Old media thinking? Apple is the pioneer in hour-long streaming advertisements.
The old way of thinking is using streaming as a means to control distribution, but really that is the illusion itself because media can't be controlled. If it were a regular file download, there wouldn't be a risk of glitchy playback and random picture and audio quality downgrades because it doesn't need to be played in real time.
It was dropped from $3k to $2.5k at the end of last year. It started out at something like $3299 when first released.
Apple doesn't really seem to do price cuts very often unless the product is updated. Maybe they could do what you suggest but maybe there are retail considerations.
It actually started at the price of $3999. If you keep dropping the price too quickly and in small increments, then people seem to think that the pricing was way too high from the start, and that they are not selling. ie, you drive by a car for sale in front of someone's house. He has a price of $10,000 firm on the window. Next week you see that same car there, now with a price of $9000. Next week the car has a $8000 OBO sign on the car. Let's just say that the car was in excellent condition. Now, what was your perception? "Must not be as good as it looks." "Must have something wrong with it" "Must be better cars/Value out there" "He's desperate" "Wait another week to buy, the price will surely go down some more" "Wow, he was trying to gouge someone last week" etc. etc.
None of these perceptions are good for business.
Keep profits high while you can, wait for materials to drop consistently before dropping the price, as it would be bad if they dropped the price, and then needed to raise it later...ooooo. bad. or just choose to break even hoping prices would not go up again.
It was dropped from $3k to $2.5k at the end of last year. It started out at something like $3299 when first released.
Apple doesn't really seem to do price cuts very often unless the product is updated. Maybe they could do what you suggest but maybe there are retail considerations.
It actually started at the price of $3999. If you keep dropping the price too quickly and in small increments, then people seem to think that the pricing was way too high from the start, and that they are not selling. ie, you drive by a car for sale in front of someone's house. He has a price of $10,000 firm on the window. Next week you see that same car there, now with a price of $9000. Next week the car has a $8000 OBO sign on the car. Let's just say that the car was in excellent condition. Now, what was your perception? "Must not be as good as it looks." "Must have something wrong with it" "Must be better cars/Value out there" "He's desperate" "Wait another week to buy, the price will surely go down some more" "Wow, he was trying to gouge someone last week" etc. etc.
None of these perceptions are good for business.
Keep profits high while you can, wait for materials to drop consistently before dropping the price, as it would be bad if they dropped the price, and then needed to raise it later...ooooo. bad. or just choose to break even hoping prices would not go up again.
The old way of thinking is using streaming as a means to control distribution, but really that is the illusion itself because media can't be controlled. If it were a regular file download, there wouldn't be a risk of glitchy playback and random picture and audio quality downgrades because it doesn't need to be played in real time.
There's nothing old about that. In fact, streaming distribution is the "new" way if anything. There isn't anything new about providing a file for download.
But that is beside the point. Being new or old has nothing to do with whether a distribution technique is good or bad. (Example: HDTV via 30 year old rabbit-ears is the highest fidelity video source available today.)
Apple has fairly successfully accomplished their goal. 99.9% of people watching the keynote are doing it in a particular manner, a manner that Apple feels will result in the highest percentage of people having a quality viewing experience. YouTube is great, but not that high of quality (yet). By offering it exclusively as a video stream, far fewer people are watching a crapping encoding of Apple's carefully orchestrated keynote experience.
There's nothing old about that. In fact, streaming distribution is the "new" way if anything. There isn't anything new about providing a file for download.
But that is beside the point. Being new or old has nothing to do with whether a distribution technique is good or bad. (Example: HDTV via 30 year old rabbit-ears is the highest fidelity video source available today.)
Apple has fairly successfully accomplished their goal. 99.9% of people watching the keynote are doing it in a particular manner, a manner that Apple feels will result in the highest percentage of people having a quality viewing experience. YouTube is great, but not that high of quality (yet). By offering it exclusively as a video stream, far fewer people are watching a crapping encoding of Apple's carefully orchestrated keynote experience.
