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I wanted to share a quick story with you guys. My girlfriend and I decided to go see Argo on Saturday night, even though Tom spoiled the ending (just kidding! I agree with Tom on this one). We drive to the theater, buy our tickets, get our popcorn and grab our seats. The movie was supposed to start at 7:10, but at 7:25 we were still staring at the graphics that come before the previews. The manager comes out and tells us that they had just installed new security software that protects their projector against hackers who want to pirate the movie and the software made the projector freeze. They had to reboot it to see if they could get it working again. In the meantime, they handed out a free movie ticket to everyone in the theater. 15 minutes later, he walks out again and says the projector is now broken and that we won’t be able to see the movie. They gave us another free movie ticket. While we were compensated appropriately, there was a theater full of people (show was sold out), who legally paid to see a film and they couldn't because of the theaters ‘protecting’ against hackers who want to pirate. Just seemed pretty ridiculous to me, especially because I could walk of the theater and still torrent the film without any problem. I didn't, but this is just another example of consumers trying to pay legitimately and suffering.

Keep up the great work!

Sean"

I heard Brian comment on the news that Christie Digital is working on a laser-based light source for future projectors and wanted to let you know about the company and some of their tech. I've worked at Christie as a field tech for about 6 years. Our major competition is Sony and to a lesser extent Barco. Let me tell you, if you've seen a 3D presentation on a Sony I can see why you're bullish on 3D. As Brian said, 3D requires a LOT of light to compensate for the loss when the polarizing filters are applied (in front of the lens and in front of your eyes - glasses). The image area that the light reflects off of is critical to a bright image output. We use DLP - Digital Light Processing - by Texas Instruments. Sony uses a proprietary technology called LCoS - Liquid Crystal on Silicon. The big issue with Sony is that they split the image area into two sections - one for right and left eye. This essentially cuts the light output in half as less is being viewed by each eye. This is then put through the polarizing filter that further reduces it before even making it to your glasses. Christie and all other DLP projectors make use of the entire DLP image area and increases the frame rate to triple the normal speed to accommodate the separate images for left and right eyes. This means you're seeing the entire image area in full light before it hits the polarizing filters. Christie has also always been crazy about light output. I believe we can trace our origins back to (though I hate him) Thomas Edison when he had ""invented"" film projection. So it is of no surprise that we're trying to up the ante again with frickin lasers ;-) Barco is also working on a similar light source setup and Sony seems to be pretty much giving up on Digital Cinema and leaving it to the pros ;-). Anyway. Keep up the great work.

PS. My setup is a Home Server with all of my Blu-Rays and DVDs ripped and a networked OTA TV antenna all running through multiple Windows Media Center PCs at every TV in the house. Access to Netflix, Hulu, ANY Web program (just open a browser), live HDTV that I can record centrally to the Home Server accessible from any of the TVs, and access to our entire movie collection. Best way I could see to cut the cord, save the most money, and have the most options. :-) Cheers!

-Brian

In reference to your discussion on print and online advertising, eMarketer actually published a forecast this year on how online advertising has overtaken print advertising in the United States. Even in my own experience, budget for print advertising has certainly dropped drastically every year. In fact, several print publications in the past few years have ceased production. At this point, online advertising has risen to become second in advertising media spend. Television still has a clear lead when it comes to proportion of ad spend. In fact, it continues to grow albeit at a low rate. Most studies have shown that online's growth has really been at the expense of print and other media channels.

AdAge ""Online Ad Spending to Pass Print for the First Time, Forecast Says"": http://adage.com/article/media/emarketer-online-ad-spending-pass-print-time/232221/ ""TV to Maintain Global Ad Spend Dominance as Online Cannibalizes Other Media"": http://www.marketingcharts.com/wp/television/tv-to-maintain-global-ad-spend-dominance-as-online-cannibalizes-other-media-23704/

As for the story on viewer abandonment, I think it's important to establish that the study was focused specifically on video loading issues (e.g. buffering, freezing, etc.). Like Brian though, I'm curious to view abandonment with it comes to pre-roll, but that would require a different study.

What I find is more interesting is how you see very different approaches between the older media companies and that of new media. Though studios have come around to put their video content online, we are seeing a very similar user experience when it comes to ads. You'll get pre-roll along with several pods within each mid-roll/commercial break, just as you would on broadcast TV. However, one of YouTube's biggest ad offerings is their Instream TrueView product, where users can opt out after 5 seconds. Additionally, the advertiser doesn't pay until the advert is delivered in full or reaches at least 30 seconds of play. For YouTube, their argument is that it's all about engagement - reaching qualified audiences with what is essentially a pay-per-engagement filter. Then again, it's much easier for them to offer such a product when they have that giant bucket of people that they reach every day.

However, we reach another layer of complication as ""web"" video is moving away from the computer. It's much easier to garner a click when you're on a desktop or laptop computer. We start seeing a major drop off in ""user engagement"" as we move from phones to tablets to connected TVs. In fact, if you're watching Hulu Plus on your Xbox 360-home TV, you can't even click out! It almost reverses course on the arguments for digital advertising. In fact, several agencies buy long-form web video (from TV networks) through the TV buying group instead of the online/digital team.

Best,

Derrick"

So, I'm looking at my Netflix queue and saw an old show I watched when I was a wee lad in the UK called House of Cards. Even then in the 90's it was very apt and biting and I though, hay, something else to introduce the wife to. and then it hits me. You guys have been mentioning the new Netflix production House of Cards for months (seems like years...probably year) and a bulb goes off in my head...Can it be?

Why yes, there is the trailer (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULwUzF1q5w4). Day late, 62 pence short.

If it's even half as good as the original, releasing all episodes at once will have people clamoring for more, and Netflix will be rubbing their hands like Urquhart....on the inside.

Oh, and the show's fantastic, keep up the good work.

Thanks for reading!

Trusty

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