Question about shooting stock footage

[Kevin Lewis]

When shooting stock footage that will be sold, whats the best/most compatible setting 60I, 30p or 24p?

[Ervin Farkas]

Ask the company you will be shooting for.

[Dan Licht]

Kevin - I asked the same question several years back when I got started. Never got a great answer so I settled on 30p (I did check with some stock houses and they seemed to lean toward that format). Progressive is always better than interlace (you can easily convert from progressive to interlace with no quality loss, can't always do it the other way round). Although some people want 24p its usually no big deal to go from 30p to 24p (especially when doing wildlife stuff which is what I do; in fact keeping all the frames and playing at 24p will give a slight slow motion effect which is often nice). In many cases I'll even shoot 720 60p when I think the slow mo effect is a higher priority than the resolution.

You can see some examples at my own web page: HDNatureFootage - HD Nature and Wildlife Footage

Cheers. Dan

[Kevin Lewis]

Thanks Dan, I typically shoot 30p, so I will stick with that. Looks like you have some great footage on your site.

[Florin Sev]

I render my time lapse sequence in 24P. Rarely my customers want a different frame rate.

[David Rice]

Find yourself a niche in the market. Mine is nature, wildlife, and culture of Southeast Alaska at: alaskavideoclips.com.

[Shaun Roemich]

Depends on whether you are targeting broadcast or "film" markets. Broadcast, I'd shoot 30P, film (or corporate/industrial with a "ciné" feel) I'd shoot 24P.

[Mark Williams]

I shoot mostly 720 30p for stock. However, I find it interesting that 60% of my sales are older SD 4:3 60i clips.

[Kevin Lewis]

Thanks for the input everyone. Can anyone give some advice on the length of time each clip should be? Keep in mind that im comtemplating selling online, not to one specific client.

[Shaun Roemich]

The clip should be as long as the clip needs to be...

As well, remember to leave a "handle" of a couple of seconds at the top and tail, ESPECIALLY if a camera move is involved. And remember to reverse the move as well, if appropriate.

Shorter clips are likely to sell better, unless the content is extraordinary ASSUMING you charge by the length. As well, higher resolution I would expect to pay more for so you MAY want to compress a couple of different sizes at different price points : 320x240 (or 16:9 equivalent) for web, 640 (or 720) x 480 for "broadcast" (I prefer square pixels in case clients want to use for the Web) , 720P and 1080P and/or i.

[Florin Sev]

About length of each clip I'd say min 10s max 30s... depends of what you have in front of your camera ;)
Happy shooting!