Final IPIX Disposition?

VR friends,

I received a call from an industry observer this morning reporting that the anonymous high bidder on IPIX's entire patent portfolio turns out to be Sony. The sale is expected to be completed as soon as the judge signs the order in the coming days.

Now we can all start dreaming about the next generation of VR, and what the involvement of a mega-corporation like Sony will mean...

Scott Highton
Author, Virtual Reality Photography
Web: http://www.vrphotography.com

Interesting... Didn't sony have a 'non-fisheye' oneshot lens at some point?
Yes, they did:
http://www.sony.net/Products/SC-HP/cx_news/vol34/featuring2.html

The news is official:
http://news.google.nl/news?q=ipix%20sony

Feel free to continue discussing this topic here, but there's also a new post.

I'm hoping some one will buy up the patents, still photography assets and maybe the security video assets, take it private and offer them to us under a profitable organization

Douglas Aurand
Albuquerque, NM

From what i have read about ipix and its death, it wasnt the VR photography that brough t it down, it was its research and other projects.

If this is true, and i know there are still many agents and photographers out there that still use this software and require the keys, then the new buyer will be barmy to allow people to use it for free.

Even if they plan to drop the per movie key license, then what about people who bought keys before its death, will they be rembust thier money, or will they be paying for something that other people are getting for free. So at what piont would it become free, and if people are willing to pay a fee rather than replace the software, and equipment, then Ipix will just keep renewing the keys.

Who ever buys it will be just be after a commercial venture, in other words making spondoolies.

There is more chance of somebody buying a company like BMW, or Merc and giving away free cars, its the same principle.

www.QuickTimeVirtualReality.com

Ian
What bankrupted them was becoming too big a company with too much overhead for the income. With shareholders to satisfy, management couldn't downsize fast enough to bring expenses in balance with revenue without getting fired.

Everything is still up and running online, I extended my license for another year from www.iPIXStore.com ten days after the bankruptcy filing, you can still buy Keys for the Real Estate Wizard there and Host@iPIX is still accepting new images. And they're charging for them all

iPIX stopped using "Keys" in its premium product 2 years ago. The iPIX Interactive Studio replaced the iPIX 360 Suite Pro 2 years ago. It works on annual licenses insead of "keys". It's $899 the first year and $699 a year for the renewel. They let me and other Suite Key owners trade in our Keys at full price toward the purchase of the Interactive Studio. iPIX Photographers either switched to IIS or sold their Keys to people like me. I bought over 100 Suite Keys on eBay at half price or better, used a bunch to create images and traded the rest in to get IIS. I doubt there are any Suite Users that have any keys left. If there are, the new owners could just offer the same trade.

They did continue using "keys" for the iPIX Real Estate Wizard when Homestore/Move.com dumped it back in their lap. (Its a long story) The Wizard software sold for $35, yes just $35, and RE Keys were $20 for 5 images. The old $50 sets of 4 RE Keys included the hosting on PicturePath and distribution to Realtor.com. Bulk contract purchases could get the pice with hosting down to $35 for 4 images. The point being that the "Key" model was more complex than just a "per image" charge; you got the RE software really cheap upfront with the ongoing expense of RE Keys and you only bought RE Keys when you needed them if you were an small user, and the RE Keys included hosting/distribution not just image creation.

You're right, if an investor buys the IIS software, it it will be to offer the software for sale. Just after the bankruptcy was filed, I wrote a letter to the president of Adobe Systems suggesting they purchase the IIS and add it to their other software company purchases like Macromedia. I had a long list of reasons it would fit with their many media producing software products like Flash, Premiere, Shockwave, etc,. The only multimedia software they lack is Virtual Imaging and iPIX has long had realtionships with Adobe (Photoshop Editing Plug-In) and Macromedia (iPIX Xtra for Director). Bankrupcty would let Adobe or some one else offer a finished working product without the initial developement costs.

My thinking is the new owner of IIS could reduce the price to be even more competitive with RealViz and EasyPano and emphasize higher quality images rather than their "point-n-shoot" philosophy that only worked for RE VTs.

