Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Register Log in
  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Stock Footage: What's an R3D file worth?

Phil Bates

Phil Bates

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 4, 2007
Messages
685
Reaction score
0
Points
0
Website
www.artbeats.com
As a seasoned producer and distributor of stock footage we believe we've found the optimum prices for SD and HD resolution footage, but we are about to enter the whole new world 3K, 4K and RAW. Would you take a moment and give me your opinion on what these files are worth?

Consider a 20 second long nature scene sold under the Royalty Free* licensing model. Our current single clip prices are:

NTSC/PAL QuickTime PhotoJPEG: $199
HD QuickTime PhotoJPEG: $299

Considering the above baseline, how would you price the following:

3K QuickTime PhotoJPEG or ProResHQ (color graded):
3K R3D (RAW):
4K QuickTIme PhotoJPEG or ProResHQ (color graded):
4K R3D (RAW):

I welcome all discussion and input. Thank you.

Phil
http://www.artbeats.com

*The Royalty Free (RF) licensing model charges one fee for unlimited use. The Rights Managed (RM) licensing model charges fees per use and also per size of audience. Artbeats is strictly RF.
 
Part of the cost is going to be devoted to bandwidth- big R3Ds are also going to take a long time, so transferring huge raw files may not be practical for many users, unless the distribution is on DVD.

Also the market for 3 and 4 k files might be limited if the HD version of the file under cuts the price by a large margin. I think the model for the HD and SD files would go down slightly and the 3K would be your market split- something like this:

NTSC/PAL QT PhotoJPEG: $150.00
HD QuickTime PhotoJPEG $250.00
3k QuickTime PhotoJPEG/ ProRes $350.00
3k R3D (RAW) $400.00
4k QuickTime PhotoJPEG/ ProRes $450.00
4k R3D (RAW) $500.00


However a more realistic model would be:
NTSC/PAL QT PhotoJPEG: $150.00
HD QuickTime PhotoJPEG $200.00
3k QuickTime PhotoJPEG/ ProRes $300.00
3k R3D (RAW) $350.00
4k QuickTime PhotoJPEG/ ProRes $400.00
4k R3D (RAW) $450.00
 
File size is definitely a concern for downloadability. However, we are finding clients willing to download whole collections of HD footage. Interestingly, the R3D files end up being the smallest of the bunch. Here are some file size comparisons for a 28 second 4K 2:1 clip (30fps):

Source R3D file: .917gb (917mb)
QuickTime PJPEG: 2.43gb
QuickTime AppleProResHQ: 3.06gb
Tiff sequence 8bit: 19.63gb
Tiff sequence 16bit: 39.24gb
DPX sequence 10bit: 26.17gb

Great input thanks! :)

Phil
http://www.artbeats.com
 
Pricewise, probably a 50% to 60% premium over HD. Maybe similar to the price jump fom SD to HD? Pricewise, you'll have to see how your customers respond. At first, the market will probably be fairly niche. There is no real end display for 4K right now, other than filmouts.

Downloadability is such a great feature. I think most people looking for clips would like to have them NOW.

Selling the RAW sequences is also an awesome idea, because then the customer has a huge amount of control over exposure, color, etc. Let me ask you this, Phil: Will your (non RED) RAW sequences be in their native size? If so, that would be cool, because RAW timelapse sequences shot on a Canon 1DsM2, for example, would leave the customer with some extra real estate for cropping and reframing and virtual pans and all of that.
 
Considering that you need to do a fair bit of image processing to get the HD jpeg's from a r3d file (=more work, transcoding, color correcting, bigger upload/bandwith)
and that you need to do none on the r3d file and your clients needs a fair share of knowledge and software experience to deal with these, I think the premium shouldn't be significant.
It will give your savvy clients more flexibility overall, so maybe
329,- for native r3d files
and 399,- for 3K Photo jpg files
449,- for 4K Photo jpg files
 
Tom said:
...Let me ask you this, Phil: Will your (non RED) RAW sequences be in their native size? If so, that would be cool, because RAW timelapse sequences shot on a Canon 1DsM2, for example, would leave the customer with some extra real estate for cropping and reframing and virtual pans and all of that.
Click to expand...

