#Market advice
17 messages in this thread
I currently have out on the market an Amiga based product. It is a CD-ROM of
image sequences (30 FPS 752×480 .JPEG). I am looking for advice as I am
planning to expand into other markets.
"MotionCLIPS is 8,000 frames of royality free stock
footage for use with NLE, 3D and other DTV applications.
The volume contains 20 scenes — like time-lapse clouds,
water, clay animation, and scenic imagery"
Of course it would be great if there is a company out there that can provide
the service and handle this job for me. Take my product and make all the
necessary conversions and put it on a gold CD-ROM. Besides information on
companies that provide this service I am looking for other information.
What other screen sizes are in use with NLEs and 3D applications? What is the
preferred compressed storage format, or is .JPEG universal? Is something other
than straight frames more useful? And any other advice you would like to send
my way.
I would like to hear back from all types of users (3D, NLE, MAC or IBM based),
so please E-MAIL me at 70702,230.
Joe Maulucci / Accadia Electronic Arts Voice: (716) 881-5215 Fax/BBS: (716)
882-1774
Joe Maulucci
Joe,
It sounds to me like you have a very viable product there, for all markets.
JPEG is a universal file compression format and any
MAC/IBM/AMIGA/ATARI/SGI/NT/ETC OS Platform that can handle ISO-9660 CD Roms and
JPEG format files should be able to handle your CD as is.
The more interesting aspect of your question is what resolution is the best to
serve the majority of DTV producers. In my opinion the resolution of 752×480
is going to serve at least 90% of the market. Individual files is also the way
to go in my opinion. That way you keep the universal JPEG standard.
-John
John,
Actually the CD-ROM is mastered to ISO-9660/Level Two, the extended character
set. I understand that it should play on some other platforms, but I do not
have any non-Amiga users to confirm this. I am of the understanding that
should include AMIGA/SGI/WINDOWS-NT/UNIX/MAC/OS2. I have a friend who has a
WINDOW-NT machine but said he could not get it to work, so I held off
introducing it to other markets until I could confirm that it would play on
other machines.
Files are named for example: Water_choppy.jpg/WaterCHPY.0001 Another friend who
had access to a MAC read the directories file but could not load the file. He
is an occasional MAC user, and we did not get a chance to have a real MAC user
try to read the file. I don't know if the problem was that the MAC program
expected to see an extention like .jpg on the file and with out it it cannot
read the file. So again I am waiting for more feedback.
Do you think I need to master to ISO-9660/Level one?
How would you suggest naming files. Using the above example I would change to:
WaterCPY/CHPY001
Do you think CHPY001.JPG is needed or will that actually make reading
sequencial frames impossible, since many programs will be looking more at the
end of the file name for the frame number?
Hey, I can send you a copy if you have time to give me some feed back. If you
have access to something other than an Amiga and could try it out that would be
great. Let me know where to send one.
Joe Maulucci
Joe,
Absolutely, do it again (same mastering technique) but get your filenames under
8 characters plus a 3 character extension.
I would like to get a copy of your product, I can try it out on the Toaster
where it should work, and a Pinnacle Alladin and a FAST Video Machine where I
expect it not to work, unless I can find some sort of messy-dos file system
that can handle longer file names.
-John
John,
E-Mail your address so I can send you a copy!
I am still wondering about the 3 character extension though. For example some
programs will be looking for a numeric sequence at the end of the file name and
will see the extention instead (like Lightwave or Personal SFC). I would think
this would hold true for simular programs on the MAC or IBM side. What do you
think?
Joe Maulucci >>> "MotionCLIPS CD-ROM – 20 Royality Free Image Sequences"
Call 716 873-1856 to order with 15 Day Risk Free Guarantee
Joe,
My thought would be to have the name like CHPY0001 with no extension. I think
the extension would probably get in the way for more people than it would be a
help.
-John
Joe,
For what it's worth, the Personal SFC will use a sequence with the numbers
internal to the filename. It recognized Big1.jpg, Big2.jpg, etc., as a valid
sequence. This is with the present rev. Just don't have names with more than
one set of numbers (pic12A.001) and you're fine, so your files should work with
it.
Regards, Nate.
Nate Wahl
Emerald Video
Nate,
Thanks for the info. I was more concern with Amiga/Toaster users when I first
started this project. The CD-ROM works find for that format. But with more
people getting rendering engines, I have to start looking at a more universal
scheme.
I am told that MAC/IBM users should be able to use wildcard (like IBM *.*) to
list the files. So I should be able to leave off the .JPG. This way there
would still be no problem for Toaster users running on an Amiga.
I have a friend who has a Windows NT – Raptor. He's going to do some test with
file names like CLOUDR2L.001, CLR2L001.JPG, and CR2L0001, and see which works
best for him.
What do you think?
Joe Maulucci >>> "MotionCLIPS CD-ROM – 20 Royality Free Image Sequences"
Call 716 873-1856 to order with 15 Day Risk Free Guarantee
Joe,
Sounds like it'll work, especially if they use the ? wildcard to substitute for
characters that are numbers that could screw up something.
