Tim: any thought of DVD-Video with a ROM segment with at least some HD material on it, playable on a computer?

HD-DVD. Hehe....
The gyhd DVD was really nicely done but the podcast makes sense to me.
Fast, cheap & good - like clients always want it

I'm very keen on some training material for the HM100 - any idea when it will be ready in any format?

Please keep us updated!

Videos
 

Tim

I will vote for:
$39.95 Flash Web-based Subscription to all content
provided I can save the files to my computer for playback later
other wise
Std. DVD would be great.

I would also like the HM700 only.

Ron

I would recommend DVD for broad release supplemented with flash or downloadable HD supplemental content (digital download or subscription included in purchase price) on the web for times when it would be helpful to illustrate or demo in HD. So many people have yet to adopt a BD player, I think you would be missing some of your market segment if you only offered BD. However, when your content is HD training there is a valid argument for delivering in HD.

HD for HD, please ... I'll pay extra for sure!
 

How about VHS ... EVERYBODY has that ;) ...

If you own a semi-pro/pro HD 1080 camcorder, you should really have a 1080 HDTV or a computer monitor that would be capable of 1080, possibly even with a Blu-ray compatible HDMI input, as many 24"-plus monitors are starting to have.

I would like my gear, software, skills, thought process, and capabilities to be AHEAD of the curve, since time will always catch things up, often very quickly. Purposely doing 480 SD for a pair of really sweet, advanced, 1080P HD cameras sounds just plain sad.

BUT, I totally understand the whole financial/legal/hassle factor or doing what is new and top-notch ... So I would gladly pay 20% more for Blu-ray, and I will gladly PayPal you $20 on top of that if numerous video examples are truly well done and high-quality -- When is this coming out?
I want to be able to really see what the different settings do, as demonstrated by an experience pro, not just see some highly-compromised/compressed version of that.

... Oh, and an iPhone/Touch-optimized version would be great, too. I'd happily pay for it if it was useful and informative beyond the initial time through.

Rather than having disks pressed, why not offer downloadable image files for both Blu-Ray and DVD versions?

I would think that almost anyone who would be interested in the material is capable of burning a DVD easily, and some would be capable of burning a Blu-Ray disk.

Robert-That is a very interesting proposal. Avoid all the hassle of pressing it at all and download ISO files for client side burning. Kudos on thinking out of the box! How would you keep it from getting pirated? Maybe a secure download with product key system? Very interesting idea...

Yes! Secure download sounds great. Sep files for the two different camera models.

Cheers.

Delivering ISO image files over the internet, rather than physical disks, would also get rid of physical replication issues that make offering a PAL version cost prohibitive.

The only problem is that the bandwidth and storage required would be impractical for an iso image (the DVD will be 9GB large) so I'm pretty sure the servers here at DV Info wouldn't be able to handle the demand. I think downloadable modules in mp4 will work, but we just need to implement the proper infrastructure for it... probably something like http://www.macprovideo.com/tutorials , just cheaper.
Yes and no. If there is enough demand for PAL then replication isn't a problem. The whole thing is shot in HD 24p so it is really just a matter of downconverting to a different format and speeding to 25p. It's just a supply and demand issue really. If I had an equal number of committed sales for PAL then I could have them replicated for the same price as NTSC. I think the demand was low last time because we released the NTSC version first as a region-free disc, which played just fine in PAL DVD players around the world.
The real question is whether Blu-Ray is feasible (with added replication costs for the format and the licensing of AACS)

1and1 offers a hosting package, for $20/mo, with 300GB of storage space and 3000GB of monthly transfer volume (bandwidth).

With 300GB of storage, you could store both NTSC and PAL DVD9 versions, along with NTSC and PAL dual-layer Blu-Ray versions, and not even use half the allotted storage - heck, use 5GB for an out-takes bonus disk, just for giggles!

3000GB of bandwidth translates to transferring 300+ DVD9 ISO files. I doubt they'd have a problem with their servers handling the traffic. (I'd be sure to find out what they charge for exceeding 3000GB in a month. Perhaps a customized package would make sense.)

The hosting packages also give you some tools for the site, for handling the transactions. Starts looking dang cheap, for distribution, when you look close at the numbers! That $20/mo package, fully utilized (300 DVD9 ISO file transfers), would translate to less than 7 cents per disk. Even if you only sold 10 disks a month, at a cost of $20, that's a whopping 2 bucks a disk.

Something like that has just got to be a far less costly way to deliver DVD content, than having disks physically pressed (and mailing them, not to mention packaging and the labor for physical handling), and you do have about as ideal a target market as you could wish for, in your wildest dreams, to distribute DVD content virtually - far more capable of burning their own DVDs than the general public!

Going the virtual distribution route, it might make sense to make it a 2 volume DVD5 set, instead of a single DVD9, though.

Beware bargain hosts bearing buckets of bandwidth for very few bucks.

Like health insurance companies, some cheap hosts find innovative ways to drop you should you come anywhere close to using the level of service you believe you are paying for over any extended length of time. (ducking)

However, check out Amazon's EC2 and related services. You pay only for the computing, storage, and bandwidth resources you actually use, and it is scalable. I investigated this for a client once, but we went with a different solution... but for your application, finding a turnkey host which is built on top of EC2 might be the reliable and economical way to go.

Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2)

1 and 1 is pretty well established. They've been around for years, and a lot of folks here use them (including me as of about a year ago - switched from a company that was good at first, but went straight downhill pretty quickly). There are outfits that advertise even lower costs.

Even going with a hosting service that charged 5 times more for storage and bandwidth, cost of distribution would still probably be lower than replicating, packaging, shipping, etc. physical disks.