Greetings all. The aquisition of the MovieNow app software and new dev team is complete and we now are moving forward with new features, new products, and a new community. So first off let me just say that no one that has paid for the MovieNow app from the previous company will lose anything. We will continue to support the MovieNow 5.0 app and get a stable build out to all that have purchased it. With that said our primary focus will now be to take the MovieNow platform and build it into an all new Unified-OS for all our products, as well as for digital download versions. This new Unified-OS will come in different versions for specific products. They are (planned) as follows:
Lite version for pre-installation on our basic Digital Movie Poster Board ( not the Ultimate Movie Board).
Digital Download version for download and to be used by the DIY community.
Digital Movie Banner version to be used with our soon to be released Digital Movie Banner.
Digital Media Player version to be used with our soon to be released Digital Media Player.
(Eventually) A replacement for our Ultimate Movie Board software.
The Unified-OS software eco-system is an ambitious idea. When complete all of our products will be able to communicate with each other and also be able to sync with one another. This will add so many possibilities with how you interact with your Digital Movie Boards products. Imagine having several movie boards installed in your gameroom, a Digital Movie Banner installed above the entrance to your home theater, and are watching movies on your Digital Movie Boards Digital Media Player. Right now you have to have several instances of the app open for each product because you access them via their IP address. Our Unified-OS will simplify this by listing all Digital Movie Board products in 1 app for you to control. Think of the SONOS eco-system. 1 app to control all your devices. This feature will also give you the ability to sync all poster boards to display the same, but random, content on all the boards. Basically everything will just talk to each other. This is the Unified-OS in a basic condensed explanation.
The Lite version and the Digital Download version will be the same version. This will start with a whole new version 6.0. It will play only movie posters with correct banners, correct ratings listings, will work with Kodi and Plex, and will be a yearly licensed software. More on this later.
The Digital Movie Banner version will be a version designed for our new Digital Movie Banner and will be optimized to work in a 1920 x 400 resolution format. It will display both static and animated movie banners that the user can purchase, download, and install from the store.
The version for our upcoming Digital Media Player will be optimized for content playback of NAS stored movies, music and will seamlessly connect to and send the proper poster and information for display on the movie poster board and on the movie banner automatically.
Eventually we will make the move to replace our current Ultimate software with a clone based on this Unified-OS software when we release our Gen 3 touchscreen based movie boards next year.
We know that not everyone will need or want to purchase all our products, and many enthusiasts are fully comfortable building their own boards and only need the software. So we will continue to offer a version as a digital download for the DIY community. But there are also many other people who do not know, care, or have the time to research, build their own hardware. They just want something finished, programmed, and working. We will have options for everyone.
Pricing. Yes....there will be a cost involved. No more free lunch. Let's face it....we all know what a $20 a year product looks like. We have all dealt with buggy software that has no support, no further development team (if ever), and takes endless hours and days of google searching and testing just to get 1 feature to work. This will not be us. Yes....we are a business. And we are a for profit business. We spent a lot of money building this business and we spend a ton more to keep it going. Software development is not cheap. While I do not have at this time any pricing figures for the software I want to be transparent in saying the digital download will have a yearly price to be paid. Pay to play. If you want a product that is professionally developed and supported then you must support us by paying for the software. I promise we will not be gouging anyone's eye's out and it will be affordable. But it will NOT be $20 a year donation. We all know what that gets you.
We will also be selling content for your new Digital Movie Banner, Digital Movie Poster Board, Ultimate Movie Board, and Digital Media Player. Some versions of the software allow you to upload and use your own images, while other version will only be used with our purchased content. We hope this keeps the look and feel of all our products consistant and polished. Remember we are a business.
So now that you have all read the basics of our roadmap I'd like feedback and suggessions. Please...no more whinning about what was. Let's keep the topic about what can and will be. Remember that we can only continue to make these very niche software and products with the help of the community. I want to build a large community where we can all share tips, tricks, and content with each other. Let's keep things civil.
Thank you all.