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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Vizzywig 4K Footage (Anamorphic Lens - Swift M3 Stabilizer)

Les Dittert said:
I'd love to see a demo of this vs a lowly Samsung note 3 or maybe the note 4 ( with OIS ) when it comes out.
I have the Note 3, and was pretty impressed by what I saw at h264 50 megabits. My Panasonic GH4 is considerably more impressive at only 100 Mb.
Jello artifacts are a concern.

Next week I will be shooting Epic MX vs Dragon ( V 2 OLPF ) vs the GH4 , the underdog 4K 8 bit camera.
I will linearize the image data from the Red's and properly expose each to almost sensor clipping, ignoring the LUT on the Dragon that is giving it it's so called 'highlight protection' so I can compare them more fairly as far as noise and range. The GH4 is for reality checking fun ;)
Part of the fun will be making a LUT for the MX that gives it 'highlight protection' and seeing how much the darks suffer on that sensor as a result.
All data will be posted in the R.U. forum.
Click to expand...
That sounds great! I hope you will also post a few raw frames to go with anything else. It would be fun to see the vizzywig in there as well!
 
michael zaletel said:
Maybe you are right. It's hard to say. I've experimented with a lot of price points on a lot of different apps. Time will tell. We have already sold multiple copies across six different countries. Maybe we would have sold more at a lower price, maybe we wouldn't have. I can tell you that Vizzywig 4K has been written about in 1,970 articles in just about every country and language in the world over the past 72 hours and sales of Vizzywig regular edition have doubled. Maybe that wouldn't have happened if we had priced it at $49.
-Michael
Click to expand...

Iw ish you the best and obviously if you can manage to sell it at $1,000 a pop awesome for you, that would be best. But I've consulted on several projects where the execution was great, and they replied the same as you "We have to charge a lot because we can't afford development!" My reply was always the same: "People are cheap, if you come in at ($2,500 in their case), you'll price out everybody who is super cheap. The people who aren't cheap are going to be very discerning. Before parting with their money they're going to compare you to what they have, which isn't cheap. So if you price yourself as a quality product you're going to have to compete with the top competition." In that case I thought they should give it away. Long story short--they discontinued all of their professional products which bombed and now sell a $20 app which is doing very pretty good. People will make impulse buys at $20. Some people will make $50 impulse buys. NOBODY makes an impulse buy at $300+.

The 4k market right now is very small, which doesn't help you much one way or the other. The big 4k markets are Stock Video (future proofing), Feature Film and specialty applications (more keying resolution, weird VFX stuff, pan and scan, Motion for Stills fashion). The hot shots are going to just shoot on Epic/Alexa. If they can't afford Epic/Alexa they'll shoot 1DC/Sony S7/GH4. While of course a $1m commercial can easily throw $1k at a cell phone camera, there just isn't the demand for 4k content from a cell phone. And if they did shoot on a cell phone, I feel like you might be too high quality since they'll want that "cell phone look". If they aren't going for a intentionally substandard look the big commercials have the resources to make an Epic fit anywhere and everywhere they need it. If you have a budget large enough to justify a $1k specialty app for "that one shot" then you also could save $1k and just cut a hole in the set to make the Epic fit. :D I can think of a few exceptions. Most of them though have been sponsored by Nokia to show off the capabilities of the Lumia 1020 (Cousteau's underwater habitat where they would upload videos to YouTube from a Lumia, Apple's TV spots shot on iPhone etc.)

So if the deep pocketed customers can buy their way out of the problem without resorting to an iPhone the only remaining people I see are enthusiasts. They might not need 4k but they want to show off to their friends and have 2 more "k"s than their friends. And that means hitting impulse buy territory. My concern with waiting a year would be that in a year 4k gopro will be out. 4k Lumia will be out. 4k Samsung Note will be H265. Even 4k iPhone 7 might be out. The megapixel wars are over. I don't think anyone particularly cares that Epic is 6k vs 4k. Alexa is still doing great at 2.5k. The timeframe to make money off of being "first to 4k" is very quickly expiring. So I hope that $1k per license works and I hope that I'm wrong but I don't think there's more than a year left before everybody is just 4k anyway and even if you are superior--will anyone notice in the ocean of competition.

