POLL: Who would buy an EEVblog DVD box set?

[EEVblog]

I continue to get requests for a "DVD Box Set" of all my episodes.
So I'm curious as to how many people would actually be interested in this?

I guess it would simply be every episode in the highest quality MP4 format as raw files on either a DVD or BlueRay disk set (can you put just raw files on a BlueRay Disk? never used one...) so that they can be played on the PC or whatever.

I don't know how many disks it would be, but quite a few now with the HD content. I'd have to re-master quite a lot of content to get the best quality vs file size.

And how much would you be willing to pay? 

Dave.

[PStevenson]

I quite often have them on in the background when I'm doing my electronics or even music so I would definitely buy a DVD boxset so I can retire iTunes. the .AVI formats pretty much play in every recent DVD player these days I'm not that sure about bluray
I know I personally don't own one but I haven't got a clue if they are more widely used than DVD these days and even if they allow you to use them in that way but I imagine they can be - they do store games on them after all.

if I had the money I'd be willing to pay quite a lot but currently I'd have to draw the line at $50 before shipping probably maybe a bit more if I had a bit of spare cash lying around
it may be too much too soon, but maybe even a similar thing could be done with the amp hour.

[Psi]

I'd probably buy it if was <=NZ$25 inc shipping to NZ, and if i had spare money at the time.

But to be honest, i don't really use DVDs/Bluerays, i do have a collection of my fav shows/movies on dvd/bluray but that's mostly to support the creators. If i actually want to watch the show/movie i play the 720P/1080P MKVs copies stored on my server instead.

So really, with an EEVBLOG dvd/blueray the physical disk isn't what i'd be paying the money for.
I'd be just as happy downloading all the files in mkv format and it would mean more profit for Dave that can go into the blog.
Although, it is nice to have a box set to put on the shelf

[slateraptor]

I'd pick up a DVD set for archival purposes...even better if it's released on a yearly basis. It would definitely complement my personal library as being the only digital media on the bookshelves.

[shims506]

I would also pay $50 but shipping to USA might be costly.

Another thought if the sales of DVDs don't go through maybe have a big file available to download for lower cost because there would be no hassle with shipping and cost.

[EEVblog]

Yes the actual disks are really only a transport medium for the large files.
So I like the idea of a lower price for the direct download of the best quality DVD, a win-win.
At the moment I only offer the podcast version for download, which is pretty low res designed for smartphones etc. But I know many that rip from Youtube videos to keep local copies.

Dave.

[Stephen Hill]

How about producing "The Best of the EEVBlog"; a single DVD/BD or digital download which you charged for instead of putting on Youtube.

You could also include extra's like outtakes, an interview with Dave etc

I know this would take longer to produce but I think it would have a good USP which I would prefer to buy.

Cheers
Stephen

[bullet308]

All IMHO, of course.

When you think about it, the entire trend in media of all forms seems to be moving away from selling content on physical media. I think there may be a market for your blogs on physical media but in this day and age, it would be pretty much a niche. Its understandable that you want to make money for your excellent blog which you no-doubt put a lot of work into but monetizing the blogs directly probably wont buy you that much.

To me, if I were in your shoes, I would think of the blog entries themselves less as monetizable content and more  loss-leading, give-away stuff that drives so much e-commerce and that you leverage into making other things happen. You have traffic, you have buzz, you have a lot of people that think well of you and what you have to offer. You have a base of both professionals and advanced amateurs that are HIGHLY desirable as customers. Now, what can you do with that? 

A question that needs to be asked: can the EEVBlog and Dave be built up into a proper brand? I think the answer is "yes". T-shirts and  small batches of electronic doo-dads are nice and a step in the right direction, but really, I would think about making the t-shirts  serve as advertising, helping to drive more traffic to whatever it is you really want to do. This board is the same thing, a traffic generator. This place and what you do is cool! Sell it as such. An obvious target would be the higher end of the maker movement. You have a lot more in your head that you can EVER express through the blog. Educational media, value-added stuff that you really COULD monetize, is an obvious product area.

Downside: doing this and remaining a one-man band would be a challenge, and scaling up and increasing your overhead and headaches with employees and such presents its own problems. Some startup capital would be handy. I'd front you some money but I am poor. :-)

But wherever you go, its all about your BRAND. Cant emphasize that enough.

