Random Riffs

Hudson Music, the company responsible for many of the current popular titles of drum instructional DVD’s, also has an alternative digital downloading service. Instead of buying the usual round piece of plastic in a box, you can search and pay for any title in their online catalog using a special branded player that can be download from their website. Compatible with both Windows and Mac operating systems, the Hudson Digital video player is a simple-to-use application that first opens onto a home screen that allows you to browse their current catalog of offerings (but only when connected to the Internet) or pick from your own library of purchased content (CLICK THE THUMBNAILS TO SEE A BIGGER SAMPLE PIC).

While browsing through Hudson’s catalog of currently available videos, purchasing content is as simple as selecting your desired video and then simply paying for it with your credit card or PayPal account credentials. Once the purchase has been made, the player automatically downloads your video in separate Quicktime files broken up by chapters. The chapters are much like what you’d see on any retail DVD. After your files have been downloaded, the player then encrypts those files into a proprietary format (that can only be played in Hudson’s branded player) and places those files into some hidden folder on your hard drive. (This whole process is done in an effort to curtail piracy of those downloaded video files.)

Playback of your videos is fairly straightforward. Select the title from the “My Stuff” section of the home screen and then select a chapter name for the next screen’s menu. Once playback of your video begins, you can use the usual assortment of video transport controls as well as a “DISCUSS” button that links to Hudson’s online forums. (SEE PIC) Moving from chapter to chapter, scrubbing video, and viewing in full screen mode are also included in your selection of controls. This entire user interface is intuitive, devoid of frills, and thus requires no reading through technical manuals or instruction sets to operate. Video playback is what you would typically expect from a DVD or iTunes-style download.

The Hudson Digital player does not require an internet connection to authorize playback. After downloading the player software, you simply authorize your computer by entering your account credentials before the first use. From all appearances, you can authorize as many machines as you need within reason. I currently have one instance of the player on my desktop computer and one on my laptop and had no issues playing from either location.  Since the files are stored natively on your hard drive, there is no need for some sort of Netflix-style streaming that would require an Internet connection for playback.

Overall, I am very impressed with this whole ecosystem. It’s simple to use and the platform is very stable. I only had one issue when I was trying to switch from the Hudson Digital player to my web browser. The laptop’s screen locked up, with the bottom half turning black, and this required a cold boot restart of the computer to remedy.

I only have two issues with the Hudson Digital ecosystem. The first is the inability to load and play your videos from multimedia devices like an iPhone or iPod Touch. These handheld devices are much more portable than even the smallest commercially available laptop, fitting in your pocket for the ultimate in ease-of-transportability. Since the files you download are encrypted and playable only through the branded Hudson Digital player (created by Leaping Brain), you also do not have the ability to transcode those files over to a format playable on some other more portable device. For instance, I can use Handbrake, an open source application available for free online, to transcode the retail instructional DVD’s I own into a digital file (.m4v Quicktime) that can then be cataloged in iTunes and placed on any of my Apple video-enabled devices.

*There is currently some controversy about this practice. The DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) contains verbiage that some feel prohibits this practice. I personally feel that, once I purchase any DVD, I have the right to make back-up copies of that DVD or transcode it into any other digital format that will allow me to view and transport that material in alternate forms.

My other complaint with Hudson Digital’s ecosystem is the price of their full length titles. In an age where the downloading of hi-res digital files has eliminated the need for hard copy CD’s & DVD’s, the prices for Hudson’s titles have not been adjusted to reflect this new reality. With iTunes or Amazon.com, I can download full-length albums for several dollars less than the price of a retail CD. This new price is also about half of what I would have paid for a vinyl LP back in 1990. The price of Hudson Digital’s titles is exactly the same as you would have paid for a VHS copy of the same video back in 1990. Sure, some titles have as much as 3 or 4 hours of video content but again, no physical copy means less manufacturing cost. (And, the hard cost of downloading a 2-hour long video file VS a 3-hour video is not more than a few pennies.)

So, all that being said, if I have a choice of spending $40 on an actual DVD or $40 on a downloaded file, I’ll probably wait a little while longer to buy the DVD at my local Guitar Center or simply order it from Amazon.com. Given the fact that most of today’s drum instructional DVD’s can be purchased from sites like Amazon.com for much less than their usual $39.95 retail price, Hudson is going to eventually have to adjust their pricing structure to compete with the realities of this new digital landscape.

I’m sure that Hudson’s argument would be the fact that these types of niche products sell far less numbers of copies than your average major motion picture DVD. But, there is an economic school of thought that says a lower purchase price would encourage more consumers to buy these videos. Getting more people to buy into the Hudson Digital ecosystem means more money for their company (and the educators creating these video products). When prices become much more affordable, people (like me) who have the available cash to spend on these products are more likely to buy three titles at $14.95 each than one title at $39.95.

Currently, you can try the Hudson Digital service by ordering several “sample” titles for free or, better yet, by purchasing a full-length title at a 50% discount by visiting Hudson’s On-Demand site, downloading the software, and entering the code FIRSTX at checkout. I would encourage you to purchase a video from Hudson Digital and give it a try. I purchased Cindy Blackman’s “Multiplicity”, which is virtually impossible to find in most retail outlets and slightly more expensive on sites like Amazon.com when compared to the discounted $10 price I paid after using the FIRSTX coupon code.

With the exception of the two points I outlined, I think it’s a great service. My only real hopes are that they will find a way to make it compatible with the iPhone, the iPod Touch, and the iPad (or other reasonable popular portable video platforms) and also make the prices of their titles significantly less than the retail DVD versions.