The iphone 5s sold 9 million units in the first weekend. How many of those people want to quadruple the quality of their video? 10% That's 1m customers. 1%? That's 100,000 customers. .01% that's 10,000 customers. You have 2,000 articles and that's great. But everyone reading those is going.. "Pffft! $1,000 for an app!?" You know what headline I think would get people's attention? "4k for $4." $4k for $4 would circle the globe. How many of those 50mllion iphone customers would want an upgrade to their camera for $4? I bet more than 300x as many as the number of people who have $1,000 sitting around for a new camera app. You don't give them a chance to remember that they have no 4k displays to show it on. You don't let them think about how fast it's going to fill up their memory. You just say "CHEAP! Why Not?" and then sure maybe they forget about it after a week. But they had fun shooting in this fancy "4k" thing.

#Full Disclosure I am consulting for a video editing app right now on Windows Phone and have never owned an iphone. :P Also it's all easy for me to say. It's not my livelihood on the line so it's easy to 'swing for the fences' when you've got nothing to lose.

But I can't help but be reminded of the Valve Steam sale where they dropped the price of L4D and saw a 3,000% boost in sales.
http://www.shacknews.com/article/57308/valve-left-4-dead-half Certainly not the norm, but they also had figures from average results:

10% sale = 35% increase in sales (real dollars, not units shipped)
25% sale = 245% increase in sales
50% sale = 320% increase in sales
75% sale = 1470% increase in sales
Click to expand...

Your product is worth $1,000. The question is whether it's worth more to more people for less. Maybe put it up as a kickstarter. $4 per license. Set your sales target for the next year. And if you make your goal, everybody gets it for $4 and everyone who bought it at $1k gets a refund (they've got your phone number. ;) Then sell support for $500 a year. I bet you would make your target. I bet a lot of people would buy support for custom functionality and the hot-line. And you wouldn't have to risk the company on a bargain.
 
in general terms i agree with gavin.
iphone is a consumer/mass market tool, as is the apps

but i guess you may have blown the press on that.

biggest issue, is that geekheads tend to update their os early, though.
i can imagine a few doing that..
 
michael zaletel said:
Hi Wayne,

All good points. The technology is finally making the vision possible.

Just like Vizzywig, Vizzywig 4K is also a 4K multi-camera studio. That's right, it's the only solution in the world that allows you to simultaneously record and live switch 4K from multiple 4K cameras. Only the "active frames" and full audio track from each "player" device are transferred to the stage when recording stops or the user can choose to transfer all frames and edit switching.

Please, anyone here on RedUser tell me how else in the world, at ANY cost, you can record still frame 4K from multiple synched cameras at the same time and live switch real-time then edit, add 4K titles and upload to YouTube or Vimeo or FTP in 4K in minutes without a PC, cables or substantial compression?

Check out our Prizmia for GoPro app to see what we are already doing with filters, effects and grading. That technology will make its way to Vizzywig 4K in the future.

-Michael
Click to expand...

The review offers to the guys are pretty cool Michael. ;)

Yes I remember now the camera switching. What you need to have a look at, is the Genesis system by Newtek I think. It was a realtime conference system sold to churches. A lot of these venues, and other conferencing venues, that can't afford something like genesis could do with something cheap and simple. But the trick is not to develop a separate system like Genesis was, but add some extra functionality so Vizzywig becomes ideal.

The other question is rigs, advertise recommended rigs and accessories, for the iPhone, with click through commission. One area that the phones lack in is their poor image from small lenses Add on lenses and lens adapters would help. It is important for a reporter to get a nice flat image of a subject when up close, not a big nosed clown face from the small phone lens. The reporter probably only needs one snap on low profile lens to get a good image. These add on lens are already kicking around for iPhone and go pro, but to get one that has a wide receptive area down to the internal lens with great quality is the question..

On price, we expect a high quality s16 maybe, $1k pocket 4k raw camera within a couple of years.. Once you set up the iPhone5 similarly you maybe talking about $2k.

BTW, thanks for doing something like my vision. Now to wait to see those pesky anti-grav flying cameras, and blow up actors and crew ;) .
 
