September 25, 2025 • 34 mins
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The physical photograph is making a powerful comeback, and dye sublimation printing technology stands at the forefront of this renaissance. In this eye-opening conversation with Jeff Huang, corporate officer of Taiwan-based HiTi Digital, we explore how this 25-year-old company has positioned itself as a unique force in the printing industry by manufacturing both printers and consumables in-house.
What makes dye sublimation printing superior to inkjet for event photography? According to Huang, it comes down to "speed, speed, and speed." While inkjet printers place individual dots, dye-sub printers transfer entire lines simultaneously, dramatically reducing printing time. Beyond speed, the technology offers remarkable reliability—printers can sit unused for months and still work perfectly when needed, a critical advantage for seasonal businesses like photo booths and event photography.
We dive deep into the growing markets where physical prints remain highly valued. Photo booth operators are thriving at weddings, corporate events, and social gatherings, where guests crave tangible mementos of special moments. Sports photography represents another booming sector, with parents willingly spending $60-100 for high-quality prints of their athletic children. These aren't just photos—they're treasured keepsakes that capture fleeting moments in ways digital images simply cannot.
Huang also addresses how technological advancements have overcome historical concerns about dye-sublimation print longevity. Through multiple formula revisions and the addition of specialized protective layers, modern dye-sub prints maintain their quality for years, even under challenging conditions.
Discover why, in a world saturated with digital images, the physical photograph continues to hold powerful
Mediaclip strives to continuously enhance the user experience while dramatically increasing revenue.
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Hosted and produced by Gary Pageau
Edited by Olivia Pageau
Announcer: Erin Manning
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Erin Manning (00:02):
Welcome to the Dead Pixels Society podcast, the
photo imaging industry'sleading news source.
Here's your host, Gary Pageau.
The Dead Pixel Society podcastis brought to you by Mediaclip,
Advertek Printing andIndependent Photo Imagers.
Gary Pageau (00:17):
Hello again and welcome to the Deads Pixel
Society podcast.
I'm your host, Gary Pageau, andtoday we're joined by Jeff
Huang, who is the corporateofficer of HiTi Digital, and
they're based in Taiwan.
They are a dye- sub printer andmedia manufacturer and they
primarily focus on the photobook and event photography
markets.
Hi, Jeff, how are you today?
Jeffrey Huang (00:38):
I'm good, I'm doing well.
Thank you, Gary.
Gary Pageau (00:41):
So your company's actually been around for a long
time in the DICE subspace.
Can you walk us through thatjourney?
Jeffrey Huang (00:49):
Okay, this year is the 25th year for Hi-T.
We're actually very young forcompanies that are currently in
this space, but the technologyhas been around since about the
late 80s, early 90s, so we werethere pretty much from the
beginning.
We're based in Taiwan.
It was started by a bunch ofengineers who uh wanted to work
on this technology and we are alisted company in taiwan.
(01:11):
We started 20 years ago,started making uh cut sheet
photo printers for all sorts ofapplications.
We our main customer back thenwas passport photo operators, so
we'll have a lot of customerswho would operate their shop and
print passport photos, andwe've had a long chain of useful
(01:34):
, reliable all the good wordsthat you can put on it printers
and we are now one of the.
I think there's now currentlyfive companies that are in this
space and we're one of them andwe're rather unique, which I
think we'll talk about goingforward.
Gary Pageau (01:52):
Yeah, let's just dive right into that piece the
uniqueness.
In fact, you're kind of anengineering-based company and
you do everything yourself.
Jeffrey Huang (01:58):
Yes, so for the Dye-sub printer there's
obviously two parts.
There is the printer itself andthen there is the media, or the
consumables.
And the consumables there is apaper the photo paper that we
print on, and then there's thedice-up ribbon.
So we might talk a little bitabout that as well.
But basically there's aconsumable in the printer, and
(02:19):
every single manufacturercurrently in the space either
make the printer or they makethe consumable and they'll buy
the other to create a packageand sell to a customer.
We're the only one that makesboth the printer and the paper
and the ribbon.
So we are a one-stop shop.
We're vertically integrated.
We have some knowledge of thethe industry that people might
(02:40):
have individually but never inone place like we do.
Gary Pageau (02:43):
So you're able to tune probably your media to your
printers pretty closely right.
Jeffrey Huang (02:50):
Yes.
So I think this gets into a newproduct.
So we recently are coming outwith a new product that's coming
out at the end of this year andwe were able to tune our
printers to print with acompetitor's media without any
input from them.
(03:11):
So we didn't have like, theydidn't give us their specs, they
didn't give us their colorcharts or anything.
We took their media, we lookedat it and then, with our
knowledge of our own media andtheir media and our printer,
we're going to say, okay, thisis probably how theirs work and
we can tune our printer to tofit their media so that they can
use ours and theirs.
And you know, all printers fromthe beginning of time in in this
(03:33):
dice up world till now havebeen tuned for one specific
media.
Uh, usually that media has avery thin uh gap in terms of
their usability.
You have to tune every spec tomake sure that it's just for
this media.
And to be able to do it to twodifferent types of media
manufactured by two companies inmultiple locations is.
(03:54):
It's a technological innovation.
Even though it's probably veryspecific to our industry, it is
special.
Gary Pageau (04:01):
Yeah, there probably aren't a lot of people
saying I really wish I could getsome different media for this
printer.
But, like you said, it's forfor your niche.
It's probably would be workwell for either.
Jeffrey Huang (04:12):
You're trying to put your printer into some place
where they've already got anexisting contract for media, so
it would work well with thatyeah, so we specifically are
aimed at operators who havemaybe like between 5 and 20
printers, where they have tokeep on replacing printers but
they can't afford to just checkout their fleet and then pick a
(04:33):
new one up, right?
Uh, so they may have to chucktwo or three out, they'll buy
some bar printer, but they'restill going to keep the media on
hand for their old printers andthen they can use their old
media and our printers and thenslowly switch over, and we'll be
happy with that because youknow it gets our foot in the
door and some of these largeroperators, and also it helps our
customers because they now havea choice, right, if you're.
(04:56):
If the media suddenly doesn'tcome over from overseas, which
it always does now you have toworry about supply issues.
Well, now you have two choices.
You have two possibilities ofwhat you need to use.
Yeah, that offers a bit of umrisk mitigation.
Gary Pageau (05:11):
I think is the but that product's not out of the
market yet right so so we don'twant to talk quite much about
that, because you said that wasgoing to be coming when uh end
of this year okay, so, so it'snear term, but it's not.
So what's your portfolio likenow of products?
Cause you said you started inpassports.
I'm sure you're probably stilldoing that, and then you're also
(05:33):
in the event space and thephoto booth space.
I'm sure there's differentrequirements for each of those.
Jeffrey Huang (05:39):
So we only have printers.
So, and even though we work forthe events and photo booth space
, we don't actually make a photobooth.
So we have photo printers andwe have card printers.
Those are the only things wehave and our photo printers.
We have two models because thethird one is coming out this
year.
So two models.
There's a small one for thehome, so that we call it the 322
(06:00):
.
It's a printer about this bigwe say it's a perfect gift for
grandma because you know, youput it on her desk and then she
can print out hergrandchildren's photos.
And then we have the 525, whichis our sort of mainline roll
type printer that is designedfor commercial work.
It's printing all over the world.
It's been on the market for acouple of years and we're very
(06:21):
proud.
Gary Pageau (06:21):
So you don't really have to customize that the
industrial printer for differentmarkets.
Jeffrey Huang (06:32):
It's able to serve all of those.
We have tuned it to the pointwhere it can.
So obviously there for photobooth markets, for event photos
and for the studios.
They have differentrequirements for what their
photo printers need to be.
Some want color tables to be,you know, better off for flesh
tones.
In fact, this is a veryinteresting thing that I we've
seen is that we consistently geta request from china to make
the face wider when they'reputting and we consistently,
(06:53):
when we go to the us, they sayoh, we see your photos and your
faces are paler than everybodyelse, right?
the other side has like you know, a more lively looking face and
we're like that's because whenwe have we're in the asian
market, we have a whiter skintone to make them look cooler,
more beautiful, and then in inthe us we have a different uh
requirement, so we have tunedour printers for this kind of
(07:16):
stuff.
Yeah, but in general whatpeople want is a reliable print.
They want it in the size sizesthat people are used to.
So two by six, four by six, sixby eight, five by seven, and so
our printers can do all thosethings we.
