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Messages - gcrook
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26
« on: January 18, 2016, 15:42 »
One more thing: there is no such thing as greed. There is self interrest, we all defend it, and that's the fundamental energy which generates progress.
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What a load of crap.
I'm sure you are not greedy, because, obviously, only others are.
Sorry I woke you up! Keep dreaming 
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Greed is wanting more than you need and yes there is such a thing as greed, look at Donald Trump. But not everyone is greedy. I live a modest life and walked away from that race for more 15 years ago. I have what I need and I want nothing more. I do stock as retirement income (not retired yet but must think of the future) and because it's the only avenue that allows me to create whatever image I want without having to follow a client's directions. Greed is a sickness and one in which the infected don't know there's anything wrong with them. Tragic really.
What you "need" is so relative! This is why your definition is flawed.
Are your needs the same as some poor African farmer needs? To him, you are greedy, because you have much more than he needs. Similarly, corporations appear greedy to you.
Is your household making more than $9,733/year? If yes, then you are greedy because you make more than half of the world population. You can flaunt your modest life only after you donate to charity everything in excess of $9,733/year.
You don't need much to be happy: food, shelter and love. Do you have more than this? Do you have a cell phone, a car, a TV, a computer? Then you have more than you need. Always think at the poor African farmer before you tap yourself on the shoulder with satisfaction. Otherwise, it is only hypocrisy.
Self interest (which include the interests of your family and your community) is embedded in human nature and beyond, even if you don't like to admit it. Without it, mankind would have been stuck in stone age, or worse.
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LOL,Oh boy,i was wondering why someone didnt mention the "human nature" argument sooner.The mega argument of every illiterate libertarian.
27
« on: January 15, 2016, 13:43 »
Didnt know that fotolia reconverted to h264.
Nevertheless it accepts prores which has issues displaying properly as a preview (broken frames),so it's better to upload a different format in case this issue transfers over to their h264.
Pond5 i think also creates an h264 4K file but it displays the prores as their main one and if you purchase it you can always download the h264 if you're in a hurry.Not sure about SS, VB, and Dissolve (if they offer h264 reconversions as on option too once you buy the clip).
28
« on: January 15, 2016, 12:31 »
Slightly OT, since you guys are obviously uploading Prores, which agencies are actually selling those clips without conversion?
You mean downconvertion? I only know of nimia offering 4K clips without bothering to downconvert.
29
« on: January 15, 2016, 11:49 »
If so, makes me wonder why Adobe would have even approved of this venture then.
Because it's an added bonus.They havent invested in this,after all they use fotolia's infastructure with a frontend so to speak,and the fact that they compress so heavily is because they dont want to afford infastructure for storage and network.It's cheaper like that. They cant even display downconverted hd clips,something that should have been on their top priority since they can't mirror 4K clips from fotolia (which hasnt even priced them officially). How long since Mat Hayward announced the 4K bug on their "to fix immediately" list?Sure. Meanwhile fotolia still can't display a proper video preview.Especially for 4K files it takes longer to load the preview than to encode the prores from my end. Makes me curious how i even sold 5 clips there during the past 45 days.
30
« on: January 11, 2016, 17:21 »
I bet it will be priced fairly,considering that their prices were (and still are) high to begin with.
But still im not sure if pricing like the top video agencies will help.
There's also the issue with their exclusives,just like dissolve.How can they have different pricing tiers and not expect their exclusive contributors to not lose sales from those who wlll upload a load of content at 79?
I bet all the people who stayed at dissolve at the 49price undercut the others at 79 not to mention the 299 and up.
I mean since pricing criteria isn't based on quality but on an abstract notion (exclusivity) .having exclusive footage at 299 doesn't make it better than the rest being offered at 10 different agencies at the same time.
Is there any exclusive video contributor at fotolia or dissolve to enlighten us regarding his sales?
That's the one thing i've been the most curious about.
31
« on: January 11, 2016, 12:07 »
...But the thing is that if they want to be an agency that prices like the rest then they should at least ban the 25gb upload limit.
If you want volume and low prices you cant expect people to pay you to upload more than 25gb at a time.
As long as I understand your statement correctly, the 25GB quota applies ONLY if you are not publishing the clips to the marketplace (e.g direct licensing).
I've uploaded far more than 25GB and never paid anything.
Im talking about the multi-agency.There is a 25 gb limit for every batch of uploads (until they ger reviewed where it resets again) which is the reason i have struggled for months to upload 150 clips there only.My 4K clips are 2-4 gb each. If you want to upload more in one batch you will have to pay a feee for storage. So If multi-agency prices go from 140 tο 79 for hd (and we dont know about 4K which is 240 for commercial and 300 for editorial) then i guess it would be fair to not expect people to pay for storage. Unless they dont want clips to get uploaded at their place. For an agency that hasn't sold anything in 3 months asking a fee to hasten the upload process is a bit too much
32
« on: January 11, 2016, 04:16 »
They haven't announced the price of 4K yet for the non-exclusive content, unless i've missed it.And it's an agency that doesnt downconvert to hd (yet) .
