Who is still selling and/or still creating chase highlight DVD/Blu-Rays

Bill Hark

Bill Hark

EF5
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I have noticed a significant decline is chaser highlight videos over the last few years. Many chasers have stopped producing or selling them. Previously created highlights have been selling out or quietly discontinued. I guess most chasers are just posting clips on YouTube, Facebook or other social media. I miss the old-fashioned highlights video! Below are some who are still selling videos. Post who else is selling and especially still producing highlight videos. (I am not counting Storm Assist, the amazing compilation video collection to raise money for storm victims. I am just donating video to them rather than dealing with making a highlights video! http://stormassist.org/ )

Jeff and Kathryn Piotrowski are still selling their exciting and well-produced videos;

http://www.twisterchasers.com/Storm_Chasing_DVD_Store.html

Roger Hill continues to make In Search of Supercells each year

http://www.rogerhillphotography.com/dvds-available/

Scott McPartland (multiple tornado, hurricane and severe weather videos)

http://severeweathervideo.com/tornado_dvds.html

Dave Lewison (Katrina and tornado videos)

http://www.facethewind.com/DVDs-for-sale/index.htm

Who else is still selling videos?

Bill Hark
 
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I will eventually producing one featuring my 2014-2016 chases. Despite a couple great days, I did not really have enough from 2014 for a full highlights video, and my chasing last year was very limited due to being out of the country for much of April and May. But I have had a very good year this year, and will eventually be adding this year's highlights to what I have from the last couple years, and will produce a DVD/Blue Ray for trade or sale. Due to other higher-priority projects, it will be a while, though.
 
Shane Adams said:
and this isn't meant to be bitter or angry, just honest - but nobody gives a damn.
Click to expand...

That's right. There's some seriously waning interest in chaser DVDs from what I've gathered. Bill's right. I think it just all shifted to YouTube and social media. I always edit all my shots for YouTube. If I made another DVD, it would just be a collection of my YouTube videos. I've thought about doing that actually. It sounds kind of pointless, but a burned DVD or Blu-ray is actually a lot higher quality than the videos you're watching online due to the heavy compression YouTube and Facebook use. Plus it's nice having them all in one place.

We're even going to assess if it's worth doing more Storm Assist DVDs and Blu-rays. They're A LOT of work to compile and sales have been falling. For the effort that is involved, I'm not even that happy with how they turn out. That's on me though since I do most of the editing. I feel like they turn into a giant run on sentence of tornado footage. It needs to be like a regular show/documentary that flows with narration.

That's something I can't pull off by myself, however. If anyone reading this wants to take the baton on the Storm Assist project I'd be happy to get you setup. It's a great cause, it just needs some more direction and fresh motivation.
 
Skip Talbot said:
If anyone reading this wants to take the baton on the Storm Assist project I'd be happy to get you setup. It's a great cause, it just needs some more direction and fresh motivation.
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I like what SA is doing and would be willing to help though I do not know what I can offer. Let me know man!
 
I plan on making a 2016-2017 highlight video, in addition to others as I got quite a bit of decent material from this year. Doing it primarily for fun, so not really worried about pulling a profit. I will be starting a website soon as well, so keep an eye out for that. I'd like to see more videos with music added to them. Some of Skip's videos with the music and narration are great. Dick's video with Moby- Extreme Ways is very entertaining as well.


Skip Talbot said:
We're even going to assess if it's worth doing more Storm Assist DVDs and Blu-rays. They're A LOT of work to compile and sales have been falling. For the effort that is involved, I'm not even that happy with how they turn out. That's on me though since I do most of the editing. I feel like they turn into a giant run on sentence of tornado footage. It needs to be like a regular show/documentary that flows with narration.

That's something I can't pull off by myself, however. If anyone reading this wants to take the baton on the Storm Assist project I'd be happy to get you setup. It's a great cause, it just needs some more direction and fresh motivation.
Click to expand...

I'd love to help with this. Feel free to shoot me a PM. I would be interested in doing narration or editing. Not sure I have the time to bear the full burden of the project, but a few of us together certainly could.
 
Thanks for the offers! I'll start another thread or group chat somewhere to see about organizing this and so this thread isn't derailed.
 
At the risk of staying only tangentially on topic...

I've purchased several chase Blu-Rays over the past few years, and definitely still have interest in buying physical discs to see best-of-the-best footage in pristine quality. However, in my personal view, DVDs became nearly useless (at least for current/recent footage) at least half a decade ago. Even uncompressed at 480p, I'd sooner watch that same chaser's lossy, watermarked 1080p upload to YouTube, nevermind that it's free and convenient.

