stage6 Q_Q - 免空

幫忙附上首頁的原文，文章頗長 :)

-----

Stage6 to Shut Down on February 28


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.

--Tom

--