The end for Kodak?

[keithwms]

Here's an interesting article in The Economist entitled "The last Kodak moment? Kodak is at death’s door; Fujifilm, its old rival, is thriving. Why?"

http://www.economist.com/node/21542796

Much of the article is precisely as most of us would expect, but there are some less obvious points as well. Worth a read.

 

[Ken Nadvornick]

Here's an interesting article in The Economist...

Good read.

Ken

 

[zsas]

Thanks Keith! I find the omission of the fact that Kodak does market sensors odd though, the article paints them in a corner without mentioning those advances (which never attained mass market save for Leica). Which at the end of the day Kodak are still in the same corner though, just a though though that the author brushed over the sensor route as if to say they didn't try, but I am saying they did but seems to be futile...time will tell. Good read though!

 

[Aristophanes]

Thanks Keith! I find the omission of the fact that Kodak does market sensors odd though, the article paints them in a corner without mentioning those advances (which never attained mass market save for Leica). Which at the end of the day Kodak are still in the same corner though, just a though though that the author brushed over the sensor route as if to say they didn't try, but I am saying they did but seems to be futile...time will tell. Good read though!

Kodak sold their sensor developments last year. They do not have the financial resources to invest in fabs and operating them. Their CCD sensors have trouble competing with CMOS sensors (video and high ISO). The path Kodak took has limited market size.

Kodak did make digital investments to substitute revenues lost given the mass move by consumers from film to digital, but not enough effort was out into maximizing their value. Kodak did not cut its film margins fast enough to keep up with the consumer, nor did it divert enough margin to digital from its other profit centres. The article very correctly points out that Fuji did just that--cutting its traditional product lines and investing in or purchasing new ones--and is thriving.

Yes, a good article.

 

[keithwms]

What I find sad is that Kodak's really good sensor work didn't find its way into smartphones as a way to promote the phone themselves. Imagine if Kodak had been able to position itself as the brand associated with image quality and then design the sensors that go into iPhones and iPads and such. That'd be helpful, adjacent marketing- making use of the brand you have to push another. (The economy printer biz is a great counterexample- almost no adjacency and actually doing irreparable harm to the existing brand)

I suspect it would have taken something like an Apple-Kodak partnership to waken a big, lumbering dinosaur of a company. Even if Kodak would simply bless a design and have the sensors outsourced abroad, that would buy some play in a market that (I would argue) will eventually take down higher-end digital. Not next year nor the next, but the all-in-one concept is what the consumer wants and it'll still go a lot further than it has- the young market is there. The other thing is that sharing and cloud storage are far from finished with the changing the market and how people display their imagery. Kodak would be very late to that game but maybe, just maybe somebody will still find a way to think big...

 

[lxdude]

Digital copying gives the most bang for the buck by far, but with the caveat about readable file formats. Sticking to the photo theme, JPEG and PDF are ISO standards with long-term projections of functionality of 100+ years.

Which is why I have a few two year old jpegs on magnetic which won't open. Sure I have backups, but still...
50% of my ten year old jpegs on magnetic won't open; it was 10% of the same pictures five years ago.

 

[lxdude]

Digital copying gives the most bang for the buck by far, but with the caveat about readable file formats.

Digital copying of movies? Which is what we were talking about.
What do you have to back up that claim?

 

[Aristophanes]

Digital copying of movies? Which is what we were talking about.
What do you have to back up that claim?

Read the earlier posts. The motion picture industry's near wholesale move to digital distribution means that theatres receive hard drives of films.

That's thousands of copies distributed worldwide. The universal reason for doing so is cost. At one point it was less expensive to distribute cinema via reels. Now, it is in binary on magnetic disks. They would not do so if there was not a ROI on that institutional move.

The error rate of digital files is probably no better or worse than the error rate of jammed film or poorly developed film or negatives lost by the lab, all of which have happened to me. Analog is hardly a perfect system and has its own vulnerabilities. What I find interesting is that Kodak tried to be a part of this because they saw the commercial need, but management did not follow up. They tried to be part of the market BOTH for analog and digital preservation because both have their place.

 

[SilverGlow]

Read the earlier posts. The motion picture industry's near wholesale move to digital distribution means that theatres receive hard drives of films.

That's thousands of copies distributed worldwide. The universal reason for doing so is cost. At one point it was less expensive to distribute cinema via reels. Now, it is in binary on magnetic disks. They would not do so if there was not a ROI on that institutional move.

The error rate of digital files is probably no better or worse than the error rate of jammed film or poorly developed film or negatives lost by the lab, all of which have happened to me. Analog is hardly a perfect system and has its own vulnerabilities. What I find interesting is that Kodak tried to be a part of this because they saw the commercial need, but management did not follow up. They tried to be part of the market BOTH for analog and digital preservation because both have their place.

You are wrong on so many, many levels.

1. The distribution of digital movies is NOT with harddrives. The movies are transmitted from the distribution location to the theatre's harddrive via the internet and/or satllelites. You are blinded by your religious bias toward film, and so much that you actually tell little fibs to bulster your argument. Your comments kill your integrity.