What I mean by the "old media" part of it is not the technology but comparing it to the old media companies trying to control their media through unnecessary and ineffective means. Only providing a stream to prevent people from copying it is one of those unnecessary and ineffective means of copy prevention, and even reduces the quality versus a regular file.
What I'm saying is the people that would bother going the effort to edit the video wouldn't have any problem getting a copy of the video, getting the video is still trivially easy assuming you have the connection. The people that don't care to edit the video aren't going to bother either way. In the end the effect to control it vs. the negative aspect of distributing a video file is practically nil.
Oddly enough, I've never had a problem with Flash streaming, so it would appear that Macromedia has a superior technology in that regard.
I agree wth you, but Apple might not, or at least they don't want to make it any easier than they have to.
Anyway, Flash is very different from standard video broadcast technology. And serves a different purpose. I can't see the broadcast as a Flash stream.
I would venture to say that copy prevention isn't their end goal.
They're more intested in ensuring a quality viewing experience. Downloaded files quickly get transcoded and end up on the net. Inexperienced users then watch these versions instead of the high quality originals and don't experience the full force of apple's carefully nurtured RDF.
What I mean by the "old media" part of it is not the technology but comparing it to the old media companies trying to control their media through unnecessary and ineffective means. Only providing a stream to prevent people from copying it is one of those unnecessary and ineffective means of copy prevention, and even reduces the quality versus a regular file.
The other point here is that most people have likely had no problems viewing it. As you say, you have satellite, the worst broadband method there is. It's also a very small percentage of broadband users. There is no accounting for that poor technology, it's out of the mainstream, and likely a diminishing portion at that.
Also, very few people are going to want to download this, even if they can.
I would venture to say that copy prevention isn't their end goal.
They're more intested in ensuring a quality viewing experience. Downloaded files quickly get transcoded and end up on the net. Inexperienced users then watch these versions instead of the high quality originals and don't experience the full force of apple's carefully nurtured RDF.
I'm sure it's all part of it. Maybe not the biggest part, but still part.
Comments
Old media thinking? Apple is the pioneer in hour-long streaming advertisements.
The old way of thinking is using streaming as a means to control distribution, but really that is the illusion itself because media can't be controlled. If it were a regular file download, there wouldn't be a risk of glitchy playback and random picture and audio quality downgrades because it doesn't need to be played in real time.
It was dropped from $3k to $2.5k at the end of last year. It started out at something like $3299 when first released.
Apple doesn't really seem to do price cuts very often unless the product is updated. Maybe they could do what you suggest but maybe there are retail considerations.
It actually started at the price of $3999. If you keep dropping the price too quickly and in small increments, then people seem to think that the pricing was way too high from the start, and that they are not selling. ie, you drive by a car for sale in front of someone's house. He has a price of $10,000 firm on the window. Next week you see that same car there, now with a price of $9000. Next week the car has a $8000 OBO sign on the car. Let's just say that the car was in excellent condition. Now, what was your perception? "Must not be as good as it looks." "Must have something wrong with it" "Must be better cars/Value out there" "He's desperate" "Wait another week to buy, the price will surely go down some more" "Wow, he was trying to gouge someone last week" etc. etc.
None of these perceptions are good for business.
Keep profits high while you can, wait for materials to drop consistently before dropping the price, as it would be bad if they dropped the price, and then needed to raise it later...ooooo. bad. or just choose to break even hoping prices would not go up again.
It was dropped from $3k to $2.5k at the end of last year. It started out at something like $3299 when first released.
Apple doesn't really seem to do price cuts very often unless the product is updated. Maybe they could do what you suggest but maybe there are retail considerations.
It actually started at the price of $3999. If you keep dropping the price too quickly and in small increments, then people seem to think that the pricing was way too high from the start, and that they are not selling. ie, you drive by a car for sale in front of someone's house. He has a price of $10,000 firm on the window. Next week you see that same car there, now with a price of $9000. Next week the car has a $8000 OBO sign on the car. Let's just say that the car was in excellent condition. Now, what was your perception? "Must not be as good as it looks." "Must have something wrong with it" "Must be better cars/Value out there" "He's desperate" "Wait another week to buy, the price will surely go down some more" "Wow, he was trying to gouge someone last week" etc. etc.
