I hope im wrong in this -in which case i will contribute there asap- but it seems like this whole marketplace deal is to drive massive traffic to their already established pool,where the prices -last time i looked- are ridiculously low there and some clips had hundreds if not thousands of downloads already.
Otherwise it makes no sense whatsoever why the full commission.They may sell some stuff from the marketplace but i don't think that's their goal at all.
I think time will tell eventually.

If I were to render animations in 4K resolution, which pixel resolution should I ideally use, actual 4k (4096x2160) or Ultra HD (3840x2160)?

You could do 4096X2304.This is 16:9 AR and is a more realistic choise given that whoever buys it can choose to crop it to 1:9 AR to match a cinema camera project, or any other AR for that matter down to 2:35.
Stock footage (propably) mostly lives as 16:9 and i suspect that at this point 2304p clips are mostly bought to be cropped or post zoomed for effect, or in some cases -depending on the frame and subject- be used like multiple shots in 16:9 projects, so that's where i would start.
In fact that's what i do personally and there has been positive feedback so i guess that works for me.

Quote from: gcrook on December 12, 2014, 13:09

I receiced today a very interesting email from ME suggesting that i MAY have some missing model releases in my portfolio.
Of course the text and form of the mail it was very general like an advertisement and since there is no inspection at ME i guess they sent this newsletter-ish email to everyone,which pretty much says it all about how covered legally everyone is when uploading at ME.

What this implies, sadly, is that in the unfortunate event one has not tagged his footage as editorial,or worse yet has and there are still legal issues,
ME is legally irresponsible since it will sell this footage anyway.

So i have spent a lot of time and effort uploading to an agency that hasn't got my back and refuses to be held accountable for my mistakes or mispractices if you like.
Had my 2nd sale this week too after 4 months and i think it's high time i halt my uploads,and eventually pull my port,since this business model of theirs seems questionable at best.

I received this email many months ago and instantly deleted all my clips numbering around 200. Since then I've uploaded again to 50 clips (nothing that could need releases). Still yet to make a sale here and I do well on P5/SS.

Not sure about this agency. Some of the favourite keywords searches are 'free clips', 'free downloads' which doesn't bode well if that's the expectations of people using the site.

As i've said ME is behaving like a middleman or better yet like traffic warden of footage.Paypal fees are not really an issue,the big problem is that once you upload there you have no-one to "back you up" the way the major stock sites do,where they curate for starters,hence they accept legal responsibility on your behalf,etc.
What really killed ME for me was a sale reversal a month after the sale.
3 days i can understand,but this one month period as stated in their contract is a deal dropper for me.
I've never had something like that on p5 and SS (that i know of) .
At this point i am waiting for one final sale so i can pay back the fees owed by the reversal and after that im deleting everything at once and never looking back.
Better yet i might delete everything anyway,and send the money to them.
In a weird sense i almost feel good about it,but it's a shame though.

This just in.
http://priority.dissolve.com/

If your company has ongoing video projects or uses a lot of stock, apply for Dissolve Priority. It�s a completely free program that can help your team impress clients and win pitches. It�ll even please your accountants. Here�s how.

    Comp with full-size, unwatermarked clips

    Watermarks can be distracting to clients. And these days, low-res footage just doesn�t cut it. As a Dissolve Priority buyer, you can download full-size, unwatermarked clips instantly, whenever you need them.
    Faster footage research

    Our experts provide free clip research at any stage of your process, from brainstorming to storyboarding to final edit. And research requests from Dissolve Priority customers get top priority.
    Set up your team for success

    Once your company is approved, you can add other team members who buy stock.
    Get clips instantly. Pay us later.

    Every month, we�ll bill you for the clips you and your team used in final projects. Take 30 days to pay.


In a few words.A company can apply for a program where it can download FULL REZ UNWATERMARKED clips for the edit, and AFTERWARDS pay for the ones they use.
Gotta love this brave new world where creativity knows no boundaries.
Oh and the underlying assumption that all businesses are ethical and will play nice...LOL man.

Regardless of what will be discussed here i will stop contributing to dissolve.
These startup, stupid and abusive business practises, is something i wont tolerate any longer.
This is existential for me (and yes,i am pretty pissed off right now).

And I feel like they need a brand new management!!!

They are slowly diving into Low Earners Tier.

How in god's name do you come up with these assumptions?Do you really feel like these are facts or just your own fantasies?
Are we talking about footage or photos anyway?
Do you actually have a footage port at pond5?
Because all you do is troll  (not that you dont make good points in some cases) .