My understanding from the news stories is that the whole company can be bought for $5 million, Still Virtual Imaging, Video Virtual Imaging and the Giga-Pixel Video Camera Project for DARPA. If the investor wants a 5% return on investment, they just need to sell 250 annual IIS licenses for $500 a year for 2 years; 250 x $500 x 2 = $250,000. There are over a 100 iPIX photographers listed on the www.ipix.com site (still running) that had to be using IIS and have a website to be listed there. One of my competitors here in Albuquerque uses IIS but doesn't have a website, so he's not listed. That make me think selling 250 licenses for 2 years wouldn't be that much of a problem. That doesn't take into consideration any other potential sales income like keys for the small RE Wizard users.

PhotoVista was developed by MGI, Roxio sold it for a while when they bought MGI and now iSeeMedia owns/sells PhotoVista.

I just wouldn't count the iPIX product out of the VR game too quickly.

Douglas Aurand
Albuquerque, NM

Mike
There as a press release a couple days ago that there would be an auction in December for the physical assets (office equip, cameras) and another for the Gigapixel Video Camera technology.

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/061201/phf017.html?.v=68

Then, presumably in January or February, there will be auctions for the 360° Still and Video technology.

I guess the October date was just a deadline to make offers, not the actual auction. And apparently bidders can make additional offers on the date of the actual auction.

Douglas Aurand
Albuquerque, NM

A note that Helmut Dersch recently wrote and has been posted through the quicktime-vr@lists.apple.com newsletter.

**************************************************************

Congratulations on this excellent news!

the link does not work, but just entering EP0971540 into the search box leads to the page where the magic words are:
" 07/12/2006 Dispatch of the communication that patent will be revoked"

Yuv

Helmut Dersch wrote:
The European Patent Office will revoke the patent "EP0971540 - Omniview motionless camera orientation system". For details and documents see

http://www.epoline.org/portal/public/!ut/p/kcxml/04_Sj9SPykssy0xPLMnMz
0vM0Y_QjzKLN4i3dAfJgFjGpvqRqCKOcAFvfV-P_NxU_QD9gtzQiHJHRUUAedRa9w!!/de
lta/base64xml/L0lDU0NUTzdvSko3dWFDU1lKQ2dwUkEhIS9vSG9RQUFJUUpBQU1ZeGpH
TVVwakdLWXd4bUljRklVdUNBISEvNEpGaUNPc1RsRTZDdUEySnlpZEJYZnJDRlpzT1liaE
UvN18wX0cyLzE4NTM2MDcvb3JnZXBvbGluZXBvcnRhbGZyYW1ld29ya3BvcnRsZXRiYXNl
U3RhdGVQb3J0bGV0QmFzZUFjdGlvbi9vcmcuZXBvbGluZS5wb3J0YWwuYXBwbGljYXRpb2
5zLnJlZ2lzdGVycGx1cy5wb3J0bGV0LlJQQWN0aW9uU2VhcmNo

Regards

Helmut Dersch

**************************************************************

Posted for those not registered to the newsletter, and maybe open a little more light into the out-come of Ipix.
Ian

There was a bid for the Gigapixel Technology, which is now being rejected because of a $2 million bid by from an unknown party represented by a Slicon Valley law firm for all of the patents; still photography, video and gigapixel camera.

The Knoxville News Sentinal is following the story better than any one else, www.KnoxNews.com

Douglas Aurand
Albuquerque, NM

Doug

Thanks for the link. This sounds like it can go on for quite a bit more time before things get ironed out enough for me to get a renewed license, if they are EVER offered by the winning bidder.

Mike

Mike
You can renew your license now.

I renewed mine 10 days after the bankruptcy was announced and no one was answering the phones.

I've talked to a couple if iPIX Real Estate Wizard users and they're having no problem buying "keys" for that program.

Also HOST@iPIX is still working, but I'm told PicturePath won't accept the links any more. They are accepting iPIX images though.

Here's the deal if you want to renew your license that no one (iPIX's competition)wants any one to know.

