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  • 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 :)

Vimeo's new distribution service. . .

Stephen Pruitt said:
I do have problems with Vimeo freezing on me all the time. And I'm afraid that I am one of those who tunes out right after the first or second freeze.

The question is this: If YOU were going to try to release a film as a web series for $1 an episode (which is what we plan to do in less than a year), what system would you use? What else is out there that looks viable? What would be the best approach?

Thanks for the input gentlemen!

Stephen
Click to expand...

If you don't like buffering and freezing and want your content to be play in HD,
Maybe you should have a look to that French company
http://www.massmotionmedia.com/fr/

They just cover the last Dior fashion show world wide (China included) in HD live and in multi screen.

Their score world wide isn't bad at all
video without buffering 91% (world wide included China and Australia)
Video HD 56%
Anyway this type of service and technology has a price, the more hits your content get the more you pay.
And this is why Vimeo business model can't work in that state,
I'm sure using Akamai to play their content cost tones of money to Vimeo.
Best
B.
 
So what really are our options if we're interested in playing to the web. . . and actually charging to watch our content?

What sort of piracy issues do we face?

Stephen
 
Currently I have seen no definitive great solution for your/mine/our answer tho this question Stephen... :(

Has been just about two years now, since we actively started searching and testing various engines and proposed channels for this, and the main reason being that for our first film "Rape of a Beauty" I wanted to remain absolutely Independent, and if no agreement is reached with the Studios and or other distributors, then I'll make a independent deal with few Movie theaters for the premiere in each chosen country and then go all Digital and Blu-Ray distribution, since for most of us it is extremely important that the high quality of the streamed footage, many fail miserably with their compression algorithms, and or simply can't handle the streaming right out at the 10mb per second internet connection, which is simply ridiculous, or offer only small windows, or when you go full screen on anything over a 13" you get an SD looking image, so they are no go.


Alternatively, I have been testing few platforms, which unfortunately do make use of a secondary Server, like Amazon S3 and such, or two others have their own great server, but do charge per view, yet when taken in account that this is a PAID per view to you as well, then it can make sense, example, if you charge $1 is not as good as it might end up costing you around 40% what you charge, but if you are streaming a full length film as we intend to, then it can be worth as this will surely not go for less then $3.99 so the charged fee to you for the service is just about 10% and a very honest fee to process all for you.

But still looking and testing... Odemax being my biggest hope here.
 
Stephen Pruitt said:
So what really are our options if we're interested in playing to the web. . . and actually charging to watch our content?

What sort of piracy issues do we face?

Stephen
Click to expand...

I suppose you could do it yourself. Amazon's AWS could easily deliver it. Vimeo even uses it as their backend. Instead of paying Vimeo you'd just have to pay a developer to build the site.

Or, you could try to get Netflix or Amazon Streaming to pick it up.

Piracy would be the last of my concerns.
 
Hey there, Matt. . . can you tell me what you know about how AWS actually works? We were actually thinking of hiring a developer (one is involved in the project, actually), but I'm not sure how well something like this would actually work.

Thanks so much to everyone for chiming in here. This is a huge issue for a lot of us. Or, at least, certainly me!

Stephen
 
Using Amazon it's pretty strait forward we have it too, but haven't activated for FREE content to not go in to the risk of ending up with monstrous billing, but if all else fails, then for our PAID content streaming we might end up activating the service with our own Video player in our site.
 
KETCH ROSSi said:
Unfortunately Brice, while massmotionmedia is certainly a great host, 100% of the clients that use it that I know, including Universal, only use it for France, and their HD quality is a bit too compressed, even when you look at their film trailers, so no good there either for us.
Click to expand...

Hé hé hé...
Coming back with some concrete numbers as I know really well Massmotion Media, and saw the birth of this young company.
Actually 75% of the content Massmotion media host is outside France in those (75%) 25% is in China.
As for Universal or Pathé it's on demand, sometime the clients just prefer an hosting for France only.
For example Dior used their service for a world wide screening this month.
If I remember well I think Chanel used them for a world wide hosting (and especially for China) not a long time ago.
Ketch you have to remember that the compression quality depend of the media the company receive from the clients.
Sometimes it is good sometime it is not.
You also have some clients who deliver SD content for an HD streaming, believe me I saw it from my eyes.
Their HD quality is beetween 1700 and 3000kbps on demand, and I think they are doing a impressive job at compressing the data.
I actually got some good tips and formula from them to compress my video properly.
Yea I hear you, Vimeo offer a better compression ratio for free hosting (5000kbps)
but how many computer do you reach with such huge compression ratio?
Probably not that much, at least not John Doe's computer wich is probably not up to date like the people on this forum.
Without serious processing in your machine you will not be able to play a HD content on Vimeo.
And I will not start with the disparity beetween internet line on our planet.
In Tuscany for example you wil not be able to read properly a video on vimeo without waiting for the buffer to do it's job.
The goal for a client is to reach as most people as they can, and it is not the case with a 5000kbps files host by vimeo.
Just my two cents.
Best
B.
 