None of these perceptions are good for business.
Keep profits high while you can, wait for materials to drop consistently before dropping the price, as it would be bad if they dropped the price, and then needed to raise it later...ooooo. bad. or just choose to break even hoping prices would not go up again.
The old way of thinking is using streaming as a means to control distribution, but really that is the illusion itself because media can't be controlled. If it were a regular file download, there wouldn't be a risk of glitchy playback and random picture and audio quality downgrades because it doesn't need to be played in real time.
There's nothing old about that. In fact, streaming distribution is the "new" way if anything. There isn't anything new about providing a file for download.
But that is beside the point. Being new or old has nothing to do with whether a distribution technique is good or bad. (Example: HDTV via 30 year old rabbit-ears is the highest fidelity video source available today.)
Apple has fairly successfully accomplished their goal. 99.9% of people watching the keynote are doing it in a particular manner, a manner that Apple feels will result in the highest percentage of people having a quality viewing experience. YouTube is great, but not that high of quality (yet). By offering it exclusively as a video stream, far fewer people are watching a crapping encoding of Apple's carefully orchestrated keynote experience.
There's nothing old about that. In fact, streaming distribution is the "new" way if anything. There isn't anything new about providing a file for download.
But that is beside the point. Being new or old has nothing to do with whether a distribution technique is good or bad. (Example: HDTV via 30 year old rabbit-ears is the highest fidelity video source available today.)
Apple has fairly successfully accomplished their goal. 99.9% of people watching the keynote are doing it in a particular manner, a manner that Apple feels will result in the highest percentage of people having a quality viewing experience. YouTube is great, but not that high of quality (yet). By offering it exclusively as a video stream, far fewer people are watching a crapping encoding of Apple's carefully orchestrated keynote experience.
What I mean by the "old media" part of it is not the technology but comparing it to the old media companies trying to control their media through unnecessary and ineffective means. Only providing a stream to prevent people from copying it is one of those unnecessary and ineffective means of copy prevention, and even reduces the quality versus a regular file.
What I'm saying is the people that would bother going the effort to edit the video wouldn't have any problem getting a copy of the video, getting the video is still trivially easy assuming you have the connection. The people that don't care to edit the video aren't going to bother either way. In the end the effect to control it vs. the negative aspect of distributing a video file is practically nil.
Oddly enough, I've never had a problem with Flash streaming, so it would appear that Macromedia has a superior technology in that regard.
I agree wth you, but Apple might not, or at least they don't want to make it any easier than they have to.
Anyway, Flash is very different from standard video broadcast technology. And serves a different purpose. I can't see the broadcast as a Flash stream.
They're more intested in ensuring a quality viewing experience. Downloaded files quickly get transcoded and end up on the net. Inexperienced users then watch these versions instead of the high quality originals and don't experience the full force of apple's carefully nurtured RDF.
What I mean by the "old media" part of it is not the technology but comparing it to the old media companies trying to control their media through unnecessary and ineffective means. Only providing a stream to prevent people from copying it is one of those unnecessary and ineffective means of copy prevention, and even reduces the quality versus a regular file.
The other point here is that most people have likely had no problems viewing it. As you say, you have satellite, the worst broadband method there is. It's also a very small percentage of broadband users. There is no accounting for that poor technology, it's out of the mainstream, and likely a diminishing portion at that.
Also, very few people are going to want to download this, even if they can.
I would venture to say that copy prevention isn't their end goal.
They're more intested in ensuring a quality viewing experience. Downloaded files quickly get transcoded and end up on the net. Inexperienced users then watch these versions instead of the high quality originals and don't experience the full force of apple's carefully nurtured RDF.
I'm sure it's all part of it. Maybe not the biggest part, but still part.