How cool do you think it feels to be Ron Epstein? (1 Viewer)

[LaMarcus]

Come own now seriously. You know that it has to be cool as hell to be him. Going to movie premiers, getting advanced copies of dvd's, not to mention having the best home theater related forum on the net. I mean honestly.

 

[Bob Hill]

As with all great things, I am sure that he has done a lot of work and made many sacrifices to take the Home Theater Forum and himself where they are today. It just makes it that much sweeter in the end.

 

[LaMarcus]

That's making my point even more. To have something this great last this long and grow this big has to give you a feeling.

I get excited when people respond to my post! Let alone join a club that I started.

 

[brentl]

Let's see

-Full time job + working 6-7 hours a day on the HTF
-Constantly getting yelled at and getting called names by unhappy members
-Spending tons of your own cash and never making a profit(you think the markets are low return right now!!!)

He's stated MANY TIMES how much he loves our hobby but I don't think that many of us would still be around if we had to put up with what he has to.

Brent

 

[LaMarcus]

See Brentl what you just said makes me appreciate this forum even more because I don't think alot of us realise all the effort that is put into this forum. I'd love to know the history of this place. How it became to be, how far it's come, how exactly is it managed. Ya know?

 

[Philip Hamm]

First dibbs on the HTF Corporate Jet is the best perk he gets. I know I'm jealous.

Seriously, it's a lot of work. I can't even imagine taking the time it takes to do all those reviews.

 

[Parker Clack]

LaMarcus:

Ron and I started HTF back around 1996 with a small group of us on Prodigy's Movie Forum. They put a lot of restrictions on us when we tried to have our own place so I found the software to do this on our own. Back then it was a freeware script called WWW Threads and we were on a shared server. We started off with about 150 of us moving from one server to another because we kept killing the shared servers we were on. Then we found UBB and Tim Flavin with Internet 1st and had a dedicated server donated to us from 800.com. After awhile we killed that dedicated server and we had to move to yet another more powerful dedicated server and our present forum based software vBulletin. We then moved to our present hosting company, QWK.net, run by Travis Burnside, when the membership came up with the money to get our present database server. Then yet again our traffic killed that server and the membership came together and gave us enough money to get our present three server layout and to pay for the increaded bandwidth costs that are associated with this much traffic.

So we have grown from around 150 fans of movies that had Pro Logic surround systems, laserdisc players and HiFi VCRs to over 37,000+ registered members that have seen the dawn of DVD, Dolby Digital and DTS with front projection and High Definition monitors. We were blown away when our post count had gone up to 100,000. Now we are read 150,000 times a day with over 8 million page views a month and we send out over 400G worth of data a month.

All this from some guys that wanted to have a place to hang out and talk with others that got into movies and electronics like we did. Little did we know what it would grow into. We still don't. And that is the real beauty of it all.

Parker

 

[Chris Hovanic]

thanks

 

[Tony Whalen]

And after reading Parker's post... I just gotta add...

..how cool is THAT?

HTF rocks.

 

[LaMarcus]

Man, I almost got a tear.:b That's just the best thing I've heard all week. I love to hear stuff like that. My biggest congrats Parker.

If it means anything you guys have touched so many people. I my self know that with out you guys I would definitely still have a HTIB with my playstation as my dvd player and my tv would stay on torch mode continuously.

So a big, big thanks goes out. I have a question though, where do you guys keep the servers? Do you live near Ron?

 

[brentl]

Group hug

 

[Morgan Jolley]

Having talked with Ron about this briefly at the last Palooza, I'm think he's got it a bit rough. Yeah, he gets those discs for free, but he HAS to review them, with pictures and in-depth stuff covering things like documentaries and other bonus features. That's at least 7 hours or so for one movie review. Imagine getting a dozen new movies a week, combined with the day job, monitoring HTF, and anything involved in life.

I'm kind of glad Ron is stepping down from doing DVD reviews. He's done a ton already and doesn't need to keep going. He's got a lot of other stuff to do already.

 

[Mark Leiter]

My props also out to Ron, Parker and all the others.

You've created a invaluable learning tool. Since 1999 HTF has been my first and best choice when I needed Home Entertainment information. Way to go!!!!

