I am in the process of applying for video on Istock.  I currently have about 50 videos on SS and P5 and thought I'd carve out some time to apply for Istock.  And WOW, quite cumbersome.  Anyway, they "infer" that I should be uploading HD video and "if I want" NTSC and PAL formats. I imagine that an HD video is easily converted to most any format and uploading other formats isn't necessary.  But rather than assume, I thought I'd pose this question to those who do upload video to Istock.  Do you just upload one HD and leave it at that?

Aside from that I don't have FTP access so I had to write CR to get approved to upload to be approved.

Thanks in advance for the help.

Hi all,

I am branching out into video and purchased an inexpensive video software (Cyberlink Power Director) for my PC and while it had video jpeg codec, H.264, etc, it was a piece of junk.  You couldn't use the exposure & color correction tools without it making your output slow and choppy.  So rather than cut corners I invested in a new IMac and am now using Final Cut Pro X.  I have been able to figure out how to use it pretty easily, at least for some basic clip prep.  But its codecs are limited.  The standard Apple 422 codec seems to be the generally accepted codec from FCP, but it does have H.264 as well.  I am wondering if there are other people here using FCP and how they render their videos for submission to stock sites.  I know P5 converts your Apple codec into some other "general" H.264 codec, but what is the generally accepted rendering from this system?  Is there a plug-in I should be using or is outputting to Apple 422 the way to go?

Thanks in advance for the help.

I am Istuck at Istock. It does not recognize my log in credentials. Anyone else?

I just purchased two Nikon D600's and there is yet (as far as I can tell) no dedicated wireless capability other than their WU-1b connector which uses your smart phone to trigger the release.  Personally I'd prefer a dedicated system that doesn't rely on my phone.  Anyone know of an alternative?

I bought this lens about a year ago and simply never used it much.  It actually was used it once during a women's survival camp as one of the photographers, but never since. It is essentially brand new and spotless.  There isn't a scratch on it as it's been sitting in a padded Pelican case since last year.  Comes with front and back caps, sun shade and pouch as pictured here. 

Priced to sell at $1000.  Accept Paypal and personal checks (within USA ONLY).  If paying by personal check, please allow 7 working days for it to clear.  Lens will be shipped after the check clears.  If paying by a money order, I only accept US postal service money orders.  Add $15 for insured, priority mail shipping.

Any over seas sales are welcome but I will only accept Paypal or wire transfers.  Shipping outside of the USA will be determined once I know where the location is.

Contact me through MSG messaging.


Thanks.

I have PicNiche and all of the balances that PicNiche summarizes are accurate except 123RF.  It's reporting $21.90 m,ore than what is summarized on 123.  Anyone else having a reporting problem?

I was thinking about the movie, "What Women Want" while reading some posts about Istock and had a hankering for writing down some thoughts for the perfect Microstock site.  Let's play something called, "What Buyers & Contributors Want".  Perhaps these criteria will be picked up by one of the smaller players to someday fill the shoes of defecting Istock buyers and contributors.....the start of the "PERFECT LIST" for an Istock replacement...the recipe if you will.


WHAT BUYERS WANT
1. Content: This is broadly defined but they want a wide breadth of selection
2. Quality: Not just in terms of technical perfection, but quality in terms of alignment to their needs
3. Pricing: Consistent, fair and no surprises
4. Good licensing options
5. Search accuracy
6. Site Up-time & speed
7. UI simplicity
8. Good communication on CTQ (critical to quality) topics such as planned downtime, special promotions, price change notification with good lead-times


WHAT CONTRIBUTORS WANT

1. Fair commissions
2. Consistent, fair content placement (this is probably a smoking gun)
3. Good communication from admins, especially participation in forum discussions to address issues
4. Easy, flexible payout methods
5. Continued focus on new & growing forms of revenue
6. Licensing that protect photographer
7. Aggressive copyright protection
8. Opt in for any deals outside of the normal course of daily business (another loose definition...but...just saying)
9. Consistent marketing
10. Easy upload (no categories, easy model release attachment [if at all], speed, FTP & web up loader)

Some of these may overlap somewhat, but those are my initial thoughts.  If anyone cares to elaborate please feel free.