Regarding non-Red RAW footage, we haven't seen any yet. Up until now, timelapse DSLR sequences had to be PJPEG because the RAW files were too big to fit 1000 or so on a CF card. Then, there is the issue of what compositing/editing program can import a Canon RAW sequence? Certainly none that I can use. Perhaps PhotoShop can batch them, haven't tried that yet. How do you handle RAW sequences? I am certainly open to the idea but haven't gotten past the above issues, nor has any been submitted to us.

Thanks for posting Tom,
Phil

http://www.artbeats.com
 
florianstadler.com said:
Considering that you need to do a fair bit of image processing to get the HD jpeg's from a r3d file (=more work, transcoding, color correcting, bigger upload/bandwith)
and that you need to do none on the r3d file and your clients needs a fair share of knowledge and software experience to deal with these, I think the premium shouldn't be significant.
It will give your savvy clients more flexibility overall, so maybe
329,- for native r3d files
and 399,- for 3K Photo jpg files
449,- for 4K Photo jpg files
Click to expand...

Thanks Florian! You're right, the HD QT movies are a lot more work, and thus more valuable from our side. However, I am used to the film equivalent. When we are asked for a scan of our 35mm negative, we get a premium for that. It will be interesting to see if the customer base would consider R3D as being as valuable as a film neg scan.

Phil
http://www.artbeats.com
 
Of course much will depend on the client and their level of editing
expertise. I would prefer the RAW file because I am comfortable
with REDCINE and can crank out what I need. Some agency types
I deal with don't the difference between progressive and interlaced
much less RAW and photoJpeg. BTW - I ordered your whole HD set
of Dallas Aerial clips and they are awesome. Getting some great
feedback. A producer I worked with almost did not want to use them
because they made the aerial footage he shot pail in comparsion to
the Artbeats footage!
 
Phil Bates said:
Regarding non-Red RAW footage, we haven't seen any yet. Up until now, timelapse DSLR sequences had to be PJPEG because the RAW files were too big to fit 1000 or so on a CF card. Then, there is the issue of what compositing/editing program can import a Canon RAW sequence? Certainly none that I can use. Perhaps PhotoShop can batch them, haven't tried that yet. How do you handle RAW sequences? I am certainly open to the idea but haven't gotten past the above issues, nor has any been submitted to us.

Thanks for posting Tom,
Phil

http://www.artbeats.com
Click to expand...

AE can do it. It might be kind of rare that people would want access to the original Camera RAW files (like .CR2), but really high-end users might think it was very impressive. The RAW sequences would probably be anywhere from 2GBs to 20GBs - depeneding on the resolution of the DSLR. A 240-frame, 10-second timelapse shot on a Canon 350D is only a couple of gigs. But a 750-frame timelapse shot on a Canon 1DsM3 would be over 15GBs, I think.
 
Phil Bates said:
As a seasoned producer and distributor of stock footage we believe we've found the optimum prices for SD and HD resolution footage, but we are about to enter the whole new world 3K, 4K and RAW. Would you take a moment and give me your opinion on what these files are worth?

Consider a 20 second long nature scene sold under the Royalty Free* licensing model. Our current single clip prices are:

NTSC/PAL QuickTime PhotoJPEG: $199
HD QuickTime PhotoJPEG: $299

Considering the above baseline, how would you price the following:

3K QuickTime PhotoJPEG or ProResHQ (color graded):
3K R3D (RAW):
4K QuickTIme PhotoJPEG or ProResHQ (color graded):
4K R3D (RAW):

I welcome all discussion and input. Thank you.

Phil
http://www.artbeats.com

*The Royalty Free (RF) licensing model charges one fee for unlimited use. The Rights Managed (RM) licensing model charges fees per use and also per size of audience. Artbeats is strictly RF.
Click to expand...