[PStevenson]

I think some people would prefer the idea of a physical release dvd (well when I say some people I mean people like me)
because it's just nice to have something like that, that's real - I know internet based data is easy enough to back up
and whatever but I'm a hoarder, I need the physical thing it's my substitution for friends haha

one case in point is this band I'm friends with who have been around since the 90s, they made all their old out of print stuff available in digital format which was great and earned them abit of money but at a recent show a guy went upto them and said he had just spent 160$ US on a 7" vinyl that they released back in '98 even though it's available in .wav he said he just wanted to have the physical release, my point is that there is a lot to be said for weirdos like me who would love that physical release
it's not even really about quality for me, I have the iTunes downloads playing through my 37" TV which is very blocky and that's fine I would love to buy a proper DVD.

if solid state memory was extremely cheap it would have been cool to release it on a stick drive branded with EEVBlog
but I think that would cost way too much

[ejeffrey]

Definitely not for me.  Physical media is too much hassle.  I even download movies I own on DVD because it is more convenient.  To a lesser extent the same is true of downloadable content -- I would rather stream than download and store.

Access to high resolution formats is not that big of a deal to me for the EEVblog.  It isn't like the blog is full of high budget special effects or anything.  I appreciate the extra dimension of seeing Dave's expressions and body language, and the ability to watch a demo or teardown is fantastic, but HD doesn't add much for me.  For teardowns having high res still photos is nice, but those are better when posted separately in any case.

I would consider paying extra for special content in some way if you were interested in doing that, but I would still be more likely to use it as streamable content than physical media or downloaded content.

One factor in this is that to me most videos don't have a lot of rewatch value.  They are a good way to be introduced to new ideas, but if in a year I think "man, Dave gave a great tutorial on X", I am more likely to go read up on the application notes than rewatch the video.

[EEVblog]

When you think about it, the entire trend in media of all forms seems to be moving away from selling content on physical media. I think there may be a market for your blogs on physical media but in this day and age, it would be pretty much a niche. Its understandable that you want to make money for your excellent blog which you no-doubt put a lot of work into but monetizing the blogs directly probably wont buy you that much.

To me, if I were in your shoes, I would think of the blog entries themselves less as monetizable content and more  loss-leading, give-away stuff that drives so much e-commerce and that you leverage into making other things happen. You have traffic, you have buzz, you have a lot of people that think well of you and what you have to offer. You have a base of both professionals and advanced amateurs that are HIGHLY desirable as customers. Now, what can you do with that? 

Yes, my content has always effectively been a "loss leader". And of course I currently make most of my money through various forms of advertising, but that isn't exactly a reliable form of revenue, so it's no surprise that I have been thinking about ways to gain additional revenue streams to make it more stable income.
This DVD thing isn't really designed to make much money, it's just that many people have asked for it for quite some time now. So just wondering if it's worth my while to pursue and spend time on. i.e. would it make a reasonable monetary return for effort put in.

A question that needs to be asked: can the EEVBlog and Dave be built up into a proper brand? I think the answer is "yes". T-shirts and  small batches of electronic doo-dads are nice and a step in the right direction, but really, I would think about making the t-shirts  serve as advertising, helping to drive more traffic to whatever it is you really want to do. This board is the same thing, a traffic generator. This place and what you do is cool! Sell it as such. An obvious target would be the higher end of the maker movement. You have a lot more in your head that you can EVER express through the blog. Educational media, value-added stuff that you really COULD monetize, is an obvious product area.

Yes, the EEVblog is a real brand with some value, and I have know that was obvious from very early on.
Yes, value-added stuff will surely come, currently at the intent stage.

Downside: doing this and remaining a one-man band would be a challenge, and scaling up and increasing your overhead and headaches with employees and such presents its own problems. Some startup capital would be handy. I'd front you some money but I am poor. :-)

Startup capital would gain me essentially very little. In fact it would probably be more a hindrance than anything else.
Money doesn't magically make things happen when it comes to content (the real major avenue for any expansion for me), only time an energy does. It doesn't really cost much money to produce content.
The only money I really need at present is enough to pay the bills and keep me doing this full time.
I've explained some reason why extra people aren't really going to help at this stage. That would only come into it if I was spending all my time running a shop or mail order business etc, which of course I have no intention of doing, apart from selling my own niche products, which is something I have enjoyed doing for 20+ years.

