It's usually considered bad form to reply to your own post. Just edit your original post to include the new information, or make a new post.
Which is what I would normally do. But in this case I wanted to expound on a previous thought while still preserving it online to invoke discussion. I didn't have the thought in the followup post until after I considered what I had written previously.
|I don't know where you're getting the figure of $3,000 for a Blu-Ray burner. They can be bought for as little as $200 now. I also don't really understand why you're comparing blu-ray to iTunes LP considering one is a high definition delivery format for video content and the other is an interactive music album. iTunes extras doesn't even compare to Blu-Ray as it's only standard definition so I don't know why people keep making these completely un-necessary arguments to try and justify apple's new formats. They can both co-exist you know. This isn't highlander, there can be more than one.
Anyway, Gizmodo are talking out their collective rear ends as usual. $10,000 for developing an iTunes LP would be the lower end of the spectrum in terms of price for developing that kind of content. As a designer who has regurlarly worked on DVD authoring and interactive media, I can say that for a fact. From what I've seen of iTunes LP I would charge in and around that just for doing the visuals, yet alone the authoring. If that's all Apple are charging that's a steal for what the result is.
Thank you, ChocolateLab, for your comments. On these forums we sometimes debate ideas of which we haven't a clue, we just speculate and try to sound smart. It's good to hear from people like you who are facing the issues in the real world.
It's not too much for a major label who hemorrhages money in attempts to promote artists with the hope of having a successful album. Anyone can tell you that a major label loses money on 9 out of 10 albums and that that one profitable album pays for the rest of the loses. That's just how majors work.
It's too much for us because why would we want to pay $10,000 (assuming we had $10,000 for one aspect of marketing/production) to have an in-house design team create our LP. But that's not the point either - the point is that we're not being given the option in the first place.
I don't know what the value added would be. I'm shocked that anyone is paying an extra $10 per album to get a couple videos and extras in the first place. My initial goal in pursuing information on LP creation was to release two albums as a "box set/special edition" and at the price of one album and include the LP format as a bonus. That's the only way I could justify the extra cost to the end user. I don't even know who gets to keep the extra $10, to be honest.
it was originally the major record companies that came up with digital LP idea and Apple is just developing their own version of it. there will be another version coming out soon from the "other" category.
Apple might not offer it to indie labels because they may be under contract with the major record companies with this
I have to disagree with this article which is rare since I enjoy Prince's posts. iTunes LP is not some special feature that most people may even want. $10,000 is simply too much to pay and much of the best music that has come out over the last 15 years were indie artists. When only certain artists get this "honor" it is more about the artist and less about the music. Who is to say where this line is drawn. By this premise albums like "Exile from Guyville" or "For Emma, Forever Ago" could not have an iTunes LP upon it's initial release.
I keep thinking to the "Think Different" ads. The most influential people were not those in the mainstream but the people who think outside the box.
The fact that Apple uses open, web standards to build its new iTunes LP titles, and the fact that they are currently only viewable within iTunes 9 on a Mac or PC, along with the expectation that these digital albums are being targeted at a new tablet form factor product in the pipeline as well as the HDTV resolution of Apple TV, all serve as indicators that iTunes LP is a work in progress that is still unfolding as a strategy.
this would seem to be to be the key statement. this (and the Extras feature) are a test. see if there is interest, work out the kinks etc. if you watch the keynote, Jobs even indicates that the labels and artists will be making these things themselves. which actually makes me wonder if the price mentioned was actually a sign up to get all the tools and not an album by album cost. Once the project is deemed viable.
and yeah I know, someone is going to say that an Apple Rep says. well guess what, it wouldn't be the first time an Apple Rep got something wrong. An Apple Rep assured me that I would have no problems with my Epson printer when I updated to Snow Leopard but oops, I sure did have problems. cause Epson had not written an SL driver yet. And I've had other Apple Reps make similar mistakes. Point being that just cause someone is an Apple Rep doesn't mean they can't misunderstand or poorly state infomation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chocolate Lab
What I was told is no. You are not able to produce your own content and as of now it's only available to major labels.
note the part I put in bold. this whole experiment is only about 6 weeks old if that. now in 6 months if they are saying 'you aren't old enough to play in this sandbox' then you've got something to gripe about.
Don't you have other forums somewhere to share your wisdom? Why do keep posting here?
I realize you may hate teckstud and all, but it seems to me he has a point. They could have included a PDF of CD booklet with the digital album purchase from the get go, but they almost never have done that.
