Replies to post #151907 on NanoTech Entertainment Inc (NTEK)

[bab1]

I'll take this one Niko as this is in my backyard. I produced bonus material for Disney and Touchstone movies for years. In addition to doing the behind the scenes, my company also did the chapter stops (a chapter stop are sectioned off portions of a film so you can skip around if you want to) there are usually about 15 in each film. Okay...that said that is done technically with an action called "authoring." "Authoring by ALL studios are done by third party vendors. These are non-union houses and have no place on a union lot like Universal, Fox, or Disney. Thereby will these studios be seeking out a company like 4K studios? Absolutely, if they want to make money regurgitating their libraries. WHICH they do. History, especially with the studios, REPEATS itself. I only get one post a day, so I can't answer questions today!

[Nikodemos]

SKIP IT! If one is not interested in long, drawn out details
regarding some research into Studios, etc, (as this is a long
post which attempts to respond to a topical inquiry directed
upon my person).


In the past 2 years or so, ONLY Sony has moved, with any conviction
to leverage 4K: By developing in-house capacity & investing in the
equipment, engineer, technicians & staff that constitute their own
subsidiary, if you will, within the company. They have their own
division per se.


Most of the other LARGE Studios are set-up to run FILM PRODUCTION:
Producing films, movies, TV-series, & whatnot but those studios
(according to my research-- at the time I did it-- not dedicating
resources 4K remastering/rendering as has SONY). I do not know if
that has changed; I would say not yet, if I had to guess.



I was NOT convinced the ECONOMICS made sense for them to be doing
'in-house' "lab-work" that requires special equipment, training,
staff & is better serviced by those who specialize. ESPECIALLY
considering the fact that there was hardly much of a 4K market
until last year. I expect to see the larger STUDIOS BE MORE
FOCUSED on GEARING UP for editing & completing post production
work in 4K or higher than they EVER WERE...

But delving into their FILM LIBRARIES to mine titles for 4K conversion, struck me as something they'd NORMALLY OUTSOURCE &
may continue to (in the near term).

PS- Admittedly, I am NO authority here...I am answering your question in my own 'layman's' terms based on MY OWN DD &
attempting to answer an important question.


So, this is not "a dumb question" at all. IT is ALSO a wonderful
question to put to NTEK IR because YOU KNOW they thought this
through (NTEK is made up of quite a few engineers, these guys
usually think these things through VERY thoroughly).


BUT, MY RESEARCH involved calling up labs that provide ALL KINDS
of services to Studios, & I would suspect that in the short-term
KNOWN HOT TITLES might be release to Labs for conversion because the ECONOMICS makes sense,... right? IF you are going to pay $40K
for a film you'll want to be sure that there will be demand for it.


Later, as prices come down, as 4K finds its' place, & the numbers
make sense ALL STUDIOS with LARGE LIBRARIES will likely do
their work in-house (in order to mine greater revenues, & returns
while they manage costs & supply the market. But, I don't see a
significant move there until mid to late 2014 imo (AT THE VERY
EARLIEST).



When conducting my DD on LABS, btw...(which was some months ago)

Two things struck me:
1) MANY labs were not set-up for 4K conversions, they didn't
have/make the capital investment in the equipment.
2) Those "few" (less than I would have expected) were charging
over $25,000.00-$35,000.00 for what I'd later learn was an
INFERIOR process to what was explained by NTEK.
3) Overall, they did not seem that interested in the business.

NOW, my DD may be outdated, but it seemed as though these LABS
that WOULD accept the business may have been RENTING 4K
equipment on a job-by-job basis in order to process the conversion
& didn't have the equipment in-house either. IDK. I didn't ask
& it only occurred to me as my research progressed farther along.


So, I checked with companies that rent or lease equipment:

My research there showed it cost about $750 to $1,800 to RENT
the equipment to do basic 4K conversions. AGAIN, not nearly (I
would come to learn recently) as in depth, thorough & involved
as NTEK's process.


So, SONY has differentiated itself from ALL THE OTHER Studios you
mentioned & none of the others can really compare in this regard.

As of this writing, Sony does NOT have a huge 4K Catalog either.
My last check put them at ~56 titles, along with some shorts
& other minor content.

I just wanted to ADD that while I am thrilled NanoTech is this
far along, rendering 4K, increasing their price for the service,
working with a backlog, having an LA Location & presence, having
hired attorneys who specialize in this kind of work, having built
out "4K Studios" (of course), signed some content deals, remastered
some finished films already, ETC....I am NOT looking for ANY
significant quality nor content. I would CAUTION anyone who thinks
that UltraFLIX will launch BLOCKBUSTER titles & hours upon hours
of content.

Developing this business will take some time. What is EXCITING
is that NanoTech was at AFM (we still haven't had any significant
deals from that Trade Show announced), Createasphere & is planning
a presence at other Trade Shows. But, the UltraFLIX launch makes
a statement, announces themselves to market, shows forward
progress & WILL BRING MORE DEALS.

Also, NanoTech has said that:
1) They have a backlog of content at the moment
2) They have "lots of Native 4K content they haven't yet announced".


ALL PUBLIC INFORMATION AS USUAL for those...inquiring minds!!!

I should ALSO add that your question inquired after LARGE
Studios. I want to caution that focus. Mainly because there
are MANY MANY films released globally on a DAILY BASIS. And,
many populations are undeserved, foreign (China has how many
people?, India's population is what again?, How many of the Studios
are properly invested there?)



BUT also, keep in mind that there are a TON of independent film-
makers, studios with 200-1,500 titles or more that don't fall into
your categories. The Lionsgate's of the world BEFORE they became
Lionsgate if you will. THAT IS A HUGE MARKET imv. And my research
shows they WILL NOT likely be doing 4K conversions on their own.


