Entelligence: Digital video is still just too hard
posted Nov 11th 2004 2:45PM
The market for digital imaging is growing; sales of cameras and recordable drives used to archive and distribute content are up. Digital camera sales are particularly impressive: In a recent Jupiter Consumer Survey, over 30 percent of online consumers said they own digital cameras, and nearly a quarter of them said they plan to buy them. Even if some of those planning to buy are replacing existing units, this number represents an enormous market presence. Some in the industry have suggested digital camcorders are following the same path, but the growth-rate trend does not support this assumption. By comparison, recordable CD drives are a mature technology. Because most PCs ship with them, nearly one-half of respondents said they already own one, and the 10 percent who said they plan to buy them represent late adopters. At the other end of the spectrum, recordable DVD drives have the highest growth potential, with slightly more people saying they plan to buy them than already own them. Both digital cameras and camcorders are somewhere in the middle—a maturing growth phase. Plenty of room still exists for additional growth, but most consumers who want them already have them. As such, digital cameras are poised to exceed 50 percent penetration over the next five years, but digital camcorder ownership will not.
One of the reasons is that to really enable the benefits of a digital camcorder, one needs to be able to do
something with the video footage. Cost and complication are significant barriers to adoption of digital video—and why
many consumers don’t have the required hardware and software necessary to complete the value chain for digital video
editing. Very simply, too many consumers say that “I didn’t know I could so that” Conversely, many consumers are aware
of digital video say or “I knew I COULD do that but thought it was too hard for me to do”. Some new products are coming
to market to address these very issues but for the time being, consumers are a lot more interested in digital still
photography than in digital video recorders.
Question: Which of the following best describes your reasons for not viewing, editing, or sharing digital video today?
(Select up to three.) Source: Jupiter/The NPD Group, Inc. Consumer Survey (4/02), n = 1,322 (online users who do not
work with digital video, US only) © 2003 Jupiter Research, a division of Jupitermedia Corporation.
Michael Gartenberg is vice president and research director for the Personal Technology & Access and Custom Research groups at Jupiter Research in New York. Contact him at mgartenberg@jupitermedia.com. His weblog and RSS feed are at http://weblogs.jupiterresearch.com/analysts/gartenberg.
I agree that digital video seems pretty complicated to most consumers. But it really isn't all that complex if they consider the Mac platform. Using iMovie is the easiest thing in the world. Elementary school teachers are using it to create presentations for students or for parent-teacher conferences. High school students use iMovie or even Final Cut for projects. A movie called "Tarnation" made for $218.32 using iMovie was the surprise hit at Cannes and Sundance this year.
It's getting easier.
Also, I believe that more and more people are using the "movie" option in their digital still cameras to create short clips that can be emailed. That's a slippery slope towards buying a DV camcorder and cutting their own footage.
I, too, would like to know what the breakdown was across platforms - I think ti would be quite interesting to see. I use a Mac and a PC (Final Cut Pro and Premiere, I'm an advanced video user) and I'd like to know specifically where the process fails. Is it configuration or creation? Which apps fared the best or worst -
iMovie is famous for ease-of-use and allows for alot of flexibility if you take some time to lear it. MS's Movie Maker's take - presets everywhere - offer similar but more limited control, but at the potential of easier access.
Trying to avoid opinion and conjecture (the two stalwart friends of modern reportage), and basing the question on the premise that "video is too hard", I'd like to know more about where each platform or application fails the user.
Digital video too complicated?! Garbage. Complete and utter crap.
It's *not* that digital video is complicated - it's just *assumed* to be that way, so the average person (who's never even heard of iMovie) hasn't even bothered to look at it.
To illustrate the point: Just the other day, I gave a person a USB stick with some digital photos on it. She told me that she'd get someone
at work to *help* her get the pictures off! (after I'd already explained that you just plug the thing in and drag & drop the pictures).
If you believe you can't do something, you can't (because you won't).
Kap
I don't think video is to complicateed - I think there just isn't enough to do with it. All the people that have answered this post already do digital video editing for other reasons. Most people take video of the kids playing soccer/amusement park/school play. The fact you could (assumming they have a digital camcorder) connect it to a computer via firewire download and edit it might be fun once in awhile, but normally you're just going to show it to family when they're there for the holidays.
Pictures on the other hand are alot more convenient you can email and/or print them to send to friends and family. That's why digital camaeras have made such in inroad. It's all about history. Pictures you share... Video sits in you closet waiting on a victim to watch it.
It is daunting to get started with video. However, my barrier is standardization. My Dell came with a DVD+RW burner but most retail players do not explicitly support that format. Some will work anyway but most won't unless they are explicity built to play that format. It is very frustrating to edit carefully for hours, send the disc to people who want to see it and find that they cannot view it.
I think it's mostly a cost issue. I am starting to get into video editing, and it really isn't too difficult to do home movies and the like. It's all the equipment that is needed.
For image editing, all you need is a camera, memory card, and software. For an amateur that could be what, $350-$400 at the most? Not too bad at all. To print them, you could just use shutterfly or Kinko's or whatever, and that ain't bad.
For video, you need a camera and tapes. If it doesn't have a USB or Firewire out, you need a capture card and software. Either way is probably at least $400. Fortunately entry level software is probably free (iMovie or MovieMaker). But, video takes a ton of space, so you may very well need a big (and fast) hard drive. Another $100. Then, what do you do with it once you are done? You probably want to burn it to DVD. You could do a VCD, but that doesn't hold much and isn't as compatible. A burner and DVD-R's would be another $100, possibly more. If you want to use something other than iMovie or MovieMaker, that's probably at least another $100.
Which of those reasons? None of the above -- I *do* view, edit and share digital video. It's not that hard. A bit on the expensive side still, yes. But not that difficult if you're willing to actually learn a thing or two.
I became intersested in digital video when it was required to actually digitize the video first. That was just too hard, I will agree. And getting back to tape? Forget it, it was though enough getting onto the hard drive. On an 80 mhz mac, using either avid video shop, or strata video, I forget which I made a short music video of my then infant son. It was a little difficult, but far from rocket science. Now, it is amazingly easy with firewire, digital cam corders, dvd burners, massive harddives (compared to a 700mb) fast processors and iMovie. Anyone who thinks it is tough are just giving up before even trying. I could teach someone to do digital video in less than 20 minutes with a mac and a camcorder.