I'm not seeing a way to preview this LP system either, it would seem to be in their best interest to give the buyer a better idea of what they're getting for the extra $4-$5.
Quote:
Originally Posted by fxgeek
|I don't know where you're getting the figure of $3,000 for a Blu-Ray burner. They can be bought for as little as $200 now. I also don't really understand why you're comparing blu-ray to iTunes LP considering one is a high definition delivery format for video content and the other is an interactive music album.
I agree. But as for the burner, maybe they meant a BD duplicator? I'm pretty sure BD duplicators are cheaper than that now, I thought I saw one for half that price, and it included a printer setup for printing a design onto the disc. I don't understand the article's bit about BD-RW (ReWritable). If you're distributing media for sale, you're writing to BD-RE (REcordable, i.e. write once).
Quote:
Originally Posted by charlituna
note the part I put in bold. this whole experiment is only about 6 weeks old if that. now in 6 months if they are saying 'you aren't old enough to play in this sandbox' then you've got something to gripe about.
If they're serious about making a decent splash, it would seem they would have started out with more than ten albums.
It's my impression this is a proprietary format that can only be sold on the iTunes store. It seems to me Apple should have developed an open standard that would give a product that could be sold from any web site and loaded into iTunes just like any track. Then any company would be able to provide software for creation/playback of LPs and to repeat myself, be sold for instance, by Amazon.com, or as a download from anyone's web site. Given the dominance of iTunes this would entirely avoid any antitrust/monopoly implications.
Let's say you take the LP idea over to a no-name freelance graphic designer/developer. Guess what...they'll charge you by the hour. In order to perfect it, make it visually appealing, really allow the artist to portray themselves and reach millions and millions of iTunes users they know they could charge you for it. An we are talking about a no name developer. Interactive applications, customer covers and interfaces and hosting is all, I believe iTunes has every right to charge 10K!
But they actually do some work for you. If you have some knowledge, you can create decent LP by yourself for $0.
Apple will charge $10000 just to let you in, doing exactly nothing for you. They just abuse their monopoly. Disgusting.
Maybe there will be an update/ overhaul to iWeb (to make it actually usable) that produces LP content.
They wouldn't charge $10000 if they want to allow it for indies to develop it in next version of iWeb. Perhaps they change it after - surprise - they find out no one is interested in producing LP content.
Aren't graphic designers/ web developers a dime a dozen? I'm having a pretty hard time believing that $10,000 is a perfectly reasonable fee for what is basically a glorified Flash movie that one or two guys could throw together in a week and make it look really good.
this would seem to be to be the key statement. this (and the Extras feature) are a test. see if there is interest, work out the kinks etc. if you watch the keynote, Jobs even indicates that the labels and artists will be making these things themselves. which actually makes me wonder if the price mentioned was actually a sign up to get all the tools and not an album by album cost. Once the project is deemed viable.
and yeah I know, someone is going to say that an Apple Rep says. well guess what, it wouldn't be the first time an Apple Rep got something wrong. An Apple Rep assured me that I would have no problems with my Epson printer when I updated to Snow Leopard but oops, I sure did have problems. cause Epson had not written an SL driver yet. And I've had other Apple Reps make similar mistakes. Point being that just cause someone is an Apple Rep doesn't mean they can't misunderstand or poorly state infomation.
note the part I put in bold. this whole experiment is only about 6 weeks old if that. now in 6 months if they are saying 'you aren't old enough to play in this sandbox' then you've got something to gripe about.
First, I used to develop websites and am an iPhone developer. I even developed standalone desktop-resident and DVD-resident websites before apple invented widgets.
I looked at a couple of LP files and they are mainly HTML, CSS, and JavaScript-- common tools in the toolbag of web or widget developers. There is a proprietary framework that "plays" the content through iTunes.
I, briefly, considered reverse engineering the package to allow me to create an LP that played through Quicktime (bypassing iTunes).
However, what I am really interested in is the tools and the IDE that are used in creating an LP package (rather than the contents of the package, itself).
I am particularly interested in creating "LPs" of music videos and video podcasts.
In the LP announcement*, Steve Jobs said that:
Quote:
...and the artists, themselves, can get involved in creating these things. We are giving all the tools to the labels and the artists, so that they can bring their creativity directly to the listeners.
The emphasis is Steve's.
So, it seems that these "tools" do exist in some form. They could be a single integrated LP IDE. More likely they are a group of existing tools cobbled together (GarageBand, iMovie, iPhoto, iTunes, Preview, DashCode, iWeb).