Perhaps part of why interest and sales have died off is that, from my (admittedly limited) observations, many chasers who produce compilations have chosen to stick with DVD as either their primary or only offering. And I get why: Blu-Ray is a lot more expensive, from the discs themselves to the hardware required to work with tons of 1080p video to the time you waste rendering. But, at this point, it seems like Blu-Ray is the only physical medium that offers an experience clearly superior to social media platforms. Speaking for myself, if I were going to make a compilation, I wouldn't bother with DVD unless it was old footage recorded in SD or on a modest analog camcorder.

HD digital downloads, like what Storm Assist began offering last year, are admittedly tricky from the standpoint of piracy. But if those issues can be worked out, or aren't a huge concern for the seller, that might be the best way to attract interest. I would have no problem dropping $15 for a Blu-Ray quality file, as the lack of shipping charges and waiting time easily compensates for lacking a physical copy on my shelf.
 
It's always been depressing to me that the world has gotten so locked in to technology that they've let it surpass the experience itself. People used to talk about how awesome a tornado was on the video, because they were watching it to see the tornado. Now they marvel at the pixilation, resolution, crispiness of the picture quality. It could be wipers on a windshield in a rainstorm and it wouldn't matter; that damn quality is AMAZING!!!

Which means people like myself have simply been priced out of being relevant. It's an odd way to be erased, when everything you do otherwise is still pretty amazing.
 
I used to regularly purchase or trade for tornado video compilations and over the years have amassed a huge collection that I can never watch regularly. I am simply running out of physical space and now rarely purchase chaser or any other videos. I now mainly purchase compilations such as Storm Assist. My last chaser highlights ended in 2012. When I want to crank my 2013 chaser video, I put in the Storm Assist 2013 blu-ray! It was a lot of work to put together my last highlights video and I sold a few but certainly not enough to make it worthwhile from a monetary standpoint. I mainly did it for myself and as give-away/trading material. I don't know if I'll ever have time to complete another highlights video.

@Shane Adams , I didn't realize you were still selling videos, thanks for adding the link above. Somehow, I had thought that you were winding down selling dvds due to low sales and Dryline shutting down. Anyone reading this, definitely check out Shane's awesome tornado videos on the link he gave earlier. I think I own almost all of them.

@Skip Talbot The old Storms of.. series had usually had a separate editor for each chase day and then folks who put the whole thing together. Each day usually started with a brief meteorology segment and then showed the footage mixed with radar and maps. The separate daily editor thing might be easier than one or two editing the whole thing.
 
Social media has really revealed the "breaking news" state of mind of most people today. All that matters is what's happening right now. Just look at what happens when you post a mundane picture of a storm in realtime vs one of your best images from years ago. The latter gets almost no love. Could the same hold true for DVDs? Probably, to some degree. The exceptions are the videos that tell a story, and don't just show short clips of old tornadoes. My best-performing tornado video on my Youtube channel is Mulvane. That video, I just uploaded more or less the raw MiniDV tape from the day with very little editing - starting with a shot of a combine harvester in a field before the storm.

All this to say is that there is probably still a market for tornado video - maybe even BluRays - with some storytelling behind them rather than just gratuitous action clips.
 
Bill Hark said:
@Skip Talbot The old Storms of.. series had usually had a separate editor for each chase day and then folks who put the whole thing together. Each day usually started with a brief meteorology segment and then showed the footage mixed with radar and maps. The separate daily editor thing might be easier than one or two editing the whole thing.
Click to expand...

That's indeed what we're going to do for this year's production. We've got about 14 people that have offered to edit so far, so we should be good to go there assuming everyone follows through. We just need video contributions now.
 
DVD in general is just a dying breed with so many options being available for on-line streaming, not to mention Youtube and social media. DVD is falling to the wayside just as VHS did many years ago thanks to the advancements made with technology and the internet. Honestly, I haven't had any sort of TV service (cable TV, dish network, etc) in the pat 6 years, I haven't rented or bought a DVD in 8+ years... to me it's all just obsolete and not needed. Welcome to the future, thanks to technology.
 
I have noticed at least one chaser (David Reimer I believe) putting up an hour plus video from the Dodge City or Wynnewood day on YouTube and charging a fee to watch the video.

It's merely a suggestion but it's a route chasers who are still in the DVD selling business should try out. I personally have no desire to buy anymore DVDs however I would be intrigued by a digital download of a tornado compilation much like Storm Assist did with their 2015 compilation as well as Martin Lisius' The Chasers Of Tornado Alley which can be found on Vimeo for rental or digital download.

I would pay to see a compilation from Ben Holcomb, Adam Lucio, Hank Schyma, Marcus Diaz, and Jeff Piotrowski just to name a few if they were to upload over an hour of tornado videos and they charged a fee to view it.

Sent from my KFFOWI using Stormtrack mobile app
 
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