pouët.net

Dear all,

I first of all send you all the best for your 2010: May all your wishes come true! One we can already grant you: DTV goes on in 2010 :)

DTV also needs your support today. We have launched Demoscene.tv in 2004 thanks to a French state public financing. DTV is not a commercial website. It's a community undertaking that would not exist without You. More than 100'000 people are using Demoscene.tv every month.

I believe in us. I believe that DTV keeps improving with the quality of contents that you produce, but also with the commitment of the team developing the project since 5 years. If you think today like us that DTV is useful, then simply imagine what we can achieve together tomorrow.

Demoscene is the proof of anyone's and everyone's ability to make the extraordinary possible. It's people like You and us that are supporting it. It's the proof that alltogether we can create freedom spaces.

We must protect our legacy, our heritage and this space where this important work reveals itself, this work to which you contribute with each and any of your creations. We want DTV to stay free of access and free of any advertising. We want to stay free, simply, and keep on growing with You to broadcast Demoscene everywhere, and invite all who want to join this big family.

ADAN (Association for Digital Arts Development) is a non profit association that i have co-founded in 2002 in order to broadcast, host, develop and safeguard creations urging from the Demoscene. With a 50'000 Euros per year budget and a 1-person staff employee plus 5 hyper active volunteers, it has become the simplest mean to allow the wide audience to discover the Demoscene. (see an example MAXIMUM PC, 50 Kick-Ass Websites You Need to Know About)

DTV's main expense areas are :
- infrastructure and hosting
- development and DTV platform software maintenance
- capture, transcoding and aggregation of new contents
- communication actions to promote the DTV platform

I am asking for your help in order for us to continue our task. Why now? Because our main sponsor (counting for 90% of our yearly budget for the last 5 years) has left us behind without notice for economical reasons. We are strongly seeking for alternative and long lasting financial solutions.

Thanks for your loyalty to DTV. You are part of the aventure.
You can donate here to support us directly : http://www.demoscene.tv/494-uk.html

Now rest assured we keep on the same pace. The one you have been knowing from us since the beginning.

Next milestone for Demoscene is in your pocket. It's the DTV Iphone App. We believe it will once again bring Demoscene further. Check the App store!

You rule.

Emmanuel ANDRE aka Dax/Wipe

DTV founder

While I appreciate Demoscene.tv, I can't help but feel that a budget of €50,000 per year is pretty huge ... by all means I'm not against a team of sceners working on such a site if grants come available but I can't help but feel a little irked by approaching the scene directly with cap in hand.

It just feels like demoscene.tv is a luxury of sorts, where as the people behind the likes of Bitfellas and Micksam7 from Capped.tv undertake their work from what I gather, completely unpaid.

High quality streaming of videos with commenting and moderation is pretty much standardised and ubiquitous now, and although there might be exception cases like YouTube not supporting 60hz, I would have to feel that demoscene.tv had something incredibly compelling to offer in order for me to consider donating.

Perhaps a honest and open breakdown of where funds would be directed may help sway slightly skeptical people like myself.

I'm sorry to say but there is something wrong if we would need to pay for something that lives on our own free and hard work, just so others can watch them free.

You have my greatest respect for what you have achieved through the years, but there are so many free video hosting sites out there that quite honestly I would just let dtv die if there is no other way...

Well, for me the main purpose of D.TV isn't the hosting of the videos (with the HD function, easy upload and playlists YouTube has become more and more attractive to host caps of demos and bring the demoscene to a huge public audience) but the live broadcast of party events. There is no place else in teh internets doing that (besides parties like BP or Assembly providing their own live stream).

Good point Salinga. I did want to add actually that the DTV production and party coverage and streaming were fantastic additions and great investments - but I think the innovations of the internet in general have caught up with DTV... so it could potentially bow out now knowing it did a fantastic job - unless the team refocus on just covering parties and streaming events.

I do have fond memories of the first streams from DTV using Winamp and NSV. It was really cool just to see it happen, even if the quality was low (more to do with my bandwidth!).

What zoom said ...

Plus the announcement that DTV App will cost later 9.90 Euro per year makes me thinking ...

rc55 .. innovations of the internet have sent tv crew with reporters at demoparties and made documentaries?

I'm not arguing for / against the merit or value thereof (despite liking the breakpoint documentary) I'm just slightly amused (or scared) at the tendency to reduce the human intervention down to a direct "application of technology."

Dax, is it ADAN or DTV that has lost its commercial support? Are we talking about the video distribution platform that was provided somehow to you? Are the content production sides of the equation in jeopardy too?

(To list ADAN's contributions in terms of what really matters, that is, human interventions: numerica demoparties, live coverages with commentary, capture/editing/publishing of documentaries, and direct captures of demos)

why would you need additional donations when you have a budget of 50.000 EUR?!!?

I wouldn't mind donating - you guys do a great job, and the iPhone app is pretty sweet, just tried it out this morning.

Given the quality of the streams and the range of features on the site (plus the live coverages from various parties, etc.), I think it'd be a loss to not have DemosceneTV around anymore. It may cost 50k+ euros per year to run, but imho that's not really all that much, considering what the site is.

to opt for donations, i'd say a clear definition of what each donations is spent on is a must.

each particular 5 euro donation? :)

farfar: nej, but I'd also be interested in seeing a gross-budget plan specifying the destination of each portion of money (not every 5€ more like, 15k € for cameras etcetera) this aside, I would donate too. DTV is pretty sweet in the end :). Although I can't disagree with what Zoom said.

an excellent example could be the break point 09 donation barometer. for each EUR donated the bar moved and the party got "better" :)

_-_-__: Obviously I didn't mean that specifically, it was just poor use of the English language at stupid 'o clock in the evening. :)

Decipher: I agree, it was just a joke :)
Rasmus: yes indeed - and apart from giving people insight into what their money is being spent on, it's also nice to know if you're donating towards 'essentials' or non-essentials, like the graph for BP showed you.

i agree with decipher that a budget plan would do
barometers look fancy but thats about it

I seem to recall someone from the US getting that sort of money for himself, just because he asked for it on the internet.

what zoom and gloom said

the amount of trust here is heartwarming

plek, the barometer is just a primitive way of building a financial budget plan.

I think 95% of people don't want to read some financial plan for some website they use, even if they want to donate some money to help run it. If they see a simple barometer thingy showing what their donation will pay for though, that could definitely help.

Not to say a financial plan shouldn't be available for inspection for something like this, it's good to know there's no hidden items like "beer supplies" or "trip to hawaii" hidden away :)

Do you mean by that there's a full-time paid person to do some of the DTV stuff? That would at least explain the need for 50ke since then probably something around 70% goes to the employee's pay check (if paid legally). By using some late corporate fashion of 2009 and doing lay-offs to the one man staff and replacing the need by recruiting volunteer sceners to help doing the work would probably ease the pain.

i simply hate barometers rasmus, just let me be!!

further, what farfar said. lets see some details first.

gloom: well considering wikimedia got $7.5 million I don't see why 50k € even matters :P. I mean the internet is already full of people with a lot of money to "donate". (No offence meant towards the direction of DTV)