Apple, certainly has software bits that can do all the things necessary to create an LP... but I suspect that there is no single, integrated tool-- yet!
But, I believe there will be a tool when Apple gets it together.
If I didn't know better, I'd say that iTunes LP is manna from heaven made specifically for Indie houses.
They wouldn't charge $10000 if they want to allow it for indies to develop it in next version of iWeb. Perhaps they change it after - surprise - they find out no one is interested in producing LP content.
Maybe Apple learned something from the app store, and they didn't want to be overwhelmed by the demand.
Or, maybe the "LP package" is still a work-in-process and Apple wants to work with a limited number of creatives to refine it.
Or, maybe the "tools" for creating LPs aren't up to Apple's standards for general release to the public, developers, artists.
In any case, Apple can control the situation by adding an arbitrarily-expensive "cover charge".
I believe Apple does not want to get into the LP content creation business. This "cover charge" is merely a way to bring some order to the process of: refining the package; defining the procedures; preparing the software; preparing the iTunes store; and preparing the creatives and developers.
Then, when it's "all together", Apple announces the "LP Creation Package" and removes the cover charge (admitting the general public).
Aren't graphic designers/ web developers a dime a dozen? I'm having a pretty hard time believing that $10,000 is a perfectly reasonable fee for what is basically a glorified Flash movie that one or two guys could throw together in a week and make it look really good.
Well, do you have all the pictures and video already shot, edited and in the can?
Or, do you need expensive/powerful software (and the training to use it), computers, cameras, lenses, videoCams, Lighting, studio time, etc., to prepare the LP content.
Any special effects, e.g. green screen, compositing, rotoscoping?
How long does it take to make .pngs of all the lyrics and textual content?
Even if all the video and pictures exist, it can take hours of editing to create a few minutes of content.
I have about $10,000 worth of software (Final Cut Studio, Photoshop, Canvas, special plugins and filters, etc).
I have $1,500 worth of VideoCam equipment that I use to take video of the grandkids (3) soccer games-- about 1 hour per game.
I have 7 Macs and 20 Terabytes of external hard disk (video files are quite big-- 1 hour of video is about 57 Gig).
When I get home I import and examine the footage looking for highlights (importing takes about 50 minutes per hour of video). This is a tedious process just locating the clips you want to use. Once you have the clips, you need to manipulate them into a acceptable presentation-- arranging, cutouts, compositing, adjusting color, size, cropping, freeze frame, slow motion, synch background music and sound effects.
It can easily take hours (or even days) to get everything just right for a 2-minute highlight,
So, no, I don't think $10,000 is unreasonable... if anything, it is much too low.
Comments
It's usually considered bad form to reply to your own post. Just edit your original post to include the new information, or make a new post.
Which is what I would normally do. But in this case I wanted to expound on a previous thought while still preserving it online to invoke discussion. I didn't have the thought in the followup post until after I considered what I had written previously.
Anyway, Gizmodo are talking out their collective rear ends as usual. $10,000 for developing an iTunes LP would be the lower end of the spectrum in terms of price for developing that kind of content. As a designer who has regurlarly worked on DVD authoring and interactive media, I can say that for a fact. From what I've seen of iTunes LP I would charge in and around that just for doing the visuals, yet alone the authoring. If that's all Apple are charging that's a steal for what the result is.
That just blows.
It's not too much for a major label who hemorrhages money in attempts to promote artists with the hope of having a successful album. Anyone can tell you that a major label loses money on 9 out of 10 albums and that that one profitable album pays for the rest of the loses. That's just how majors work.
It's too much for us because why would we want to pay $10,000 (assuming we had $10,000 for one aspect of marketing/production) to have an in-house design team create our LP. But that's not the point either - the point is that we're not being given the option in the first place.
I don't know what the value added would be. I'm shocked that anyone is paying an extra $10 per album to get a couple videos and extras in the first place. My initial goal in pursuing information on LP creation was to release two albums as a "box set/special edition" and at the price of one album and include the LP format as a bonus. That's the only way I could justify the extra cost to the end user. I don't even know who gets to keep the extra $10, to be honest.
it was originally the major record companies that came up with digital LP idea and Apple is just developing their own version of it. there will be another version coming out soon from the "other" category.
Apple might not offer it to indie labels because they may be under contract with the major record companies with this
I keep thinking to the "Think Different" ads. The most influential people were not those in the mainstream but the people who think outside the box.