2. The "error rate" of digial files is nearly non-existent. The copy function uses check-sum logic to insure that the original and the copy match 100%.

Stick to topics you actually know something about.

 

[SilverGlow]

Which is why I have a few two year old jpegs on magnetic which won't open. Sure I have backups, but still...
50% of my ten year old jpegs on magnetic won't open; it was 10% of the same pictures five years ago.

Had you transfered your stock of jpgs to newer and cheaper media every 5-10 years, you would never have a problem opening up old digital content. The cost of digital archival is rediculously miniscle.

 

[SilverGlow]

...to duplicate a digital media file with high fidelity is more difficult and expensive.

How is that so?

A 3TB eSata external drive costs $200. A 1TB costs $75.

TIFF, and many other LossLESS digital formats are available to use.

Easy, easy, easy....just drag and drop. On more then one target external drive.

Keep one at your place, the other at mother's.

Done.

 

[lxdude]

You are blinded by your religious bias toward film,

Funny, I didn't perceive that, as he's been promoting digital storage as better.

and so much that you actually tell little fibs to bulster your argument.

That's just not nice. I don't think he's lying, just mistaken.

Your comments kill your integrity.

I think his comments kill his credibility (partially, anyway). I don't see any thing that indicates his level of integrity.

 

[Aristophanes]

You are wrong on so many, many levels.

1. The distribution of digital movies is NOT with harddrives. The movies are transmitted from the distribution location to the theatre's harddrive via the internet and/or satllelites. You are blinded by your religious bias toward film, and so much that you actually tell little fibs to bulster your argument. Your comments kill your integrity.

2. The "error rate" of digial files is nearly non-existent. The copy function uses check-sum logic to insure that the original and the copy match 100%.

Stick to topics you actually know something about.

Not all theatres with digital projectors have access to the bandwidth necessary for direct transmission of the master files. They receive their copies on encrypted disks via courier. Regardless, the local medium is a hard drive. How the data gets onto it is irrelevant. The system is far more fungible than analog hard copy.

The error rate of digital files is there, but infinitesimal *if* a master of 100% fidelity is properly copied.

And check sum logic scans *do* find errors, do they not? And guess what? Some are fatal errors because there was an error with the "master", which may or may not be the authentic master. For archiving, there is a chain of authenticity.

 

[lxdude]

Had you transfered your stock of jpgs to newer and cheaper media every 5-10 years, you would never have a problem opening up old digital content. The cost of digital archival is rediculously miniscle.

Read it again. I have 2-year-old images that won't open. 10% of the others failed before five years, and another 40% of the original amount before 10 years. I don't really care about those images anymore (from an old job) so I didn't bother to back them up after I discovered the failures five years ago. I'm now just curious to see how long before they all fail.

IMO, jpegs suck. But my only digital camera now, a P&S, only takes jpegs.

 

[Photo Engineer]

You know, recently I released a 2 disk DVD set for sale about Emulsion Making and Coating.

Now, this is not a sales pitch it is a story about making the DVDs.

First, the software for the camera is incompatible with most editing software so you can't see the image or hear the sound (take your pick). You have to get special translating software to yield 2 files of image and sound and then these go into the editor. (this is true of many editors).

Well, once edited, you make your master and take it to a shop to dupe it. They read it! Hah, the errors climb during reading and their software tells you it is either a checksum error or one of 2 other types. If the number of errors climb over a certain amount, the disc cannot be copied.

The engineers at the shop told me that most common DVD writers made disks with so many errors in dupes that their shop (and other) were unable to copy them. I had to make 3 masters before I got one that had a low enough error rate that dupes could be made. Their software was able to fix these errors but this indicated to me how chancy this process is.

Almost all disks have errors or create them and only smart algorithms will fix the problem.

At the present time, I have many PDF files that will not open. They are ok, but the Adobe reader has changed so much that older files cannot be read. I have Word files that com from the previous version that I am using that I cannot read. I get very esoteric error messages that when searched for on Google indicate a "protection" error based on upgrades to internal Word and Office security which has rendered the files unreadable by the new version.

Interestingly, if I install the current Word on the old computer that the DOC file came from, it can be opened just fine due to the lower security OS (ME vs XP).

The point of this? Computer files seem to become obsolete or contain many errors which makes it difficult to work with them over a time base that is probably on the order of 5 - 10 years.

PE

 

[keithwms]

So yeah, Kodak...

 

[analog what is that?]

You know, recently I released a 2 disk DVD set for sale about Emulsion Making and Coating.

Now, this is not a sales pitch it is a story about making the DVDs.
...........
The point of this? Computer files seem to become obsolete or contain many errors which makes it difficult to work with them over a time base that is probably on the order of 5 - 10 years.

