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Vimeo On Demand
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  • Being thankful:

    Here in Brasil we have a popular expression which says: "Te dou a mão e voce já quer o braço." which means. "I give you my hand and you already want my arm". It is wrong thing to do. Lets be thankful to what we get before want more. This is great times we are living in video/cinema production.

    I am thankful to the cheap DSLRs, to the cheap editing computers, to Vimeo, to P-V discussions, to the Apefoscope project and donations I got, and to many many other people and things. (I did not forget to be thankful to the GH2 hack!)

    Wanting more is good, but sometimes it seems to be thankless, and to much selfish and ambitious. Lets be humble and do something...

  • Sorry to say that, but criticize is easy to do. I encourage people who criticize to do better.

    You words make no sense here. As things I stated is not pointless critique, it is absolutely basic things.

    Why don't you open your own on demand video website? This way you could to it the way you like! Turn P-V forum into an "On Demand Personal Videos" and do your own rules.

    LOL

  • Sorry to say that, but criticize is easy to do. I encourage people who criticize to do better.

    Why don't you open your own on demand video website? This way you could to it the way you like! Turn P-V forum into an "On Demand Personal Videos" and do your own rules.

  • Remember this: register on Vimeo is FREE for the basic account! So anyone can enter the community for FREE. After register and login, to buy or not to buy videos is an option.

    You do not understand my point. I know that it is free, but regsitration is hurdle and for cheap videos it is very serious hurdle.

  • Remember this: register on Vimeo is FREE for the basic account! So anyone can enter the community for FREE. After register and login, to buy or not to buy videos is an option.

  • I will not carry your last comment to the Vimeo blog. I think it is not respectful. Also what they are doing is more than great for many people including me.

    My comment is not about respect, it is about business side of things. In fact, you now require every potential customer (and most of them will be in very low price range) to register on Vimeo. All it means is that you'll have high drop off rate at this stage.

  • @Vitaliy_Kiselev I will not carry your last comment to the Vimeo blog. I think it is not respectful. Also what they are doing is more than great for many people including me.

    My last post in their blog (about vimeo members only): It is OK for me. Vimeo community is very big and It is easy to anyone to become a Vimeo member, also it will be good to see the community grow up even more. Encouraging liking, sharing and comments is good also.

  • Vimeo Staff: For now we're keeping this to Vimeo members only to encourage things like logged-in comments, "liking" the videos, and sharing with other Vimeo members. As of now there isn't a plan to open it up to logged-out viewers.

    Vimeo always had their way. Here they are just idiots.

  • @Vitaliy_Kiselev

    DRM... of course. What else did you expect?

  • Apefos: I got a reply in another forum saying if only vimeo members can buy content it could restrict audience. Don't you think if only members can buy on demand videos it will restrict the audience? Or would it increase the number of vimeo members without any upload? Wouldn't be better to allow every people in internet to buy and get a password? (in this case password cannot allow simultaneous access)

    Vimeo Staff: For now we're keeping this to Vimeo members only to encourage things like logged-in comments, "liking" the videos, and sharing with other Vimeo members. As of now there isn't a plan to open it up to logged-out viewers.

  • Currently users have to be a Vimeo member. When they purchase access, it's added to their Watch Later queue and are given access to your VOD page.

    This is very big show stopper.

  • From the vimeo blog, my questions and staff answers:

    Congratulations for this revolutionary feature. I have some questions, please: I would like to know if the password can be used by many people at a time? because one people can buy the video and share the password with friends... It would be good to block the viewing password to not allow simultaneous login. Will you do this? Realplayer (and others) allows to download the file while hovering the player screen, will you block this? There are websites like keepvid.com wich allows to download videos which does not have the download option. Will you block this?

    Hi there, By password do you mean logging into the Vimeo account? We don't block multiple sessions on Vimeo, so a user can be logged in more than once. As for downloading, we take precautions to prevent unauthorized downloading, including blocking services that rip videos, but like all other sites, we can't really prevent every attempt. Our suggestion as always is if you're genuinely concerned about content being stolen, you shouldn't put it online in any form. We also comply with DMCA notices if you happen to find your work duplicated on Vimeo.