I know million dollar mail order businesses that sound impressive, but they have very low margins, work long hours, and ultimately take home less than what I do. That kind of business is not for me, it's not something I enjoy.

[/quote]
But wherever you go, its all about your BRAND. Cant emphasize that enough.
[/quote]

Yep, well aware of that 

Dave.

[Chet T16]

Its not something i'd be interested in, i can download them to my media player if i want to watch them on the big screen

Speaking of the brand, isn't it about time there was an EEVBlog logo competition! Dave, i assume you don't trade under the EEVBlog name?

[ivan747]

Maybe if you organized them into categories and offered both direct download and DVD. Maybe something I can watch on anything from my DVD player to my not-so-smart BlackBerry.

What about something like a paid podcast service. I think iTunes allows that, but I understand people don't want to be locked down into Apple's utopian world where they assume you only buy their stuff.

[EEVblog]

Its not something i'd be interested in, i can download them to my media player if i want to watch them on the big screen

Speaking of the brand, isn't it about time there was an EEVBlog logo competition! Dave, i assume you don't trade under the EEVBlog name?

I did have a logo contest a long time ago, but in the end I didn't ultimately see a need for an actual logo as such. Just the word "EEVblog" was sufficient, and have kinda standardised on the font used on the main page banner.

I have a registered business name, but I don't actually use EEVblog.

Dave.

[Wartex]

A couple of things: All fonts have some some type of license, you can be sued for selling merch with writing with someone's font on it. Some fonts are extremely expensive.

DVD box set: BAHAHAHA! Maybe release on VHS or laserdisc. No seriously, that would be financial suicide. It would be ripped by the 3rd buyer and put up on piratebay in no time, and your sales will drop like a rock, because downloading is more convenient. You are better off giving an option of selling a mastered DVD ISO download or just a ZIP with all episodes in mp4.

I think you should look into what Louis CK did and try the same https://buy.louisck.net/news

$5 for hi-def AVI download, no DRM, no bullshit. The file was torrented within hours of release, and he still managed to make over $1 million.

If you put up your box set for $29.99 or some other "retail DVD" price, I pretty much guarantee that no one other than hardcore fanboys and people with disposable income would touch it with a ten foot pole.

Maybe, just maybe, if you throw in some large and hand-sharpie-signed posters (not the printed overlay signature bullshit) I'd be inclined to pay mmmmmmmmmm..... maybe $25 + shipping.

My .2 ohms.

[EEVblog]

A couple of things: All fonts have some some type of license, you can be sued for selling merch with writing with someone's font on it. Some fonts are extremely expensive.

DVD box set: BAHAHAHA! Maybe release on VHS or laserdisc. No seriously, that would be financial suicide. It would be ripped by the 3rd buyer and put up on piratebay in no time, and your sales will drop like a rock, because downloading is more convenient. You are better off giving an option of selling a mastered DVD ISO download or just a ZIP with all episodes in mp4.

Many people can't download huge files, it's not an option for them, that is why I get constant requests for it. I suspect those who would buy the "hard" version would do so because they don't want to or can't download. So they would hardly be the type to upload it.
But yeah, I expect it would eventually make it onto some pirate site. Although it's hardly Big Bang Theory.
No point in a mastered .ISO, it would just be all the master MP4 files.

I think you should look into what Louis CK did and try the same https://buy.louisck.net/news

$5 for hi-def AVI download, no DRM, no bullshit. The file was torrented within hours of release, and he still managed to make over $1 million.

Yes, that's what I had in mind. Either way I'd have to put the work in to compile it all, so might as well offer direct digital download too.

If you put up your box set for $29.99 or some other "retail DVD" price, I pretty much guarantee that no one other than hardcore fanboys and people with disposable income would touch it with a ten foot pole.

Maybe, just maybe, if you throw in some large and hand-sharpie-signed posters (not the printed overlay signature bullshit) I'd be inclined to pay mmmmmmmmmm..... maybe $25 + shipping.