Gunleik Groven said:
in general terms i agree with gavin.
iphone is a consumer/mass market tool, as is the apps

but i guess you may have blown the press on that.

biggest issue, is that geekheads tend to update their os early, though.
i can imagine a few doing that..
Click to expand...

We just received our iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 plus devices today and have already begun testing. We have three full-time engineers working on the problem and Apple is working to fix the iOS 8 bug.

I believe what I have done is open the way for higher priced apps on the AppStore. In every other category of consumer or professional goods, there is a wide range of pricing options. Sometimes you pay 10 times more for something that is just 10% better. The AppStore can be the same and will be over time.
 
OK, Michael, but what about potentially using Jpeg XR, Jpeg LS and JPEG HDR, Apple ProRes, Avid DNxHD, or higher framerate at the same data rate?

XR can get you half the data rare for similar processing demand, and comes from the Microsoft format which has a open license from memory. H265 intra might prove better and likely have support in products. JPEG LS is the newer lossless jpeg, that is better, and has a sliding scale of near lossless, which is what could be used to keep data rates down. JPEG HDR is just interesting because it seems to compress very well (as the increased bit depth height probably only has marginal effect of encoding size). Apple ProRes and Avid DNxHD is what used on BMD cinema cameras. So there is a range of options to choose from from for good results

Also, does Vizzywig allow you to select any codec on the system to use for video and any resolution?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JPEG_XR
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lossless_JPEG#JPEG-LS
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JPEG-HDR
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_ProRes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNxHD_codec
 
Gavin Greenwalt said:
Your product is worth $1,000. The question is whether it's worth more to more people for less. Maybe put it up as a kickstarter. $4 per license. Set your sales target for the next year. And if you make your goal, everybody gets it for $4 and everyone who bought it at $1k gets a refund (they've got your phone number. ;) Then sell support for $500 a year. I bet you would make your target. I bet a lot of people would buy support for custom functionality and the hot-line. And you wouldn't have to risk the company on a bargain.
Click to expand...

Thanks Gavin. I will certainly take all of this into consideration. Keeping the price exclusive also achieves the goal of stirring up discussions like this all over the Internet. There are hundreds of articles and forums talking about Vizzywig 4K and how it should be priced at $50 or $100. That's a good thing. If we had launched at $100, they would have been talking about how it should be $10. We have achieved our primary objective in defining Vizzywig 4K as a premium brand. That comes at a cost of course because we have to maintain the high price point for quite a while to protect the early adopters. Hindsight is 20/20 but I am extremely confident that we made the right decision in the launch pricing. Probably 50 million people read about Vizzywig 4K and Vizzywig and i4software for the first time this week. There were over 2,000 articles written online around the world in every language in 72 hours. Now it's just a debate about price. That's a great problem to have long term.

I could have made a lot more money the past two years pricing Vizzywig at $2.99 instead of $29.99 but I chose to protect the brand value instead. The pent-up interest in Vizzywig is enormous right now. I'm not in a big hurry. I want to build something that will still be making money 10 years from now.

I agree with your comments generally speaking and I don't advise others to follow what I am doing. I am forging new ground and trying things no one has ever tried before. Let's both watch my experiment and see what we can learn from it. What if one day I can sell 1,000 copies a day of Vizzywig 4K at $99, neither of us would have ever thought that possible but maybe the only road to that possibility is this hard road I have chosen...and patience and time.

People keep talking about how other developers will soon release competitor apps that record and edit 4K on iOS. I say, good luck to them. It was really, really, really hard to pull off and we have been working on all the required components for 3 years. Hopefully we can agree that while Vizzywig 4K is the ONLY way to record and edit 4K on an iOS device, price is subjective.

-Michael
 
I could use a 200-300 Mb h.264 video recording app for 4K Android devices, with higher h.264 profile if hardware supported.
App which would completely bypass sharpening and allow manual exposure and gamma curve control.


That being said, I wish Michael all the best with his innovation.
 
I think the best comp for Vizzywig is going to be the GoPro 4K model, once it's shooting similar frame rates. I know it's not in release yet, but I doubt it will take them too long to pull the trigger. The GoPro is priced under $500 for the whole camera ($399.99, sneakily), plus you get a remote and a bunch of other mounting devices, and it's waterproof.