I just got the Istock newsletter.  I noticed one component that a programmer must have written.

"Holiday Payout Schedule

A reminder to please check the Holiday payout schedule, and make your payment requests accordingly. The calendar makes it a bit confusing this year, so please make sure you get your payment tickets in early to avoid missing the cutoff deadlines.

        Mon Dec 17th for all payment types, with payout Friday Dec 21.
        Dec 24 cutoff for all payment types, with payout for PayPal on Dec 31, Moneybookers. Jan 2, Payoneer Jan 3.
        PayPal cutoff Jan 31 for payout Jan 7
        Moneybookers cutoff Jan 2 for payout Jan 9
        Payoneer cutoff Jan 3 for Payout Jan 10"

I really liked how Bigstock USED to have a Monthly summary of your income on the old site. I can't figure out if that feature is there anymore, doesn't look like it. BS please put back monthly revenue summaries.  Whatever you did its all manual and doesn't remember your settings.

Anyone thinking they are getting zero sales on a Saturday? I thought I was until I clicked on the day and a bunch of DL's showed up. I think SS has a bug. 

I hope so, but I'm not.  In a forum post from June Peter stated that Stockfresh sales have risen by 300%.  He does say something along the lines of "it's a small overall number", to be fair. 

Now, mathematically it's all relative:

$100 a month to $300 a month = 300%
$1,000 a month to $3,000 a month = 300%
$10,000 a month to $30,000 a  month = 300%
$100,000 a month to $300,000 a month = 300%

And so on.....I get all of that.  So if his gross revenue has risen to $300 a month (just to highlight a talking point I'm trying to make) then we wouldn't, as contributors, notice any commission growth.  If it's considerably more, say, $300,000 a month, shouldn't we see commissions start to rise? I haven't seen any commission rise and in fact have seen a drop to a couple of bucks a month from $10 a month.

That being said, is anyone seeing any commission growth? I am somewhat excited about Peter's comments and it makes me want to maybe hold on for a while longer.  There's probably the lions share of SF contributors who don't participate here, but those that do, have you seen any indication of growth over yonder?

http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=345607&page=1

Really unsettling.  Looks like refunds are becoming more rampant.

OP at Istock:

You are not reading that topic incorrectly. Since May 29th of this year I have had 133 files refunded for a total of $1,993.29 worth of royalties removed from my iStock account for either fraud, accidental download, whatever. That's royalties, not actual cost of the files (which would have totaled around $5,700 worth of my artwork). Just yesterday I received 24 "Refund for a Purchase of Your File" emails from iStock totaling $471.30 in refunds for a batch of my files that were downloaded on June 26th. So yeah, typically how this has been playing out is I withdraw what is in my account at the end of the week (as per usual), thinking I have done pretty well for the week. Then I get 20 to 30 emails from iStock the next week, each with various amounts of refunds totaling somewhere around $500, putting my iStock account in the hole somewhere around that amount. By the time I've made up the difference and gotten my account back to $0, BOOM! - another batch of refund notices, putting me right back in the hole. Is there anyone else out there getting refund notices at this rate? I've seen people complaining about handfuls of files being refunded. But nothing like this. I feel like I'm on an island here.

I'm not just jumping into the forums here simply to throw a fit. My first course of action was to email iStock about this. At first they gave me the reasons as to why the files were refunded and explained nicely that there was really nothing they could do about it. Now they just won't respond to my emails at all. So here I am. Just want to see if there are others experiencing this kind of volume of refunds. Surely I am not the only one. All of us here need to know just how bad this problem really is. This isn't just a little problem. This is like a Yoko Ono to the Beatles kind of a problem.