Trouble Viewing Thomas Brin?

To see Thomas Brin in action, visit the official movie site at: Adventures of Thomas Brin

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Occasionally, viewers will email that they cannot view a particular episode of Thomas Brin. There are a number of issues that can cause a viewing problem. However, viewing issues primarily fall into three categories: coding issues with the Thomas Brin website, incompatibility issues and/or bugs in browser and/or OS updates, and issues with plugins that the browser depends upon to properly render the QuickTime file within the browser window. I can only fix the first category but do have suggestions that may remedy problems with the other two categories.

If you are having trouble viewing any of the TB episodes via the Thomas Brin website, please help me and your fellow viewers by briefly posting here the specifics of your problem. In your post, please provide your web browser and version, operating system and version, and specific issue experienced. This will help me determine which category your particular issue may fall into and how to address it.

In the meantime, while I investigate your particular issue, here are several steps to try:

1.) To view Thomas Brin online, your browser needs to have a properly configured version of Apple's QuickTime plugin. Check to make sure that the QT plugin in your browser of choice is properly installed. You do that by visiting this Apple webpage via your browser: http://www.apple.com/quicktime/troubleshooting/

2.) Another possible cause of viewing problems is that javascript is disabled in your browser of choice. Check to make sure that javascript is enabled. If it is not, you will not be able to view any of the episodes. This is because each episode's webpage makes a javascript call which automatically generates the proper object and embed tags for the QuickTime file.

3.) If you're still having issues viewing, you can connect to each episode directly by copying the desired url and pasting it into the browser of your choice. Please note, you must have at least QuickTime version 7.1.5 installed to view the episodes.

Episode 1: http://www.thomasbrin.com/QTEncodings/GOT1NS.mov

Episode 2: http://www.thomasbrin.com/QTEncodings/GOT2NS.mov

Episode 3: http://www.thomasbrin.com/QTEncodings/GOT3NS.mov


I hope this helps remedy any viewing issues you may have.

Where's Episode 4?

To see Thomas Brin in action, visit the official movie site at: Adventures of Thomas Brin

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By now, some of our loyal Brin fans may be wondering why Episode 4 of the Adventures of Thomas Brin is not yet out. After all, at the end of Episode 3, it clearly stated "Episode 4 Coming Fall 2007". Since fall technically ends in late December, we're only 3 and a half months late--so far!

The truth is that we have not yet started to post produce Episode 4.

As I stated in an earlier post about E3 production statistics, it took A LOT of hours to create TBE3 (Thomas Brin Episode 3). That is one reason, among many, that we introduced Brin 2.0. To keep producing episodes, we need help.

Unfortunately, we only have had one individual inquire about Brin 2.0--a very nice individual from England who was really inquiring about the production equipment and software we used. So, with Brin 2.0 announced just a little over a year ago, we have zero people (outside of the original production team) getting involved. Furthermore, to add insult to minor injury (hey, we have big shoulders here) we have not had a single comment on the Blogging with Brin Blog and only one fan email in the past 12 months.

Although this is disappointing, it is not too surprising. Most of our viewers watch the Adventures of Thomas Brin via iTunes or some other podcasting directory. In fact, according to our server logs, fewer than 1% actually watch Thomas Brin directly via our website. This means that, although the episodes have been downloaded over 1.5 million times, we have only had 15,000 unique visitors to our website. This is one of the problems with the podcasting paradigm--the podcast directory websites get the vast majority of the visits whereas the websites of the creators' of the content (that is freely given away) receive very few visits.

So, the only way for the creator of a podcast to know how he or she is doing is from viewer comments. If they receive only a few comments, then they have to come to terms with the fact that they are not providing the type of content that viewers truly want.

When will Episode 4 come out? We'll, with seemingly little interest from our viewers, we are in no hurry to put in the 800 hours or so we estimate it will take in Post production. But, perhaps we are wrong in assuming that there is little interest left in Thomas Brin.

With all the Thomas Brin downloads, we know we have viewers. We'd love to know how we are doing. Some feedback from our viewers would be nice! As a viewer, do you enjoy what we've created? Do you want us to continue?

Please take a moment and leave a comment on this post. Or go to the Thomas Brin website and leave a comment on our Frappr Map or join the Cloud City Community.

CloudCity Community Opens at ThomasBrin.com

To see Thomas Brin in action, visit the official movie site at: Adventures of Thomas Brin

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After much forethought and procrastination, we have finally implemented a Thomas Brin Forum into the TB website! Now fans from around the world can meet in the CloudCity Community and discuss all aspects of the Adventures of Thomas Brin.

There's not much more to say than PLEASE JOIN! Community membership is free.