The fact that Apple uses open, web standards to build its new iTunes LP titles, and the fact that they are currently only viewable within iTunes 9 on a Mac or PC, along with the expectation that these digital albums are being targeted at a new tablet form factor product in the pipeline as well as the HDTV resolution of Apple TV, all serve as indicators that iTunes LP is a work in progress that is still unfolding as a strategy.
this would seem to be to be the key statement. this (and the Extras feature) are a test. see if there is interest, work out the kinks etc. if you watch the keynote, Jobs even indicates that the labels and artists will be making these things themselves. which actually makes me wonder if the price mentioned was actually a sign up to get all the tools and not an album by album cost. Once the project is deemed viable.
and yeah I know, someone is going to say that an Apple Rep says. well guess what, it wouldn't be the first time an Apple Rep got something wrong. An Apple Rep assured me that I would have no problems with my Epson printer when I updated to Snow Leopard but oops, I sure did have problems. cause Epson had not written an SL driver yet. And I've had other Apple Reps make similar mistakes. Point being that just cause someone is an Apple Rep doesn't mean they can't misunderstand or poorly state infomation.
What I was told is no. You are not able to produce your own content and as of now it's only available to major labels.
note the part I put in bold. this whole experiment is only about 6 weeks old if that. now in 6 months if they are saying 'you aren't old enough to play in this sandbox' then you've got something to gripe about.
Don't you have other forums somewhere to share your wisdom? Why do keep posting here?
I realize you may hate teckstud and all, but it seems to me he has a point. They could have included a PDF of CD booklet with the digital album purchase from the get go, but they almost never have done that.
I'm not seeing a way to preview this LP system either, it would seem to be in their best interest to give the buyer a better idea of what they're getting for the extra $4-$5.
|I don't know where you're getting the figure of $3,000 for a Blu-Ray burner. They can be bought for as little as $200 now. I also don't really understand why you're comparing blu-ray to iTunes LP considering one is a high definition delivery format for video content and the other is an interactive music album.
I agree. But as for the burner, maybe they meant a BD duplicator? I'm pretty sure BD duplicators are cheaper than that now, I thought I saw one for half that price, and it included a printer setup for printing a design onto the disc. I don't understand the article's bit about BD-RW (ReWritable). If you're distributing media for sale, you're writing to BD-RE (REcordable, i.e. write once).
note the part I put in bold. this whole experiment is only about 6 weeks old if that. now in 6 months if they are saying 'you aren't old enough to play in this sandbox' then you've got something to gripe about.
If they're serious about making a decent splash, it would seem they would have started out with more than ten albums.
Can I find a new underdog computer company?
Robert
Let's say you take the LP idea over to a no-name freelance graphic designer/developer. Guess what...they'll charge you by the hour. In order to perfect it, make it visually appealing, really allow the artist to portray themselves and reach millions and millions of iTunes users they know they could charge you for it. An we are talking about a no name developer. Interactive applications, customer covers and interfaces and hosting is all, I believe iTunes has every right to charge 10K!
But they actually do some work for you. If you have some knowledge, you can create decent LP by yourself for $0.
Apple will charge $10000 just to let you in, doing exactly nothing for you. They just abuse their monopoly. Disgusting.
Maybe there will be an update/ overhaul to iWeb (to make it actually usable) that produces LP content.
They wouldn't charge $10000 if they want to allow it for indies to develop it in next version of iWeb. Perhaps they change it after - surprise - they find out no one is interested in producing LP content.
this would seem to be to be the key statement. this (and the Extras feature) are a test. see if there is interest, work out the kinks etc. if you watch the keynote, Jobs even indicates that the labels and artists will be making these things themselves. which actually makes me wonder if the price mentioned was actually a sign up to get all the tools and not an album by album cost. Once the project is deemed viable.
and yeah I know, someone is going to say that an Apple Rep says. well guess what, it wouldn't be the first time an Apple Rep got something wrong. An Apple Rep assured me that I would have no problems with my Epson printer when I updated to Snow Leopard but oops, I sure did have problems. cause Epson had not written an SL driver yet. And I've had other Apple Reps make similar mistakes. Point being that just cause someone is an Apple Rep doesn't mean they can't misunderstand or poorly state infomation.
note the part I put in bold. this whole experiment is only about 6 weeks old if that. now in 6 months if they are saying 'you aren't old enough to play in this sandbox' then you've got something to gripe about.
