Eric,
OK. It may seem like I took off a little on you, and it's true, I’ll admit. But let me fully pour out the real reason that caused my replies, and address the underlying injustice that I believe you’ve done to me personally, to King and Jonathan in the threads here, and to the DVD industry as a whole; not to mention to yourself.
I saw your offers to do jobs here for two good authors. The first thing I did was to go to your brand new website. I was shocked and dismayed to see some of its contents.
Where do I begin?
(For those who want to follow along:
http://www.poweragemedia.com/services.html )
First, your “one man shop just wanting to help out and not charge”, is advertising on that site that you have Eclipse, MEI DVD-Video Verifier, Sonic Scenarist, and player banks – all capabilities I have, and that I know you are not licensed for and/or do not have - any of them. So, It seemed that site was trying to say it had the same capabilities I have.
Unbelievable!
On your “Services” page under “Pre-Mastering and Disc Verification” you say:
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“With a final MEI and Eclispe report, you can be assured your title will be replicated without errors or issues. These reports check your disc's file structure and DVD specification compliance. In addition, we delivery all our titles on Type IV DLT tape - the replication standard.”
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Btw, two mistakes with the above quote – you misspell Eclipse, and no report ever checked any file structure or DVD Specification compliance.
If this were true what you advertise, and that you indeed, have Eclipse and MEI, then you would have never heard a peep out of me, and you would be offering King and Jonathan a great service.
But since I am the one with this capability in house (it doesn’t work cost and time-wise to try to contract these several testing services to others; that's why I can offer such a reasonable price to everyone), and am licensed with those tools, to see someone else I know that doesn’t have them, advertises to my market that they do, does cause a situation (to put it mildly).
So, I repeat from my last reply, ‘what are you thinking, Eric?’
And then, under the “Quality Control and Player Compatibility Testing” heading on the same Services page you say:
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“With several year experience and testing under out belts, your disc will have the widest player compatibility worldwide. We've developed our player banks based on proven data gathered over the last several years. This service was once only offered to major theatrical releases until now.”
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Since you seem to not have been truthful with the other capabilities you advertise, I’m going to have to question that you even have a player bank (I know you don’t have player “banks”). Oh, and you know that I’ve been offering player bank testing services for at least two and a half years already, why would you say “This service was once only offered to major theatrical releases until now”?
The other services on your site, especially your “Complete Re-authoring Services” where you say:
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“Our most unique service! We Specialize in re-authoring or amending discs from which the source files have been lost or corrupted. Using only your VIDEO_TS or image file, we can add logos, change menu attributes, speed up functionality and compatibility and even add or change subtitles.
This service is often useful to distributors who have recently bought older titles and wish to add their current logo or make other amendments to a disc.”
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This is also especially dangerous, as you’re talking about making radical changes to the structure of third party clients’ DVDs, and with no tools to check to see what you’ve done is correct!? Early on, during DVDAfterEdit’s development, I was testing customer’s projects to make sure their changes were good; some of them went into runs of over a million. The idea for TFDVD Research Labs sprung up during this time, as I could see I was helping unleash a great power, but I knew a lot of folks could get in big trouble. I spent the $10,000 to get the MEI License and dongle. I would be disrespecting my customers if I didn’t have it.
Importing a simple VOB into another DVD, by itself, can cause lots of errors, if you don't know where else in the data to make some setting changes. I better stop with the description right here of what all could go wrong with adjustments in DVDAfterEdit, if one doesn't know what they're doing and have the verification tools.
Am I not being consistent here? If I ‘jump’ on you for simply writing a third parties Image to DLT without verification tools, wouldn’t I be amiss if I didn’t call you on your falsely advertised ability to make
and then verify massive changes to a good authors DVDs?
So, Eric, what am I to think? How am I to respond? Do you see how I might think of this website of yours as ‘stealing’ from me, due to even a perceived 'illegal competition' (of course I know you're not competing with me!)? For sure, as is, your website takes from me my site's uniqueness, as far as listed capabilities, even if your site the way it is a lie.
I’d be more than happy to help you get licensed with those tools. For sure, there would go your “do it for free” attitude in a heartbeat, when you lay out that kind of expenditure! And then you could be right with any clients; not to mention me.
And as far as whether or not all projects should go through me, you’re right, they don’t have to; only the “doomed from the outset” Images should be sent to me, so I can prevent disaster for the production company (I’ve seen three company’s go under over the years from Disc playback blowups in the market and repeated Image submission failures; and too many bad studio/client/lost client situations to count). But since the authoring studio, nor you, is going to know which Images are the bad ones, it follows that they all be sent to me; which is the best advise someone can give an author that inquires - trying to be a 'nanny' won’t help them; both of you are put at risk.
So, I hope it's clearer now: That you started offering to do services here, and at the same time put up a new website with fictitious major capabilities, the whole of which only I offer in our industry; I felt it my duty, as well as to act for legitimate business reasons, to say something.
I fully expect you to make things right,
Thanks,
Trai
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Trai Forrester
TFDVD Research Labs
<edited by host>