Poster of what, me? 
I'd have to pay people 

Dave.

[EEVblog]

I think you should look into what Louis CK did and try the same https://buy.louisck.net/news

How did he host the file?
I could of course just do a PayPal order button which just takes you back to the hidden download page (and just trust people not the share it publicly). But if I hosted on my dedicated server (should fit) then it very well could load it down and cripple it if too many people downloaded at once for a day or two or whatever it takes to download several hundred GB.

Are there any third party service that can do this sort of thing?
I've been looking at CDN's recently for hosting files, but are usually quite expensive for huge files such as this. A quick check show it is currently around 100GB for all the files.

Dave.

[alm]

Serving 100 GB worth of files to a large number of people in a few days sounds like a perfect application of BitTorrent. I've seen some sites that provide BitTorrent downloads after you buy, I assume they pass authentication to the tracker. People may be able to share the files buy exchanging the .torrent file, but you should expect a percentage of unauthorized downloads anyway. The best defense is probably to have a sensible price point so people don't bother. Unless you want to take a hint from the MPAA/RIAA and sue the whole world while alienating all your customers .

Since you're only providing convenience and better quality (at least for people with easy access to Youtube), no new content, something like $5-$10 would make sense to me, not $50. You'll have to do the math whether this covers your costs and together with the DVD sales your work.

I agree with ejeffrey that for most videos the quality isn't very important (tear downs being the possible exception), and that it's unlikely that I'd ever watch all 200+ episodes again. The value I can see in having a local copy is in case you or Youtube pull a PhotoInduction . But in that case I'll just wait for some fan to upload them again .

[HLA-27b]

To pull a PhotoInduction

you coined it

[Simon]

To pull a PhotoInduction

you coined it

what did i miss ?

Dave, maybe offer a service for those who are asking for it - A dvd copy that they can play in the event they cannot download it. Make it pretty simple and easy to turn out, nothing more than what you already offer. Then see how it goes, if it booms maybe you want to make a bit of a thing of it and start getting DVD's printed and boxed with extra content. For me the most important blogs are the design ones as that is what I'm interested in.

[EEVblog]

To pull a PhotoInduction

you coined it

what did i miss ?

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/index.php?topic=6225.msg81129#msg81129

A famous Youtuber "Photonic Induction" closed his Youtube account after several years and removed all his videos.
He had more views and subscribers than me.

Dave.

[Simon]

ah, I will sadly miss him........ NOT ! I never really got him. Just a headcase

[saturation]

Me too.  He was more entertainment than educational, and so it has less enduring appeal.  EEvblog is educational in an entertaining way, its more BBC than Discovery channel.

I avoid all things on disc today, DVD is obsolete; the only discs worth keeping is when the quality is so high [ blu-ray] and cannot be matched via online streaming.  Like files on a CDs, its hard to track and locate discs in a book-style library versus simply scanning them when they are all available electronically.

ah, I will sadly miss him........ NOT ! I never really got him. Just a headcase

[ben1066]

I would prefer a digital distribution than a DVD box set, in some nice format. I rarely use my DVD or bluray player since I watch most things online. Sure, you could watch it on YouTube, but having it locally is nice, and if it's all in decent HD quality, even nicer. I guess out of bluray and DVD I'd have to go with DVD since I don't have a bluray player in my pc

[dcel]

Dave

I just watch YouTube. Its easy and is available everywhere.

As far as making some money, just make more uCurrents and charge a little more for them to get your profit where it should be. You have a demand for them, just have to produce them. Say, charge $5 more for a signed copy? I be happy to pay $55 + S&H for your uCurrent if I could accually get one, and signed...cool. Same goes for your Power Supply Kit. Signed edition $5 bucks more. But again, if you have a demand, you need to fill it. This PS kit will be hugely popular and I dont think you will be able to keep up. I cant buy a uCurrent now and I dont think I will ever be able to get a PS kit because YOU wont produce enough of them. People like instant gratifcation and I really want to hit a buy it now button for a uCurrent and EEVBlog PS Kit. Think for a minute, if you have people like me willing to pre-pay for something you produce, you have a market that you are ignoring. Again, I will PRE-PAY you for a uCurrent and EEVBlog PS kit.

Chris