I think the suggestions to price this at $50 are a little unrealistic and just cheapskate wishful thinking, but, at the same time, I think using a camera such as GH4 as a comp is also unrealistic. This is a unique item, but it's still an app, not a camera.

Just my 2 cents worth of blather. I love the concept of a pocket 4K device - and the execution looks great as well.

The price point will keep me out, for now. If it could come in under $500 (maybe some sneaky psychological $499 pricing is in order), then I think you would attract a whole new user base.

Maybe one way to play it, if you were to consider a price drop down the road, when it's less likely to anger existing customers, is to build a Vizzywig Extreme package at $1000 and offer whatever goodies are in it to your early adopters for free or for a nominal cost, as an upgrade. And use the lower price point to build that broader user base.

Anyway, just flinging out a few thoughts. I wish you well with this venture - it really is a great-looking app. Pocket 4K is coming...hard to believe, after witnessing how hard Jim worked to create the 4K market just seven years ago, to think that we have come so far, so fast.
 
michael zaletel said:
Thanks Gavin. I will certainly take all of this into consideration. Keeping the price exclusive also achieves the goal of stirring up discussions like this all over the Internet. There are hundreds of articles and forums talking about Vizzywig 4K and how it should be priced at $50 or $100. That's a good thing. If we had launched at $100, they would have been talking about how it should be $10. We have achieved our primary objective in defining Vizzywig 4K as a premium brand. That comes at a cost of course because we have to maintain the high price point for quite a while to protect the early adopters. Hindsight is 20/20 but I am extremely confident that we made the right decision in the launch pricing. Probably 50 million people read about Vizzywig 4K and Vizzywig and i4software for the first time this week. There were over 2,000 articles written online around the world in every language in 72 hours. Now it's just a debate about price. That's a great problem to have long term.

I could have made a lot more money the past two years pricing Vizzywig at $2.99 instead of $29.99 but I chose to protect the brand value instead. The pent-up interest in Vizzywig is enormous right now. I'm not in a big hurry. I want to build something that will still be making money 10 years from now.

I agree with your comments generally speaking and I don't advise others to follow what I am doing. I am forging new ground and trying things no one has ever tried before. Let's both watch my experiment and see what we can learn from it. What if one day I can sell 1,000 copies a day of Vizzywig 4K at $99, neither of us would have ever thought that possible but maybe the only road to that possibility is this hard road I have chosen...and patience and time.

People keep talking about how other developers will soon release competitor apps that record and edit 4K on iOS. I say, good luck to them. It was really, really, really hard to pull off and we have been working on all the required components for 3 years. Hopefully we can agree that while Vizzywig 4K is the ONLY way to record and edit 4K on an iOS device, price is subjective.
Click to expand...


Meryem,

I think this all is a bit naive. I am a pragmatist with a long track record of seeing the future going back decades. I see a lot of centred naivety in industry, and while you can pick product losers it is harder to pick product winners (that will flow).

We can ask ourselves, is a 4k recording feature worth over 30 times more, answer no. A hundred dollars (per device in this case), before Vizzywig 4K, was my assessment for a high price of a pro video app's usefulness given the cheap tacky nature of the equipment, and to price against better real camera competitors. $50 might be better, but $100 is realistic. If it had been $100 I would not be saying $10, as we can see being said. If it was a mass market consumer based app I might say this cheap 4k feature could come cheap in normal vizzywig.

Now at $100 with 4kp50 support and as I outlined, maybe with jpeg xr compression (10-12 bit HDR), I would consider buying a iphone secondhand with it.

A flash of inspiration, is that a shooter version of the app could he made devoid of multiple camera switching and other things not needed for lone shooters, for $100, after all, these other things, not 4k are the apps most valuable features. The stripped down app might still communicate pictures to the full version, and act as $100 licenses.

An engineer might also appreciate the technical possibilities mentioned. At least they have received new phones from which they can actually make an proper assessment as to their limits.

One thing you see in life, is people with great talent in mind always attentive to read to understand.
 
michael zaletel said:
Possibly. At what price point?
Click to expand...
What about $29.99? Same price you already sell the non-4K full version?

http://www.vizzywig.com/

In this case, it would be only 4K recording, not else. And for same price. I believe the jump from $29.99 to $999, more than 30x only for 4K upgrade, is just a bold repricing policy. Unbecoming to an iPhone app.
 