    Well, please clarify me: to buy the on demand videos the customer needs to be a vimeo member or any people outside vimeo community can buy? When a customer buy a video he/she get a password for that video or it is just added to his/her watch later and removed after viewing period?

    Currently users have to be a Vimeo member. When they purchase access, it's added to their Watch Later queue and are given access to your VOD page.

  • I think it is good idea to read all the comments and staff answers in vimeo blog, my question is there also.

    https://vimeo.com/blog/post:559

    this thing is making these three words get it's real meaning for me, and for many people... WORLD WIDE WEB

  • I fully agree about streaming problems. I always suffer with this problem in YouTube and Vimeo. It is so annoying and makes me stop watching most times and go for the download route. It is too bad when you are emotionally involved with the movie and suddenly it stops playing... (e.g. scratched rented dvd, low speed internet...) Most times (mainly for music videos) I use keepvid.com which allows download youtube videos and avoid stuttering. Music playback stuttering is so annoying, and also it is a Film playback stuttering!

    So after reconsidering this issue, if the creator are serious and respectful for his/her audience (and want to keep it), to allow the download is the way to go... Or think about which videos will be allowed, evaluate... because in some content people can live with some stuttering or wait the stream to load, in some content people cannot. There are lots of things to consider in this kind of decision... needs more time to think, rethink... build the marketing strategies...

    The 90/10 split will also have a paypal fee when you get paid, but this is not a problem at all, still great deal.

    Attracting paying customers is a matter of desire! Think about you are a poor ugly guy dreaming about a gorgeous and popular girl. Well, it is not impossible... but... how will you awaken her desire? It is up to you!

    I did some questions related to the password and download in the vimeo blog, waiting the staff to answer.

  • @apefos, I can now download content from Vimeo or YT using, say, RealPlayer, it brings up an option to download the file when hovering over the Vimeo player screen. I am not sure if PPV Vimeo files prevent this feature? If not, then I could download the content and watch it later.

    I mostly do this now because my broadband is inconsistent, and playing a Vimeo file does not always buffer and stream without pause amidst playback. Also, if I want to play and view a file again, this method is more efficient, so that I don't download the same file over and over again.

    This Vimeo on demand topic is active on other forums. It has been suggested that Vimeo, having a high bit rate quality encode suffers buffering issues at times, and this results in people closing the window. The stats for play to the end are supposed to be rather poor. If PPV, then perhaps the motivation will be different, however, if the buffering is problematic, paying customers may stop using the service. It was said that Vimeo do not own their servers and have huge costs, hence, this is perhaps part of the reason we see this paradigm shift. Couple that with not having the same method of cash flow generation, such as YT and advertising, perhaps the changing Vimeo model is trying to adapt to seek longevity, and the VOD landscape is changing and evolving rather quickly. It was also said that the 90/10 split is closer to 84%, factoring the intial transaction cost. Still a great deal, if you can turn a profit and recover the $200 Pro subscription fee. I still think it is a good proposal for smaller niche productions that want a commercial presence, but attracting paying customers may be difficult. I try to be positive.

    I don't know the answer to your question, nor do I know what options Vimeo may propose to allow you to setup regarding downloading parameters and time frames allowed for customers accessing the paid content.

  • I started to think about it just after I did the question.

    I think short viewing period like 24h is just for videos with VERY HIGH VALUE CONTENT, PRISTINE QUALITY when you are sure everybody will want to pay for it and even pay again for it. But then another question shows up: 24h low price (99 cents) or 1 week high price (10 usd)? It is a good question also because imagine a teenager school or even a business company or even a group of friends: they can buy one time to see everybody together, so maybe a very low price can hurt your revenue.

    Short viewing period is not so good for people with slow internet connections, because sometime the connection fails loading the streaming, and need to try later. Also people will want to see again or to show to friends and family. So 72h will be reasonable to cover a weekend from Friday night to Monday morning.

    1 week viewing period will make the viewer think you are more generous because buyer can show the video to family in the weekend and to school or work fellows in the business days. 1 week period will always have a weekend in between, so when your video drops into the viewer screen when he is browsing, he can buy it right now because he knows there will be a weekend inside the 1 week viewing period. It would avoid the need for the viewer come back to buy and probably forget. The drawback is one buyer will show the video to many people, but it will be better to make the viewer feel you are generous in the viewing period and relax to see within a week.

