The Transition from VHS to DVD

As noted previously, it is clear that the transition from VHS to DVD is occurring at a rapid pace. It seems obvious that moving forward, DVD will be the platform of choice for the foreseeable future, in the same way that CDs have replaced vinyl. There will still be choices to make (should a filmmaker create an enhanced DVD of their work?) but it seems clear that DVD is the future. However, that begs the question of what will happen to the films and videos that currently exist solely on VHS. How will those who acquire and those who distribute handle the transition to DVD?

Acquisitions/Collections

Many academic (and some public) libraries have large collections of VHS tapes and continue to buy on VHS. Academic libraries are likely to have both DVD and VHS copies of many titles, as they generally have the purchasing power to buy DVD versions of existing titles in their collections to better serve their users.

However, public libraries are transitioning faster to DVD and unloading their VHS holdings. Nancy Kranich, former head of the American Library Association, said that there are disproportionately more DVDs than videotapes in progressive public libraries because a higher percentage of people in the region served by the library have DVD players. Milos Stehlik of Facets noted that some libraries are even deploying multi-branch servers and regional networks with video-on-demand offerings.

Many people voiced concerns about the increased pressure for public libraries to “deliver numbers” (i.e. high circulation numbers for media titles) and the potential consequences for the independent media field. Seymour Wishman of First Run/Icarus said: “Librarians shouldn’t be under the pressure to deliver numbers [for media circulation]. Books aren’t under this kind of pressure.” Maurice Freedman, Director of the Westchester (NY) Library System and the former head of the American Library Association, provided a different take on this critique, noting that some public libraries, especially in smaller towns, have been perceived by local media vendors as being competitors in the marketplace. Many people warned against “public libraries looking too much like Blockbuster.”

While many academic libraries have vast VHS holdings, the status of those collections is dire. Gary Handman of UC-Berkley, spoke for many academic librarians when he wondered what would happen to his collection of 35,000 tapes. He foresees a time when it will be hard to even buy a VCR to play the tapes. Where will that leave the makers and distributors who haven’t fully made the switch to DVD? For now, Handman assumes that he will probably re-buy any Hollywood titles on DVD, but he fears what will happen to the alternative and independent titles.

When asked about solutions to the dilemma of transferring tape collections to DVD, Handman replied that even with intent and money, it is hard to get primary source material for even major documentaries in order to do transfers. Would the new VHS to DVD boxes alleviate the problem? The boxes do a good job of transferring; with some having built in time base correctors and noise reduction, a DVD can often look better than the original VHS source tape, and have little degradation in quality. However, Handman noted that copyright concerns and other rights issues work against a quick and large scale transfer of VHS holdings to DVD.. Additionally, it takes time to do the transfer. Even using interns to perform the methodical and time-consuming work involved with transferring isn’t a solution when a library’s holdings contain tens of thousands of tapes.

The view from public libraries was even more pessimistic about what will happen to the existing holdings of VHS tapes. Maurice Freedman, the former head of the American Library Association and currently Director of the Westchester (NY) Library System, alluded to stacks of tapes in his libraries’ hallways as they are replaced by DVD. Freedman was sympathetic to Nicholson Baker’s searing critique of library policy regarding transferring newsprint holdings to microfilm in the early 1980s, with the resulting diminution of valuable public archives. While open to an argument in support of videotapes, he didn’t get too sentimental about them disappearing from libraries. “Public libraries aren’t archival, except for local history,” he noted. “A public library is an institution of finite size and collection resources. When anything is added, something must be subtracted.” The conclusion: any attempts to collect or archive VHS tapes or to track down the original masters for research purposes would have to come from academic or research institutions. Filmmaker Arthur Dong, who self-distributes his work, spoke about the importance of underwriting the conversion of library collections from VHS to DVD. Such laments underline a lack of confidence in the future of a large number of what are now back-catalog titles. If the incremental approach of doing transfers is the best example of transitioning from tape to DVD, then the future for such programs is bleak indeed.

Distribution

While many commercial distributors have moved quickly from VHS to DVD, the situation faced in the independent media arts communities is far more complex. Many independent distributors, whose collections are primarily sold to institutional customers such as libraries and universities, still sell a lot of videotapes. However, most feel that this situation won’t last much longer. Larry Daressa from California Newsreel said that while sales are currently split 50-50 between VHS and DVD, the transition to selling only DVD is coming quickly. Once VHS sales go below 15 percent, Newsreel will discontinue selling VHS. Jonathan Miller of First Run/Icarus concurred, noting that although “All of our new releases are offered on DVD, principally DVD-R, but there was no need to switch right away as many titles will hang on.”