1. You will get a new license file after you pay for the renewal.

2. Worst case scenario, if you don't get the file(s), just dispute the credit card charge with your credit/debit card company. Since there's no one to fight the dispute at iPIX, you'll win by default. I had a little troupble getting the Format Pack license file to "take" and checked with my Visa Debit Card issuer. Bank of America told be that if no one responded in 30 days, I would win the dispute

Todd Taylor (former awesome tech support at iPIX) responded on the ipix-dev group on Yahoo and told me to remove the other old .lic files, just keeping the 2 new ones, one for the Essentials Pack and one for the Format Pack.

It worked and I've had no problem since then.

The only downside is if you have a hard drive failure, you may not be able to re-install the iPIX Interactive Studio and get the license file to work. Its possible you'll have a new location/serial number with the re-install. No one seems to know for sure.

What I found would protect my investment was having a "ghost drive" copy made. I had a 40GB HD that has always been a little noisy so I had it copied to a 200GB and put that drive in the computer keeping the old one as a backup. The new one works perfect and iPIX Interactive Studio has been running fine ever since. It had a glitch creating QuickTime files before and still does.

The truth is you won't get screwed out of your money, either the renewal with work or your credit/debit card company will protect you from paying for something a vendor doesn't deliver.

Douglas Aurand
Albuquerque, NM

Doug

Again, thanks for your comments. This procedure seems to fly in the face of what I have heard regarding the License. Comments on this forum seem to say DO NOT go to the IPIX Store and renew your license -- it does not work. You can get keys, but not the license. However, from what your saying is if you download and pay by credit card, if it does not work you can dispute the charges and that seems to be a viable option. I wonder though if the time frame you had -- several days after the bankruptcy -- is different now, months after their demise. I'd appreciate your take on the license given the time that has lapsed. It seems from your comments that either I'll get a license renewal OR I'll get my money back.

Again, thanks for your help and insight.

Mike

Mike
You'll either get your license or you'll get your money back.

Its that simple

This doesn't fly in the face of iPIX user postings in the ipix-dev group on Yahoo. Theye' still buying and receiving "keys" as of a few weeks ago. The licencing technology works just like the keys do

The "don't renew" posting started in a IVRPA Forum, but the poster didn't state whether they had actually tried to renew a licence. They now market another brand of virtual imaging software.

Even though I got my Formatter Pack .lic file, it wouldn't work right. If you click on Help in IIS, then About Plug-Ins you'll see the Expriation date of the various output format "Plug-Ins". My iPIX converters were extended to Sept 14, 2008 but not the others like Equirectangular Projection or Cubic Strip which I use in my routine work flow.

After a couple days I contacted Bank of America and they said the charge hadn't come through yet, so I would have to wait to dispute the charge. They said I could make the dispute on the basis the "product didn't work as described" or "failure to receive services."

When I told them iPIX was in bankruptcy and no one was answering the phones to assist with the problem, they said I would probably win the dispute by default since it sounded like there was no one there to fight the chargeback. BofA didn't seem concerned and I remembered from my days in the hotel business that we had a certain number of days to respond to chargebacks. If we didn't respond, we lost.

The credit/debit card laws and rules are really in favor of the consumer. As long as iPIX keeps accepting CC payments they're subject to the credit laws and the contract they have with the credit card company.

All I would have to keep saying was that it didn't work and it becomes the responsibility of the seller to prove it did and provide assitance to get it working.

Douglas Aurand
Albuquerque, NM

Doug

Again, thank you for the insight. I feel that with your experience, I really have nothing to loose except maybe a few phone calls. I can't say I use IPIX all that often -- I do training design, both traditional and web based -- and have successfily used the technology in one class online. I do, however, see other online training applications and I'd like to get my software working again. I'm going to do this and I'll see how it goes. I'll be sure to report back.

Thanks, Doug, for your help -- I really appreciate it!!

Mike

Mike
Please do let me know how the license renewal goes.

Also if you have a problem and need some images stitched I'd be happy to take care of some for you

Douglas Aurand
Albuquerque, NM

Anyone care to speculate on this news?