No sales is no sales,sure,but if i can just upload 4K and get a decent commission out of it im good.
But the thing is that if they want to be an agency that prices like the rest then they should at least ban the 25gb upload limit.
If you want volume and low prices you cant expect people to pay you to upload more than 25gb at a time.
33
« on: December 20, 2015, 09:52 »
I have uploaded some clips to them that i haven't yet submitted due to these issues.I asked them a few weeks ago about these refunds that i keep reading around and they had to say this:
"We have around 2 massive fraud attacks each year. The last one we had
this November
and almost every footage account was affected. It's not connected with
stealing content but is about buyer credit card refunds".
But if everyone here is reporting footage returns during this whole year then i suppose there's no need to look any further.It looks pretty bad as it is.
Time to hit that bulk delete button i suppose. (sigh)
34
« on: December 14, 2015, 16:15 »
Lets get real here.
Uploading to them is more than enough support and im not talking only about videoblocks.
Especially considering that this business is starting to look more and more like consenting on an (almost) blank paper.
35
« on: December 08, 2015, 17:32 »
I went through that during the summer period,and it took them 2-3 days to get back to me asking me additional information (which i already had provided in the 1st email btw) and another couple of days after that for confirmation where i was told to reupload.
How many days since you mailed them?Be aware that they seem to be having massive quotas lately,even curation is taking way too long.
36
« on: December 06, 2015, 21:24 »
I can tell you straight away that your quest for numbers as a way to quantify and understand this business means less than what you think,you will eventually realize that as i did.
I can give you a number for ss for the last 2 months for example which was 1100-1200 with 1400 clips but that doesnt explain these past 2 months like it cant explain the 3 months before that where it was less that half or these 2 and it certainly cant explain the 6 months prior to the last 5 where it was 200-400 usd with almost the same portfolio.
Same for pond5.
One month it can be 800,the next 1500 the one after that 1000 and so on and so forth.
Number of clips (quantity) regardless of what everyone tells you is the worst way to ensure a stable income.
You will need diversity and luck.Actually a LOT of luck, i find that to be more important than hard work and quality.
This is a lottery in a way.You can create hundreds of clips fairly quick and easy that wont necessarily be of low value, but the one that will make you money is the one you will have shot in the right place at the right time with the right light,subject,duration,lens,upload date,keywords,and it will make up for most of your forever unsold clips.And many times it will catch you by surprise and propably piss you off because it sells and the next best similar clip that you put time and money (and sometimes love) into isn't being noticed at all.
That doesnt mean you cant research what these clips will be and try to create them,im saying that things rarely go the way you hope.
The more you go out and plan the more the chances to capture these clips.
There are more details to these,thankfully a lot of people have discussed and written them down over the years and given time and reading you can demistify this business to a degree.
But you will be forever in the dark like everyone else,with a little candle shining some light every now and then.
And i dont believe for a second that someone has a formula to know what to shoot.Only experience, which saves a bit of time and effort.
37
« on: December 03, 2015, 18:45 »
I just received a $1.74 hd subscription video commission. I remember opting out of video subscriptions years ago. I don't see an opt out button anymore. Is anyone else having this problem? Is there still an opt out?
The only one i see is to opt out of DPC. Strange, i would swear there was one for subs too until a few days ago.
38
« on: December 01, 2015, 19:40 »
LOL.
Love these "My agency is bigger than yours" threads.
39
« on: December 01, 2015, 15:59 »
Thanks for the clarification,yes in that regard all is fair i guess.
-But still what happens to files that have originated from 4K?Can someone purchase them at all?
-If they can't be purchased why are they showing in search results even if only as relevant clips (if they show up by luck that is) .
-Should we wait or reupload in hd?
40
« on: December 01, 2015, 09:33 »
Ok i think im screwed here.59euros is 63 hd.
If that's the price for 4K as well fotolia should confirm and explain asap so i can delete my port there and get on with my life.
Enough of this crap.
41
« on: December 01, 2015, 00:46 »
Mat i see some of my clips offered at 4096X2304 at this price.
Actually only the hd clips show up on the adobe search but the 4K clips can also be found below if you click on them at the "More From This Series" space below the main preview clip.
Are they for purchase as well at this resolution or adobe only offers a downconverted hd clip?
If yes why not display them as well in the main search results?
42
« on: November 30, 2015, 16:22 »
Same experience here unfortunately.
Regarding the "too similar" rejections they fail to understand that video variations (colour, frame, crop,motion etc) should not be treated like stills.
