Kodak bankruptcy (again)

I think the stakeholders in Kodak's reorganization should understand a
couple things real clearly

1) the dominant consumer imaging workflow is now digital cameras in cell
phones and ipad like devices for both capture, display, and distribution
via sharing mechanisms like facebook

2) smart TVs like iTV from Apple are quick on the way and in some cases
already there

3) these are not the advanced amatuer category, they have already
switched to higher resolution and zoom cameras for both still and motion

4) regardless of Kodak's licensing with IMAX high resolution display and
capture, DIGITAL are already here

5) Apple and the like are Kodak's new competitors and if they don't act
soon their brand will be tarnished beyond repair in ALL markets. If
Apple and Nikon and Canon etc. can turn a profit here Kodak should be
able to.

6) when I was in Kodak R&D about 15 years ago the consumer imaging
department had a three phase plan for consumer digital called Genesis.
Genesis Alpha was a film consortium to present the current advantagge of
film over digital,, Advantix film if you are famialiar with that name.
Genesis beta was an attempt to set a quality standard for scanning film
over digital capture, PhotoCD. The last part of Genesis was a 1
mmegapixel camera with electrophotographic printing. They decided to
not pursue the latter.


--
Dale

dans sci.image.processing, Dale nous a dit:
I think the stakeholders in Kodak's reorganization should understand a
couple things real clearly

1) the dominant consumer imaging workflow is now digital cameras in cell
phones and ipad like devices for both capture, display, and distribution
via sharing mechanisms like facebook

Film still has its uses, in niche but high-value markets. (arts, some
areas of science, consumer discardable cameras, consumer "artsy"
cameras à la Lomo, etc).
Digital sharing has precisely zero intrinsic value (negative value
actually, when you factor in the costs of hosting and bandwidth).
Facebook, Google and the like gobble "digital sharing" ventures
because they have a business model that allows them to spend cash
on otherwise valueless tech to channel users into their (other)
money-making services.


2) smart TVs like iTV from Apple are quick on the way and in some cases
already there

iTV is dead in the water, sustained only by Apple's ample reserves of
cash. Although there are other more successful ventures in the same
area, the cost of entry for a newcomer is prohibitive. The cost of
acquiring content in itself is steep; and it takes time, as Apple
discovered with the iTV (which major use until now is to stream iTune
content to your TV)



3) these are not the advanced amatuer category, they have already
switched to higher resolution and zoom cameras for both still and motion


I don't think you know what photography is about. Then again, so don't
the average consumer so you still have a point. I guess. But drop the
"advanced".


4) regardless of Kodak's licensing with IMAX high resolution display and
capture, DIGITAL are already here


True.

5) Apple and the like are Kodak's new competitors and if they don't act
soon their brand will be tarnished beyond repair in ALL markets. If
Apple and Nikon and Canon etc. can turn a profit here Kodak should be
able to.


The profit Apple make has nothing to do with the profit that Canon and
Nikon (and Pentax and Sony etc) make. They operate in completely
different markets.

6) when I was in Kodak R&D about 15 years ago the consumer imaging
department had a three phase plan for consumer digital called Genesis.
Genesis Alpha was a film consortium to present the current advantagge of
film over digital,, Advantix film if you are famialiar with that name.
Genesis beta was an attempt to set a quality standard for scanning film
over digital capture, PhotoCD. The last part of Genesis was a 1
mmegapixel camera with electrophotographic printing. They decided to
not pursue the latter.


That's the crux of the problem. Kodak might have had a chance if they
had developped a quality film for niche markets. Instead of that they
peddled crap film that bleaches within a couple years.
Or they could have turned towards digital, but they were to busy trying
to protect their cheapo film market share to do that. Half-arsed on
every front.
Down they go, and they won't be missed.

--
PiLS

In article ,
stu7 wrote:
On Apr 25, 9:34 pm, Dale wrote:
I think the stakeholders in Kodak's reorganization should understand a
couple things real clearly

Dale
-
major snip

something Dale emphasizes in his original post was, indeed, the
huge lack of understanding which occurred between consumers and
manufacturers... Im sure everyone experienced the "black hole"
effect, as roll film formats began disappearing during the 1960s...
until today... 35mm film isnt stocked in stores anymore, and
processing has almost totally dried up.

