Pond5 Is by far the best Stock Video ... PERIOD!

For all you buyers that may be reading this, P5 rocks, the selection, pricing and quality is better here than anywhere else. My best three selling footage clips here at P5 (42 sales from them) were all rejected at IS. What a joke. Why would any buyer want to work with them? Yes indeed there is some bad footage here but you as a buyer have a much better selection here than anywhere else. Hard to believe the best sellers and most popular footage here isn't even available at IS. Show P5 that they rock, stick with P5 and get the best!

I was really pleased to see my new issue of DV magazine listing 10 stock footage sites. Pond5 was the only RF site listed which was really cool!
Great advertisment for us.

They can't buy my work on IS so I don't know why a buyer would want to shop there...

Hooray for Pond5!

I've made more than $300 on 1 clip at Pod5. Awesome.

I think P5 should have an A B C rating.

Each contributor can have.

100 A grade clips (Premium quality +price)

200 B Grade clips (medium)

500 C Grade (subscription deal for buyers. $2-$5 for contributor)

They're good, but don't give them a big head... :) There is still room for improvement. They need to get the auto-resizing stuff working so that sales double.

My favorite part is how easy it is to upload and tag clips!

They get a grade A+ for the ease of upload, the and great work they have done on file templates, etc. I've just begun to explore them. But the best? It's like comparing apple and oranges. Coming from being an exclusive contributor at istockphoto (which required vast patience to get up and running and to cope with the file review times). There's no rejection criteria or quality control on the submission of clips. That's great. Stuff can sell here that won't be accepted anywhere else.

I know Jake does well on istock, and a few others. So if you do well great.

But I personally hate Istock for a number of reasons.

In my opinion the reviewers are incompetent at istock. I submitted CG, and they want a screenshot. Ok gave it, then they wanted another because it didnt show how it was constructed.....OK

Anyone who has a basic understanding of CG knows that CG models that are sold are Usually optimized for resale. That is they don't have a lot of unnecessary vertices. Its obvious from my screens that they aren't because Im not reselling them for use in games or whatever. Duh...Several others were very basic shapes that they wanted "construction" shots of. like a chamfer box. again Duh....Not to mention its easy to fake construction shots, I could recolor a few things and delete sub objects and make a model look like it was halfway in construction.

The support is unbelievable and some of their policies in my opinion are questionable. I think istock has the best keywording system for the buyer.
But its obvious to me the reviewers are clueless when it comes to CG.

So as a contributor to IS, I have over 50 clips there awaiting review for over a year. I've contacted them. Their answer is "it appears some of them are corrupt, I don't have time to look at them now, I will try at a later time". Now that great customer support isn't it. Too busy to look at clips that took over 50 hours to upload to them.
I hope buyers will support agencies that are fair to buyers as well as sellers.

Yeah, without a doubt a painful and frustrating experience. I had the same one. I suggest you call them directly or post your problem (file encoding, edit platform) to the forum there. Don't give up. I make 3 times the money there I am making here with roughly the same portfolio. Don't give up, that money comes in every month, like clockwork. And the high standards, inspectors reviews and rejections there have made me a better and more competitive photographer. The different business model here creates it's own results, and they aren't necessarily good. Best to be multiple on venues for your own development.