Thanks for explaining, I guess my reference was based on Universal and couple of others I know, and yes, they must be then the minority that choose them for local service only.


On the compression, I read you Brice, and I do agree with you, unfortunately for those like me it's hard to come to terms to have their material shown at less then HD quality when we are shooting it in 6k (soon) for a 4k finish.
 
KETCH ROSSi said:
Thanks for explaining, I guess my reference was based on Universal and couple of others I know, and yes, they must be then the minority that choose them for local service only.


On the compression, I read you Brice, and I do agree with you, unfortunately for those like me it's hard to come to terms to have their material shown at less then HD quality when we are shooting it in 6k (soon) for a 4k finish.
Click to expand...

I hear you, and I tend to have problem compressing my video under 4000kbps on Vimeo, then I think about our shity internet conection in Tuscany
and make the effort to compress a bit more for a wider number of viewers.
I really think the key point on internet for a wide range of viewer (a part for a good content) is also the low compression rate.
Compression is a science after all. ;-)
Best
B.
 
Stephen Pruitt said:
Hey there, Matt. . . can you tell me what you know about how AWS actually works? We were actually thinking of hiring a developer (one is involved in the project, actually), but I'm not sure how well something like this would actually work.

Thanks so much to everyone for chiming in here. This is a huge issue for a lot of us. Or, at least, certainly me!

Stephen
Click to expand...

Yeah, no problem. I'm not an expert, but we use it to deliver content to our clients. AWS is a huge and very capable service. Services like Netflix and Vimeo use it to store and stream all of their content. They charge by adding up your data transactions so it can add up if you have a lot of traffic. But, if you're charging for views you could just build that into the cost. I'd check out this page on their site...

http://aws.amazon.com/digital-media/

An experienced developer could easily set this up using a variety of AWS products. Probably S3(simple storage solution) and CloudFront(delivery network). Maybe some others. I'd suggest playing around with their billing calculator to give you an idea of costs. If you have a large amount of traffic expect a large bill. But, I'd imagine, that would be less than 10% of revenue like the Vimeo model. Then contacting one of Amazon's AWS partners or contacting their sales team.
 
Great! Thanks much.

I am hoping for a great big bill from AWS. That means I made a fortune!

Stephen
 
You should really research your costs and $/bit when offering something for only 1$. We are not all Apple and a single song is MUCH less data that an whole movie. It would probably have to be more than iTunes to be profitable, not less.

David



Stephen Pruitt said:
Great! Thanks much.

I am hoping for a great big bill from AWS. That means I made a fortune!

Stephen
Click to expand...
 
The problem with iTunes is that it costs so darn much to get on that system. Thousands of dollars per half-hour episode. And they tell you that they don't even want anything less than an hour! And we have six episodes!

It's crazy.

Stephen
 
What does it take to get on Netflix?
 
Michael Hastings said:
What does it take to get on Netflix?
Click to expand...
Netflix to know you exist and want your film. They generally buy out rights at a flat rate. A good distributor can demand more for their films so I hear it pays to sign on to someone to negotiate with Netflix.
 
What is needed is an iTunes sort of service with high-quality video that allows indies to set their own prices on their content and provides for decent piracy protections.

Why hasn't that been invented yet?

Or has it?

I have such trouble playing Vimeo videos that I can't believe that is the answer.

Stephen
 
Ketch, fun fact:

In 2009 Google operated YouTube at a loss. A loss of $400-something million -***ing dollars.

In 2012, revenues were said to approach 3 billion.

Yet they are dropping something like 90 out of their 100 partner channels or whatever you call them because most don't make Google enough money to keep sharing that much profit with.

Online distribution is a turbulent mess. Personally I am a fan of curated content, like Vimeo's staff picks and this incredible, incredible new service:

http://us.mubi.com/films

One film worth watching added everyday, you have 30 days to watch it, $4.99 a month in the US.
 
One of the things I liked about the Odemax scheme was that an investment ( money and tech) had to be made in order to participate. That promoted a little order in the chaos of an open universe like you tube (and BitTorrent?) so to speak. A little order can go a long way in promoting a good following. If a vimeo type of (open) model does arise, perhaps its offerings should be made to reflect varying cinema styles: from the basement to the Grande and repertoire : each tier with a unique cost for submissions. A $500 ( or more) per submission cost is going to keep a lot of the noise down, and possibly leverage better quality streaming. It is then up to the filmmaker to set the $ per view.

Would anyone here pay 5K or 10K in order to post their feature film on a site ?
What if that site was hosted by someone like George Lucas? ( :
 
I don't know what the answer is.

But I do know there does have to be one.

Stephen
 
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