Wayne Morellini said:
.. is a 4k recording feature worth over 30 times more, answer no. A hundred dollars (per device in this case), before Vizzywig 4K, was my assessment for a high price of a pro video app's usefulness given the cheap tacky nature of the equipment...$50 might be better, but $100 is realistic..

Now at $100 with 4kp50 support and as I outlined, maybe with jpeg xr compression (10-12 bit HDR), I would consider buying a iphone secondhand with it.

A flash of inspiration, is that a shooter version of the app could he made devoid of multiple camera switching and other things not needed for lone shooters, for $100, after all, these other things, not 4k are the apps most valuable features. The stripped down app might still communicate pictures to the full version, and act as $100 licenses.
Click to expand...

$30 maybe good for what you guys suggest (dumping eveything except shooting). I still think a higher performance $100 version with editing would be great too (monitoring as well. So the guy telling you what to do can see what you are up to on his goggle glass or vr set, more functionality I envisioned in the 90's or so (including google glass)).

It was interesting that one of my bayer lossless codec compression ideas for the Elphel cinema camere project (now Axiom) 8 or so years ago, turned out to be similar to a popular lossless codec, but the guys couldn't get it too work too good (not my fault it is already done elsewhere). I am thinking of revisiting it, as I want to generate money for the patent on my 10:1 target technology, which will let me work on the 100:1 and 1000:1 (we hope) targets. I could release a free spec based on what I have previously revealed, and keep the recent work from a few nights back for a paid version. If my freinds come out with their high end processing solution, cameras based on it are possible, even matchbox sized 4k. I'm looking at marrying the chip with cheap Android and FirefoxOS designs to provide services while it does the heavy processing and probably storage. Eventually I can move the OS onto it. I let axiom go for it, good food them, they dont realize I wish to do my own better open camera refererence standard. I want to deliver an 8k 2.5cm (s35} wide 3-5mm thick 3color layer lens camera that wifi's to phone and storage (or put a card in it, for a bit extra thickness) that can stick on, or in, a phone or tablet, and some fancy physical controls, with unheard of levels of processing power per unit of energy (except their present chip). If anybody has the few millions/tens of milliin to invest in this I think we can design the product.

Les, I have hundreds of compression technique targets I invented, the ultimate 1000:1 lossless one was the first, coming from the mid 80's, and in recent years I have figured out how to do it (no mathlab in sight, just a technique lab upstairs).
 
@Wayne

Hello Wayne, don't you see motion artifacts in this app videos? I tried to contact for this Michael, but maybe he's on vacation, i saw his last log in here was october 30.

Do you have any link with this app video at 4k without motion artifacts? It would be great for me to see them, so i would upgrade to iphone 5s and buy a gimbal. (I had already purchased the app, at $ 50).

Looking forward fir your answer and opinions on the matter, i wish you a great day!

Jean
 
@Jean

Hi Jean, I sent you a PM. Please send me an example of the motion artifacts you are seeing along with a detailed description of what concerns you so we can address the issue.

Thanks!

Michael Zaletel
Founder, i4software
 
Jean Maurizio said:
@Wayne

Hello Wayne, don't you see motion artifacts in this app videos? I tried to contact for this Michael, but maybe he's on vacation, i saw his last log in here was october 30.

Do you have any link with this app video at 4k without motion artifacts? It would be great for me to see them, so i would upgrade to iphone 5s and buy a gimbal. (I had already purchased the app, at $ 50).

Looking forward fir your answer and opinions on the matter, i wish you a great day!

Jean
Click to expand...

Hi Jean, it's Michael you need to talk with, and you don't always get a quick reply. To me it is something to advocate for other people's benefit, a good thing. I am after something with higher frame rates, and I know it is not ideal, that is why professional cameras record 600 mb/s h264 intra in 4:2:2, but it is pretty good for what you get. The newer jpeg (based on Microsoft's format, and sorresson is doing one with similar mechanism) you would get close to h264 intra quality at 600mb/s.

Did I ask Michael, if we could substitute a third party codec, and up the framerate?


At the new price, you are on a nobrainer buy if you have an Iphone5s.


Thanks.
 
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