    Also the download option is very important to decide. It can hurt your revenue dramatically. One person buy and shows it to everybody in family, school and business work, and also pirate it, zip and upload it, torrent it. So I think the download option needs to be at least 10x the streaming price or even more (10usd or 20 usd or 50usd)... or something like that, or not allowed. Or just relax and go for the generous route, allow it for a low price...

    It would be better for the creators to consider the On Demand feature like "a bar of chocolate or something" or a "dinner" instead of making money for a living... low prices and reasonable viewing periods, but be careful about allowing download...

    Just thoughts...

    I also got another question: will the viewing password allows simultaneous login? It would be good idea to allow just one login at a time per pass.

  • @apefos wondered just the same thing this morning. Indeed I'm shooting a +15 mins short movie (on September) and thought "vimeo on demand for 99 cents might get me a bar of chocolate or something". Will wait for others to do first. If giving option of download, 2$...and it's still a good price to maybe even pay a dinner for the crew and cast :)

  • Two things I would like to talk about:

    First: the lowest price to watch a video is 99 cents (usd). So imagine a short movie about 15 minutes selling for 99 cents. The creator needs to specify a time period for the viewer watch it after purchase. What would be the best time period? options are 24h, 48h, 72h, 1 week, 1 month, 6 months, 1 year.

    Second: would be a good option to allow the viewer to download the video after purchase or allow just the streaming?

  • This is good information. I agree with @Rambo in saying there are niche type productions out there, yet have enthusiastic followers. I can see some paid content models working, especially with special events and special interest groups. Still a lot of work to attract attention and direct people to your content, but that is the nature of this evolving space. Another I idea that I thought may have some interest or merit, yet may also create other complications is if Vimeo had an account where you could deposit credit, or be rewarded credit where you can spend the credit within the Vimeo site, such as spend it toward Vimeo on demand content, or toward your subscription fees, etc. Again, this is complicated and may entangle Vimeo into a whole bunch of other issues regarding administration, taxation and perhaps some hacked accounts problems. Being rewarded some form of credit may also mean that those funds come from some form of advertising, and Vimeo's model appears somewhat different to, say, the YouTube model. Just some ideas I was thinking about, mostly problematic in many cases.

  • @matt_gh2 this is good also! thanks.

  • @apefos Maybe do what Rambo says but also add a "thank you - please tip" type note in the video itself at the end.

  • @Rambo Thanks! This idea is good.

  • My initial PPV model was subscription based on access to 10 videos for $10 over time due to it being easier to extract a small upfront $ payment once rather than 10 individual small transactions of $1. Magazine subscriptions have worked successfully this way for years and Vimeos own Plus and Pro service is 12mth subscription based.

    But things may be changing, people are quite happy making small purchases .99c etc for apps on iTunes,

    Stonebat, your right, viewers are going to be looking for and paying for the top/popular videos just like they do now with Vimeo Staff recommended watches and videos with high "Like" tags. But then there will be the special interest groups like mine or specialist Motorsport events etc that have relatively small followings but enthusiastic fans. Getting noticed is going to mean lots of marketing and promotion as well as a good product.

    Apefos, just having a tip button available doesn't mean people will click it, you have to ASK or suggest people click it if they felt they got some value from it. The comments section is a good place for this, reply to a positive comment thanking them for watching and suggest they tip you if they received value from it, you would be surprised the difference it makes.

  • As a consumer, I'd hit VOD site and simply look for this week's top hits or this month's. Prolly I'd subscribe to a list of well known studios that release great contents often. More likely indie film makers would release their contents through reputable studios to get more exposure. That's how the mobile game app biz has become. 10/90 is ideal. 10/30/60 or 10/40/50 more likely. Lots of people make purchasing decisions through popular review sites that favor big corps.

    I see VOD as fueling endless competition.

  • Apple TV is nice for watching Vimeo contents.

    ATV2 supports 720p. ATV3 supports 1080p, and it's cheaper. Vimeo doesn't support 1080p, but who knows.