Via B3Bouldering comes news of a new climbing media site called iClimb: Climbing Media on Demand. iCLIMB appears to be another iteration of the online climbing video site with new features like embeddable videos (although this feature appears to be broken), the option to download short “session” clips for a small fee and the ability to buy feature-length climbing movie downloads.
The first session clip is an excellent piece put together by Chuck Fryberger that follows the crew of Dave Graham, Daniel Woods, Jimmy Webb and Jon Cardwell at Mt. Evan’s Lincoln Lake as Woods does the FA of The Great War For Civilisation (V13) and Evil Backwards (V14). Check it out at the iCLIMB site.
Seems to me that the average climbing consumer is willing to put up with an onslaught of advertisements, but is not willing to pay for climbing movies, let alone “clips” of movies. Remember Momentum Video Magazine? Yeah, I already forgot about it too. Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoy watching climbing movies, full-length and the shorter films on sites like DPM, but isn’t buying the $160 shoes that these pros are advertising enough, especially in a recession? Climbing is a luxury for most of us, do they really think that the average climber has a disposable income for internet media, let alone a hair-cut? We have entered the age of shared media and information, and the climbing industry should embrace this.
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$0.99 is hardly breaking the bank, even for the most dirtbag among us. I equate this distribution model to how some music is sold. Plenty of people seem willing to shell out for 3 minutes of sound, so why not for 9 minutes of footage?
Yeah, not everyone will embrace it, but I think this model is better than the subscription one that was used by MVM. In a given month I might only see one clip that gets me psyched, and having the option to comb through and pick what I want for a measly dollar apiece is pretty sweet. That’s probably my favorite part of this venture, you can still watch a clip for free and only pay if you want to download it. If you think it sucks you get to keep your $.
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Good point Yo Chi, but the analogy to the music industry is not great; songs don’t start with 30 seconds of advertisement recognition, nor are the songs themselves interspersed with sponsor-product placement.
My point is that if we are to accept watching ads, and to use a similar analogy to yours, shouldn’t it be free to watch, like hulu for television? It would be cool to keep the cloud of money to a minimum, but I suppose that would be asking too much and climbing is becoming like many other “extreme” sports, such as snowboarding.
Not really that big of a deal and I don’t mean to offend anyone, I realize these guys are just trying to make a buck (literally, one at a time?), doing what they love.
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Good points about the ads and product placements, and I like that Hulu comparison.
Perhaps another option would be free ad-supported videos online, and ad-free videos with a little extra content as incentives to download for a small fee? Just throwing out ideas.
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It’s hard to sit through because you’re dreading what stupid thing is going to come out of their mouths, Graham is semi-articulate but everyone else just babbles…it’s painful
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Yeah, though I don’t mean to bash the video (I enjoyed it), it was pretty contradictory to juxtapose the attempt at intellectualism (of Graham?) with the history lecture and, well, the less-than-genius of Woods and Greedy.
Is that stfu of 0friction from back in the day?
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Harsh man. Just because the smarts don’t exist when speaking doesn’t mean these guys aren’t geniuses on the rock. I’m an electrical engineer and I can’t figure out how to climb a rock or a series of plastic pieces on a fake wall. Now who’s stupid. Whats your story…
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Well, speaking would be the primary way to express one’s thoughts… but I didn’t really mean to imply the smarts aren’t there, I’m sure these guys are all more than just rock jocks.
However, you have to admit it’s pretty funny that Fryberger makes them look dumb, and climbing movie interviews are often disappointing (although I was impressed by some of the interviews in Core, J. Emerson was particularly insightful).
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Maybe they’re not super articulate because they’re bouldering hard at fu*%in 12,000 feet? Not even really joking about this. Besides, we all totally watched that clip because we were optimistic about the possibility of witty repartee.
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“That’s probably my favorite part of this venture, you can still watch a clip for free and only pay if you want to download it.”
In Safari, let the video start streaming, bring up the Activity window, find the url for the vid (its the one with the biggest file size), copy and paste that url into browser address window, hit option-return and it downloads. Duh.
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I guess I should have added “legally” after “download it”, my mistake. I don’t use Safari, but that’s good advice for the Mac inclined folks out there though. I use a plug-in for Firefox to capture and rip streaming media sometimes, although back in the day with Climbxmedia videos I remember trawling through my temporary internet files doing the PC equivalent to what you described.
People can always go the free route if they choose, but if they want to kick a few coins to the people who made this stuff then they can do that too. To each his or her own, right?
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“I guess I should have added “legally” after “download it”, my mistake.”
You really think it’s illegal to download a video that streams for free anyway? what diff does it make?
Also stfuac is right, the download from the stream has no logo, the streaming one you watch without paying or downloading does. If they wanna make money they’d better get their act together…
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Man, I’m just failing left and right at that whole “thinking things through and being articulate” thing today, haha. I don’t think ripping streaming media is illegal, but distributing that material probably is. Regardless, Narc’s post a few comments down pretty much sums up how I feel on this.
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good to know stfu, but while you can download whether or not you want to pay, you don’t get the high def and the iclimb logo remains in the bottom of the screen if you don’t pay (not that either of those are really important)-
but what’s the point of downloading- does that mean the videos are only posted temporarily and you want to save it for later?
