HD For Indies

Announcing HD for Indies Premium Content

Today HD for Indies is announcing a new service - HD for Indies Premium.

The existing HD for Indies site isn't changing at all, this will be new, deeper coverage.

HD for Indies Premium will encompass a variety of services - specific websites, downloadable PDFs, online tutorials, downloadable videos, purchasable DVDs, etc.

Updated w/FAQ at bottom of this article, scroll down

WHAT IT IS

HD for Indies Premium is a new way to get the best thoughts and commentary from HD for Indies' chief analyst & writer, Mike Curtis, on a wide range of subjects.

HD for Indies Premium will be launching with a new topic specific blog that will include all Mike's NAB 2007 coverage, reporting, and analysis, including EXTENSIVE, as-yet-unpublished material.

HDforIndies.com covered several companies and topics before and at the show, that content will be included to make the Premium site comprehensive. In addition, however, what will only be posted on the new premium micro-site will be exclusive analysis & commentary of everything else Mike Curtis saw at the show, in addition to extensive unpublished notes, pictures, and videos from interviews at NAB. I decided to make this a living document, via a website, rather than a static PDF or similar structure - I'll be adding to it, augmenting it, folding in new links and info, etc.

WHAT'S COVERED

Companies covered so far:

Abel Cine, Adobe, AJA, Apple, ARRI, Automatic Duck, Avid, Band Pro, Blackmagic Design, Canon, Cineform, Color Space, Dalsa, Glue Tools, GS Vitec (noX camera), JVC, Matrox, Noise Industries, Panasonic, Promax, Red (& lots of it!), Red Giant software, Redrock Micro, ReelStream (Hydra), Silicon Imaging, Sony, Synthetic Aperture, and Wafian.

Concluding thoughts and analysis are still being added, so everything is still being expounded upon and growing. But there's already about 25,000 words worth of details, commentary, analysis, links, etc. so far, so that should be plenty to sink your teeth into to get started.

Remember all that in depth Red coverage before/during/after NAB? Consider that an especially detailed sampler - there's even some newer, more recent info that isn't on hdforindies.com.

HOW THIS WILL WORK:

I'm accepting payments via PayPal's system, but Paypal will also allow you to make a credit card payment, even without a Paypal account.

I've decided to make this as ridiculously affordable as I could stand as an introductory offer (considering the amount of time that went into it) - at the oh-so-very-indie friendly price of only $9.95. I'm curious to see how popular this might be at this time.

STEPS TO SIGN UP:

1.) Read full instructions below, then click here:

....to make a payment - when paying, use an email account that also has an associated Google Account (or make one, takes about a minute) - so ideally your PayPal account has a matching Google account.

2.) You'll receive an email from Mike Curtis inviting you to join the blog - click on the provided link. (It may take a bit for the wheels to churn, don't worry if you don't get an email right away - if PayPal says it processed properly, It Will Happen).

3.) You'll have to sign in using a Google Account - it should be the same email address as your PayPal account (or create a Google Account).

4.) Now you can access the blog, and slice the data in a variety of ways - by Indie vs. High End, by category (Post Hardware, Post Software, Cameras, Acquisition Hardware, etc.), by company, or just use the handy Search function.

This is being sold as a one-to-one consulting report to individuals with a single user license.

Ready to start? Great! Click below to begin!

(Yes, this one works exactly the same as the above one. Just here for convenience.)

-mike

UPDATE /FAQ- to answer some questions already being asked - if you don't have Google and PayPal accounts under the same email, you can either:

1.) In PayPal, pay with a credit card and then enter an email address that has a Google account already set up, or

2.) Pay via PayPal, then set up a new Google Account - it is easy, just takes a minute or so.

Also, somebody asked in the comments:

Will there be a sample or teaser page so that people know what they're going to get before they buy?

See the screen grab at top, gives an idea how everything is organized. If you want some sample content, see all the Red coverage I've done since NAB and consider that the free sample - analysis, photos, news, etc. Actually, you can see everything I've tagged/labelled as Red related here, that's a pretty good overkill sampler. Pictures from NAB 2007 Red booth here and here.

Not everybody gets that much detailed coverage - Red is obviously one of my favorite forthcoming gadgets - but you get the idea. There's actually even more Red coverage of some extra goodies and details that came up in the last few days, and interview details I've never published since NAB that are Red specific. But the premium blog is better organized - see the screen grab at top of this article.

Each company/category entry is organized into linked sections:

Mike's prior notes on this subject
Mike's new notes from NAB
Bottom Line
Mike's comments/recommendations
Mike's Pics
Other coverage
Other pics/video
Product links


...and yes, for once, those section links jump to the location in the article, and links to other web pages actually spawn new windows. Kwality. : )

There's a bit more details in the Comments (link at end of article) if you want more detail than that.

Is it $9.95 to access the site forever or $9.95 per report? Or is it $9.95 per month / year?

Good question - the $9.95 is for this specific NAB 2007 report only, but is indefinite. You get all the NAB 2007 goodness in there, and I'm planning on just leaving the site up. Think of this as a chunk of consulting you're buying, a one time report you're buying. It just so happens to be in the form of a one-trick-pony website. I plan on leaving the site up for quite a while, probably well past its usefulness or timeliness (the hosting fees are paid out for over a year already anyway, so...).

What will happen to the vanilla HD for Indies site in the long run?

I still plan on doing HD4NDs as I have, but the super-indepth stuff that hasn't happened much in the last 6-12 months, things where I need to spend a day or two testing and a half day or more writing up will start migrating to a Premium model - otherwise there just isn't time to justify doing them on the free site. I'm still noodling around on exactly how it will be presented, exactly where the free/premium split will occur, but perhaps some kind of a la carte report option with a "subscribe to all" option as well. All up in the air, these are just the current thoughts in my head. The good news is that I'm getting infrastructure in place so that the daily news still happens, and I only need to touch & edit rather than sift it all on my own - Andy and Geoff are helping out on that stuff.

Q: So why so long after NAB?

A: It is just what it took - hey, DV.com just got their coverage up last week too! : ) But the goal for next year is to be sooner and more comprehensive...and it will definitely cost more. But to have text, audio interviews, video interviews, notes and thoughts being fed back to team in Austin whilst I interview etc. on site.

I'll keep adding to this FAQ as more issues come up.

-mike

Labels: blogs, HD4NDsPrem, online content service