 

[Max Leung]

So, when is someone going to post those incriminating Ron Epstein pictures? My favorite is the tight leather outfit.

 

[Jed M]

I agree with the masses as well. Congratulations on the success, you two really deserve it.

I'd love to know the history of this place.

LaMarcus, If you want to see what it looked like, go here and type in the address. http://www.archive.org/
Some links don't work and sometimes the opening flash doesn't work but you can see how the old forum looked. If you can't get the link to work, here is the earliest my browser would open, 11-3-99. http://web.archive.org/web/199911090...n/Ultimate.cgi
I started browsing here in late 99 but didn't register for almost another two years. Now I am fully addicted. Sigh, those were the days where it was just "Home Theater Hardware" and "Home Theater Software". Thanks again Parker and Ron for keeping this forum running, its like a home away from home.

 

[Parker Clack]

LaMarcus:

The servers are located Boise Idaho with the ISP QWK.net. Travis Burnside owns and runs this organization and is a great guy to have in our corner in case anything goes wrong with the servers.

Ron and I live quite a fews miles away from each other as Ron lives on the East Coast and I live in the middle of the US. I would really like for us to be neighbors so we could get together and hang out. We have racked up some phone bills over the years.

Now that you know the history of HTF I would be an idiot to think that HTF is what it is without the support of its members and our staff of moderators. Our moderators take long periods of time out of their lives to participate in and keep the forum running smooth. Each and every time we have asked for donations from the membership to keep the site up and running everyone comes through in spades. Without the donations we would have had to have closed shop a long time ago.

And lastly we would not be here if we did not get the unwavering support of our advertisers. Not only do they sell some of the best products that you can buy in their respective areas but they all offer the best customer support of any businesses I know. I am proud to have the advertisers we have because they support HTF because they believe in us as much as we believe in them. So you may want to also send thanks to Brad Marcus (owner of Bettercables), Ron Stimpson/Tom Vodhanel (Owner of SV Subwoofers), Jason Palmer (TV Authority), Peter Tribeman, Scott Jackson and the rest of the Outlaws (Outlaw Audio), Amie Colquhoun (Axiom Audio), Marc Daege (Laser's Edge) and Richard Moulding (Spearit Sound). In addition with the fantastic support of Peter Staddon with Fox Home Video and Martin Blythe with Paramount Studios we have not only had the financial support we have needed but also the support of getting the products out to the market place that the membership has said they wanted. Let these great people know that you appreciate their support of HTF by supporting them.

Also the great people at Widescreen Review (Gary Reber, Perry Sun), DVD ETC (Terry Carroll, Clint Walker) and Home Theater Builder (Andy Crosby, Lee Pappas) have taken the time out their busy schedules to field questions from the membership about articles in their publications and to let us know about current and upcoming issues and the products they will be talking about. They are all a great bunch of people and they too are as crazy about this stuff as we are.

HTF has been a wild ride to say the least and sometimes the ride takes us down some paths that we don't want to go but as long as we are able Ron and I will do whatever we can to keep the place up and running. It is up to everyone to keep it growing and a great place to hang out.

Thanks to each and everyone of you for making HTF the great place that it is today.

Parker

 

[Holadem]

What we need now is HTF:The movie. Who's up for the script?

I'll play Vickie.

--
Holadem

 

[LaMarcus]

Wow, you gotta love it. I'm glad that I could buy something from the sponsers. If not for the HTF I would have NEVER, EVER bought a SVS sub. Mostly because I would not have known they existed.

I do appreciate you taking time out of your schedule to post in this thread and answer my questions Parker, that was tops!

 

[LaMarcus]

I do miss Ron's reviews, they were the highlight of my night. I think the DVD industry is going to miss Ron's reviews also, because it was because of him that I have 35 to 45% of the dvd's in my collection. I wouldn't even know movies were comin out if not for him. Now I need to find another resource, but I'm glad he can have some of his life back, sheesh, that's a lot of time to review dvd's.

 

[David Preston]

I'm glad I found HTF myself. I would also have got some HTIB or perhaps BOSE. But thanks to all the help I have received on here I have not made that mistake. Thanks Ron and Parker and everybody else on here. We are one big happy family. Have a good Holiday everyone.