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Messages - increasingdifficulty
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176
« on: May 02, 2019, 02:40 »
Previously, I was under the same impression. After all, 24fps is very close to 25fps. However, this guy claims that there is some visible blur after the conversion. There is a very big difference between just speeding up and actually CONVERTING the footage to another frame rate while maintaining the speed of the motion. Two completely different things. CONVERTING 24p to 25p will not look too good, which is why it is usually just SPED UP 4%. On the other hand, for NTSC broadcast, 24p footage is actually CONVERTED, not sped up. This is called a 3:2 pull down and you can read about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-two_pull_downThe motion speed is maintained, but of course 6 frames have to be added every second. It has been done this way for a very long time, and people are used to that. Of course, with digital monitors, this isn't necessary. --- In the digital world, the frame rate is just a line of text in the video file. Nothing more. Just something that tells the player how fast to flip through the image sequence. After all, footage of course isn't ACTUAL moving imagery, just still images played fast enough. Change that line of text and you can have the same clip at 12p, 9p, 12,000p... Of course, the action won't play back at the same speed.  A nice "trick" is to film at 30p and deliver 24p (23.976p), by slowing down (not real converting). That gives the footage a slightly dreamy feel but you don't really think of it as slow motion.
177
« on: May 01, 2019, 12:34 »
Ive read elsewhere that the cinema standard 24fps can be converted just as easily to 25fps and 30fps. Would everyone agree that this is true? If that's the case, I might shoot my stock footage at 24fps from now on.
24p (or often 23.976p) is just sped up 4% (not CONVERTED) for the European market (yes, even Netflix, although they don't have to). 24p is converted to 30p (or 60i) if needed. If you have a European Netflix account the pitch of voices is slightly higher than the original, and the movies are shorter. Pretty much every TV show (like Game of Thrones) you see on TV is filmed at 23.976p these days, and 24p for theatrical movies. But in the end, I find that for stock footage without sound, it doesn't really matter much. Check the bestsellers and you see a mix of everything. If there is no sound, just speeding up or down footage (not converting) is very simple. For slow motion and time lapse it absolutely doesn't matter at all since it's not real-time footage anyway. You can film at 30p and upload 24p (nice 80% slow motion) , or 25p, or 30p. Or film at 25p and upload 24p. Since there is almost never on-site audio synced with stock footage, it shouldn't be much of an issue.
178
« on: April 25, 2019, 14:38 »
With the way previews are generated and they potato like quality it doesn't matter if you shoot ARRI of phone.
It matters the next time that customer is looking to buy from you. If I bought a clip I thought was from a real camera, and I got phone quality, I would probably not ask for a refund, but I would definitely not buy from that seller again. But that's just me.
179
« on: April 17, 2019, 12:05 »
I doubt he is 'struggling'. It does look like good, popular content, so educated guess - if he is on the major agencies, I'd say about $10-$15k/month at least.
A little bit of research would tell you they are among the 5-10 top stock footage producers in the world. At least used to be. MUCH more than $15k/month. At least used to be.
180
« on: April 16, 2019, 13:17 »
Hi David! Very brave of you to come out of hiding here.  Not the easiest crowd. Anyway, you have a great portfolio, of course, and I know you as one of the very top (if not #1?) producers at Pond5. I thought you were going exclusive with them? Or is the FH site just for clips you haven't used before? Just curious about the P5 situation, and if something happened there. Thanks!
181
« on: April 16, 2019, 09:38 »
Sony FDR-AX100 (which seems pretty good, even though it only has a 1" sensor - 100Mbps bitrate though) so I might give the live action game a try!
While I haven't tried that particular camera, in my experience, a 1" sensor and 100+ mpbs for 4k is where good (sometimes really good) quality starts, so I'm sure it will work out! But of course, as technology advances, this will slowly change. However, it's hard to change the laws of physics and a bigger area and/or bigger pixels will be able to gather more light = better quality. And cell phones must be thin = small sensor, and they must be economical with space = low bitrate.