AND, this is where I LOVE NanoTech's strategy!! Why? Because NTEK,
if I am reading them correctly, can say...."Hey, we charge $40k
per 2hr film, you have 300 titles & 200hrs of sufficient quality
content that would work in the 4K market. Now, if you convert
that content it would cost you about (100hrs x $40k = $4mm).
Convert your titles with us &...."

They make a deal. NTEK could do so much. They could leverage
the $4mm into exclusive licensing, they could forgo some funds
up-front & require long-term royalties, up their percentage,
& on & on. NanoTech can also, as a CAVEAT: Create an IPTV
Channel for them, upload them (for a fee, or as an incentive)
onto the Nuvola standard, they could incorporate them into
UltraFLIX & earn money on the renting, subscription service,
gain ad monies, & the LIST GOES ON & ON & ON.


So, NTEK has been VERY SHREWD about this business-model &
it is IMPORTANT to NOTE what NTEK's Snr. Techonologist commented
on at the "Storage Visions Trade Show & Conference". Also, note
that research into cloud storage & usages are:

1) Minimal
2) Automated

Meaning, as soon as NanoTech has digitally rendered your film
into 4K & uploaded it, NanoTechs work is DONE. Thereafter,
NanoTech collects revenues, manages the backroom IT that
supports the Channel/UltraFLIX service (as they would ANYWAY)
& COLLECTS/Disburses REVENUES!!!


THOSE are the REVENUE MODELS that, if you are an investor,
YOU PRAY FOR. That & licensing, branding & private-label
deals. But, with UltraFLIX & "4K Studios", two businesses
NanoTech developed nearly OVERNIGHT (it seems), we have a
VERY BIG WINNER imho. And, everything is NOT only in place,
NTEK has had "4K Studios", The Hollywood "Lot" location,
Boston R&D/programming support, Hurricane Electric, IPTV
Channels, & Entertainment lawyers for content deals in place
for (mostly) OVER 4 MONTHS!!! Not to mention having ALREADY
been at Film-related Trade Shows & having ALREADY signed &
working on CONTENT...AND recently UPPED their rendering fee
from $8,995 to $29,999.00 for BASIC SERVICE.



Whew!! NTEK moves thoughtfully, decisively & obviously
works VERY HARD. This is more than other businesses do
in years. FINALLY, just keep two new thoughts in mind:

1) For maybe the first real-time in history IT is
taking over TV. It used to be that TV used technology.
Now TECH companies are TAKING OVER THE LIVING ROOM.

Just like telephone companies used technology for their
phones & then TECH COMPANIES took over the industry.

2) Al Stone talked early-on about NanoTech & convergence.
He said this over & over. A near-term trend will be to do
shopping, socializing, ordering, managing business, lifestyle
& socializing and ALL THE REST from larger panels (I wrote
about shopping on TV & how technology will be integrated
into everything you see & watch will be "ON DEMAND"; see
a jacket, tie, shirt, shoes, bag, car EVERYTHING you see
on a screen in a movie per se will be linked for sale:
brand name, where to buy, how much, nearest store, online
order, check out a bio, tweet an actor, message friends
& joke about a scene, big play, skype, game, whatever...

ALL of it....INTEGRATED...all....CONVERGENCE...

The leaders imho will be the engineers, programmers,
companies that GET THIS...& KNOW how to implement its'
execution. Those are the BIG WINNERS!!!


Anyway, I hope that helps!!


KEEP YOUR DD GOING!! GET THE FACTS!!!! :-)





https://nuvola4k.com/
http://ultraflix.com/
http://4kstudios.com/
http://ntek.com/


NTEK

[samsamsamiam]

http://www.theverge.com/2014/1/6/5275002/technicolors-m-go-service-will-stream-4k-movies-to-samsung-tvs
Technicolor may no longer be recognizable as the company that introduced Dorothy to Oz, but it's still embedded in the movie business. In fact, the company's M-GO streaming movie service — a joint venture with DreamWorks Animation — could soon become a major source of 4K content for your new 4K television. Over the past year, the partnership has managed to convince Samsung, LG, Vizio, and Roku to load its service onto all their new smart televisions and set-top boxes, and now Samsung is taking that relationship to the next level. Today, Samsung is announcing that M-GO will stream both native and upscaled 4K movies to its latest ultra-high-definition TV sets starting in spring of this year.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

According to M-GO, the service has lined up around 100 titles for launch, including "a wide selection of full-length 4K theatrical hits and popular TV shows from Hollywood's leading studios and networks." M-GO claims that customers will be able to watch movies upscaled to 4K with as little as 3Mbps of bandwidth, while native 4K content will require a steady 15mbps connection.

While it's not yet clear what kind of quality the streaming service will deliver by compressing content to that degree and upscaling it at the other end, the company says it's using a lot of technology to ensure that things look good, including proprietary remastering techniques "to enhance the visual crispness, color acuity, and image depth" of upscaled content, as well as video files that are designed expressly for the specific upscaling chips used in these particular televisions. While the TVs will already have chips designed to display content at the higher resolution, M-GO CEO John Batter says these customized files improve quality. "We enable the chip to do its best possible job and get a higher quality image that way."

"M-GO is working very closely with our studio partners, chip manufacturer partners, Technicolor and Samsung to deliver on the full 4K promise — not just 'more pixels' but 'better pixels,'" wrote Batter in a press release.

While M-GO has major deals with a number of studios — it just added Walt Disney last month — it's just one of many companies gearing up to deliver digital 4K content right now. In fact, Amazon, Netflix, Comcast, and DirecTV will also stream 4K content to Samsung televisions. Sony, meanwhile, lets you download 4K movies to a pricy $699.99 home media server.