Is Vimeo the Way?

the 5 dollars a month for vimeo membership is one of the best things I've spent my money on. can't find a better community on the internet either.

:bath:
 
Zak Forsman said:
Yeah, I should add that I use TubeMogul to upload once and then push it out to all the major platforms.
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Hi Zak,

I went to TubeMogul to check it out, the tools look cool but it's not easy to figure out what you get with a premium subscription or how much it costs. Are you using the basic or premium service?

How do you like it? How many videos have you uploaded (approximately) and to how many different sites?

This looks cool its just that their website maybe simple its not intuitive or obvious what to do.

Sorry for thread jacking.
 
Zak Forsman said:
Basic. I've uploaded 46 videos pushed out to every site they offer.
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Thanks Zak,

I contacted support at TubeMogul and they replied and answered my questions immediately. I am certainly going to give this a try.

This is a great concept.

Thanks again.
 
youtube you can download them as mp4 why would you want to download from a site anyway do you guys not backup your work on your pc? dont know just wondering i use Youtube. i goto other sites but not for anything else really.
 
Wow, that TubeMogul thing looks very interesting Zak. Seems like a great tool for trailers and such pre-distribution.
 
I guess its the nature of these types of threads to get into a this vs that debate.

Lets change it slightly by asking what are you trying to accomplish by posting videos online?
Because which service you choose may depend on how you answer that question.

If you want more people to see your video then its pretty obvious that you'd use YouTube. If you want more quality feedback then Vimeo or Exposure Room might be the right choice. There's an ever growing list of potential sites and I don't think any of them are mutually exclusive of one another.

So instead of debating which of the sites should you use, why not debate what benefits do each of these site provide and find a way to post to ALL of the sites that you think will help you. The key to your success in doing so will depend on your ability to manage this.

Zak points out that it pains him but he chose YouTube for the number of hits, JFEditorIV thinks thats a good point but what about quality feedback?

USLatin thinks TubeMogul in interesting, as do I. so why don't we figure out if this tool will enable us to upload our videos concurrently to as many sites as we choose and then be able to track the reults. That sounds like something that will be very helpful. No?

Can people who have used this application chime in and share what it does, how well does it work, how much does it cost, etc., kind of provide a good overview so others here can decide whether to try this.
 
JFEditorIV said:
Excellent point.....BUT....the quality of comments is what separates the two for me. You can post a short on youtube and get comments like: "Sweet Explosions" or "That girl is a major hottie." Or of course you can have a 9 year old say how you're the best filmmaker out there. On vimeo, you get professional minded creative people from all over the world who can provide you with more than a pat on the back. You have people who can help you become a better filmmaker through their critiques. Through visiting vimeo on a daily basis, you can be inspired and motivated to interact in a much more beneficial way than you can on youtube.

Do you really value something as superficial as views over something constructive and more tactile? Reading "great" feedback on youtube and sitting back and reveling in it is kind of pathetic.
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I value fans and advocates. So I upload to both. I upload to a dozen platforms and make every effort to connect with people who like my work via facebook and twitter. If what you call reveling in a large audience is "pathetic", as you say, then I am about as huge a douchebag as you will ever meet. :)

Youtube also offers better tools than VImeo in terms of metrics on who is watching. Ever clicked on the "Insight" button on one of your YouTube videos? A wealth of infomration hides in there. You can even track where most people stop watching your video (at what point you lost them). Youtube also lets me embed an entire channel on my own website. Seen here. I'm not bashing Vimeo. Far from it. But a lot of people overlook what YouTube has to offer because they have a superficial understanding of it as the "america's funniest home videos" of online video. If I had to choose between the two, I'd choose YouTube. It's certainly resulted in a lot more DVD sales for me than any other platform. Only Facebook and direct searches on Google beat it for traffic to my web site store.
 
ChuckS said:
I guess its the nature of these types of threads to get into a this vs that debate.

Lets change it slightly by asking what are you trying to accomplish by posting videos online?
Because which service you choose may depend on how you answer that question.

If you want more people to see your video then its pretty obvious that you'd use YouTube. If you want more quality feedback then Vimeo or Exposure Room might be the right choice. There's an ever growing list of potential sites and I don't think any of them are mutually exclusive of one another.

So instead of debating which of the sites should you use, why not debate what benefits do each of these site provide and find a way to post to ALL of the sites that you think will help you. The key to your success in doing so will depend on your ability to manage this.

Zak points out that it pains him but he chose YouTube for the number of hits, JFEditorIV thinks thats a good point but what about quality feedback?

USLatin thinks TubeMogul in interesting, as do I. so why don't we figure out if this tool will enable us to upload our videos concurrently to as many sites as we choose and then be able to track the reults. That sounds like something that will be very helpful. No?

Can people who have used this application chime in and share what it does, how well does it work, how much does it cost, etc., kind of provide a good overview so others here can decide whether to try this.
Click to expand...