I hope its Adobe

Douglas Aurand
Albuquerque, NM

"I hope its Adobe"

Yes it would be great to add towards the design collection, but i think they already have enough or a monopoly owning macromedia and pretty much every piece of software used in most design studios.

They seem to be the next Microsoft, i would hate to think i owned any competing software in this industry.

I hope its kept still in the VR industry, IE VR Toolbox, Realviz, etc. This will also help stop the VR industry from exploding into mainstream design studios, and helping us keep our work as specialists. As i don't think that is far away as it is, all it will need is one or two very good bits of software which is easier to learn than PTGUI, and i think quite a massive amount of work will be lost, as the agents, hotels and web designers will do it them selves cutting us out completely.

Regards
Ian

www.QuickTimeVirtualReality.com

Ian
iPIX Tried the "do it yourself" approach for Realtors and it failed for the most part.

With a passable camera, lens, rotator and tripod costing $1,500 before the sofware expense, few Realtors chose this option. And the iPIX Real Estate Wizard software was only $25. They did need "keys" to produce images with the highest price being $50 for 4 keys and that included hosting and distribution to sites like Realtor.com. It was cheap except for a good camera/lens/rotator.

I doubt a hotel will invest in a setup like this for a once every 5 years shoot either.

The obstacle is the the learning curve.

That's the same obstacle the web designers have; they actually have to learn photography. iPIX had a lot of web designers who thought producing virtual images would be easy and cheap. They found out good quality required a top of line camera and a lot of practice. Many began subcontracting the VT work out to guys like us

If Adobe has purchased iPIX, I see the product would being used more in professional design studios like you suggest. Some of them already use QuickTime and iPIX. There's one here in Albuquerque that mainly does websites and Flash and has done iPIX for longer than I have. They just don't do as much as me, so they're not as good at it.

Even with the popularity of Photoshop Element & Premiere Elements, most of the Adobe/Macromedia line up is geared for professionals. I just don't see virtual tour photography going mainstream like video is.

Other than real estate, I think experienced photographers who can produce high quality virtual images will still have plenty of work at good pay.

Also, the main benefit iPIX had of being able to stitch just 2 fisheyes into a full 360° x 360° sphere or cube is fading as Nikon moves the "pro-consumer" Coolpix line of cameras down-market to high-end point & shoots. The only 2 fisheye lenses that have enough angle/field of view (more than 180°) to stitch just 2 photos will be discontinued sooner or later(the FC-E8 & E9).

That just leaves DSLRs using the Sigma 8mm & Nikkor 10.5mm or other fisheye lenses that that are much more complicated to produce a fully immersive image; six shots around plus a top & bottom shot vs. two shots with the FC-E8 & E9

My thinking is that if the iPIX technology winds up with Adobe the benefit to us will be even more demand for virtual imaging in general when the design studios find out virtual imaging isn't a "point & shoot" operation. Anybody can buy a high quality camera, but good quality work actually takes skill and experience

Douglas Aurand
Albuquerque, NM

"Anybody can buy a high quality camera, but good quality work actually takes skill and experience"

Very similar to what i say when I'm trying to sell websites. Many clients say but my friends son or who ever can use dreamweaver and will do it for much cheaper.

I always reply,
"Pencils are almost free but only a hand full of people can make high quality art with them."

Ian
www.QuickTimeVirtualReality.com

Ian
I like the "pencils" phrase, mind if I borrow it?

I think iPIX as part of Adobe will just create more demand.

They're supposed to announce on Monday

Douglas Aurand
Albuquerque, NM

Doug,

I just spoke (Wed. 1/31 at 12:15pm EST) with Andrew Eder at the Knoxville News Sentinel and he said nothing has been filed yet to reveal the owner of the patents as of yet. The latest article I read suggested the new company was a "multi-national entity" in a different time zone, but they had an attorney from San Francisco working on their behalf.

http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/tech/article/0,1406,KNS_8976_5308631,00.html

Best,

Hoyle Koontz

Security video would be the fit...
http://www.securityinfowatch.com/online/News/Sony-Acquires-IPIX-Assets/1...

Hey, doesn't Sony make still cameras too?

Too late ;-)