NOTE: I'm reposting the same message I put up this morning to open the
blog back up for comments. Rest assured, we are reading what you write
and appreciate the outpouring.
I’m
Tom (aka Spinner), a Stage6 user and an employee of DivX, Inc., the
company behind the service. I’m writing this message today to inform
you that we plan to shut down Stage6 on February 28, 2008. Upload
functionality has already been turned off, and you’ll be able to view
and download videos until Thursday.
I know this news will come
as a shock and disappointment to many Stage6 users, and I’d like to
take a few moments to explain the reasons behind our decision.
We
created Stage6 with the mission of empowering content creators and
viewers to discover a new kind of video experience. Stage6 began as an
experiment, and we always knew there was a chance that it might not
succeed.
In many ways, though, the service did succeed, beyond
even our own initial expectations. Stage6 became very popular very
quickly. We helped gain exposure for some talented filmmakers who
brought great videos to the attention of an engaged community. We
helped prove that it’s possible to distribute true high definition
video on the Internet. And we helped broaden the Internet video
experience by offering content that is compatible with DVD players,
mobile devices and other products beyond the PC.
So why are we
shutting the service down? Well, the short answer is that the continued
operation of Stage6 is a very expensive enterprise that requires an
enormous amount of attention and resources that we are not in a
position to continue to provide. There are a lot of other details
involved, but at the end of the day it’s really as simple as that.
Now,
why didn’t we think of that before we decided to create Stage6 in the
first place, you may ask? That’s a good question. When we first created
Stage6, there was a clear need for a service that would offer a true
high quality video experience online because other video destinations
on the Internet simply weren’t providing that to users. A gap existed,
and Stage6 arrived to fill it.
As Stage6 grew quickly and
dramatically (accompanied by an explosion of other sites delivering
high quality video), it became clear that operating the service as a
part of the larger DivX business no longer made sense. We couldn’t
continue to run Stage6 and focus on our broader strategy to make it
possible for anyone to enjoy high quality video on any device. So, in
July of last year we announced that we were kicking off an effort to
explore strategic alternatives for Stage6, which is a fancy way of
saying we decided we would either have to sell it, spin it out into a
private company or shut it down.
I won’t (and can’t, really) go
into too much detail on those first two options other than to say that
we tried really hard to find a way to keep Stage6 alive, either as its
own private entity or by selling it to another company. Ultimately
neither of those two scenarios was possible, and we made the hard
decision to turn the lights off and cease operation of the service.
So
that’s where we are today. After February 28, Stage6 will cease to
exist as an online destination. But the larger DivX universe will
continue to thrive. Every day new DivX Certified devices arrive on the
market making it easy to move video beyond the PC. Products powered by
DivX Connected, our new initiative that lets users stream video,
photos, music and Internet services from the PC to the TV, are hitting
retail outlets. We remain committed to empowering content creators to
deliver high quality video to a wide audience, and we’ll continue to
offer services that will make it easy to find videos online in the DivX
format.
It’s been a wild ride, and none of it would have been
possible without the support of our users. Thank you for making Stage6
everything that it was.
Haiz. I like their service because of the high-res vids and the well-designed user interface. But now it's gone, sigh...
yah..and so sudden