182
« on: April 16, 2019, 08:54 »
but I've seen worse!
Well, there's always something worse... Nice clips, but I have one of those (as well as the same shots of Mynah birds, Thai cliffs and oceans) and while the quality is good enough for home videos and YouTube vlogs, I wouldn't be comfortable charging $179 (or $50) for "4k" clips from that phone. If I bought a "4k" ocean clip and got an S8 clip with Lego water, oversharpened edges and mushy greenery, I would be - not amused. Working with the clips, grading, stabilizing, trying to massage the dynamic range is where you really notice the compression and all the issues that come with that... And compared to a real consumer (prosumer) camera (GH4/GH5) with 100-200 mbit/sec clips and bigger sensors, the quality difference is very big.
183
« on: April 15, 2019, 23:44 »
a. You can shoot images in RAW, and the quality can be comparable to lower end cameras in bright light.
b. Get a low end 4k Panasonic and the image quality will be much better.
a. Yes, and they can be successfully sold. This is the reason why I'm trying to make a point that my criteria at this point is 'sellability on stocks", not the high-end camera comparison.
b. Respectfully disagree. Panny LUMIX G7 has a quite unacceptable image production, in spite of decent entry-level video capabilities.
Thanks for taking time and replying, much appreciated!
That of course meant to read "VIDEO image quality", since that's what we're discussing. If you think the G7 has unacceptable video quality, well, then I don't think you'll be happy with any phone. But I haven't yet been able to find original video files from either of those two phones, have you? I would be interested in taking a look as sensor technology is improving. However, a tiny sensor will always have a hard time competing with a larger one... This is the reason why I'm trying to make a point that my criteria at this point is 'sellability on stocks", not the high-end camera comparison. By the way, what is this fascination about making stock as bad as possible? I really don't understand it. Why strive for the absolute lowest quality someone MAY accept? It's understandable for drone footage and GoPro footage, because those cameras provide perspectives not possible with better cameras. Believe me, I'm one of those who even bought a gimbal for my cellphone, thinking it could be nice in certain situations. The number of clips uploaded from that: 0. Compared to my GH5 I have a hard time asking for money for that quality.
184
« on: April 15, 2019, 11:21 »
Sensor the size of a grain of rice, lens the size of a thumbtack, made of plastic? Neither is my vote too.
... yet those little things can produce photos that can successfully be sold on stock sited. Why not to assume that the video can be decent too?
You can shoot images in RAW, and the quality can be comparable to lower end cameras in bright light. But, when it comes to video, the bitrates are unfortunately very low and they usually apply way too much sharpening and contrast. Of course, some shots can be usable, just like a GoPro, but compared to a real camera for half the price, the difference is quite big. Get a low end 4k Panasonic and the image quality will be much better.
185
« on: April 12, 2019, 13:09 »
Are they also pushing the subscription sharing model because of contributors desire for that? I remember people saying only bloggers use SS not serious buyers with money. Getting 100% is better than getting 50% so I'm not sure they want to push marketplace content, if they did they would make it easy to see that content and put it in the similars space but they don't, they also wouldn't be trying to get contributors to sign up for the subscription sharing program either.
Also when you do a search there the marketplace clips are hidden by default, only membership files are shown. When you click show all you get a pop up warning about them and then in the generic search I did only 1 out of the first 60 clips was a marketplace clip.
You don't seem to be following the reasoning here... We're not discussing promotion of the subscriptions, they have ALWAYS had that as their main product. Only subscribers got the marketplace clips for $49, so naturally, only if they didn't find what they needed in the unlimited section, they would go to the marketplace clips. Now, when they cost $79 anyway, the subscription isn't worth as much, and they can go to Pond5 and find cheaper $25 clips, or a better library (including the clips they may find at VB, since they're all spread out) of $79 clips at Shutterstock/Pond5/Adobe. Non-subscribers who shopped around for price before the change, needing more than 6-7 clips got a great deal by subscribing and getting thousands of free clips + the same clips they wanted for $49. That is not the case anymore. Now they just get a mediocre unlimited library with no other benefits. Therefore, very few marketplace sales.