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“good to know stfu, but while you can download whether or not you want to pay, you don’t get the high def and the iclimb logo remains in the bottom of the screen if you don’t pay”
Wrong on both, no logo or watermark and it’s 900 x 400, standard def is 720 x 480
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my bad stfu, I couldn’t actually get the video to play on my computer from the downloaded version, I just looked at what the site said in an attempt to understand exactly what they are offering for money- as you have shown us, they are offering nothing?
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Since there is so much negativity in these comments I should probably point out that I kind of jumped the gun in posting about iCLIMB when I did. I wasn’t aware that they were still working through a few bugs and ironing out a few of the features before they did a more official launch.
That said, it’s a bit disheartening to see people focusing on how they can circumvent a $.99 charge to download the videos. If you like a given video and want to take it with you on a portable device or something 99 cents is pretty reasonable gesture to support the filmmakers efforts otherwise just move on. Nobody is forcing you to watch or pay to download anything. They are providing plenty of options for you to watch it for free if that’s what you’d prefer.
The question of whether or not a model like this will work or if something like Hulu would be more appropriate is definitely a conversation worth having. If past history is any indication, attempting to make money from this sort of venture is a major undertaking and I, for one, wish these guys luck.
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It is a nice idea but once again most people are not going to buy or download these movies.
I do not support illegal downloading, since you can download every single movie that they offer for $10-15, do you think that kids are going to download these vids. I just watched it, no different than any other video. Climber gets up a boulder. There are tons of these on the net for free.
They should learn from the music industry not to charge for music but as a means of marketing yourself. Give the vids away for free and sell ad space.
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A PayPal option would be cool.
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i for one really liked the behind the scenes look at just how psyched they were during the working session. brushing holds, figuring out beta, sharing beta, pointing out holds, and, more than anything else, just plain trying hard. in the end, that’s what it’s all about – not whether or not woods can remember the name that graham gave to a boulder.
recently i’ve found climbing videos less and less motivating. this one was great; right now, i’m psyched. im going to go try hard.
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A FEW FACTS
– The Narc did jump the gun but no big deal. The site was technically live so it was fair game. A few other features will be completed over the next couple of days.
– The Session videos are FREE if you stream them in the Flash based player. You don’t have to pay $.99 if you just want to watch the vid and then post some smack.
– Yes you can easily rip the streaming version which on the homepage is 900×400 (once it is removed from the home page it will be 650 wide and highly compressed). BUT just because it is 900×400 does not mean that it is full resolution like the $.99 download version. The streaming version is highly compressed. Plug your computer into your TV with an HDMI cable and play a ripped version and you will clearly see the difference.
-Since the Session videos are free and can be embedded into other sites (95% of that functionality now works) it is not “illegal” to rip a download from the free streaming version. It is however highly illegal to rip copyrighted material and/or distribute it in any way (such as a feature length films like CORE, Progression, The Sharp End etc.)
– The $.99 download version does not make a profit for us but allows us to break even. After you factor in bandwidth, connection fees to third party server, credit card address verification fee, credit card merchant account fees and percentage it is a wash. It is however a dirt cheap way to allow climbers to have the high res version if they enjoyed the FREE version and would like to add a high res version to their personal digital video library. It also allows the film producers a way to show off their work the way it was meant to be seen as opposed to a compressed version. The success of our model is not based on people buying the $.99 downloads at all. We have been in this industry for over 10 years in multiple capacities so this isn’t our first rodeo.
– If an individual does not enjoy climbing videos or a specific Session then move on. For those that do we have a good line-up of FREE content that will be coming out this Fall.
-All the digital downloads that have been available at Bouldering.com will be moved to iCLIMB over the next couple of days. There will also be some new re-released feature length films that are no longer available on DVD.
Stay tuned and thanks for the support.
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@ Narc
I want more of that kind of videos. More “raw” material when we see that everyone is just people. Good work on a excellent site!
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I like the iCLIMB idea – and here’s why. We all travel – some of us travel a lot. When I visit iCLIMB on my iPhone I get nothing. I can’t view any of the videos because they are flash based and Apple doesn’t support flash.
By offering us mp4 download options for $0.99 we can load our iphones, ipads, ipods and other mobile devices through iTunes with quality climbing vids for those long plane rides.
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anyone know the song at the end with daniel climbing?
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Sick clip! Get’s me psyched to go bouldering.
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you can’t boulder… go throw a Frisbee instead 🙂
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Any clip with Dave Graham expressing himself in the moment is good enough for me! How boring would Dosage have been without the Dave bits? (Not too boring I suppose, but nowhere near as memorable!)
“It’s a dream come true this boulder!”
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I thought his comment in this clip regarding everything being about “waves” was probably one of the best statements I’ve ever heard regarding climbing. Many times a climb comes down to simply getting your motivation, strength, experience, and everything else to line up just right.
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Yes, Dave rocks. I’m really excited about their upcoming film.
http://nicrosclimbing.blogspot.com/2010/08/blog-post.html
Does anybody know when this is going public?
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The Island should be available as a digital download on iCLIMB within a few days….
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SIIIICCCCKKKKKKKKKK
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The music…
Modern Vampires by Copperpot (Featuring Rodney P)
…and while we’re on the subject, wouldn’t it be nice they got a credit?
Then, at least, I wouldn’t have to put up with 203958 twilight websites while looking googling ‘modern vampires’
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came back and watched again, this video is so good. makes me want to get outside, badly. props on the whole production, Rodney P was a very nice touch. two thumbs up. Chuck is a major asset to the climbing world.
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