We have only one printer and itcan do.
Right now I can do all the allof the things so you can just
swap out the magazines on thatyes, so you swap out.
(07:38):
You swap out the media, you putin a different size and it's
basically any of the six inch,five, five inch printing that
you would.
Gary Pageau (07:46):
So one of the things you hear is you know the,
you know inkjet coming intothis marketplace.
What are some of the advantagesof Dye-sub versus inkjet for
this sort of instant on-sitetype printing?
Jeffrey Huang (08:01):
I once heard this said by our founder.
But the advantage of dye-s ub?
There's three advantages.
It's speed, speed and speed,because in instead of printing
a dot we print a line.
So that means that for sixinches of a six inch printhead
we're printing like this and youwill always be faster than
(08:24):
printing inkjet, because inkjetis doing a dot, is doing like
that a couple thousand times, uh, during a printing cycle,
whereas we do a line and we do acouple hundred printing cycles
right.
So that gives us a speedadvantage.
And when you're waiting, whenyou're at a, at an event, you're
not wanting, wanting to sitthere and watch that thing go
(08:45):
like this quite loudly in theevent.
The second advantage we have isthat we don't clog up.
So Inkjet has a problem wherethe ink is liquid but it likes
to turn solid and so when youare printing the photo, if you
haven't used your printer forabout two or three months, all
the ink clogs up in the littlehead and then it comes out with
(09:06):
either a very bad picture or itdoesn't print.
And in the event space, in thephoto booth space, usually
printing is done sort of at thevery end of the year, sort of
september to to december,because that's when the holiday
season is, and also maybe duringeaster or school holidays.
That's when they print, and sothey might have two or three
months in between where they'reeither not printing or they're
(09:29):
printing at very smallquantities, right, and they're
making most of their money inthese two periods and the the
last thing you want to do isit's October 1st, you break out
your printer, you're ready to doa lot of work because you know
it's halloween season and you'vegot all these customers lined
up, and then suddenly you say,oh, your printer is not printed,
and then you want to get itrepaired.
But the repair shop gets allthese people who haven't looked
(09:51):
at their printer in three months, and then the printer is not
working.
They don't have a timeline forwhen you can have it repaired.
That's a huge issue, right?
That's not how you run abusiness.
You want reliability andbecause is a solid state
technology, everything you useis solid.
There isn't that issue.
It will pick up your printerafter two or three months, two
(10:12):
or three years even.
It will work and then it willbe able to work for you in your
business.
That's our advertising.
Gary Pageau (10:21):
But there are probably some maintenance things
you have to do to to maintainyour dyso printer.
I'm sure can you really leaveit for three years and then just
turn it on and hope it works.
Jeffrey Huang (10:31):
Oh, so our maintenance is usually based on
print count so every couple, acouple hundred prints.
You want to take a, a littlemicrofiber cloth, put some
alcohol in it and then, like,stick it in there, clean out the
printhead.
We want to clean the rollers abit but in terms of actual
(10:52):
day-to-day mileage maintenanceit's not that much.
If you don't store your printerin an ideal condition, if you
don't store it somewhere whereit's room temperature and ideal
humidity, it might do somethingstupid.
But we have had people justpull printers a couple of months
from their last print.
(11:13):
Pull it out, put the ribbon in.
It works.
It is that magical.
Gary Pageau (11:19):
So one of the things you always used to hear
about dye sublimation printingwas fading issues right With
either you know if they put intheir pocket there was heat, you
know it kind of turned dark orit would just fade over time if
exposed to the sun.
What's been happening in termsof technology to deal with those
issues?
Jeffrey Huang (11:39):
so we have been completely revamping our formula
about three or four times inthe past five years in order to
get our formula right.
These are formulas that are inthe house so that you won't see
in our products.
With our new formula, thatreally doesn't happen.
There's still some color loss,but it's not really visible.
The trick is that we have addeda lot of additives into our uh
(12:02):
protective layer so when our,instead of yellow, magenta and
cyan, we have a fourth layercalled the oc layer, the optical
layer and that is a.
That's basically a cover foryour phone.
Gary Pageau (12:15):
Right, almost like a laminate layer because I know
some people are working withthat.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jeffrey Huang (12:20):
Is that?
Gary Pageau (12:20):
even on your small home printer.
Is that also included in that?
So you're getting quote unquoteindustrial technology in your
home printer.
Jeffrey Huang (12:30):
You know our home printer not to toot our own
horn I think that is a very gooddeal.
You know, we sell it for lessthan 200 bucks and, yeah, you
can basically get printingquality that is fairly
indistinguishable from aprofessional printer.
It's just very slow.
It's, I think, five times fivetimes slower, but it is good
(12:51):
quality print.
You can only do four by six,but it is a good little printer,
yeah, and grandma will be verypleased.
So we in our optical layerwe've added a lot of things that
are anti-uv, that are anti-heat, um, that are anti-moisture,
and we do extensive testing onour own prints.
Like we print out thousands ofphotos on on a printer and then
we'll chuck them all in a in achamber and then we set the
(13:15):
temperature to 60 degreescelsius, which is what 150, 160
fahrenheit, and then we keep itin there for days on end at high
humidity and see what happensto it.
And so, unless your pocket is,you know, near the near boiling
temperature, right, youshouldn't have those issues,
right?
yeah, yeah the technology hasadvanced a lot.
(13:36):
We've done a lot of work to itand um our competitors and other
companies in our industry havedone a lot to it yeah, so the
photo lasts as long as you, asyou expect the photo to because
that is one of the things.
Gary Pageau (13:48):
I know some of your competitors have done a lot in
that area as well and I justthink that's that was sort of
like the knock against.
It was that you know it's okayfor quickie prints or for theme
parks or things like that, whereyou know you're gonna have it
on hand and it's cool, but if itfades in three years, who cares
?
Because you know it was justyou and sasquatch at the theme
(14:09):
park, kind of thing.
But now that I think people are.
You know, I think people thinkabout print differently now.
I think people who are going togo through the effort of
printing something are expectingpermanence.
Jeffrey Huang (14:25):
Our founder once again has one jokingly cursed
Kodak not the company, theoriginal founder of the company
because he's too good of a job.
The standards for photo printingare extremely high.
You know, if a missile, ifLockheed Martin makes a missile
and then it lands a meter away,it'll be good enough, that's a
(14:47):
good missile.
If we make a printer andbetween the yellow and the
magenta and the cyan it landsmore than about five microns
away, you'll notice, right,because you know you'll see,
you'll see the yellow and thered not quite line up right, and
then you'll notice exactly thatthis is not a good picture.
It's blurry, right, and so thestandards for even your regular
(15:09):
print, which you know costsbetween cents and a dollar and
it has to be nearly perfect, ourquality control guys, you know,
have turned their their hairout to get these little foibles
out of their, out of the system.
And so, yeah, the the printingindustry has evolved so much in
the past 20 years, especiallywith dice up, because we're a
(15:30):
new technology and there's a lotof things that we can do that
traditional silver halide inkjetcan't.
And so you know, our printquality, our print conditions
and our longevity are very, veryhigh.
It's a good technology.
Gary Pageau (15:47):
Looking forward.
Like you know you always hearabout, you know people aren't
printing, you know people don'twant to print or you know it's
good enough on their phones orwhatever.
And yet in a lot of the marketsyou serve it's actually booming
.
You know you're.
You have a presence at thephoto booth expo, which I've
never been to, but I've heardit's great and that is one of
(16:07):
the, from what I've seen, one ofthe most energetic and trade
shows out there for printing,because there's a lot of juice
in that industry.
Can you talk a little bit aboutwhat's driving the photo booth
industry and kind of talking alittle bit about, you know,
doing away with this presumptionthat people don't want to print
?
Jeffrey Huang (16:25):
Broadly.
When we look at research of themarket, they say that the
market's growing about five,maybe 10% per year at the moment
, but it's mostly concentratedin event photos and photo booth
photos.
For those who are not familiar,these are people who have this
large screen, they put it on astand and then they take it to
an event or take it to aspecific location and they'll
(16:47):
take a picture of you.
Maybe there's a little bit offun stuff on their photo booth
where you can, like you know,add hearts, add frames, whatever
.
Then they put out the photo andgive it to you instantly.
This sector is growing a lotfaster than the rest of the
sectors.
It is up and coming, it's veryenergetic, as you said, and pbx
has been growing every singleyear.
