I’m super-excited that the campaign has hit two major goals: first, we’re 100% funded, so the project is a go! Thank you for enabling me to build this hardware. I’m looking forward to building your NeTV2 and sharing a few stories about my journey along the way.

Second, I’m already getting some amazing feedback about the sorts of things people might do with the NeTV2 — if only they had the right to do it. My favorite so far is a suggestion by Kebel, which he wrote up on GitHub.

The basic idea is a Patreon-like service for actors. The NeTV2 in libre mode feeds video to an AI that recognizes the faces or names of stars. Whenever they come on screen or roll in the credits, the viewer is given the opportunity to send a tip. This would enable fans to support artists directly, through all types of works — not just big budget movies, but also through TV interviews and appearances, as well as through personal YouTube or Twitch feeds. It also enables artists to connect more directly with their fans, as it also gives direct feedback on which scenes and engagements generated the most interest.

If you have an idea for what you might do if you had the legal right to process video, please document it using your favorite linkable editing tool (git, wiki, gdocs, pastebin) and open an issue against the netv2-ideas repository. This helps track all the cool ideas that are currently ephemerally floating around on Twitter and in emails.

While it’s easy to measure and celebrate the monetary progress of a crowdfunding campaign, documenting and gathering great ideas like this is of equal importance.