I think it's a terrible idea to charge a big premium for raw footage, because anything that makes it unwieldy, slow, expensive or otherwise difficult for people to pick 4k footage, will make it slower for this higher quality format to catch on. Think of the children!

Thanks Florian! You're right, the HD QT movies are a lot more work, and thus more valuable from our side. However, I am used to the film equivalent. When we are asked for a scan of our 35mm negative, we get a premium for that. It will be interesting to see if the customer base would consider R3D as being as valuable as a film neg scan.
Click to expand...

But it's not film, and one of the supposed advantages of redcode raw is that the file sizes compare well (even with normal hd footage) and the whole point of red is to bring higher quality footage to more people, for lower cost...

And it's a lot less work than dealing with film neg scans...
 
oh yeah....offer the RAW .r3d files. That way, even a fairly novice editor/colorist could at least make it match the look they are going for. Way better than HD for that. Should be a premium.

And...easy to download, because the files are not very big. All good things.
 
I agree with two different points - there should be premium for the r3d files, but there should be no difference between the color-graded PhotoJPEG/ProResHQ and the RAW r3d files.

RAW has the advantage of being flexible for those who are willing to work with RAW, but doesn't require any processing and color-grading by the creator.

The color-graded footage can be used as it is for those who need it like that, but looses the flexibility of RAW. It does require additional work by the creator.

Keeping them the same price will allow the true freedom in selecting what best suits Your needs without discriminating either format...

There is one more important issue. 4K RAW does not necessarily translate to 4K RGB files, but more like 3.2K RGB. Ditto for 3K RAW. So as such, there is not a "huge" difference between 3K RAW and HD, unless the HD is of the 1440 variety...

So, without modifying Your current pricing, I believe this:

NTSC/PAL QuickTime PhotoJPEG: $199
HD QuickTime PhotoJPEG: $299

3K QuickTime PhotoJPEG or ProResHQ (color graded): $349
3K R3D (RAW): $349

4K QuickTIme PhotoJPEG or ProResHQ (color graded): $449
4K R3D (RAW): $449
 
Whole different kettle of fish, 'scuse the pun, when dealing with underwater stock. great talking ponint though as I am looking to get ideas for price points for 4k stock from my lovely "Deep C" (RED#954) which will soon be introduced to the reefs of Indonesia, big time.

I guess there will be the same categories o select as you mentioned but for a sequence that can pretty much remain unique I am sure the price point will be somewhat higher. For generic stock i have seen from F900's I have also seen price tags of $120 per second!! Where are we with RED? Any other Bubble Blowers settled a price range yet?

Cheers,
Mark.
 
Personally I think .R3D files are not going to be desired by most folks working with stock footage because of the extra processing required to utilize them. They're going to want production ready Animation or ProRes or Uncompresseds or even H.264s.

I mean 35mm source stock footage has been around forever, have most customers really been requesting Cineon or DPX stacks- doubt it. Also I don't see the point in a major premium over HD for the same reason.

No one's really going to need 4K stock footage for a while because there's not a lot of post being done above 2K. So 2K stock footage will more than cover it or even HD. To stay competitive within the market I'll wager RED source material will need to remain close to HD pricing at least for the time being IMHO. I mean no one expects to pay a substantial premium to get 1080 HD vs 720 HD these days so why should 4K change the game so much?

-Noah
 
NoahK said:
Personally I think .R3D files are not going to be desired by most folks working with stock footage because of the extra processing required to utilize them.
Click to expand...

I was wondering about this too. When RED's workflow is further along it's likely we'll be able to send look files along with the R3D so there's at least one color correction included.

My gut is you'd just charge the same as HD and see what happens. You're the expert, but I'd be inclined to charge more for footage that was in higher demand or more difficult to obtain as opposed to making it solely resolution based.

Also, there will be no edited R3D sequences since you can't edit them. They'll have to be contiguous shots and the odds of a perfect in camera shot are a little low.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top