Um, and the reason is simplythat when you have a photo that
(17:07):
is in your pocket, in your phone, it doesn't matter as much.
You know, everybody hasthousands of photo on facebook
and instagram and in their phonestorage, and how many have you
actually taken out?
If I look at it on my own phone, it's full of pictures of my
own car, not because I like mycar, because I need to capture
where I parked it, pictures ofmy car and the parking space
(17:30):
that I'm parked in, just toremind myself where I park.
I don't go back to those photosright, those are for reminding.
But when you take the photoprinting experience to somewhere
or something or some time, thatis special.
People want that souvenir.
It is a very good souvenirbecause it's always custom, it's
always, you know, resonateswith the person who buys it
(17:50):
because it's their face andalways remind them of a happy
time.
Because we take them to placeslike the weddings.
We take them to, you know,school graduations.
We take them to amusement parksand we take them to anywhere
where you might have fun.
The photo booth follows youright.
These photo booths are able totake photos where you're at your
(18:11):
happiest, you're at your mostexcited, you're with your
friends, um with your family,right, these are times that you
want to capture and that's whereprinting right now for photo
printing at least is having its.
Its renaissance is becausepeople really want to be able to
capture those moments and inthose cases they want something
physical, because the physicalthing they can show people, they
(18:34):
can put on their wall, they canput on their desk, they have an
actual memento rather than justhaving data.
And also, when you're with ayounger crowd, instagram becomes
less value.
Right, everybody has aninstagram account.
Everybody posts pictures ofthemselves that are looking
quite attractive, quite, quitehappy and filtered filtered.
(18:54):
Everybody is getting likes, butpeople know, oh, that's not
quite the same.
You know you can get 100 likeson social media.
That's not the same as some ofyour friends coming over to your
house and say, oh, where wasthis photo?
You know where was this event?
Yeah, I remember that we had somuch fun, remember when, when,
yada, yada, yada right, and sothat has way more value.
(19:15):
And people are starting torealize that Not all at once,
not a lot of people are still ohwhat's the?
Point of this.
But you know we're seeing it alot in young people and we're
seeing it a lot in the oldercrowd as well if you're retired,
that people actually do want tohave fun.
Gary Pageau (19:36):
And want to have fun and they want to have memory
of that fun in physical form.
Yeah, it is amazing because,like I've seen, you know a lot
of different startups that havestarted with sort of you know,
it's a very simple, you knowpiece of software, either on a
tablet or in a very simple kiosktype thing, and they're going
in all sorts of places, they'regoing into you know, people are
putting them in bars now, whichI I think is kind of crazy.
But what's interesting to me isthe ones that aren't.
(19:58):
That I don't think are doing aswell.
Are the ones that are trying tobe multi-featured, right, it's
like, okay, not only is it goingto be a photo booth, but we're
also going to do like it's goingto do song downloads and
transactions, sort of thismultifaceted kiosk thing.
Do song downloads andtransactions, sort of this
multifaceted kiosk thing?
Are you observing the samething?
That basically, the dedicatedphoto booth seems to be a
(20:19):
stronger proposition?
Jeffrey Huang (20:22):
We don't think there's ever a need to make a
photo booth that has otherfunctions the only other
functions.
Maybe people also want toupload it on their phone.
Gary Pageau (20:29):
Right, yeah, yeah.
Jeffrey Huang (20:31):
The way that we've seen it is that people do
actually want to print andsometimes people add additional
functions, more of a as a getout clause.
So I know I'm not getting anypurchase on this photo front, or
I don't.
I'm afraid that people mightnot be printing.
So you know, I add a function,like I add music, or I add I
don't know you know some apponto it.
Then it always turns out thatthose who are not focused on it
(20:55):
sort of just die away becauseyou don't know what your thing
is, whereas they see a photobooth.
And now most people who havebeen around you know to these
events now, oh, that's a photobooth.
I can take a photo there andthey know that's what it's for.
And we've seen these sort ofmultifunction photo booths die
out because you don't need it.
Gary Pageau (21:12):
The function photo booths die out because you don't
need it.
Jeffrey Huang (21:13):
The thing that makes you money, the thing that
people are there for, is thephoto, so why add all these
superfluous stuff?
That just ruins your UI andmakes it sort of not very clear
what you want to do.
Right, the photo booth to printphoto.
That's what it's called, right?
Gary Pageau (21:29):
yeah, it's interesting now.
You almost can't go to awedding now, in the united
states at least, where you knowthe photographer is not only a
photographer, but they usuallyhave a second shooter, they also
have a videographer.
They got a drone operator andthen they also probably have a
photo booth and they might evenbe the dj.
I mean, all the stuff.
They've got a drone operatorand then they also probably have
(21:51):
a photo booth and they mighteven be the DJ.
Jeffrey Huang (21:53):
All the stuff they've got to learn is just
crazy with sort of capturingthat event.
It's a very busy job, as I'velearned these event people love
to have fun, by the way, whenyou see them at PBX.
They are some of the mostcheerful people you've ever seen
, and you can always tell, uh,when people come up to to you
and they want to test your stuff.
So we, uh, last time we had notour own photo booth but a photo
(22:14):
booth set up there with ourprinter, and you can always tell
um which operators are veterans, because they'll come up and
they'll throw their own pose andtheir pose will be the happiest
and the most dynamic.
Those are the, the guys who'vebeen around the longest.
And you see, the guys who aresort of new to the industry, and
they're just, you know, justsmiling and then you know, okay,
you need some more time havingfun before before, before you're
(22:35):
you, you know how this industryworks so what are the areas of
event photography are yougetting into?
Gary Pageau (22:41):
obviously there's the social events, but are what
about like sports or anythinglike that?
Jeffrey Huang (22:47):
so, as you.
Sports is huge because,especially in the US I think
it's not so much in Asia orEurope but Americans still have
kids, and American kids have toplay sports.
If you're not doing baseball,you're doing football.
If you're not doing football,you're doing basketball or
lacrosse.
I have never, ever even playedlacrosse, but you know dozens of
(23:09):
sport across the board andthere's always one event in
every single town across theunited states once a week.
Basically, you always expectthere to be at least one event
there, and so that gives us alot of opportunities as well as
a printer manufacturer, but alsofor our customers that you can
go out there, you can take aphoto, and the parents?
For them, a photo of the childis worth way more than what you
(23:32):
have to pay as a photographerfor, for the, for the print,
right, um, we've seen peoplespend tens, up to hundreds of
dollars on a promising sportsman, like a child in high school.
He's doing well on thebasketball team, and their
customers, their parents, willspend, you know, 60, 80, 100 on
(23:54):
a single print.
That's right, eight inches,it's nice and large, you can put
it on your wall, it's part ofyour college resume, so that's
really important, right, um,they would spend dozens of
dollars on these things.
And the photographer?
They only work one day a week.
They just work for the school.
Gary Pageau (24:11):
Well, they've got other stuff they do, they go
admin, but you know they're bignames out there.
And it's a skill.
Jeffrey Huang (24:18):
Like you know, sports photography is hard.
Gary Pageau (24:20):
Yeah, it's very hard.
Yeah, I know some people inthat space it's.
You know, they make it lookeasy and they capture great
images, but there's a lot oftechnical knowledge, there's a
lot of equipment investment.
Oh yeah, you know the lenses fora really good you know
telephoto lens or somebodyknowing the pace of a game,
where to stand, where to be andall that stuff is you know.
(24:42):
I would say it's funny wherethey think, where people think
that you know they buy a DSLR ora mirrorless camera, they buy a
lens, they think they'reautomatically a photographer.
Jeffrey Huang (24:54):
I forgot where I heard this from, but I've heard
that if you go to a sports event, don't look at the coaches or
the players.
If you see the photographertake up his camera, you know
somebody's about to score thereyou go.
They don't mess about.
They're not taking randomphotos.
If some, if they pick up theircameras, it's because they know
(25:14):
something cool is about tohappen.
I've never heard of that, butthat makes so much sense exactly
so much sense yeah, so sportsphoto is huge and it's a growing
sector and there is a very andit's not just sports, the school
part of it as well.
So graduation photos is a hugething.
Gary Pageau (25:37):
Really.
Jeffrey Huang (25:37):
Yeah.
Gary Pageau (25:39):
How does that work?
Because I know a lot of peoplein that business and they
usually just capture and shiplater.
What are they doing on site?