BTW, congratulations on getting the CD out. It sounds like very useful stuff,
especially if one doesn't have the ability to grab video for themselves. Will
there be more versions in the future if it works out?
Regards, Nate.
Nate Wahl
Emerald Video
Nate,
Thanks for your input. It seems that the IBM world is inflexable! If the file
does not have an extension it will not do anything. You can tell photoshop
that it is a jpeg file but still no extension means "Unknown file format NONE"
error. With the .jpg extension it loads fine, but the decompressed file looks
terrible.
My friend with the NT Windows Raptor loaded the files fine (with or with out
the file extension), and they were fine. So it seems that I will be able to
deliver a product to that market. But the IBMers, I don't know yet. I need
someone with more experience in that platform I guess.
As far as the future goes, as I'm working on the MotionCLIPS ISO 9660/Level One
— I am working on a Volume of original artwork for DTP (ink images scanned to
TIFF; a surreal collection of moods, scenes and dark fantasy characters) that
will be on CD-ROM. After than I will be developing MotionCLIPS Vol 2 and
another volume of clips for DTP more traditional cartoons.
The DTP volumes will be no problem for universal platforms.
Joe Maulucci >>> "MotionCLIPS CD-ROM – 20 Royality Free Image Sequences"
Call 716 873-1856 to order with 15 Day Risk Free Guarantee
Joe,
That's all great to hear! You've been struggling all along here, and you
deserve the success. Congrats!
Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention that PCQuirk about extension naming. They could
easily tell the file formats from the header info that all graphics files have,
but that would require more effort/cost I suppose. Most of them are that way.
Check that decompressed file on another machine; it may be OK, as the one you
looked at it on could've not been set up right. My PC requires something to do
with dropping some chicken bones and beads on a table to get the vectors right.
Oh, well. That or try another viewer; I've got a shareware one that won't
recognize .JPG that ADPro makes, but it does others. Another works just fine,
but can't handle IFF's from DPaint, thank you…
Regards, Nate.
BTW, if you're using the Nucleus Personal Editor for this, the newest rev now
even saves grabs right to JPEG. Four at a whack will be on the next version!
Nate Wahl
Emerald Video
Joe,
I've read about your CD-ROM in VTU. Sound good but I'd like to see a sample
of your clips. Do you have a demo tape we could obtain?
We have a Toaster Flyer and do alot of animations. Anything that can save us
time is useful.
Thanks,
Russ Spencer / Michael Miloff & Associates
Russ,
Instead of offering a demo, if you buy direct there is a 15 day risk free
guarantee. If you really want to see a demo I can quickly toss the scenes onto
a VHS.
I will send you a thumbnail sample of the frames via E-MAIL.
E-MAIL an address to me if you want the tape.
Joe Maulucci >>> "MotionCLIPS CD-ROM – 20 Royality Free Image Sequences"
Call 716 873-1856 to order with 15 Day Risk Free Guarantee
What about E-mailing to our Compuserve number 72213,105?
Can you use your sequences in LightWave directly off the CD-ROM or do I need
massive amounts of free space on my hard-drive?
Russ
Russ,
The sequences are in JPEG – 752×480. Lightwave does not load JPEG. You need to
temporary copy the frames to a HD converting them to IFF or with LW 3.5 you can
use Targa which loads faster into LW.
Joe Maulucci >>> "MotionCLIPS CD-ROM – 20 Royality Free Image Sequences"
Call 716 873-1856 to order with 15 Day Risk Free Guarantee
I was afraid of something like that since HD space is at a premium. This does
not negate my interest, however.
Got your E-mail. Thanks muchly. Haven't been able to look at it yet since my
Amiga is tied up with a long backup. BTW, do you have a NewTek Flyer? I
thought I saw something from you elsewhere that might indicate this posibility.
Russ Spencer
Russ,
A CD-ROM will hold only around 650 MB. With JPEG, I am able to offer 20
scenes/8,000 frames on one disc. Other simular products also require a hard
drive. The Pyromania CD (From Movie Effects Studio) is a collection of great
fire stuff in 1,182 PICT files at 640×480. Here you would have to scale up and
convert to use in a Amiga/Toaster.
I don't have a Flyer, but I am thinking about it. I was able to play with one
last week at my local dealer (yes Buffalo, NY still has an Amiga/Toaster
dealer). They are my distribution point for MotionCLIPS. Of course I am also
thinking about a Flyer version. Peter T (NewTek) tells me that a CD-ROM will
hold about 6 minutes of Flyer stuff. But I am thinking you would still have to
dump the file back to a Flyer HD to playback.
Of course there is Pegger, which from what I understand sits in the background
and will do the conversion as the file load from the CD-ROM to LightWave. If
this is true, then you do not need a HD since MotionCLIPS is in 752×480.
Joe Maulucci >>> "MotionCLIPS CD-ROM – 20 Royality Free Image Sequences"
Call 716 873-1856 to order with 15 Day Risk Free Guarantee