Review of the Epson Online Experience

Epson has created a website with tutorial videos from top photographers such as Jay Maisel, Bob Krist, Jack Reznicki, Vincent Versace, John Shaw, and more. You get 60 videos for $30.

In my short time so far using the website, I think the service offers great value but at the same time the Online Experience has been a very bad experience as far as usability is concerned.

First of all in an effort to prevent file sharing, the videos are licensed using Windows Media Player such that you can't play them on another computer after you download them. Great for them; bad for me when I buy a new laptop.

Second, five new episodes are posted each week of your membership. You don't get them all at once. This may suit their schedule but not mine. I paid my money. Now I want to watch what I paid for. NOW!!!

Their website states that, "Videos remain online and accessible for a period of 6 months from the initial date they are posted." Actually, what they mean is that unwatched videos remain online and accessible. Let me give you an example. Based on the ones I've seen so far each "episode" is composed of two separate video files (not counting a short "tips" video which only last a few seconds and isn't worth counting). Last night I was watching the Jay Maisel portions of the episodes and skipping over the remaining two videos of each episode. I thought I would come back to the other videos later. Big mistake. Because the download of those videos had briefly started (for only a few seconds each), I can no longer get to them. Here's what their help page says, "The system marks the videos as 'viewed' as soon as they are played. Each video needs to play in its entirety the first time it is accessed in order for it to download and save successfully. However, all videos have a grace period that keeps them available for two hours after they are initially accessed." Long story short, you have to let everything download while you have the chance and save it to your hard drive.

Speaking of which, all of the videos have meaningless names like "46.wmv". Appropriate captions will show up in the video library on Windows Media Player, but if you plan to browse by the filenames themselves you have to copy/paste from the website into the Save As dialog something like "Episode 04 - Underground with Jay Maisel.wmv". Quite a hassle.

For awhile I thought that some of the videos would not play in full-screen mode. I was really pissed at the time but later found out that I just needed to kill Windows Media Player after each video in order for things to work right. The quality of the videos themselves is fair but not exceptional.

Now for the other side of the story. Is there anything worthwhile about giving them $30? I think so. To me the videos of Jay Maisel's six-story residence/studio in NYC were entertaining enough to be worth the $30 bucks. I didn't learn anything about photography, but it was fun and inspirational nevertheless. I'm sure as the other videos come out that there will be some great educational in there.

I should also mention that there are also around 19 videos which you can download at any time that deal mostly with Photoshop techniques and printing. You can also download weekly lesson notes in PDF format. Soon after I registered I briefly had access to a web page that allowed me to download ALL the lesson notes. I didn't seize the opportunity thinking I'd come back and do it later. Now I can only download lesson notes as they're posted each week. Another hassle.

In summary, I don't think it's a waste of money, but at the same time I'd much rather buy all the videos on DVD, have better quality video, and watch them whenever and wherever I want.