Fan Network 2014-2015?

[jjeffeory]

Bandwidth would be pretty much the same. If you argue that few watch early shows, then they must not take up much bandwidth.

And while keeping all of them would take a lot of disk space, keeping one or two big shows wouldn't. If they are, as Perc2100 suggests, going through a service, then there's even less of a concern since costs generally go down sharply with scale.

If nothing else, they should certainly keep the last performance of those corps that don't go to finals week. There is no DVD for those, either, so they are effectively deleting those corps performances from history. Is that a good idea?

The amount of space that these shows require is negligible relative to the storage capacity of these services. Each event could very well be stored on a couple of DVDs or even just one Single layer Bluray at the quality they're being recorded in. You can store a pretty decent quality, hour long video of a show (such as Game of Thrones for example) using 400MB depending on the codec. So about 50 minutes of video or 3 shows would use 400MB. 6 shows would be around 800MB, et cetera. Doing the rough math a single layer BR disc is 25 GIGAbytes. So you'd only need like 2 Blurays a year to store all those shows (Minus finals where maybe they record at a higher quality).. Being VERY conservative, maybe you'd need 5 dual layer GB BR discs to store like 250 GB of data for these events ....or just get a cheap 1 Terabyte drive for 4x that capacity for $55 bucks to be safe and sure that there's enough storage. At that price, I'm sure DCI could afford to get another drive for a backup. This is incredibly simplified and off the top of my head on the low costs to store that amount of video. Point is that the costs are negligible... A service wouldn't be orders of magnitude more expensive than these costs. The costs there would be the bandwidth DCI's customers would need to be served the fan network content. I don't think having more choices would lead to a big change in desire because some people would want to be watching the Allentown show instead of Indy, or Atlanta, or whatever.

I think it's more important to have them around and available for the sake of posterity.

So the real reason isn't this stuff. They don't want the older shows up, for whatever reason, and it's not because of costs.

[Pete Freedman]

Yes. It would be a bit more because the drives would be higher quality, they would be mirrored, and there would be a backup of some kind (although if DCI maintains it's own archive then that's the backup I suppose.) But still, yes, very cheap.

Looking at 2012, which will presumably have it's early shows cut next summer, I see that several corps will be deleted entirely, as far as I can tell:

These corps only performed at Corps at the Crest Walnut:

Impulse

City Sound

Velvet Knights

This corps only performed at Stanford:

Blue Devils C

I wonder who just got deleted from 2011?

[cixelsyd]

Also, we're talking WGI here, not DCI. I actually think DCI's archival approach of only having Championships up after the fact is smart...as was said earlier, the "definitive performance" for each corps. That makes complete sense on a number of levels. The WGI problem is different...as Jeff said, it impacts groups that competed at regional and not Dayton.

How is that different? There are corps who did not attend DCI championships. Removing all regular season shows essentially erases those corps.

And here I was hoping to see more recordings from past seasons. Instead, they cannot even keep the ones that were already up?

[perc2100]

I have some experience in the field. A company I used to work for archived (for online retrieval) audio and video in large numbers, both in terms of numbers of files and length of performance time. Now, it's entirely possible that while the answer WGI gave to Jeff was completely BS (file storage), the truth may well be that WGI didn't want to make a larger number of files available for potential streaming (I cannot begin to talk about streaming costs with any real authority), but that's a completely different problem.

Also, we're talking WGI here, not DCI. I actually think DCI's archival approach of only having Championships up after the fact is smart...as was said earlier, the "definitive performance" for each corps. That makes complete sense on a number of levels. The WGI problem is different...as Jeff said, it impacts groups that competed at regional and not Dayton.

Even so, with modern compression the average space a DCI show would use would be counted in the megabyte range, at the low end. Even a 48 minute (one hour) TV show at 1080p clocks in at around 1.5 GB or so...

Thanks for the input; I don't really know a ton about this sort of stuff.

Thinking about my own experience, you're right about the storage space; the average iTunes movie is 1.5-2 GB (in my experience), so with that thought maybe Top 12 would be, what, maybe 2 GB-ish total?

I still don't know anything about the costs involved with all of that, so it's possible that cost for those archived, non-finals shows vs the amount of interest in them is not worth it (that would be my guess)

[perc2100]

If nothing else, they should certainly keep the last performance of those corps that don't go to finals week. There is no DVD for those, either, so they are effectively deleting those corps performances from history. Is that a good idea?