Interestingly, Gopro Hero4 nightlapse mode uses auto exposure but cause almost no flickering.

http://youtu.be/RgWfNAQGlAA

This is happening for a variety of reasons.
1) Shutter exposure not aperture.
2) Video mode (i presume).Also camera has a fixed wide lens,huge depth of field,-these are video camera traits-,and all these combined with evaluative scene metering  that protects highlights like all video camera's do,help a lot in these situations.
3) And most important.Very long duration.If camera was taking stills every 3 seconds there would be more flickering.There still is,but it's not unpleasant,or even noticeable.

Had the first sale reversal 1! month after the purchase of a somewhat expensive and rare clip.
The kind of WYSIWYG editorial footage.
I repeat, ONE month after purchase.

6 sales and one reversal so far since summer.
Next time this happens i wont bother,i'm deleting my port in a heartbeat.

I'm having some fun with time lapse but it is done with relatively even lighting throughout the sequence.  I bring the images in and can do a batch tweak and output them to JPGS.

My question is more around how you manage changing light, such as in sunsets/sunrises.  Do you batch process 'batches' of your sequence? Leaving the camera in auto program isn't really good because one little flicker of light can cause the camera to improperly expose. However, I see a lot of beautiful sunrise time lapses that essentially go from dark to full daytime. How do you manage that capability? In the camera? In post? What are some of the workflows you use to achieve good results?

Thanks in advance for your help.

That's a very complicated question to answer.
Depends hugely on many factors such as,camera DR,atmosphere and humidity,season,framing (and lens),contrast of scene,duration etc.
Short answer is you dont always have to do ramping,i almost never do,as long as you dont want the for example sunset timelapse to start very early and cover the transition to dusk/night.
It realy is complicated and there is no short answer.
You can always try any intervalometer or motion control device that supports ramping via shutter,but its a bit hit and miss.
Sometimes you can do a scouting test to shoot the same timelapse next day,and realize that all your calculations are way off due to the factors mentioned.
Better try for starters settings that give you the maximum amount of post flexibility in bringing down exposure at the beginning and maybe bring it up a bit towards the very end.
Oh ,and of course that means shooting and grading raw and not jpeg's.
And exporting tiffs (10bits if possible) to import to NLE and do more adjustments there,since the basic ones will be done in LR,photoshop, or whatever you are working with.
I know, its not easy...

ME is a very strange place.There are a couple of threads here,i suggest you read them.As i was about to quit after 4 months with 300 files and 1 sale,i got 3 good priced sales on late December (some prices even higher than p5 to test the waters) where SS stopped selling for me for 2-3 weeks.At this point i have full port and am anxious to see where this goes.
Everything there is just plain weird though.

There is no curation at all,so you need to be very careful especially with releases and editorial content,the categories.. -god knows how they work and if they mean anything-,sometimes your footage gets buried sometimes it stays on the of the first page of the category you tag it to (people,timelapse,nature,etc) .
Another irritating bug is that the clip title (not the description) has a character cap.Not good for people who use long sentences to describe their footage.
There are also minor paypal fees,which is plain annoying,and generally there is a certain deal of surrealism going on.
For example,when you sell your clips,the dashboard shows the search keywords that were used to locate these clips.
Man have i seen the most weird and absurd keywords people have used to locate my footage.Completely irrelevant is a very nice way to put it.
Not that this means anything,but if you sell there,you'll see.

Now truth be told,the uploading and tagging system is the fastest i've seen,you can control and associate different resolution clips with a click,change the screenshot,and it kind of saddens me to see such a nice system there and not at SS for example or p5 (some aspects of it).
Finally and most impostant, 50% commission and you get to price your clips.
That's what keeps me there.
I expect this year ME to sell what i should have sold over at CC,which seems half-dead to me anyway.
Try it and keep us posted,i sure hope ME to become my no3.

edit:misread.disregard.

Yes.Confirms that it is absolutely random.i have been checking my clips and all the editorials are marked as such.

I receiced today a very interesting email from ME suggesting that i MAY have some missing model releases in my portfolio.
Of course the text and form of the mail it was very general like an advertisement and since there is no inspection at ME i guess they sent this newsletter-ish email to everyone,which pretty much says it all about how covered legally everyone is when uploading at ME.

What this implies, sadly, is that in the unfortunate event one has not tagged his footage as editorial,or worse yet has and there are still legal issues,
ME is legally irresponsible since it will sell this footage anyway.

So i have spent a lot of time and effort uploading to an agency that hasn't got my back and refuses to be held accountable for my mistakes or mispractices if you like.
Had my 2nd sale this week too after 4 months and i think it's high time i halt my uploads,and eventually pull my port,since this business model of theirs seems questionable at best.