and these studios represent more than half the movies ever made. Check out the size of this player:
You have to admit, it’s a beast. But then again, for $800, you’d want something that looks substantial, I suppose. The HD-A1 model will be $500. Of course, as always, those prices are expected to come down once production and demand increase. And, I’d wager, once they start butting heads with Blu-ray players.
Who am I rooting for? Still to early to tell. The nice thing about HD-DVD is that it is truly backwards compatible with DVD drives. But I’d rather back the one that’s cheaper, more reliable and has the least invasive DRM. What I’ve been hearing about Blu-ray’s DRM scares me to death — that it will require an internet connection, you must dial in every time you play a movie to match the disc to your hardware, and if you play a disc that’s not matched to your hardware, it gets disabled. Thanks, Sony. I don’t even have an internet connection at home.
Jan 3
Todd Kuhns
Todd Kuhns, 27, graduated from Truman State University with a degree in journalism. As a news reporter, Todd has worked for three commercial radio stations. He has also worked for the Walt Disney Company, the governor of Missouri, and taught English in Japan for three years.
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