Jeffrey Huang (25:50):
ship later.
What are they doing on site?
Um, so you have the book, right, you have the graduation book,
and people still buy those.
But they still want to takephotos, one for testing.
So when you take a photo, ifyou see it on your tiny dslr
screen, if you see it on youripad, that doesn't really show
what the photo is, right, good,professional printers will have
the photo on hand to see what itis.
But also, um, it's a extrafeature that you can give to
(26:10):
your, to the student, right, youcan say this is what you look
like, this is what you look like.
Gary Pageau (26:15):
You look quite cool , quite so it's almost like a
proof almost, yeah, exactly.
Jeffrey Huang (26:19):
This is something that goes back um to the photo
industry sort of earlier is thatthey discovered that if you
print out the photo and you showit to somebody, people like the
photo and they'll just buy itbecause you know it's a split of
the moment thing, it's not veryexpensive and if you go to um,
they don't do it nearly as muchnow, but if you go to an
amusement park for for thesekind of things 10 years ago,
(26:42):
they'll print out every photolike they'll print out the photo
of you doing this on the on theslip and slide, because they
know that some people will justlook at them and go that is
hilarious.
I'm going to buy that, I'm goingto share with my friend, and
even if they don't put it on thewall cause it looks too silly,
all you care about is gettingthem to buy it Right, yeah,
exactly.
Gary Pageau (26:59):
So has the amusement park gone away from
the spec printing and just goneto like the kiosk thing we can
print on site because because Iknow a lot of amusement parks do
that- uh, we are less involvedas a company, but as an industry
.
Jeffrey Huang (27:13):
I think dice up is still quite large.
Gary Pageau (27:15):
I don't exactly know how they print, because
they can print on a kiosk or ona well, a lot of them do the
thing where you exit the ride,you look at the screen and you
see your picture up there andyou can get a print right there,
you know.
So I imagine it's it's dye, subor something, but it's just.
But it's not on.
It's not just on spec, which iswhat you were talking about,
where you just automaticallyprint it because imagine there's
(27:37):
a lot of waste there yes, sonow nowadays they do the big
screen because you can see it ona big screen and it's and it's
clear.
Jeffrey Huang (27:45):
In the past they'll just print it out, but
in terms of how they actually doit, I think it's different from
park to park.
Gary Pageau (27:51):
Uh, for us, you know, as long as the printer in
the back is dice up, you can dowhat you like that's all you
guys care about so um you're notas involved in the retail space
like the retail kiosk space inthe, but it seems to be like in
the us there's more interest inthat now and I think it goes
(28:11):
back and forth with, you know,people wanting to have the big
or not necessarily big but thethe production machinery,
because they want to drivevolume towards that.
But there is, I think, agrowing interest now in on-site
DISA printing just really quickat a kiosk.
Are you getting any feedback?
I know you're not in thatgrowing market a lot right now,
but what is your perception onthat?
Jeffrey Huang (28:33):
So that sector is still the largest part of our
market.
Obviously, we are not involved,but Walgreens, for example, is
still the largest consumer ofprinters in the world Not just
in the US but in the world by asignificant margin and it's a
huge industry.
You get parents, you getgrandparents who really need to
(28:57):
print something and they'll justgo to one of these photo
finishers and they will print itout.
In Europe, we know that thesecond largest company is over
there and they're also very,very, very successful.
They're growing extremely fastas well.
I'm not sure about the sort ofsmaller retailers.
(29:19):
Maybe there's studios who arepicking this up.
Because we have a distributorbetween us, we don't get to
contact them.
Love to hear more about it but,these are.
These are.
These are growing industries.
Uh, people are still printingbecause they're not doing this
at home on the inkjet printer.
Right, they're going to thesephoto finishers right.
Gary Pageau (29:38):
Yeah, I think that's one of the things is
where I think a lot of peopleexpected, you know, home
printing, you know, I'm goingback a long time, let's say 20
years and people really expected, like, the home inkjet printer
to kind of take up that volumeof what people were printing at
retail.
And I just I don't whether itwas a technology, whether it was
price, whether it wasconvenience, whatever.
(30:01):
You know, people still print athome, but it's certainly not
what people are going to bedoing at retail I mean, when's
the last time you've heardsomebody who's not in the
industry be pleased with theirinkjet printer?
Jeffrey Huang (30:16):
they're they're expensive the ink is expensive
they're fiddly technology, thatwhen you don't print for a
couple months which happens inhome printing right you?
You suddenly want somethingprinted, but then you go weeks
or months without printing.
Right, then your printer is allworking because it's clogged up
yeah I don't want an inkjetprinter in my house and none of
my friends do.
That's sort of indication to methat people don't like to keep
(30:37):
a printer in their house becauseit's extra electronics that
they have to maintain.
And they have an ipad, theyhave a phone, they have a
computer they've got all thestuff.
Yeah, some people might stillkeep it for work.
Gary Pageau (30:48):
But if you have a home office, it makes sense.
I mean that's, you know, yeah,yeah, print from printing
pictures on a just a normalconsumer grade inkjet printer.
You know one you get for 99bucks at office depot or
someplace.
That's an arduous process, it's, it's, it's a challenge, but I
mean for home office, you know,I, I think it's, you know, a
(31:09):
great solution I got when Iprint papers, because I'm old
and I still print things but youknow, for photos specifically,
yeah, um, people are aiming fora high quality print, right, and
you're not getting that for 99bucks.
You're getting from 199 well,plus, you're dealing with
different media too.
People got to deal with, youknow, with the nikjet.
If you're using it for homeoffice, you've got your normal
(31:30):
bond paper in, but then, oh wait, I want to print some photos.
I got to switch out the printer, I mean, I got to switch out
the paper and then I have to,you know, put it into photo mode
.
And you know, you have to doall these extra steps as opposed
to just pressing a button andprinting.
Jeffrey Huang (31:45):
You know steps, as opposed to just pressing a
button and printing.
You know exactly, and you knowthese retailers like walgreens,
to make it so easy.
You go in, right, you have yourphotos on on your phone.
It comes out within 20 minutes.
You're just, you're off to buysome drinks and some doritos and
then you get your photo rightlisten, I think their whole
business model is drinks,doritos and prints.
Gary Pageau (32:07):
That's their whole business model.
Jeffrey Huang (32:12):
When's the last?
time you saw anybody buymedicine at Walgreens.
It's a business model thatworks and it's convenient.
That's why people like it.
The sort of online photodelivery thing is also extremely
large.
We see Walmart, walgreensreensand the retailers in europe.
They're also doing that.
They all sure they gather yourorders online and then they'll
(32:33):
send it to you or they'll sendit to one of their locations.
And it's great when they sendit to one of their locations
because, like, it's no cost tothem, it's just electronics yeah
, so.
Gary Pageau (32:43):
Are many of your customers using your product for
like photo gifting, for, youknow, transferring to like mugs
or things like that, or are youjust not set up for that?
Jeffrey Huang (32:53):
We don't do any of that.
So we only do direct to cardand photos.
We don't do t-shirts, mugs oranything.
That's a related technology,right.
Gary Pageau (33:02):
That's why I asked, because I know it's like a
second cousin to what you'redoing.
Jeffrey Huang (33:07):
I asked because I know it's like a second cousin
to what you're doing, but Iwondered if you guys are looking
at that as a platform, becausethat is also a growing part of
the market is taking those Daisoprints and then transferring
them to other media.
This is not part of a companypolicy, but just personally.
I really like that sector and Ireally want to make more in
that sector.
But we'll see what we do.
We're a relatively smallcompany so we can develop one
product at a time.
(33:27):
So we're focusing on the photoand the card printer market at
the moment, but it's a veryinteresting market.
People love customized stuffand know that there are some
people who they buy a t-shirtprinter and a mug printer and
that's their business.
Then they're working forthemselves and they love it yeah
, yeah.
Gary Pageau (33:44):
So where can people go for more information about
your company and the products?
Because, like I said, you havedistributors around the world.
How would they find how tocontact those and where can they
find your company?
Jeffrey Huang (33:57):
So our website is HITIcom H-I-T-Icom.
We also have a couple of socialmedia accounts spread here and
there.
We're not very active on them,to be honest.
I think LinkedIn we're startingto pick up.
We have distributors all overthe US ImageTech, imaging
Spectrum, southtrend, novaGraphics, buffalo, et cetera, et
cetera.