Distributors had a hard time answering the question of how many programs in their catalog would make the transition from VHS to DVD. Generally the big sellers (current or evergreen titles) make the transition to DVD, while back catalog titles aren’t a priority. Jonathan Miller notes that it is probably not financially tenable to transfer their whole catalog of 800 titles. For now, First Run/Icarus is transferring one program to DVD per day, with a focus on newly acquired programs. It takes approximately three hours per title, as they are adding some scene selections, not just straight encoding. Miller questions how cost effective it is to go too far into the back catalog when approximately 25 percent of their titles don’t sell more than one copy per year. Debbie Zimmerman, of Women Make Movies , echoed Miller’s comments when she said that slow sales of back catalog titles meant that transfers weren’t justified financially.

The independent media arts field may need to practice creative interdependence strategy in order to solve the problem of transferring back titles. One successful model (used on a limited basis at a few universities) is for independents to approach major universities about exchanging technical services, such as transferring videotape to digital, for access to the programming on some basis. Although potential revenue may be cut by having programming available to some portion of the student body, there is a very valuable return to the distributor that may outweigh the monetary value of a modest sale. Another possibility is the Internet Archive (www.archive.org), which is already providing transfer and hosting services in return for having makers put their programs into a public commons, with intellectual property licenses derived from the formulas originated by the Creative Commons (see the section on Creative Commons below).

Whatever the solution, film and videomakers, distributors, librarians, archivists and funders need to make a concerted effort to take on the major — but achievable — task of preserving a generation of programs on VHS before they disappear or are obsolesced. The quality of VHS to DVD transfer boxes, the low costs and high technical quality could help facilitate an effort that could be a manageable public works project that would be a service to future generations.

The Social Dimension

The independent media arts field, together with the larger commercial media industries, is in the middle of serious thought and planning about the connection between existing technologies and new digital technologies in their work. While no transition to new technologies is ever just technical (or economic), the technical often dominates the discussion about what a new technology is and its possible uses. However, the transition to DVD is more affected by social forces than most new technologies and consequently, the social capital that has been central to independent media culture can finally be activated in a way that is commensurate to its value. There are social upsides and downsides to the new digital domain. In this section, we will look at both sides of the digital coin, including some possible solutions.

Social Upside: Digital Interdependence

The transition to DVD comes at a time when a great many new tools are available to connect people and to leverage the kinds of social and relationship capital that has heretofore been submerged in a cash-based economy. This section addresses how new tools and strategies for interdependence are being brought to bear in a way that helps expand and deepen the impact of DVDs in contemporary culture.

New tools for image capturing, image processing and media delivery have often driven major changes in media making, with corresponding social impact. More portable film and video equipment helped drive the proliferation of independent film and video culture. New digital technologies, like social networking software, and new media delivery tools can help bring people together. This is exactly where old media and new media cultures might find common cause. While studies have shown that new media technologies can often increase the isolation of people and decrease palpable social connections, there is no necessary connection. For example, a great portion of independent media’s value has been the quality of the work produced and the relationships forged between makers and audiences. This “relationship capital,” so integral to independent media culture, can be brought to bear using some of the new digital tools. The techniques for finding and developing audiences and a perceived sense of “us” that have been employed by “old media” practitioners can inform the development of communities with new media hardware and software.

American independent media makers have a strong tradition of arguing for and helping to catalyze social change. But we all need to raise our game in the current moment, and to do a better job of working with one another and leveraging our key resources, relationships and assets. It may be that the fierce independence that helps drive alternative media and political cultures can also be a limiting factor if not balanced by the need for more cooperative and strategic action.

It takes time and hard work to find a common language, to engage in productive and collaborative work, and to build trust to the point where working together at a deeper level can occur. A fundamental rethinking needs to happen — and the idea of interdependence isn’t so far from where things are right now. For example, theorist Howard Rheingold is actively pursuing a far-reaching idea of Cooperation Studies with the Institute for the Future. He and others see “cooperation” as a crucial tool to deal with the accelerating complexity of contemporary life and work, especially in the digital domain. This and other recent phenomena argue for a better and more useful balance between independence and interdependence.