I dont know if i should tag the rest of my collection or bother to resubmit some rejections (i've had a high acceptance number overall) but some of these rejections were totally ridiculous.
Plus i can't see how can buyers be attracted to them.Clips previews take ages to load (especially those who originate from 4K) and play in dropped framerate.
How can someone judge and evaluate stock video based on this horrible system?
On the plus side their review is propably the fastest that i know of.
Well, if that's a plus given the circumstances...
43
« on: November 24, 2015, 12:57 »
Found footage there which is just a few days old so it is apparently a mirroring site,an affiliate of fotolia, who drives traffic.
44
« on: November 23, 2015, 13:20 »
Why ask this though?I would think it does.For them.
Question is does it for contributors?Some say it does others say it's less income because growth of sales can't weight out the massive drop in commission.
To add,i think their biggest fail was that they considered vb as a place that would antagonize them.As it seems vb is notr antagonizing anyone else,nor can it.It makes sales but it's not stable as an agency.
My opinion of them hasn't changed,and now i think i can finally see how their model works.It's not stable it seems to work for us only when massive subscription occur,even if you consider all the massive ups and downs of the other agencies.
45
« on: November 23, 2015, 13:16 »
Sorry for the partially off-topic, I was never a contributor there,nor i am owed money, but i have to say,what a pretentious and dishonest person the owner of that company must have been.
While i understand the cynical business aspect of a company going down and owing money, what just happened was NOT business.
Especially when you ask for help for years from people who are more akin to employees (freelancers/contributors/whatever it's the same thing financially) than investors,and one day you just slam the door to their faces.
Can't even make sense of it.
46
« on: November 23, 2015, 11:54 »
Since they lowered the price on all my clips I stopped uploading. I figured I would wait and see what the impact would be, Dissolve has less than 25% of my portfolio so I wasn't too worried.
So far sales have really dried up there, pretty dramatically actually. Everywhere else things are steady or improving. I wanted to ask for others people's experience.
Perhaps they are on the decline as an agency?
I see growth,for better or worse. Same port since June. Very mixed reports out there so i dont know what to make out of it.
47
« on: November 22, 2015, 10:26 »
Dont know who he is but this isn't unlikely.
I've licended same series of 4K clips but nowhere near these numbers.
Still, 4K is growing slowly but at this point i still consider it a gimmick.The only reason certain people report growth of sales for 4K is because they sell it extremely cheap.
As an editor i would certainly consider buying a certain 4K clip to crop it up into individual hd clips and/or animate it and "fill" air time.
48
« on: November 21, 2015, 14:24 »
My sales with 4K at $199 are few and far between.
4k seems to be a bit of Field of Dreams scenario at the moment. I don't have a lot of it myself but I just don't hear of many sales of 4k at an any price.
Yes someone will jump in next post and tell me they have their BME because of 4k sales but I'm still sceptical.
Lol i had my BME from selling mostly hd at 4K prices.
Which at least for me proves how relevant 4K is for today's needs, and also how much i care for all those scenarios where 4K will be the next hd bla bla bla.
Prices dont need 4K as an excuse to go down.There are better and more effective ways and we are experiencing them as we speak.
Someone decided years ago that photos should be sold like potatoes, but instead of by the pound, it was by the pixel, with little regard to the value that image (or clip) produced for the end user. The reality is, even at several hundred dollars per clip, if the end user doesn't have to shoot it himself and it fills his need, then the price is cheap.
I agree but the thing here is that the creator of the clip doesn't come in direct contact with the end user so we never know how much that fills his needs so we can negotiate it further.We mostly speculate (if we have the means to set a price for example) So we leave it to others to determine for us how big is that need, with very "interesting" results most of the times.
49
« on: November 21, 2015, 13:13 »
My sales with 4K at $199 are few and far between.
4k seems to be a bit of Field of Dreams scenario at the moment. I don't have a lot of it myself but I just don't hear of many sales of 4k at an any price.
Yes someone will jump in next post and tell me they have their BME because of 4k sales but I'm still sceptical.
Lol i had my BME from selling mostly hd at 4K prices. Which at least for me proves how relevant 4K is for today's needs, and also how much i care for all those scenarios where 4K will be the next hd bla bla bla. Prices dont need 4K as an excuse to go down.There are better and more effective ways and we are experiencing them as we speak.
50
« on: November 21, 2015, 13:04 »
No. Pulled my port after a very constructive discussion with the owner. Not joking, the behind the scenes dialog with him was very friendly and he completely understood why I chose to part ways.
Missed that comment. However decent and straightforward that person or any person in this situation might be,he was still bound by his allegiance to his employer. You/we were promised a certain amount of perks regarding our experience as sellers there and these are nowhere to be found.And they did so much work by changing their marketplace to include photos,but they couldn't make a simple dashboard. So....
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