If you go to B&H or Adorama orUnique Photo, you'll see our
(34:22):
products there.
Our products are on Amazon,obviously.
Check out our website, checkout our distributors.
Our new printer is coming very,very soon and we think it's a
very good fit for the markets ofyour industry.
Check it out.
Gary Pageau (34:34):
Yep, definitely Awesome.
Well, thanks, jeff, for yourtime.
Appreciate getting to know youbetter and more about the
company.
I always love it when I runacross somebody who has been in
the industry a long time butthey're still innovating, doing
different things, trying to growthe market.
Erin Manning (34:53):
So thank you so much.
Thank you so much, Gary.
It's always a pleasure to talkto you and I hope we can do this
again.
Thank you for listening to theDead Pixels Society podcast.
Read more great stories andsign up for the newsletter at
wwwthedeadpixelssocietycom.
Welcome to the Dead Pixels Society podcast, the
photo imaging industry'sleading news source.
Here's your host, Gary Pageau.
The Dead Pixel Society podcastis brought to you by Mediaclip,
Advertek Printing andIndependent Photo Imagers.
Gary Pageau (00:17):
Hello again and welcome to the Deads Pixel
Society podcast.
I'm your host, Gary Pageau, andtoday we're joined by Jeff
Huang, who is the corporateofficer of HiTi Digital, and
they're based in Taiwan.
They are a dye- sub printer andmedia manufacturer and they
primarily focus on the photobook and event photography
markets.
Hi, Jeff, how are you today?
Jeffrey Huang (00:38):
I'm good, I'm doing well.
Thank you, Gary.
Gary Pageau (00:41):
So your company's actually been around for a long
time in the DICE subspace.
Can you walk us through thatjourney?
Jeffrey Huang (00:49):
Okay, this year is the 25th year for Hi-T.
We're actually very young forcompanies that are currently in
this space, but the technologyhas been around since about the
late 80s, early 90s, so we werethere pretty much from the
beginning.
We're based in Taiwan.
It was started by a bunch ofengineers who uh wanted to work
on this technology and we are alisted company in taiwan.
(01:11):
We started 20 years ago,started making uh cut sheet
photo printers for all sorts ofapplications.
We our main customer back thenwas passport photo operators, so
we'll have a lot of customerswho would operate their shop and
print passport photos, andwe've had a long chain of useful
(01:34):
, reliable all the good wordsthat you can put on it printers
and we are now one of the.
I think there's now currentlyfive companies that are in this
space and we're one of them andwe're rather unique, which I
think we'll talk about goingforward.
Gary Pageau (01:52):
Yeah, let's just dive right into that piece the
uniqueness.
In fact, you're kind of anengineering-based company and
you do everything yourself.
Jeffrey Huang (01:58):
Yes, so for the Dye-sub printer there's
obviously two parts.
There is the printer itself andthen there is the media, or the
consumables.
And the consumables there is apaper the photo paper that we
print on, and then there's thedice-up ribbon.
So we might talk a little bitabout that as well.
But basically there's aconsumable in the printer, and
(02:19):
every single manufacturercurrently in the space either
make the printer or they makethe consumable and they'll buy
the other to create a packageand sell to a customer.
We're the only one that makesboth the printer and the paper
and the ribbon.
So we are a one-stop shop.
We're vertically integrated.
We have some knowledge of thethe industry that people might
(02:40):
have individually but never inone place like we do.
Gary Pageau (02:43):
So you're able to tune probably your media to your
printers pretty closely right.
Jeffrey Huang (02:50):
Yes.
So I think this gets into a newproduct.
So we recently are coming outwith a new product that's coming
out at the end of this year andwe were able to tune our
printers to print with acompetitor's media without any
input from them.
(03:11):
So we didn't have like, theydidn't give us their specs, they
didn't give us their colorcharts or anything.
We took their media, we lookedat it and then, with our
knowledge of our own media andtheir media and our printer,
we're going to say, okay, thisis probably how theirs work and
we can tune our printer to tofit their media so that they can
use ours and theirs.
And you know, all printers fromthe beginning of time in in this
(03:33):
dice up world till now havebeen tuned for one specific
media.
Uh, usually that media has avery thin uh gap in terms of
their usability.
You have to tune every spec tomake sure that it's just for
this media.
And to be able to do it to twodifferent types of media
manufactured by two companies inmultiple locations is.
(03:54):
It's a technological innovation.
Even though it's probably veryspecific to our industry, it is
special.
Gary Pageau (04:01):
Yeah, there probably aren't a lot of people
saying I really wish I could getsome different media for this
printer.
But, like you said, it's forfor your niche.
It's probably would be workwell for either.
Jeffrey Huang (04:12):
You're trying to put your printer into some place
where they've already got anexisting contract for media, so
it would work well with thatyeah, so we specifically are
aimed at operators who havemaybe like between 5 and 20
printers, where they have tokeep on replacing printers but
they can't afford to just checkout their fleet and then pick a
(04:33):
new one up, right?
Uh, so they may have to chucktwo or three out, they'll buy
some bar printer, but they'restill going to keep the media on
hand for their old printers andthen they can use their old
media and our printers and thenslowly switch over, and we'll be
happy with that because youknow it gets our foot in the
door and some of these largeroperators, and also it helps our
customers because they now havea choice, right, if you're.
(04:56):
If the media suddenly doesn'tcome over from overseas, which
it always does now you have toworry about supply issues.
Well, now you have two choices.
You have two possibilities ofwhat you need to use.
Yeah, that offers a bit of umrisk mitigation.
Gary Pageau (05:11):
I think is the but that product's not out of the
market yet right so so we don'twant to talk quite much about
that, because you said that wasgoing to be coming when uh end
of this year okay, so, so it'snear term, but it's not.
So what's your portfolio likenow of products?
Cause you said you started inpassports.
I'm sure you're probably stilldoing that, and then you're also
(05:33):
in the event space and thephoto booth space.
I'm sure there's differentrequirements for each of those.
Jeffrey Huang (05:39):
So we only have printers.
So, and even though we work forthe events and photo booth space
, we don't actually make a photobooth.
So we have photo printers andwe have card printers.
Those are the only things wehave and our photo printers.
We have two models because thethird one is coming out this
year.
So two models.
There's a small one for thehome, so that we call it the 322
(06:00):
.
It's a printer about this bigwe say it's a perfect gift for
grandma because you know, youput it on her desk and then she
can print out hergrandchildren's photos.
And then we have the 525, whichis our sort of mainline roll
type printer that is designedfor commercial work.
It's printing all over the world.
It's been on the market for acouple of years and we're very
(06:21):
proud.
Gary Pageau (06:21):
So you don't really have to customize that the
industrial printer for differentmarkets.
Jeffrey Huang (06:32):
It's able to serve all of those.
We have tuned it to the pointwhere it can.
So obviously there for photobooth markets, for event photos
and for the studios.
They have differentrequirements for what their
photo printers need to be.
Some want color tables to be,you know, better off for flesh
tones.
In fact, this is a veryinteresting thing that I we've
seen is that we consistently geta request from china to make
the face wider when they'reputting and we consistently,
(06:53):
when we go to the us, they sayoh, we see your photos and your
faces are paler than everybodyelse, right?
the other side has like you know, a more lively looking face and
we're like that's because whenwe have we're in the asian
market, we have a whiter skintone to make them look cooler,
more beautiful, and then in inthe us we have a different uh
requirement, so we have tunedour printers for this kind of
(07:16):
stuff.
Yeah, but in general whatpeople want is a reliable print.
They want it in the size sizesthat people are used to.
So two by six, four by six, sixby eight, five by seven, and so
our printers can do all thosethings we.
We have only one printer and itcan do.
Right now I can do all the allof the things so you can just
swap out the magazines on thatyes, so you swap out.
(07:38):
You swap out the media, you putin a different size and it's
basically any of the six inch,five, five inch printing that
you would.
Gary Pageau (07:46):
So one of the things you hear is you know the,
you know inkjet coming intothis marketplace.
What are some of the advantagesof Dye-sub versus inkjet for
this sort of instant on-sitetype printing?
Jeffrey Huang (08:01):
I once heard this said by our founder.
But the advantage of dye-s ub?
There's three advantages.
It's speed, speed and speed,because in instead of printing
a dot we print a line.