For example, much could and will be made of a union of “one-to-many” communications technologies, such as television, with “many-to-many” technologies like broadband archives, weblogs and more. Sections below on television, theatrical and social networks each address ideas and concrete examples of how each of these areas can help drive sales of DVDs and also better connect independent/interdependent makers with their audiences and communities.

Taking the initiative to create effective partnerships can be a way to avoid the usual scenario of independent media culture merely reacting to yet another wave of transitional technologies. One way to do this is by combining the passion for independent media with groups that are better at marketing themselves than the usual independent maker.

Netflix Mission and Collaborations

A telling example of how a new partnership was forged with some success is the collaboration of Netflix with the POV series on PBS and leading documentary distributor Docurama. The partnership called for Netflix to market programs that aired on PBS during Summer 2004, beginning the day after the national broadcast.

Many interviewees for this paper, most of whom are keen observers of the independent media world, had low expectations for the POV/Netflix experiment. But POV Executive Director Cara Mertes reported that the first POV/Netflix program, Farmingville, did very well. Within a week, there were 3,000 rentals, with more than 10,500 Netflix members in a rental queue, waiting for the DVDs to be passed along, per the policy of Netflix.

The POV/Netflix/Docurama partnership makes sense for many reasons. First, Netflix has more than 1,000 documentaries in circulation. Second, Netflix has an effective matching tool called Cinematch, which effectively connects audience preferences with a more focused menu of works. POV has benefited from the marketing savvy of Netflix and Mertes says that “Netflix is really brilliant at targeting audiences.”

The Cinematch tool, a proprietary software, allows Netflix’s more than 2 million subscribers to rate movies. Knowing subscribers’ preferences in choosing and rating films allows Netflix to customize recommendations and has created a unique and compelling channel by which to market films more efficiently. CineMatch organizes the Netflix library into clusters of similar movies and then analyzes how customers have rated them. Those who have given similar ratings to the same movies in a cluster are then matched as like-minded viewers. CineMatch looks at the clusters that have been rented in the past, determines which titles yet to be rented, and recommends only those films highly rated by matched viewers. The more ratings a visitor performs, the smarter the Cinematch system becomes. "Over 50 percent of our traffic comes via the recommendations system," says Netflix CEO Reed Hastings. "It requires a lot of database work done in real time." At peak times, Netflix has upwards of 10,000 simultaneous visitors, and each one views from 10 to 20 customized pages.

The Cinematch software is a significant step forward in having personalized profiles facilitate future decisions. Netflix has added another layer of the social dimension with Netflix Friends, a new feature that allows Netflix members to create a friends list and share movie ideas with their friends. The system works in two directions. Once a network of friends is created, each person in it can view the ratings and comments of others about specific films. Each member of a network can also share ratings and comments about movies with any or all of the others in the network. The more films each member sees and rates, the more value each brings to the network. Cindy Holland, the VP of Content Acquisition at Netflix, says that numbers are still coming in on the success of the Beta-test of Friends, but that “they have had strong adoption so far.”

Netflix can carry more copies of both undistributed films and smaller indies than video stores because they have virtually unlimited shelf space. In addition, because the company has 12 regional hubs, consumers in smaller markets receive their films in the same time (2 to 4 days) as customers in New York or Los Angeles. “When we get a new documentary, we can immediately e-mail 40,000 documentary lovers and — overnight — get 6,000 to 7,000 people to add it to the rental queue,” states Ted Sarandos, the chief content officer of the online rental service Netflix. “There’s no marketing effort.”

The Netflix/POV deal called for each partner to extend themselves beyond their usual models. For example, POV had wanted to partner with Netflix before, but were stymied by the need for exclusivity for the programs when most of the works broadcast by POV were handled by a range of distributors. Mertes then opted for non-exclusive contracts for the life of the DVD. Netflix also had to make a serious approach to the independent media community in order to expand their range of available content. Such a move is natural since, as Cindy Holland noted, “Netflix wants to build and share our love of movies” and has a strong motivation to fix what they see as problems in the film distribution business by presenting many films that would otherwise be under distributed. So the social and cultural mission alignments of Netflix and the independent media community were already there, waiting to be connected. The logic of this union seems to have eluded competitors like Blockbuster.

The Cinematch software and Friends system are key differentiators for Netflix as it braces for the current and future challenges to its business model from massive competitors like Blockbuster, Amazon and Wal-Mart. Having a large company like Netflix turning to social networks and customer profiles is evidence of the power of social networking and reputation-based systems and independents will do well to learn from these examples.