186
« on: April 12, 2019, 11:18 »
Are you sure they didn't raise their marketplace prices so that the subscriptions would be more attractive? None of us can be sure of anything, since we don't work there. But subscriptions have always been their main product. They raised the prices because of pressure from content creators. They were set on continuing with $49, a price people thought was perfectly reasonable before. They list ABC, NBC, the History Channel, MTv, Travel Channel etc... as clients. Everyone lists their famous clients in the spotlight. So do I, and even if I have sold licenses to McDonald's and Nike, they are not my typical customer. VB sells at $79 the same as SS.
Yes, which was the entire point of my previous post. As nearly all VB contributors are reporting near $0 sales since the price change, something happened. And if anything, VB would only be more inclined to want to sell marketplace content now that they get 50%. Buyers have no reason to shop at VB now since the Shutterstock library is both better and bigger, at the same price. But a buyer that needs 20 marketplace quality clips would have saved $600 with the old VB prices, which can be significant for small to medium sized businesses.
187
« on: April 12, 2019, 04:01 »
I suppose you haven't considered that pushing them to raise marketplace prices by over 60% caused the potential buyers to look elsewhere? The typical VB customers are not bigger budget advertisers that go to Pond5 and Shutterstock mainly. They are small subscription users that sometimes could stretch their budget to one or two $49 clips. Even that was probably out of reach for most. And then you probably got quite a few buyers shopping around for the cheapest price, and now there is no reason for them to buy from VB instead of P5 or Shutterstock, where you get 40% or 30%.
188
« on: April 11, 2019, 08:02 »
I'll start:
54.6% of the stock footage library over at Pond5 was added since the start of 2017. Pond5 opened in 2006.
That means it took about 11 years to add the first 6.8 million clips.
And a little more than two years to add almost 8.2 million clips.
---
This thread is for anyone who wants to post interesting statistics of facts that you have found either through search, reading annual reports, RELIABLE sources, or anything else that can hopefully be backed up. It can be anything from "there are 3 million duck clips at Shutterstock" to "the most successful frame rate choice at Adobe" etc.
This thread would focus on stock footage, but can be about any site, old or new, even shut down.
It would be nice if you could point to the source of the fact you choose, of course!
---
Source: Typing "itemgt:72827200" in the Pond5 search will give you roughly all clips posted since the beginning of 2017.
189
« on: April 10, 2019, 10:17 »
Just go with After Effects and you will be good to go. Fully agree with Not Today. Even though it is in fact Today.
Drag and drop all your RAW files. Tweak a bit in Camera RAW. Export full size video file (format up to you). Edit that file (size, colors, whatever) and export for delivery.
190
« on: April 10, 2019, 10:11 »
Out of a few thousand footage sales I have country information on, the US is the biggest buyer. By far. About three times as big as the UK.
#2: UK.
#3: Germany.
South Korea, Australia, and Russia are also in the top 10.
All of Europe combined is getting close to the US.
191
« on: April 09, 2019, 08:04 »
When I joined last autumn, they had 4000 contributors, now they have over 30 000. So the majority of the content is extremly fresh.
Like I said, their marketing toward producers is very good. If you're happy with it, that's all that matters, but people should just be aware that: Advantages = Less upload time. Disadvantages = Everything else. --- When your clips are lost in a portfolio pool of half a million other clips it is virtually impossible for a buyer to find clips they didn't happen to find with a very exact search. On the other hand, if you have 500 clips, and a buyer finds your style interesting, they might just go to your portfolio and find clips they wouldn't have searched for. And their title strategy is just sad - copying the description, while cutting it off mid-word or mid-sentence. It makes me cry inside. ;(
192
« on: April 09, 2019, 04:39 »
Yeah BB is definitely the winner, but also people sharing revenue.
