With Matt's permission I am copying his email describing PBS's streaming service, costs, etc.
From: Matt Debenham [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Friday, June 18, 2010 11:40 AM To: Jo Ann Reynolds Subject: Re: FW: Streaming rights for Let's Get Married That'd be no problem if you forwarded my email to that list. Just FYI, PBS prices its digital by enrollment, so the larger your FTE, the more you'll pay. (And conversely, the smaller your enrollment, the less you'll pay.) I don't know if you can mention that when you forward it, but it would certainly cut down on confusion. Also, if your team is interested in purchasing well over that $3500 minimum, we can certainly talk about pricing. Thanks! Best, Matt Debenham From: Matt Debenham [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Friday, June 18, 2010 10:41 AM To: Jo Ann Reynolds Subject: re: FW: Streaming rights for Let's Get Married Jo Ann, Hi! PBS forwarded your request to me. I'm the New England rep for PBS, and I've done business with the Homer Babbidge Library in the past. The way PBS does digital is a little different from most. PBS provides the files to you, in a format of your choosing, and your institution streams them to your population via a secure, password-protected web server. This puts you in total control of the media file(s), and is, in the long run, vastly cheaper than renting streams from outside providers. "Frontline: Let's Get Married" IS available in digital from PBS. So here's my spiel on digital, starting with cost: Cost -PBS requires a minimum first buy of $3500. This seems like a lot, but setting up a digital rights contract with each school is costly and time-consuming for PBS, so they can really only take on serious buyers. -Pricing for a school with UConn's FTE of 29,000+ students would be $450/file. A file = one 60-120 minute program, so a NOVA will usually be one file, while a big Ken Burns production will be several. "Let's Get Married" is 1 file. So for just $3600, you can choose "Let's Get Married" and 7 other files, with rights given in perpetuity. After that initial purchase, you can buy programs on a title-by-title basis. -Per-file cost per UConn student: 2 cents. (That's $450 per file divided by UConn's estimated 29,000+ students = $.015) Why PBS Digital -Top-quality programs from the most trusted name in educational television. -Rights are given IN PERPETUITY. This means no renewals, no expiration dates, no hidden costs, no renting. What you pay up front is ALL you'll ever pay for that digital file. -Files are delivered to you on a removable hard drive, for you to stream. This means you have the control, you limit the access -- versus outside streaming providers, who let you own nothing. -PBS offers choice: MPEG-1, MPEG-4, or FLV (Flash) formats. PBS can also build to fit your user-end player. Those are the basics. Let me know if you have questions, or if you'd like me to send a PDF catalog of PBS' digital titles. University of Maine just bought a large number of files and will be implementing them this fall. Also: Roger Williams has been using PBS digital for the past year and Boston College has been using it for the last four years (and has been buying new files each year). If you'd like to speak with anyone from these schools about either the purchasing process or the content experience, let me know and I can put you in touch. Thanks! Best, Matt Debenham P.S. FYI, I also handle A&E/History Channel, who offers digital rights contracts for thousands of programs. (They give you the rights and a master DVD, you do the digitizing and stream-hosting.) History Channel does only 3- and 5-year contracts, but there's no minimum buy-in, and you can buy one title at a time. -- (203) 943-0875 phone (203) 227-2376 fax [email protected] New York Sales (NYC & LI): Annenberg Media New England Sales: PBS Educational Media/History Education/Phoenix Learning Group Catalogs Online: http://www.learner.org http://teacher.shop.pbs.org http://www.historyeducation.com http://www.phoenixlearninggroup.com
VIDEOLIB is intended to encourage the broad and lively discussion of issues relating to the selection, evaluation, acquisition,bibliographic control, preservation, and use of current and evolving video formats in libraries and related institutions. It is hoped that the list will serve as an effective working tool for video librarians, as well as a channel of communication between libraries,educational institutions, and video producers and distributors.
