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The President's Message - 1 December 07
Bruce Nazarian
As you may know, I was recently elected President of the DVDA by the DVDA Board of Directors, with a mandate for change, and change has been topmost on my list of priorities.
Since the election, I have been actively working to reshape the mission for the worldwide DVDA, making it relevant to 21st century issues, and more tangibly beneficial to its members. We've started by adding more globally-usable membership benefits for all our members, as well as organizing a series of high-profile conference events and DVD awards programs in the US, EU, and (shortly) Asia. For the first time, the DVDA Day of Excellence Event and Excellence Awards will be at NAB, in April 2008. Details will be forthcoming shortly.
Among the many member benefits we have recently added is an alliance with Netblender to provide DVDA Corporate Members with special access to the Do Studio MX online toolset, as well as discounts on DoStudio training classes to be held worldwide. We are also finalizing a deal for online digital media training thru lynda.com. Another benefit is a discount on HD After Edit (and DVD After Edit), a tool used by many DVD authors worldwide. In addition, our old friend Discmakers is offering all DVDA members a discount on their replication orders, and Screamervision in New York offers a discount on duplication. There are many more benefits that also exist. (Login and visit the members benefits page to see details)
(click Read More to continue)
Another significant benefit exclusively for DVDA members will be
eligibility for the forthcoming DVDA Digital Certification Program,
which will identify the DVDA member facilities (and, soon, the
individual Authors and Producers) who subscribe to and meet or exceed
our stated "best-practices" for SD, HD and Blu-ray. This benefit will
make it easier for potential clients to identify "highly-qualified"
DVD, HD, and BD authoring facilities worldwide.
As evidence of the acceptance of this, we have recently renewed the
membership of many high-profile authoring facilities in the US, UK and
EU, and have subscribed many new ones. We have also added some
powerful new names to our current sponsors that include Microsoft, and
Memory-Tech, and these shall be publicly announced in January... and
we're adding more members and sponsors every month, evidence that our
new mission is being embraced worldwide.
I have long been a proponent of making our DVDA Excellence Awards more
relevant in territories worldwide, and for that reason we are shortly
to announce the dates and venue for our 2008 European DVDA Excellence Awards, which
will judge entries FROM Europe BY European judges. We shall do the
same for Asia later in 2008. These are the same Excellence awards we've
held for years in the USA, and the criteria we use mean that more than
one winner may be named in each category.
The DVDA has an opportunity to realign its level of service to our
members worldwide, and that has been a major part of my strategy for
the DVDA as we go into 2008. As DVDA President I am actively working to
form new alliances with other associations around the world, including
UK Screen Association, The Hollywood Post Alliance, Digital Hollywood,
the META org, and many others. We already enjoy a good relationship
with the DVD Forum, and the Blu-ray Disc Ass'n, and look forward to
working more closely with both of them.
But now, we're at a crossroads... I believe the proper mission for the
DVDA is to organize and consolidate the worldwide DVD community under
the DVDA banner, so that we can speak worldwide with a powerful voice
to potential new clients for our members, and to sponsors. This does
not mean I wish for the DVDA in the US to ignore or urusp the
territoriality of the EU or Asia - on the contrary - we wish to assist
in their rejuvenation, in an organized manner, and offer Eu and ASIC
members all of the significant member benefits we are adding.
A number of years ago, the DVDA created and funded the DVDA-EU and
encouraged the formation of the DVDA-ASIA. I am proposing that those
three "legs" of the worldwide DVDA each become more active to again
look after the issues of specific concern to each major territory of
the world: US, EU, ASIA/PACIFIC. DVDA will be looking to create more
local chapters, and have them be more active in the DVD community -
both from a social and educational slant. We will actively be planning
conferences in each territory for 2008, and already have great support
for our first efforts.
If you or your company would like to help us achieve our goals for 2008
and beyond, I would personally appreciate it if you would consider
joining the DVDA, or renew your DVDA membership. In doing so you will
not only advance the DVDA's mission, but you or your company would also
be eligible to receive all of the new membership benefits that we will
be adding to our quickly-growing list of benefits.
We also encourage DVDA members to submit your DVD news items as well, so we
can help promote your DVD activities on DVDA.org, and also in our
newsletters and press releases. Just send them to news@dvda.org. If you have a local chapter that would like their own area on DVDA.ORG, you have only to ask us - just email webmaster@dvda.org and ask us. It's FREE!
You can find out more about these membership benefits at www.DVDA.org and can join online instantly
. We're working hard to ensure that the DVDA is actively making your
DVD efforts more rewarding. We'd appreciate your assistance, and
cordially invite you to become part of our worldwide organization.
best regards - Bruce
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