MPEG2 upload

Well I guess the "simple" answer would be for P5 to accept HDV or the camera's native format and for the conversion to mov to take place at their end.
I think P5 have been promising this but it must be proving harder to implement than they originally planned on(P5 feel free to chime in here and correct me if wrong :-) .
A lot of us come from countries with either low data caps or limited bandwidth and the mov file uploads are a real buzz killer. I for instance have only a 256k download/128 upload bandwidth but stick with it because it least it has no data cap.

Mark

Well, birkley, you do have data cap. Just multiply your 128kbps rate by the number of seconds in a month and you know your data cap... It's about 83GB per month. Correct me if I am wrong.

ha ha; true enough wideweb but I guess even those with 5 mb upload rate would have a data cap. Down here in New Zealand the most 'generous' plans come with a 10 GB per month data cap. . . . if they allow you any extra its charged out at $10 per 10 GB block of data. So on your figures I am saving myself $73 a month by being on my slow upload/download plan :-)

Good point!

I am also struggling with a 256 kbps upload and those 400 MB biggies, but I agree with dna...: If P5 and other stock sites want to be fair to their contributers, they can´t just accept HDV native as m2t or mov. They would also have to accept other native HD formats. As a consequence, we would end up with a medley of all thinkable HD codecs and our clients would have serious compatibility issues with their NLEs. The mjpeg and pjpeg, on the other hand, are compatible even with SD editing suites from the 1990ies and the only issue is hardware power.

I think however that we need a 3rd standard codec for HD clips, besides pjpeg and mjpeg, that provides practically the same image quality but is more compressed. That is for those clips that should be longer than the standard (think of some 1 min zen-style beach meditation), or for those shots which are probably no heavy stand-alone sellers but necessary for a client who needs a sequence. (In the latter case, I personally would offer them with a little discount to compensate for the compression). Probably H.264 would be the way to go, but I am not sure if it is really compatible with Win and Mac without issues. Some guidance would be good.

Now, if P5 decide to accept native HD formats and encode them themselves on the server side, we probably should all make a pilgrimage to NYC Lafayette street and venerate the ultimate deities of stock footage :)...

Stefan

I have my knee pads ready.

On the subject of data caps, you might find that the cap applies to downloads only, and upload data is ignored. That's certainly how it is in the UK, anyway. I checked it out after I started uploading many GB per month and was expecting a polite e-mail from my ISP.

Paul.

hi stefgo, for example you can send clips to clipdealer in native codec and clipdealer make automaticly movs and sell mow and original format too ... a think, it´s solution for pond5 too ... you idea about "pond5 can accept many hd formats and encode them themselves on the server side" is great !!!

Actually, Marcus & Co, if you're following this thread...

I would suggest that you create a "Clip Manager" web page that allows the buyers to manage/edit/re-encode the clips they purchase.

Once they have purchased a clip, it becomes available in the clip manager where they can choose to have the server re-encode it into a different codec. Resize it. Or possibly even trim out a smaller section of a longer clip.

For files uploaded using the PNG or Animation codec, it should create a luma matte for NLEs that don't support embedded alpha.

As far as I know, there are NO other footage sites with that kind of buyer support.

Have any of you with data caps or bandwidth problems ever considered going to satellite? Sure it might cost more but has alot less problems.

Hi webclipmaker, Koelle alaaf :)...It´s a good thing that you can upload native files to C.D. and they do different formats, including one in full size. But I think that the downside of their system is that they offer only H.264/mp4 apart from the original file. Not sure how universal this one is...

If P5 want to go a similar way, I would prefer them to offer
-the native HD file
-an mjpeg or pjpeg version in full size
-an mjpeg or pjpeg version in SD size
-and drop all web sizes which I think aren´t big sellers anyway (at least I do not sell any at the places which offer them).

The Clip Manager mentioned by dnavarrojr sounds very interesting, especially if we take into account that a client could also have a bandwidth problem. Maybe some are fine with a 75% quality file and could produce them themselves on the clip page.

@ jason: The last time I have looked at satellite DSL was like 2 years ago and sort of "lots of money for a dial up speed". Are they getting faster now?

Stefan