So that means that for sixinches of a six inch printhead
we're printing like this and youwill always be faster than
(08:24):
printing inkjet, because inkjetis doing a dot, is doing like
that a couple thousand times, uh, during a printing cycle,
whereas we do a line and we do acouple hundred printing cycles
right.
So that gives us a speedadvantage.
And when you're waiting, whenyou're at a, at an event, you're
not wanting, wanting to sitthere and watch that thing go
(08:45):
like this quite loudly in theevent.
The second advantage we have isthat we don't clog up.
So Inkjet has a problem wherethe ink is liquid but it likes
to turn solid and so when youare printing the photo, if you
haven't used your printer forabout two or three months, all
the ink clogs up in the littlehead and then it comes out with
(09:06):
either a very bad picture or itdoesn't print.
And in the event space, in thephoto booth space, usually
printing is done sort of at thevery end of the year, sort of
september to to december,because that's when the holiday
season is, and also maybe duringeaster or school holidays.
That's when they print, and sothey might have two or three
months in between where they'reeither not printing or they're
(09:29):
printing at very smallquantities, right, and they're
making most of their money inthese two periods and the the
last thing you want to do isit's October 1st, you break out
your printer, you're ready to doa lot of work because you know
it's halloween season and you'vegot all these customers lined
up, and then suddenly you say,oh, your printer is not printed,
and then you want to get itrepaired.
But the repair shop gets allthese people who haven't looked
(09:51):
at their printer in three months, and then the printer is not
working.
They don't have a timeline forwhen you can have it repaired.
That's a huge issue, right?
That's not how you run abusiness.
You want reliability andbecause is a solid state
technology, everything you useis solid.
There isn't that issue.
It will pick up your printerafter two or three months, two
(10:12):
or three years even.
It will work and then it willbe able to work for you in your
business.
That's our advertising.
Gary Pageau (10:21):
But there are probably some maintenance things
you have to do to to maintainyour dyso printer.
I'm sure can you really leaveit for three years and then just
turn it on and hope it works.
Jeffrey Huang (10:31):
Oh, so our maintenance is usually based on
print count so every couple, acouple hundred prints.
You want to take a, a littlemicrofiber cloth, put some
alcohol in it and then, like,stick it in there, clean out the
printhead.
We want to clean the rollers abit but in terms of actual
(10:52):
day-to-day mileage maintenanceit's not that much.
If you don't store your printerin an ideal condition, if you
don't store it somewhere whereit's room temperature and ideal
humidity, it might do somethingstupid.
But we have had people justpull printers a couple of months
from their last print.
(11:13):
Pull it out, put the ribbon in.
It works.
It is that magical.
Gary Pageau (11:19):
So one of the things you always used to hear
about dye sublimation printingwas fading issues right With
either you know if they put intheir pocket there was heat, you
know it kind of turned dark orit would just fade over time if
exposed to the sun.
What's been happening in termsof technology to deal with those
issues?
Jeffrey Huang (11:39):
so we have been completely revamping our formula
about three or four times inthe past five years in order to
get our formula right.
These are formulas that are inthe house so that you won't see
in our products.
With our new formula, thatreally doesn't happen.
There's still some color loss,but it's not really visible.
The trick is that we have addeda lot of additives into our uh
(12:02):
protective layer so when our,instead of yellow, magenta and
cyan, we have a fourth layercalled the oc layer, the optical
layer and that is a.
That's basically a cover foryour phone.
Gary Pageau (12:15):
Right, almost like a laminate layer because I know
some people are working withthat.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jeffrey Huang (12:20):
Is that?
Gary Pageau (12:20):
even on your small home printer.
Is that also included in that?
So you're getting quote unquoteindustrial technology in your
home printer.
Jeffrey Huang (12:30):
You know our home printer not to toot our own
horn I think that is a very gooddeal.
You know, we sell it for lessthan 200 bucks and, yeah, you
can basically get printingquality that is fairly
indistinguishable from aprofessional printer.
It's just very slow.
It's, I think, five times fivetimes slower, but it is good
(12:51):
quality print.
You can only do four by six,but it is a good little printer,
yeah, and grandma will be verypleased.
So we in our optical layerwe've added a lot of things that
are anti-uv, that are anti-heat, um, that are anti-moisture,
and we do extensive testing onour own prints.
Like we print out thousands ofphotos on on a printer and then
we'll chuck them all in a in achamber and then we set the
(13:15):
temperature to 60 degreescelsius, which is what 150, 160
fahrenheit, and then we keep itin there for days on end at high
humidity and see what happensto it.
And so, unless your pocket is,you know, near the near boiling
temperature, right, youshouldn't have those issues,
right?
yeah, yeah the technology hasadvanced a lot.
(13:36):
We've done a lot of work to itand um our competitors and other
companies in our industry havedone a lot to it yeah, so the
photo lasts as long as you, asyou expect the photo to because
that is one of the things.
Gary Pageau (13:48):
I know some of your competitors have done a lot in
that area as well and I justthink that's that was sort of
like the knock against.
It was that you know it's okayfor quickie prints or for theme
parks or things like that, whereyou know you're gonna have it
on hand and it's cool, but if itfades in three years, who cares
?
Because you know it was justyou and sasquatch at the theme
(14:09):
park, kind of thing.
But now that I think people are.
You know, I think people thinkabout print differently now.
I think people who are going togo through the effort of
printing something are expectingpermanence.
Jeffrey Huang (14:25):
Our founder once again has one jokingly cursed
Kodak not the company, theoriginal founder of the company
because he's too good of a job.
The standards for photo printingare extremely high.
You know, if a missile, ifLockheed Martin makes a missile
and then it lands a meter away,it'll be good enough, that's a
(14:47):
good missile.
If we make a printer andbetween the yellow and the
magenta and the cyan it landsmore than about five microns
away, you'll notice, right,because you know you'll see,
you'll see the yellow and thered not quite line up right, and
then you'll notice exactly thatthis is not a good picture.
It's blurry, right, and so thestandards for even your regular
(15:09):
print, which you know costsbetween cents and a dollar and
it has to be nearly perfect, ourquality control guys, you know,
have turned their their hairout to get these little foibles
out of their, out of the system.
And so, yeah, the the printingindustry has evolved so much in
the past 20 years, especiallywith dice up, because we're a
(15:30):
new technology and there's a lotof things that we can do that
traditional silver halide inkjetcan't.
And so you know, our printquality, our print conditions
and our longevity are very, veryhigh.
It's a good technology.
Gary Pageau (15:47):
Looking forward.
Like you know you always hearabout, you know people aren't
printing, you know people don'twant to print or you know it's
good enough on their phones orwhatever.
And yet in a lot of the marketsyou serve it's actually booming
.
You know you're.
You have a presence at thephoto booth expo, which I've
never been to, but I've heardit's great and that is one of
(16:07):
the, from what I've seen, one ofthe most energetic and trade
shows out there for printing,because there's a lot of juice
in that industry.
Can you talk a little bit aboutwhat's driving the photo booth
industry and kind of talking alittle bit about, you know,
doing away with this presumptionthat people don't want to print
?
Jeffrey Huang (16:25):
Broadly.
When we look at research of themarket, they say that the
market's growing about five,maybe 10% per year at the moment
, but it's mostly concentratedin event photos and photo booth
photos.
For those who are not familiar,these are people who have this
large screen, they put it on astand and then they take it to
an event or take it to aspecific location and they'll
(16:47):
take a picture of you.
Maybe there's a little bit offun stuff on their photo booth
where you can, like you know,add hearts, add frames, whatever
.
Then they put out the photo andgive it to you instantly.
This sector is growing a lotfaster than the rest of the
sectors.
It is up and coming, it's veryenergetic, as you said, and pbx
has been growing every singleyear.
Um, and the reason is simplythat when you have a photo that
(17:07):
is in your pocket, in your phone, it doesn't matter as much.
You know, everybody hasthousands of photo on facebook
and instagram and in their phonestorage, and how many have you
actually taken out?
If I look at it on my own phone, it's full of pictures of my
own car, not because I like mycar, because I need to capture
where I parked it, pictures ofmy car and the parking space
(17:30):
that I'm parked in, just toremind myself where I park.
I don't go back to those photosright, those are for reminding.
But when you take the photoprinting experience to somewhere
or something or some time, thatis special.
People want that souvenir.
It is a very good souvenirbecause it's always custom, it's
always, you know, resonateswith the person who buys it
(17:50):
because it's their face andalways remind them of a happy
time.
Because we take them to placeslike the weddings.