PE

thnx for the sales pitch .-)

Nope, this is not a problem not for us that spent the 80's and 90's mostly buried inside computers.....
Most of your file-incompatibility issues are solved quite easioly by one piece of software : ditch those MickeySoft programs and move over to opensource SW, personally I have fled ship and uses OpenOffice this SW will let me open PDF-files, most backward compatible SW I have, It will let me edit and save PDF-files, open more MS Office files than Bill Gates ever wanted and ask no questions. And it will let me save files in umpteen formats that mickeysoft haven't ever heard of....

In other words its your responsibilty to keep up with the times, I have never had problems like you describe.

 

[Aristophanes]

Read it again. I have 2-year-old images that won't open. 10% of the others failed before five years, and another 40% of the original amount before 10 years. I don't really care about those images anymore (from an old job) so I didn't bother to back them up after I discovered the failures five years ago. I'm now just curious to see how long before they all fail.

IMO, jpegs suck. But my only digital camera now, a P&S, only takes jpegs.

You realize that your failure rate applied universally destroys the entire business model of Flickr.

Have you informed them? They may not know.

 

[brucemuir]

You realize that your failure rate applied universally destroys the entire business model of Flickr.

Have you informed them? They may not know.

Try uploading full rez to flikr.
Good luck.

I have a sound backup strategy but it is a pain to manage.

 

[lensman_nh]

How is that so?

A 3TB eSata external drive costs $200. A 1TB costs $75.

TIFF, and many other LossLESS digital formats are available to use.

Easy, easy, easy....just drag and drop. On more then one target external drive.

Keep one at your place, the other at mother's.

Done.

Those are consumer drives.

Try costing some industrial grade SAS drives for a redundant SAN, which is the kind of technology you want for commercial archiving to disk, and then get back to me.

You are seriously underestimating storage costs for an industrial installation.

 

[Photo Engineer]

Those are consumer drives.

Try costing some industrial grade SAS drives for a redundant SAN, which is the kind of technology you want for commercial archiving to disk, and then get back to me.

You are seriously underestimating storage costs for an industrial installation.

Having seen just a tiny fraction of the Kodak "plan", I can heartily endorse your comments.

PE

 

[alanrockwood]

Just out of curiosity, does anyone remember the high end DSLR Kodak marketed a few years ago? I believe they OEMed the bodies from Sigma.

For some reason it never really caught on. It was touted by some as the a digital camera that finally equaled film in quality. (Haven't we heard that one a few times?) Anyway, it could be considered as one abortive attempt by Kodak to get into the digital camera game in a serious way.

 

[keithwms]

Just out of curiosity, does anyone remember the high end DSLR Kodak marketed a few years ago? I believe they OEMed the bodies from Sigma.

For some reason it never really caught on. It was touted by some as the a digital camera that finally equaled film in quality. (Haven't we heard that one a few times?) Anyway, it could be considered as one abortive attempt by Kodak to get into the digital camera game in a serious way.

DCS pro. They claimed it to rival medium format. Most idiotic marketing ever... and a complete lie.

This link has the history, for those who need the entertainment:

Dead Link Removed

 

[brucemuir]

They made them in Canon & Nikon mount. 14n/14c

Bodies were sigma I believe.

It was one of the first full frame 35mm sensors (14 mp) and although it showed promise certain aspects were fumbled like software and they had a lot of problems when first launched.

I remember a PopPhoto COVER that touted it as equivalent to 35mm film.

edit: I think they used a Nikon N80 for the Nikon version and sigma made the Canon mount version but don't hold me to this

 

[chriscrawfordphoto]

The Kodak 14n used a Nikon body based on the N80 film body, while the Canon version used a Sigma body and was called the SLR/c. There was also an SLR/n that was an improved version of the 14n (fixed some sensor issues the original 14n had).

I had a 14n for several years. I bet all the guys saying it sucked never actually owned one. It DID have the best color that I have EVER seen from any digital camera. EVER. I preferred film for black and white, but while I had the 14n, I stopped shooting color film entirely.

As far as rivaling medium format, it depends. It came damn close to 645. It beat the hell out of any 35mm film for resolution. I don't think it would beat a larger medium format like 6x7 or 6x9. It was close to 645.

The 14n files converted to black and white very nicely; it was easier to get good black & white from its files than from any other digital I have used.

Wasn't perfect though. The 14n had some serious flaws that made it useless for some things. In low light, requiring long exposures, the images often had weird lines and strange noise defects. It also required you to go in the menu and specify what lens you were using or else you'd get weird color shifting that people dubbed the "Italian Flag" effect. This is because you'd get a picture that was strongly red on one side and green on the other, with the middle being normal. Like an italian flag!

It was an interesting camera. A deeply flawed design that gave unmatched quality when used within the range of things it worked well for, and when you jumped through the hoops it required (like the lens settings). I recently bought my first digital camera in several years, a Canon 5D mkII. I need it for some commercial work I'm doing, where the client demands digital. Its a nice camera, takes great photos. The 14n had better color though. I miss it sometimes. I'm still shooting BW film in 35 and 6x6. Will probably still shoot some color transparency in 6x6. Color is still a little better and detail resolution better than the 5DII.

Here's some 14n images.