Comments on: Survey

By: VA

VA — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 21:11:16 +0000

I voted for blu-ray, but if you’re planning to only produce one format, I think DVD is the way to get it into the most hands.

I also thought it would be good to have the interviews available as audio downloads.

Good luck finishing this up!
Steve

By: Rich H

Rich H — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 02:09:28 +0000

I think a great special feature for a DVD release would be some amazing pictures like the colossal caves map, Infocom feelies, Box art, etc.

By: RossH

RossH — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 16:32:09 +0000

I favour one of the digital options- either direct download or if it came on a cool USB drive.

Is there any reason you wouldn’t do a digital download by default, and are only asking us on a possible physical media option?

DVD would be fine too, but not if it meant losing extras. Then again a DVD/DataDVD combination may be another option.

Anything but blu-ray works for me; I’m more interested in watching the documentary than how it’s ultimately packaged at this point.

By: Sean Fahey

Sean Fahey — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 20:40:54 +0000

How about some scratch and sniff? If you’re going to get eaten by the Grue, wouldn’t you want to know if it’s breath is foul or fresh and minty? =)

By: Eric

Eric — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 18:46:15 +0000

It’s quite a jump from “I don’t care about extras” (2 options) to “every frame you make”. I selected the latter because I do want extras, but obviously a huge portion of the value that a documentary maker adds to his content is in selecting the bits that are important or interesting.

So extras that are interesting but wouldn’t fit well in the structure of the documentary (either too much of a digression, even if on an interesting topic, or just extremely good content that had to be cut for the length and flow of the overall work) would be enthusiastically received. Unedited full-length interviews would likely just be tedious unless it was the rare interview in which every word was gold.

As for format, I’ve not yet jumped into the high-def pool, so my selfish preference is for DVD. Nice packaging makes it more desirable to buy and give to fellow IF-geeks as gifts, but depending on how much it impacts price “simple and professional but reasonably priced” could win out over “awe inspiring but pricey”.

While a high-def version on USB stick would be of limited interest to me (seeing triple the detail in, say, Lord of the Rings, is a big selling point to me, while seeing Steve Meretzsky’s face (handsome devil though he is) in triple detail is less so), the idea of bundling a cheap small USB stick could have some brilliant applications. If you scored a crate of dirt cheap 256MB USB sticks, you could (or one of us could) work up a reasonable multi-platform package that launched a front-end to select any of a dozen or so well-chosen, superb free pieces of modern interactive fiction and then start them up in a platform-appropriate free interpreter. Especially coupled with some text commentary from the corresponding authors, that could be a killer extra. (Though I guess you could maybe do it on a data segment of one of the DVDs instead).

By: Rex Rhino

Rex Rhino — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 13:45:37 +0000

This is what I would say is your best bet, marketing wise:

1. Standard Def DVD edition
2. High Def BluRay

Downloads are cool, but I definitely will pay less for a download that physical media, because I will have to store it on my hard drive and most likely do some sort of conversion to stream it to my ps3 in the living room… and a thumb drive is all the problems of download with all the problems of physical media.

By: Felix

Felix — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 17:20:50 +0000

I would really like to see it as DVD box which includes a digital download coupon. Make that download HQ, DRM-free xvid and sell the box in your shop, instantly submitting the coupon via email, and I’ll by it for sure.
Keep seeing that at smaller CD labels, where you buy a CD and instantly get a download coupon, so you don’t have to wait for the CD to arrive. Especially handy if you live overseas like me and it takes weeks for it to arrive in the mail.

By: phuzz

phuzz — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 09:44:02 +0000

Generally, I watch most of my digital media through an Xbox360 connected to a HDTV, so if the digital release was in one of the handful of formats that the 360 plays natively that would be great for me. (plus anything that the 360 will play, I think the PS3 will, and certainly and PC running VLC will work as well)

By: Christian Jørgensen

Christian Jørgensen — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 20:43:10 +0000

Hi Jason,

I would pay $50 for a download with a full set of physical extras such as booklet, poster, T-shirt, autograph, stickers, badges, etc. The download would preferably be distributed under a free license and use *our* codecs/formats, i.e., Theora/Dirac, Vorbis, and Matroska, to avoid the whole H.264/MPEG-4 AVC bait-and-switch fraud (http://www.mpegla.com/news/n_03-11-17_avc.html). If you distribute the download under a free license then your customers don’t need a physical medium, at least for backup purposes, because an online copy will always be available, e.g., via the Internet Archive.

By: Steve McCrea

Steve McCrea — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 20:33:24 +0000

I voted for blu-ray, but if you’re planning to only produce one format, I think DVD is the way to get it into the most hands.

I also thought it would be good to have the interviews available as audio downloads.

Good luck finishing this up!
Steve