Interesting to see his perspective, as a former Kodak insider

I would say Kodak-s biggest mistake was diversification to all
things graphical and image oriented. In the "old days" you could
get an inexpensive film camera from Kodak, with decent optics, and
prints therefrom... there is always a need for basic picture taking /
picture printing consumer services... if a base company remained,
Id say they could still succeed with this original business plan.

Years ago, I posted about the sudden disappearance of Kodak's
premier film processing/printing services from drug stores /
supermarkets... problem being... ten years into the "digital
revolution" there is still nothing available which approaches
the quality or convenience of that service. This was a one time
use camera... terrific prints in four days... about 15 dollars
total... theres just nothing comprable today.

As regards Kodak again... they had the digital transition covered...
with that forementioned premier quality film camera service, anyone
with a computer and photo software could also get all their pictures
back on an optional photo CD... once more... with all the processors,
so did the CD services go away.

Was the disintegration of photo processing / printing all just a
market ploy ? Put fifty million snapshot hungry consumers out on
the street... absolutely nowhere for them to go when they wanted
snapshots of the kids birthday party. Sure_ for many hundreds of
dollars and a college degree, you could get, and be able to use,
your own printer and a reasonable digital camera_ something more
than a camera-phone.

All this is a long way of saying, I generally agree, whoever takes
over Kodak should also take a long look at what the public wants,
camera / printed photograph wise... or... perhaps some bright
entra-pen-oor will see the void, and "snap up" this market ?

I'm not exactly sure what you're saying..

Clearly the guy with snapshots of his kid's party is able to go to
almost any drugstore in the US with his cellphone or camera and have
prints of the event within the hour. It won't be from a Kodak
setup of course, but I doubt any consumer even knows or cares what
brand machine is back there.
--
------
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..

On 26/04/2012 03:45, PiLS wrote:
dans sci.image.processing, nous a dit:
I think the stakeholders in Kodak's reorganization should understand a
couple things real clearly

1) the dominant consumer imaging workflow is now digital cameras in cell
phones and ipad like devices for both capture, display, and distribution
via sharing mechanisms like facebook

Film still has its uses, in niche but high-value markets. (arts, some
areas of science, consumer discardable cameras, consumer "artsy"
cameras à la Lomo, etc).
Digital sharing has precisely zero intrinsic value (negative value
actually, when you factor in the costs of hosting and bandwidth).
Facebook, Google and the like gobble "digital sharing" ventures
because they have a business model that allows them to spend cash
on otherwise valueless tech to channel users into their (other)
money-making services.


2) smart TVs like iTV from Apple are quick on the way and in some cases
already there

iTV is dead in the water, sustained only by Apple's ample reserves of
cash. Although there are other more successful ventures in the same
area, the cost of entry for a newcomer is prohibitive. The cost of
acquiring content in itself is steep; and it takes time, as Apple
discovered with the iTV (which major use until now is to stream iTune
content to your TV)



3) these are not the advanced amatuer category, they have already
switched to higher resolution and zoom cameras for both still and motion


I don't think you know what photography is about. Then again, so don't
the average consumer so you still have a point. I guess. But drop the
"advanced".


4) regardless of Kodak's licensing with IMAX high resolution display and
capture, DIGITAL are already here


True.

5) Apple and the like are Kodak's new competitors and if they don't act
soon their brand will be tarnished beyond repair in ALL markets. If
Apple and Nikon and Canon etc. can turn a profit here Kodak should be
able to.


The profit Apple make has nothing to do with the profit that Canon and
Nikon (and Pentax and Sony etc) make. They operate in completely
different markets.

6) when I was in Kodak R&D about 15 years ago the consumer imaging
department had a three phase plan for consumer digital called Genesis.
Genesis Alpha was a film consortium to present the current advantagge of
film over digital,, Advantix film if you are famialiar with that name.
Genesis beta was an attempt to set a quality standard for scanning film
over digital capture, PhotoCD. The last part of Genesis was a 1
mmegapixel camera with electrophotographic printing. They decided to
not pursue the latter.


That's the crux of the problem. Kodak might have had a chance if they
had developped a quality film for niche markets. Instead of that they
peddled crap film that bleaches within a couple years.
Or they could have turned towards digital, but they were to busy trying
to protect their cheapo film market share to do that. Half-arsed on
every front.
Down they go, and they won't be missed.

If Dale's incoherent rants are representative of the calibre of their
R&D it is not surprising that they went down the tubes. Pity really.