I'm happy to say it does exactly what you say, Chuck. I've been using it for a year and a half now so I kind of take it for granted how easy it is to push a video out to a multitude of sites. It's a pain at first to go set-up accounts at all the sites it is connected to. Takes about an hour. The you just upload your video once, fill in all the data -- subject heading, description, tags, etc. I recommend putting a link back your website in the description.

The you are taken to a screen where you can "launch" the video across which ever platforms you choose. Here's a how-to video.

IMPORTANT NOTICE: No media files are hosted on these forums. By clicking the link below you agree to view content from an external website. We can not be held responsible for the suitability or legality of this material. If the video does not play, wait a minute or try again later.
I AGREE
 
JFEditorIV said:
Excellent point.....BUT....the quality of comments is what separates the two for me. You can post a short on youtube and get comments like: "Sweet Explosions" or "That girl is a major hottie." Or of course you can have a 9 year old say how you're the best filmmaker out there. On vimeo, you get professional minded creative people from all over the world who can provide you with more than a pat on the back. You have people who can help you become a better filmmaker through their critiques. Through visiting vimeo on a daily basis, you can be inspired and motivated to interact in a much more beneficial way than you can on youtube.

Do you really value something as superficial as views over something constructive and more tactile? Reading "great" feedback on youtube and sitting back and reveling in it is kind of pathetic.
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The quality of the comments does separate the two for me, funny enough it's the other way around that does it for me.

I much prefer YouTube for the brutal honesty... yes you get people that go "That girl is a major hottie", to comments like "That was crap!" to in-depth discussions about the subject matter, story, or even just a flame war. They're the audience you really want to show to and pretty much what everyone else in the normal world would be thinking.

On Vimeo I've noticed the inverse of what you're saying. It seems anything that kind of looks decent, but has very little content, gets alot of pretend pats on the backs. Or just lazy technical questions like "What lens?", "What camera?", "How did you do this?" and all sorts of not very creative questions. Sometimes feedback froom better vimeo users is useful, but I prefer the YouTube communities "that's crap" for the most part.

JFEditorIV said:
I'd rather be more low key and get a few valuable criticisms from vimeo members and let my work speak for itself so it can carry me through. I know that if I light a scene extremely well and creatively, I can show that to a potential employer and get that dp job. That's all that matters to me. I'm not going to market myself as someone I'm not.
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That's off-topic, but it's obvious we all do the same too.
 
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JFEditorIV said:
You can market the hell out of yourself as much as you want, posting to every site imaginable, placing ads all over your signature, selling dvds, creating imdb pages for very short and casual shorts, pasting fake quotes on your dvd covers...but in the end if you don't have talent, you're not going anywhere.

I'd rather be more low key and get a few valuable criticisms from vimeo members and let my work speak for itself so it can carry me through. I know that if I light a scene extremely well and creatively, I can show that to a potential employer and get that dp job. That's all that matters to me. I'm not going to market myself as someone I'm not.
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Who gets to define talent? How do you characterize "valuable" criticism? Self promotion is a very good thing on the web, how else are you going to develop a following, and there are lots of ways to achieve that.

Philip Bloom is someone who has stood out as a 5D/7D guru, but that didn't happen because he simply "let his work speak for itself." He has been instrumental in providing feedback to others, developing tutorials and training materials to help others get started, in short he has been very generous with his time and advice. If your a DVX user you might think his work is great, if you use an f35 with Panavision lenses, well not so much. It all depends where your point of reference is.

Its hard to know the point of reference for many of the people on Vimeo, YouTube, or even DVXUSER. Hopefully because we share a similar interest in a particular camera the feedback on this site would be more relevant, but that may not be the case and it probably certainly isn't the case on either YouTube or Vimeo.

The point is you want to get your work out there as much and as often as possible. This will provide you the opportunity to see how your work is trending. Its doubtful that you will get overwhelmingly positive feedback on YouTube and negative feedback on Vimeo, for example. The trend will be similar on both, if your content sucks it sucks, you may have to filter the YouTube feedback more closely simply because of the volume of feedback [if your lucky].

But standing out in an environment where there are thousands of videos being posted every minute is next to impossible [unless it includes naked women and something to do with a donkey.] If you want to win viewers then self promotion and driving people to your content through sites like this is an imperative.

The viewer will decide whether your work speaks for itself only if they have the opportunity to view it.
 
JFEditorIV said:
You can market the hell out of yourself as much as you want, posting to every site imaginable, placing ads all over your signature, selling dvds, creating imdb pages for very short and casual shorts, pasting fake quotes on your dvd covers...but in the end if you don't have talent, you're not going anywhere.