We take them to, you know,school graduations.
We take them to amusement parksand we take them to anywhere
where you might have fun.
The photo booth follows youright.
These photo booths are able totake photos where you're at your
(18:11):
happiest, you're at your mostexcited, you're with your
friends, um with your family,right, these are times that you
want to capture and that's whereprinting right now for photo
printing at least is having its.
Its renaissance is becausepeople really want to be able to
capture those moments and inthose cases they want something
physical, because the physicalthing they can show people, they
(18:34):
can put on their wall, they canput on their desk, they have an
actual memento rather than justhaving data.
And also, when you're with ayounger crowd, instagram becomes
less value.
Right, everybody has aninstagram account.
Everybody posts pictures ofthemselves that are looking
quite attractive, quite, quitehappy and filtered filtered.
(18:54):
Everybody is getting likes, butpeople know, oh, that's not
quite the same.
You know you can get 100 likeson social media.
That's not the same as some ofyour friends coming over to your
house and say, oh, where wasthis photo?
You know where was this event?
Yeah, I remember that we had somuch fun, remember when, when,
yada, yada, yada right, and sothat has way more value.
(19:15):
And people are starting torealize that Not all at once,
not a lot of people are still ohwhat's the?
Point of this.
But you know we're seeing it alot in young people and we're
seeing it a lot in the oldercrowd as well if you're retired,
that people actually do want tohave fun.
Gary Pageau (19:36):
And want to have fun and they want to have memory
of that fun in physical form.
Yeah, it is amazing because,like I've seen, you know a lot
of different startups that havestarted with sort of you know,
it's a very simple, you knowpiece of software, either on a
tablet or in a very simple kiosktype thing, and they're going
in all sorts of places, they'regoing into you know, people are
putting them in bars now, whichI I think is kind of crazy.
But what's interesting to me isthe ones that aren't.
(19:58):
That I don't think are doing aswell.
Are the ones that are trying tobe multi-featured, right, it's
like, okay, not only is it goingto be a photo booth, but we're
also going to do like it's goingto do song downloads and
transactions, sort of thismultifaceted kiosk thing.
Do song downloads andtransactions, sort of this
multifaceted kiosk thing?
Are you observing the samething?
That basically, the dedicatedphoto booth seems to be a
(20:19):
stronger proposition?
Jeffrey Huang (20:22):
We don't think there's ever a need to make a
photo booth that has otherfunctions the only other
functions.
Maybe people also want toupload it on their phone.
Gary Pageau (20:29):
Right, yeah, yeah.
Jeffrey Huang (20:31):
The way that we've seen it is that people do
actually want to print andsometimes people add additional
functions, more of a as a getout clause.
So I know I'm not getting anypurchase on this photo front, or
I don't.
I'm afraid that people mightnot be printing.
So you know, I add a function,like I add music, or I add I
don't know you know some apponto it.
Then it always turns out thatthose who are not focused on it
(20:55):
sort of just die away becauseyou don't know what your thing
is, whereas they see a photobooth.
And now most people who havebeen around you know to these
events now, oh, that's a photobooth.
I can take a photo there andthey know that's what it's for.
And we've seen these sort ofmultifunction photo booths die
out because you don't need it.
Gary Pageau (21:12):
The function photo booths die out because you don't
need it.
Jeffrey Huang (21:13):
The thing that makes you money, the thing that
people are there for, is thephoto, so why add all these
superfluous stuff?
That just ruins your UI andmakes it sort of not very clear
what you want to do.
Right, the photo booth to printphoto.
That's what it's called, right?
Gary Pageau (21:29):
yeah, it's interesting now.
You almost can't go to awedding now, in the united
states at least, where you knowthe photographer is not only a
photographer, but they usuallyhave a second shooter, they also
have a videographer.
They got a drone operator andthen they also probably have a
photo booth and they might evenbe the dj.
I mean, all the stuff.
They've got a drone operatorand then they also probably have
(21:51):
a photo booth and they mighteven be the DJ.
Jeffrey Huang (21:53):
All the stuff they've got to learn is just
crazy with sort of capturingthat event.
It's a very busy job, as I'velearned these event people love
to have fun, by the way, whenyou see them at PBX.
They are some of the mostcheerful people you've ever seen
, and you can always tell, uh,when people come up to to you
and they want to test your stuff.
So we, uh, last time we had notour own photo booth but a photo
(22:14):
booth set up there with ourprinter, and you can always tell
um which operators are veterans, because they'll come up and
they'll throw their own pose andtheir pose will be the happiest
and the most dynamic.
Those are the, the guys who'vebeen around the longest.
And you see, the guys who aresort of new to the industry, and
they're just, you know, justsmiling and then you know, okay,
you need some more time havingfun before before, before you're
(22:35):
you, you know how this industryworks so what are the areas of
event photography are yougetting into?
Gary Pageau (22:41):
obviously there's the social events, but are what
about like sports or anythinglike that?
Jeffrey Huang (22:47):
so, as you.
Sports is huge because,especially in the US I think
it's not so much in Asia orEurope but Americans still have
kids, and American kids have toplay sports.
If you're not doing baseball,you're doing football.
If you're not doing football,you're doing basketball or
lacrosse.
I have never, ever even playedlacrosse, but you know dozens of
(23:09):
sport across the board andthere's always one event in
every single town across theunited states once a week.
Basically, you always expectthere to be at least one event
there, and so that gives us alot of opportunities as well as
a printer manufacturer, but alsofor our customers that you can
go out there, you can take aphoto, and the parents?
For them, a photo of the childis worth way more than what you
(23:32):
have to pay as a photographerfor, for the, for the print,
right, um, we've seen peoplespend tens, up to hundreds of
dollars on a promising sportsman, like a child in high school.
He's doing well on thebasketball team, and their
customers, their parents, willspend, you know, 60, 80, 100 on
(23:54):
a single print.
That's right, eight inches,it's nice and large, you can put
it on your wall, it's part ofyour college resume, so that's
really important, right, um,they would spend dozens of
dollars on these things.
And the photographer?
They only work one day a week.
They just work for the school.
Gary Pageau (24:11):
Well, they've got other stuff they do, they go
admin, but you know they're bignames out there.
And it's a skill.
Jeffrey Huang (24:18):
Like you know, sports photography is hard.
Gary Pageau (24:20):
Yeah, it's very hard.
Yeah, I know some people inthat space it's.
You know, they make it lookeasy and they capture great
images, but there's a lot oftechnical knowledge, there's a
lot of equipment investment.
Oh yeah, you know the lenses fora really good you know
telephoto lens or somebodyknowing the pace of a game,
where to stand, where to be andall that stuff is you know.
(24:42):
I would say it's funny wherethey think, where people think
that you know they buy a DSLR ora mirrorless camera, they buy a
lens, they think they'reautomatically a photographer.
Jeffrey Huang (24:54):
I forgot where I heard this from, but I've heard
that if you go to a sports event, don't look at the coaches or
the players.
If you see the photographertake up his camera, you know
somebody's about to score thereyou go.
They don't mess about.
They're not taking randomphotos.
If some, if they pick up theircameras, it's because they know
(25:14):
something cool is about tohappen.
I've never heard of that, butthat makes so much sense exactly
so much sense yeah, so sportsphoto is huge and it's a growing
sector and there is a very andit's not just sports, the school
part of it as well.
So graduation photos is a hugething.
Gary Pageau (25:37):
Really.
Jeffrey Huang (25:37):
Yeah.
Gary Pageau (25:39):
How does that work?
Because I know a lot of peoplein that business and they
usually just capture and shiplater.
What are they doing on site?
Jeffrey Huang (25:50):
ship later.
What are they doing on site?
Um, so you have the book, right, you have the graduation book,
and people still buy those.
But they still want to takephotos, one for testing.
So when you take a photo, ifyou see it on your tiny dslr
screen, if you see it on youripad, that doesn't really show
what the photo is, right, good,professional printers will have
the photo on hand to see what itis.
But also, um, it's a extrafeature that you can give to
(26:10):
your, to the student, right, youcan say this is what you look
like, this is what you look like.
Gary Pageau (26:15):
You look quite cool , quite so it's almost like a
proof almost, yeah, exactly.