True PhotoCD was a good professional scanning service but then they
muddied the waters by introducing PictureCD and failing to explain to
their sales channels the *enormous* difference in quality between them.
Kodak PhotoCD was proprietory high quality encoding (upto 25Mpixels pro,
6Mpixels std) whereas PictureCD was low grade JPEG encoding at
1.5Mpixel. This confusion did wonders for the sale of Nikon slide
scanners. You only got caught out by this trap once and never went back.

They did have reasonable and early digital cameras, but to protect their
film division it wasn't followed up properly. And from the outset they
confused the market by launching products with permuted names that
persuaded dealers that products were obsolete before their time. I got
an "obsolete" Kodak DC-120 just after the DC-210 came out. The former
was actually a fairly popular camera for scientific use because you
could with a bit of fiddling directly access the raw Bayer sensor array.

This was back in the early days when digital cameras looked more like
tricorders than cameras and ate a set of batteries an hour or so...

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

In article , Dale says...
1) the dominant consumer imaging workflow is now digital cameras in cell
phones and ipad like devices for both capture, display, and distribution
via sharing mechanisms like facebook

We're not there yet, simply because not enough tablet devices have been
sold so far. By the way, shooting photos with a 10" tablet seems a bit
funny.

Besides I happen to use my smartphone mostly to record video, and little
for stills. Don't know why, considering that the image quality of the
stills is surprisingly good. Probably it's because the smartphone has no
zoom.
--

Alfred Molon
------------------------------
Olympus E-series DSLRs and micro 4/3 forum at
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/MyOlympus/
http://myolympus.org/ photo sharing site

In article , Alfred
Molon wrote:

1) the dominant consumer imaging workflow is now digital cameras in cell
phones and ipad like devices for both capture, display, and distribution
via sharing mechanisms like facebook

We're not there yet, simply because not enough tablet devices have been
sold so far. By the way, shooting photos with a 10" tablet seems a bit
funny.

we're definitely there. cellphones have already impacted p&s sales and
tablets are starting to do that. having a full size 1080p viewfinder,
the same as what you will view the video, is compelling.

Besides I happen to use my smartphone mostly to record video, and little
for stills. Don't know why, considering that the image quality of the
stills is surprisingly good. Probably it's because the smartphone has no
zoom.

further proof.

nospam writes:
We're not there yet, simply because not enough tablet devices have
been sold so far. By the way, shooting photos with a 10" tablet
seems a bit funny.

we're definitely there. cellphones have already impacted p&s sales and
tablets are starting to do that. having a full size 1080p viewfinder,
the same as what you will view the video, is compelling.

My cellphone has a great camera (truly amazing considering the size it
fits into), but using an external lcd instead of a viewfinder is
complete misery in many situations... I often wish I had a real
camera, not for the increased quality, but just so I can take pictures
in the sunlight without needing 3 hands and yoga training.

[And tablets?! A big fad right now, but also a _really_ horrible
form-factor for a camera, even for a very uncritical audience ... sure
they're great for browsing on your couch, but they aren't a P&S
replacement by any rational calculation. Most pictures, even by
casual photographers aren't taken in the living room, but in places
where it's very unlikely people will have dragged a tablet along.]

-miles

--
The car has become... an article of dress without which we feel uncertain,
unclad, and incomplete. [Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media, 1964]

In article , Miles Bader
wrote:

We're not there yet, simply because not enough tablet devices have
been sold so far. By the way, shooting photos with a 10" tablet
seems a bit funny.

we're definitely there. cellphones have already impacted p&s sales and
tablets are starting to do that. having a full size 1080p viewfinder,
the same as what you will view the video, is compelling.

My cellphone has a great camera (truly amazing considering the size it
fits into), but using an external lcd instead of a viewfinder is
complete misery in many situations...

who said anything about an external lcd?

I often wish I had a real
camera, not for the increased quality, but just so I can take pictures
in the sunlight without needing 3 hands and yoga training.

you must have one of the most unusual cellphones ever made.

[And tablets?! A big fad right now,

tablets are unquestionably *not* a fad. their popularity is growing
like crazy and you're in denial if you think otherwise.

but also a _really_ horrible
form-factor for a camera, even for a very uncritical audience

tablets may not be the ideal form factor if their sole function was a
camera but if you happen to have a tablet with you, why not its camera?
having a 10" or even 7" viewfinder is extremely nice and with a tripod
mount, you essentially have a view camera, one that is vastly more
portable than a real view camera.