First, I used to develop websites and am an iPhone developer. I even developed standalone desktop-resident and DVD-resident websites before apple invented widgets.
I looked at a couple of LP files and they are mainly HTML, CSS, and JavaScript-- common tools in the toolbag of web or widget developers. There is a proprietary framework that "plays" the content through iTunes.
I, briefly, considered reverse engineering the package to allow me to create an LP that played through Quicktime (bypassing iTunes).
However, what I am really interested in is the tools and the IDE that are used in creating an LP package (rather than the contents of the package, itself).
I am particularly interested in creating "LPs" of music videos and video podcasts.
In the LP announcement*, Steve Jobs said that:
...and the artists, themselves, can get involved in creating these things. We are giving all the tools to the labels and the artists, so that they can bring their creativity directly to the listeners.
The emphasis is Steve's.
So, it seems that these "tools" do exist in some form. They could be a single integrated LP IDE. More likely they are a group of existing tools cobbled together (GarageBand, iMovie, iPhoto, iTunes, Preview, DashCode, iWeb).
Apple, certainly has software bits that can do all the things necessary to create an LP... but I suspect that there is no single, integrated tool-- yet!
But, I believe there will be a tool when Apple gets it together.
If I didn't know better, I'd say that iTunes LP is manna from heaven made specifically for Indie houses.
Dick
* The iTunes LP announcement:
http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/M...4&id=275834665
You can watch the whole thing, or just scrub in to:
07:40 where the discussion of iTunes begins
13:23 where Steve Jobs introduces iTunes LP
14:46 where Steve discusses the LP tools
19:21 where the iTunes store is demoed
21:45 where iTunes LP is demoed
*
They wouldn't charge $10000 if they want to allow it for indies to develop it in next version of iWeb. Perhaps they change it after - surprise - they find out no one is interested in producing LP content.
Maybe Apple learned something from the app store, and they didn't want to be overwhelmed by the demand.
Or, maybe the "LP package" is still a work-in-process and Apple wants to work with a limited number of creatives to refine it.
Or, maybe the "tools" for creating LPs aren't up to Apple's standards for general release to the public, developers, artists.
In any case, Apple can control the situation by adding an arbitrarily-expensive "cover charge".
I believe Apple does not want to get into the LP content creation business. This "cover charge" is merely a way to bring some order to the process of: refining the package; defining the procedures; preparing the software; preparing the iTunes store; and preparing the creatives and developers.
Then, when it's "all together", Apple announces the "LP Creation Package" and removes the cover charge (admitting the general public).
*
Remember "Video Killed the Radio Star"? This is like "iPod Killed the LP Star"!
Digital booklets are a joke. Apple is trying to resurrect a dead art form I guess because they helped kill it in the first place.
Where can one find that green garbage bag when you need it most?
Aren't graphic designers/ web developers a dime a dozen? I'm having a pretty hard time believing that $10,000 is a perfectly reasonable fee for what is basically a glorified Flash movie that one or two guys could throw together in a week and make it look really good.
Well, do you have all the pictures and video already shot, edited and in the can?
Or, do you need expensive/powerful software (and the training to use it), computers, cameras, lenses, videoCams, Lighting, studio time, etc., to prepare the LP content.
Any special effects, e.g. green screen, compositing, rotoscoping?
How long does it take to make .pngs of all the lyrics and textual content?
Even if all the video and pictures exist, it can take hours of editing to create a few minutes of content.
I have about $10,000 worth of software (Final Cut Studio, Photoshop, Canvas, special plugins and filters, etc).
I have $1,500 worth of VideoCam equipment that I use to take video of the grandkids (3) soccer games-- about 1 hour per game.
I have 7 Macs and 20 Terabytes of external hard disk (video files are quite big-- 1 hour of video is about 57 Gig).
When I get home I import and examine the footage looking for highlights (importing takes about 50 minutes per hour of video). This is a tedious process just locating the clips you want to use. Once you have the clips, you need to manipulate them into a acceptable presentation-- arranging, cutouts, compositing, adjusting color, size, cropping, freeze frame, slow motion, synch background music and sound effects.
It can easily take hours (or even days) to get everything just right for a 2-minute highlight,
So, no, I don't think $10,000 is unreasonable... if anything, it is much too low.
*
Don't you have other forums somewhere to share your wisdom?
No and you?
Where can one find that green garbage bag when you need it most?
Well the truth meter must be working, hence your venom.