Do you know what corps that would affect? Colt Cadets, BDC, who else? Certainly no WC corps, but I would think now-a-days if a corps is not traveling to Finals chances are they didn't play at many FN-archived shows.

The reality is DCI can't cater to all, they can only cater to most; they have to make decisions with business. While there might be a handful of people who would go to FN for the main purpose of seeing BDC, or Cadets 2011 show from early July to see the early iteration of the show, the truth is likely that 99% of the FN subscribers log in from August-June to see the Finals run of their favorite corps. Therefor, I suspect it would make good business sense to not offer those corps' shows

[perc2100]

Yes. It would be a bit more because the drives would be higher quality, they would be mirrored, and there would be a backup of some kind (although if DCI maintains it's own archive then that's the backup I suppose.) But still, yes, very cheap.

Looking at 2012, which will presumably have it's early shows cut next summer, I see that several corps will be deleted entirely, as far as I can tell:

These corps only performed at Corps at the Crest Walnut:

Impulse

City Sound

Velvet Knights

This corps only performed at Stanford:

Blue Devils C

I wonder who just got deleted from 2011?

and to be super blunt, how many FN fans will complain that VK 2012, or BDC 2011 are no long available for FN? I suspect the fans that care that much likely had a family member/friend marching and probably have their own media of the shows.

Thus making FN catering to those very small amounts of FN subscribers not an issue

[jjeffeory]

Thanks for the input; I don't really know a ton about this sort of stuff.

Thinking about my own experience, you're right about the storage space; the average iTunes movie is 1.5-2 GB (in my experience), so with that thought maybe Top 12 would be, what, maybe 2 GB-ish total?

I still don't know anything about the costs involved with all of that, so it's possible that cost for those archived, non-finals shows vs the amount of interest in them is not worth it (that would be my guess)

I wrote down a little estimate on the costs that you probably haven't read yet. It's not worth it to them, but the costs are minimal.

[jjeffeory]

and to be super blunt, how many FN fans will complain that VK 2012, or BDC 2011 are no long available for FN? I suspect the fans that care that much likely had a family member/friend marching and probably have their own media of the shows.

Thus making FN catering to those very small amounts of FN subscribers not an issue

Why look at it like that and just put all the stuff you can in?

I mean, the cable companies put in a bunch of crap channels that nobody watches and says they do it to add value to the subscription. So, as a parallel, DCI should just have all the shows in there. It costs very little.

[cixelsyd]

Do you know what corps that would affect? Colt Cadets, BDC, who else? Certainly no WC corps, but I would think now-a-days if a corps is not traveling to Finals chances are they didn't play at many FN-archived shows.

The reality is DCI can't cater to all, they can only cater to most; they have to make decisions with business. While there might be a handful of people who would go to FN for the main purpose of seeing BDC, or Cadets 2011 show from early July to see the early iteration of the show, the truth is likely that 99% of the FN subscribers log in from August-June to see the Finals run of their favorite corps. Therefor, I suspect it would make good business sense to not offer those corps' shows

If there are so few such corps as you claim, then why would it be cost prohibitive for DCI to keep them online?

[perc2100]

Why look at it like that and just put all the stuff you can in?

I mean, the cable companies put in a bunch of crap channels that nobody watches and says they do it to add value to the subscription. So, as a parallel, DCI should just have all the shows in there. It costs very little.

That's a good point, and I suspect perhaps the reasoning is that an intern or someone low on the DCI employee totem pole has a much easier job "deleting everything but Finals week" rather than "delete everything but Finals week except the last shows of these specific corps."

I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but if enough people were to make a rational complaint to DCI FN, and said that they actually wanted to have those corps/shows with their subscription, DCI might make the effort. But right now I think we're all discussing a "theoretical" problem, in the sense that yes DCI omits the final performances of a small handful of OC corps, but as a subscriber I can't ever recall being frustrated because those shows aren't up 12 months or more after the performance.

I think a far more legit frustration is not having older non-finalist shows on FN. Again, I 100% understand the reasoning behind that decision, but as a FN subscriber I would MUCH rather see the 13th or 14th place corps from 1997 than 2013 BDC