... sure
they're great for browsing on your couch, but they aren't a P&S
replacement by any rational calculation.

who said tablets were a replacement for a p&s? on the other hand,
cellphone cameras, particularly ones in smartphones, *are* becoming a
replacement for p&s.

Most pictures, even by
casual photographers aren't taken in the living room, but in places
where it's very unlikely people will have dragged a tablet along.]

yet they drag a bulky slr with a bag full of lenses wherever they go.

also, what makes you think they won't drag a tablet along? unlike an
slr with lenses, a tablet fits in a jacket pocket.

nospam writes:
My cellphone has a great camera (truly amazing considering the size it
fits into), but using an external lcd instead of a viewfinder is
complete misery in many situations...

who said anything about an external lcd?

I mean what every cellphone / pad / ... has: an LCD on the outside of
the unit (as opposed to a viewfinder which you put up to your eye).

I often wish I had a real
camera, not for the increased quality, but just so I can take pictures
in the sunlight without needing 3 hands and yoga training.

you must have one of the most unusual cellphones ever made.

Hmm, no it's pretty normal (for Japan), although it has an unusually
good quality camera.

What I mean is this: When it's sunny, it's quite common that the LCD
display on a cellphone is completely obscured by glare _and/or_ the
sun causes glare/artifacts through the camera lens.

So what I end up doing is, holding the phone with one hand, while
trying to shield the display enough to see something with another,
_and_ trying to use another hand to shade the lens to avoid the worst
glare effects in the image. As you can see, that's three hands... :]

Since I don't have three hands, what I actually end up doing usually
involves quite a bit of contortion, trying to use one hand for both,
or stand in the shade of a pole or something or ...... anyway, it's a
big pain.

A camera viewfinder avoids the problems with the display, at least,
and generally makes everything more manageable. This is why I'd like
one.

[and a pad, is _worse_, because you basically need two hands to hold
it up (the ipad, at least is quite heavy [and the 3rd gen even heavier,
from all reports]).]

[And tablets?! A big fad right now,

tablets are unquestionably *not* a fad. their popularity is growing
like crazy and you're in denial if you think otherwise.

.... which doesn't mean they're not a fad of course.

Anyway, I'm sure they have a good solid niche, but they certainly
aren't perfect, or some sort of universal replacement for all other
devices. The "faddishness" is people who suddenly think they _are_
the latter.

but also a _really_ horrible
form-factor for a camera, even for a very uncritical audience

tablets may not be the ideal form factor if their sole function was a
camera but if you happen to have a tablet with you, why not its camera?

That was my point: Tablets are cumbersome enough that people _don't_
usually bring them along wherever they go. Most probably _do_ always
carry their cellphone, however, so cellphones are much better bet as
the future of casual photography than pads are.

having a 10" or even 7" viewfinder is extremely nice and with a tripod
mount, you essentially have a view camera, one that is vastly more
portable than a real view camera.

Er, well, except for whole image quality thing which is really the
only reason people put up with view cameras in the first place...

Most pictures, even by
casual photographers aren't taken in the living room, but in places
where it's very unlikely people will have dragged a tablet along.]

yet they drag a bulky slr with a bag full of lenses wherever they go.

also, what makes you think they won't drag a tablet along?

[Some] people put up with the cumbersomeness of SLRs because they want
the advantages of an SLR: good quality images[*], speed, etc. Tablets
provide mediocre quality images, no better than a cell phone or P&S.
People that demand such features can't get them from a tablet, and
people that don't demand them are likely to prefer to avoid dragging
anything along (as their phone or P&S can likely provide the same
quality with greater convenience).
[*] Many aspects of which are very hard to provide without large
lenses (high quality zooms, popular effects like shallow DOF and bokeh
which are impractical to provide with very small sensors and small
apertures), making it unlikely that the sort of very small embedded
cameras in phones / pads will ever completely really take over the
DSLR market.

unlike an slr with lenses, a tablet fits in a jacket pocket.

That's a bit of a stretch .... :]

-miles

--
Acquaintance, n. A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not
well enough to lend to.

If I may attempt a clever conclusion to that endless discussion.
Kodak's tombstone will bear the words:

"We failed where Fuji strive"

--
PiLS