Jeffrey Huang (26:19):
This is something that goes back um to the photo
industry sort of earlier is thatthey discovered that if you
print out the photo and you showit to somebody, people like the
photo and they'll just buy itbecause you know it's a split of
the moment thing, it's not veryexpensive and if you go to um,
they don't do it nearly as muchnow, but if you go to an
amusement park for for thesekind of things 10 years ago,
(26:42):
they'll print out every photolike they'll print out the photo
of you doing this on the on theslip and slide, because they
know that some people will justlook at them and go that is
hilarious.
I'm going to buy that, I'm goingto share with my friend, and
even if they don't put it on thewall cause it looks too silly,
all you care about is gettingthem to buy it Right, yeah,
exactly.
Gary Pageau (26:59):
So has the amusement park gone away from
the spec printing and just goneto like the kiosk thing we can
print on site because because Iknow a lot of amusement parks do
that- uh, we are less involvedas a company, but as an industry
.
Jeffrey Huang (27:13):
I think dice up is still quite large.
Gary Pageau (27:15):
I don't exactly know how they print, because
they can print on a kiosk or ona well, a lot of them do the
thing where you exit the ride,you look at the screen and you
see your picture up there andyou can get a print right there,
you know.
So I imagine it's it's dye, subor something, but it's just.
But it's not on.
It's not just on spec, which iswhat you were talking about,
where you just automaticallyprint it because imagine there's
(27:37):
a lot of waste there yes, sonow nowadays they do the big
screen because you can see it ona big screen and it's and it's
clear.
Jeffrey Huang (27:45):
In the past they'll just print it out, but
in terms of how they actually doit, I think it's different from
park to park.
Gary Pageau (27:51):
Uh, for us, you know, as long as the printer in
the back is dice up, you can dowhat you like that's all you
guys care about so um you're notas involved in the retail space
like the retail kiosk space inthe, but it seems to be like in
the us there's more interest inthat now and I think it goes
(28:11):
back and forth with, you know,people wanting to have the big
or not necessarily big but thethe production machinery,
because they want to drivevolume towards that.
But there is, I think, agrowing interest now in on-site
DISA printing just really quickat a kiosk.
Are you getting any feedback?
I know you're not in thatgrowing market a lot right now,
but what is your perception onthat?
Jeffrey Huang (28:33):
So that sector is still the largest part of our
market.
Obviously, we are not involved,but Walgreens, for example, is
still the largest consumer ofprinters in the world Not just
in the US but in the world by asignificant margin and it's a
huge industry.
You get parents, you getgrandparents who really need to
(28:57):
print something and they'll justgo to one of these photo
finishers and they will print itout.
In Europe, we know that thesecond largest company is over
there and they're also very,very, very successful.
They're growing extremely fastas well.
I'm not sure about the sort ofsmaller retailers.
(29:19):
Maybe there's studios who arepicking this up.
Because we have a distributorbetween us, we don't get to
contact them.
Love to hear more about it but,these are.
These are.
These are growing industries.
Uh, people are still printingbecause they're not doing this
at home on the inkjet printer.
Right, they're going to thesephoto finishers right.
Gary Pageau (29:38):
Yeah, I think that's one of the things is
where I think a lot of peopleexpected, you know, home
printing, you know, I'm goingback a long time, let's say 20
years and people really expected, like, the home inkjet printer
to kind of take up that volumeof what people were printing at
retail.
And I just I don't whether itwas a technology, whether it was
price, whether it wasconvenience, whatever.
(30:01):
You know, people still print athome, but it's certainly not
what people are going to bedoing at retail I mean, when's
the last time you've heardsomebody who's not in the
industry be pleased with theirinkjet printer?
Jeffrey Huang (30:16):
they're they're expensive the ink is expensive
they're fiddly technology, thatwhen you don't print for a
couple months which happens inhome printing right you?
You suddenly want somethingprinted, but then you go weeks
or months without printing.
Right, then your printer is allworking because it's clogged up
yeah I don't want an inkjetprinter in my house and none of
my friends do.
That's sort of indication to methat people don't like to keep
(30:37):
a printer in their house becauseit's extra electronics that
they have to maintain.
And they have an ipad, theyhave a phone, they have a
computer they've got all thestuff.
Yeah, some people might stillkeep it for work.
Gary Pageau (30:48):
But if you have a home office, it makes sense.
I mean that's, you know, yeah,yeah, print from printing
pictures on a just a normalconsumer grade inkjet printer.
You know one you get for 99bucks at office depot or
someplace.
That's an arduous process, it's, it's, it's a challenge, but I
mean for home office, you know,I, I think it's, you know, a
(31:09):
great solution I got when Iprint papers, because I'm old
and I still print things but youknow, for photos specifically,
yeah, um, people are aiming fora high quality print, right, and
you're not getting that for 99bucks.
You're getting from 199 well,plus, you're dealing with
different media too.
People got to deal with, youknow, with the nikjet.
If you're using it for homeoffice, you've got your normal
(31:30):
bond paper in, but then, oh wait, I want to print some photos.
I got to switch out the printer, I mean, I got to switch out
the paper and then I have to,you know, put it into photo mode
.
And you know, you have to doall these extra steps as opposed
to just pressing a button andprinting.
Jeffrey Huang (31:45):
You know steps, as opposed to just pressing a
button and printing.
You know exactly, and you knowthese retailers like walgreens,
to make it so easy.
You go in, right, you have yourphotos on on your phone.
It comes out within 20 minutes.
You're just, you're off to buysome drinks and some doritos and
then you get your photo rightlisten, I think their whole
business model is drinks,doritos and prints.
Gary Pageau (32:07):
That's their whole business model.
Jeffrey Huang (32:12):
When's the last?
time you saw anybody buymedicine at Walgreens.
It's a business model thatworks and it's convenient.
That's why people like it.
The sort of online photodelivery thing is also extremely
large.
We see Walmart, walgreensreensand the retailers in europe.
They're also doing that.
They all sure they gather yourorders online and then they'll
(32:33):
send it to you or they'll sendit to one of their locations.
And it's great when they sendit to one of their locations
because, like, it's no cost tothem, it's just electronics yeah
, so.
Gary Pageau (32:43):
Are many of your customers using your product for
like photo gifting, for, youknow, transferring to like mugs
or things like that, or are youjust not set up for that?
Jeffrey Huang (32:53):
We don't do any of that.
So we only do direct to cardand photos.
We don't do t-shirts, mugs oranything.
That's a related technology,right.
Gary Pageau (33:02):
That's why I asked, because I know it's like a
second cousin to what you'redoing.
Jeffrey Huang (33:07):
I asked because I know it's like a second cousin
to what you're doing, but Iwondered if you guys are looking
at that as a platform, becausethat is also a growing part of
the market is taking those Daisoprints and then transferring
them to other media.
This is not part of a companypolicy, but just personally.
I really like that sector and Ireally want to make more in
that sector.
But we'll see what we do.
We're a relatively smallcompany so we can develop one
product at a time.
(33:27):
So we're focusing on the photoand the card printer market at
the moment, but it's a veryinteresting market.
People love customized stuffand know that there are some
people who they buy a t-shirtprinter and a mug printer and
that's their business.
Then they're working forthemselves and they love it yeah
, yeah.
Gary Pageau (33:44):
So where can people go for more information about
your company and the products?
Because, like I said, you havedistributors around the world.
How would they find how tocontact those and where can they
find your company?
Jeffrey Huang (33:57):
So our website is HITIcom H-I-T-Icom.
We also have a couple of socialmedia accounts spread here and
there.
We're not very active on them,to be honest.
I think LinkedIn we're startingto pick up.
We have distributors all overthe US ImageTech, imaging
Spectrum, southtrend, novaGraphics, buffalo, et cetera, et
cetera.
If you go to B&H or Adorama orUnique Photo, you'll see our
(34:22):
products there.
Our products are on Amazon,obviously.
Check out our website, checkout our distributors.
Our new printer is coming very,very soon and we think it's a
very good fit for the markets ofyour industry.
Check it out.
Gary Pageau (34:34):
Yep, definitely Awesome.
Well, thanks, jeff, for yourtime.
Appreciate getting to know youbetter and more about the
company.
I always love it when I runacross somebody who has been in
the industry a long time butthey're still innovating, doing
different things, trying to growthe market.
Erin Manning (34:53):
So thank you so much.
Thank you so much, Gary.
It's always a pleasure to talkto you and I hope we can do this
again.
Thank you for listening to theDead Pixels Society podcast.
Read more great stories andsign up for the newsletter at
wwwthedeadpixelssocietycom.
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