It's nice to try and unite all photographers for better royalties, but I think it's nicer when we involve all other people working in the same industry, people that we hire and work with (actors, make up artists, location scouts, editors and so on...). That's the big plus that only BB offers (for the time being), and I'm really fond of this, giving people I work with the choice to get either a % or a flat fee. With a %, they also give a better performance as otherwise they might not care as much if it sells or not.
We can also reach a broader audience by involving them and then have more weight on agencies great and exciting news.
BlackBox are great at marketing (their service, not your clips). In fact, they were phenomenal at marketing themselves. And taking your money. I'm sorry, but that's how it is (in my opinion). I share revenue just fine without them. If you want to maximize revenue, control your assets as much as you can. We must work with middlemen to some extent, but I think it's really important to minimize it. What happens when you want to update tags or descriptions? I do this pretty much WEEKLY to optimize performance in the various search engines.
193
« on: April 09, 2019, 04:19 »
Then let me further brighten your day!
Well, it was informational but not brightening for some of us 
Following your instructions I applied those "commands" to me and
got a return of only 12 clips curator rated 3, all 450 others are below this from 2 to zero.
(like I didn't knew my clips suck...)
Sorry about that! But at least in Greece you get plenty of sun! Anyway, I don't know how much those ratings really mean. My bestseller has a lower rating than most of my other clips. It might matter when they pick clips for their collections. ...and there are plenty of BlackBox clips with the highest rating that are quite bad, with 0 sales. For example, this clip has the highest rating: https://www.pond5.com/stock-footage/105008987/duck-swimming-day.htmlYou might almost think that the reviewer might be using BlackBox.
194
« on: April 09, 2019, 04:09 »
Thanks, still raining over here thou
Did some digging in the forum and we'd need the calculations from end 2016 - beginning 2017 to be as accurate as possible 
"BlackBoxPat
I shoot video
Reply #32 on: December 05, 2017, 20:56
Quote #link0 Vote Up
Hey there, I'm the Founder of newbielink:http://www.BlackBox.global [nonactive]. We've been up for almost a year and creators that are using the platform seem very happy. BB is an "upload once get to many" platform that also afford members the ability to collaborate and share in the revenue streams that the footage generates. We try to make the process simple so you can stop dealing with the agencies and concentrate on making great footage. Have a look for yourself. Thank you."
Anyway, I wasn't advertising for them, just that some people mentioned a coop or virtual agency within an agency so I've used BB as an example of what is currently around, so if someone wants to start something similar but do it differently, they can check what works and what doesn't.
Fair enough, I did those numbers, and it's not looking much better for BlackBoxGuild... BlackBoxGuild numbers since beginning of 2017: 0.61% sold at least once. 1 out of 57,000 sold 5 times or more. That's 10 clips. --- Pond5 total since beginning of 2017 (without BlackBoxGuild, price set to $78 and above): 2% of clips sold at least once. 1 out of 1,752 sold 5 times or more. --- So, the Pond5 average was 3.27 times better for 1+ sales, and 32-33 times better for 5+ sales. Remove 15% from BlackBoxGuild sales and it's not getting any better... --- I didn't accuse you of advertising for them, you just inspired me to run the numbers since several people (here and on YouTube etc.) did promote them intensely, because they were promised that nice referral $$$. The only winner here is of course BlackBoxGuild. They got half a million clips they didn't have to film themselves, or even pay for, awesome!
195
« on: April 09, 2019, 03:25 »
Blackbox does take 15% of net sales however, so that's not for everybody.
...and less than 0.7% of their clips on Pond5 have sold, so what happened to "great visibility"?
Only 27 clips out of half a million have 5 sales or more, and they've been around for a while now.
But it is a great way to get lost in the mix.
That's very interesting data, thanks for that.
Although, it would be even more interesting to compare it to total sales of P5 since BB has been implemented, cause the meaning of stats can be twisted easily when isolated. Who knows, maybe P5 has not been performing that well in the last 2 years - They did mention that they are losing clients to competitors. 