I'd rather be more low key and get a few valuable criticisms from vimeo members and let my work speak for itself so it can carry me through. I know that if I light a scene extremely well and creatively, I can show that to a potential employer and get that dp job. That's all that matters to me. I'm not going to market myself as someone I'm not.
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The quotes on my posters are not fake. I earned them. :)

I can understand your position as a DP. Your audience is a small niche (other filmmakers, networking for possible jobs). But as a film producer and director with his own distribution company, I can assure you that the community is as interested in the filmmaker's narrative as that of the films. Playing to that doesn't necessarily mean one is marketing themselves as something they are not. As distasteful as marketing can be, it can also be genuine and sincere. I make a real effort to foster a meaningful relationship with my fans and advocates. Nothing fake about it.

The choice to remain more low-key, for me, would mean I'm not even giving a larger audience an opportunity to determine if my work has value to them. Discovery is a process, not a miracle.
 
Back to topic Id like to embed stuff in my website

no comments, no links nothing

Id just need some really fast serving webspace and a good compression method

Id like it to load a bit and then play

or play as good as apple movie trailers (480p I watch)

Even have a similar interface - because everyone (even clients) visit that site and know what to expect

Id pay

Does anyone know a good service of this nature ?

S
 
JFEditorIV said:
Vimeo does exactly that. No interface at all. But you do have to pay the $60 a year for that option. Well worth it, especially if you are filming in HD.
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I didnt know that - thanks

But vimeo recompresses your file does it not

Im just looking to compress my own file and have it served ?

I could save different sizes say 200PX, 480PX and 720PX and have the user choose or even have the page check the users DL speed and serve them the right file

I would prefer my viewer to have a small viewing size than see compression and blocking stuttering frames which they could think was part of the source material

S
 
Thx for the tip on SimpleCDN -- though I would hardly call much about it simple. It's not a "user-friendly" interface, you need to have an FTP client (or even know what one is), there's no "community", etc. But the quality is by FAR the best I've seen yet.

I have been a VimeoPro account holder for nearly a year, and have often been underwhelmed by their streaming server(s). I don't like my vids being converted to Flash (it crushes the blacks and takes a lot of brightness out, generally). The HD stuff always plays like crap on my computer (MacG5 PPC Dual-core) and on most other computers I've tried it on (that weren't brand new, gamer-style computers with massive broadband speed). i.e. Like most of my client's computers!

I do like the professionals who post on Vimeo, and getting their feedback is invaluable. However, my main purpose is to have a great online demo reel to GET BUSINESS. I don't ever want to apologize to a prospect about "poor streaming quality, choppy video, not my doing, blah blah blah." It only makes me look like a hack.

Give the SimpleCDN a try: they give you $15 free to sample it's goods. Curious about feedback on that! Thx.

Sincerely,



Ron Ravensborg
Table Four Films
Minneapolis, MN
 
JFEditorIV said:
They're not fake but they certainly are misleading. I watched both "I Hate You" and "Letting Go" and I thought the camera work was horrible. Bad motion, vignetting. You even made it intentionally bad, with the extreme shaking. I would hardly call that accomplished and brilliant. I can't say anything about your narrative style because I was so turned off by the camera work/lighting that I couldn't get into it. I respect your determination and outlook, but to me it seems that you are putting too much work into creating a presence for yourself, compensating for your lack of substance. You're real quick to throw out "film producer" and "director" and "distribution company," when really it seems like you are putting together a few "films" with your friends and selling dvds out of your basement. I fund my own work. I go to B and H and I buy gaff tape and I pick up lenses but I don't call myself a "film producer" just for putting money into it.

All in all, marketing has a limit. When you do your job right, you market yourself to put your work at the top of the pack with that of the other guys who did their job right. You can't use marketing to compensate for production/substance. I think youtube channels and youtube profiting provide a false sense of security and a certain comfort zone that skews your own outlook. But overall, if that's what you want, that works. Not everyone has the drive/need to take it further, and it's great that there are options for everyone's level in terms of upload sites.
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wow, ouch man, geez. Anyway I do see where you're coming from with the vimeo vs. youtube thing but I think zak's situation might be a little different since he probably already has a bit of a following so needs to cultivate that audience. I think marketing yourself right out of the gate can seem a little gauche only because it seems to be placing commerce above art, but if you already have an audience you probably due owe it to yourself to take advantage of that and cultivate it. Let's say someone read about zak's film in filmmaker magazine (which I actually did come across randomly in a barnes and noble I think) a good percentage of people would probably youtube him (second to googling him). for other people starting out without a ready audience, vimeo probably does provide a better community and interface. I mean guys like philip bloom (who you mentioned) have all sorts of links to their products all over their site. If he had started out doing that it might have been off putting but now with so many people viewing his work he would be doing himself a disservice if he didn't. In any case there's nothing wrong with uploading to youtube or vimeo (or both). Vimeo is nicer, but youtube will get you more exposure most of the time.
 
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