Then let me further brighten your day! I cannot give you the data for ALL clips since BlackBoxGuild started selling, but I can give you the data for all clips uploaded since BlackBoxGuild started selling, which might even be a better comparison. Although 0.7% of clips sold is absolutely terrible by almost any time frame (down to a month or so), let's dive deeper. --- Pond5 make it incredibly difficult to browse a large portfolio like BlackBoxGuild's (another reason for not selling with others), but this is the first clip they uploaded: https://www.pond5.com/stock-footage/55100531/caribou-cross-frozen-tundra.htmlThis was around July of 2015. --- itemgt:"item number" will show all items uploaded after that number, and the opposite is true for itemlt:"item number". itemgt:55100530 artist:blackboxguild will show all clips uploaded by BlackBoxGuild (55100531 being the first one). itemgt:55100530 will show ALL clips uploaded to Pond5 since BlackBoxGuild uploaded that first clip. --- Feel free to do the sale searches yourself, but these are the results (hopefully I didn't screw anything up): BlackBoxGuild: 0.68% of clips sold. PRICE WAS SET TO $78 and above before any of the price activists freak out, but the results were very similar even with all price points. Pond5 total since July 2015, not counting clips uploaded before July 2015: 2.94% of clips sold. BlackBoxGuild: 1 out of 20,000 clips sold 5 times or more. Pond5 total: 1 out of 693 clips sold 5 times or more. --- Decent portfolios should have MUCH better results, at least 10-15% of all clips sold after a couple of years. Even that I think is low... --- So we can clearly see that the BlackBoxGuild results were absolutely terrible compared to the overall average, and that's even with the BlackBoxGuild clips pulling the average DOWN. --- I had to run the numbers again WITHOUT the BlackBoxGuild clips pulling down the P5 average (using !artist:BlackBoxGuild to exclude those clips): 3.2% of clips sold. 0.16% or 1 out of 620 clips sold 5 times or more. An even bigger difference.
196
« on: April 08, 2019, 15:11 »
That information is valuable to me (and it should be to everyone) but I could let it go for, say, $10,000? Years of data, not just on sales, but search engines and everything else unique to each site.
Sorry, but I would not want this information to be publicly available in a dissertation. Or to anyone "planning to dip their toe into the world of stock footage", dissertation or not.
Dissertations are not available publicly (not sure where you heard that).
Really? Why can I find about a million of them online then?
197
« on: April 08, 2019, 14:40 »
That information is valuable to me (and it should be to everyone) but I could let it go for, say, $10,000? Years of data, not just on sales, but search engines and everything else unique to each site. Sorry, but I would not want this information to be publicly available in a dissertation. Or to anyone "planning to dip their toe into the world of stock footage", dissertation or not.
198
« on: April 08, 2019, 12:06 »
and less than 0.7% of their clips on Pond5 have sold, so what happened to "great visibility"?
Only 27 clips out of half a million have 5 sales or more, and they've been around for a while now.
Sorry, just curious. Is there a statistics page that we can check other people's sales?
Not interested in BB, asking in general, I didn't knew there is such an option.
?
Not immediately visible anymore, but the P5 search allows you to get a lot of information. For example: artist:blackboxguild will show all clips from BlackBoxGuild. And artist:georgep7 would show all of your clips if that's your username. salegt:0 will show clips with "sales greater than 0" = 1 sale or more. So, artist:blackboxguild salegt:0 in the search bar will show you all the clips by BlackBoxGuild that have 1 sale or more. Salegt:4 shows clips with 5 sales or more. Very interesting to check some of the loud voices with strong opinions in the forums, with 3 sales from 2,000 clips...
199
« on: April 07, 2019, 11:57 »
Blackbox does take 15% of net sales however, so that's not for everybody.
...and less than 0.7% of their clips on Pond5 have sold, so what happened to "great visibility"? Only 27 clips out of half a million have 5 sales or more, and they've been around for a while now. But it is a great way to get lost in the mix.
200
« on: March 31, 2019, 09:15 »
See Seans answer no. 1. Wonder why you didnt argue with him? Rhetorical question, I know why.
He didn't say that you have to own the copyright to everything. You did. That is why. Not any other reason you may or may not imply.
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