I've made a 55 minute film on sailing and a sailing magazine is interested in streaming it and writing an article around the theme of the film in their print magazine.
It's a good promotional opportunity. I'm hoping that I may be able to sell copies of the film on DVD off the back of it.
However their website is not set up for video so I'm looking at the alternatives.
I would consider Vimeo but they take your rights away and apparently their Vimeo Plus operation isn't available in Europe. Only the USA.
I really don't know anything about hosting streaming video but what was a rather abstract notion on my wish list of business endeavours has suddenly become a lot more real now that the editor has given this the green light.
Can anyone suggest how/where I might stream this video from and what the costs might be?
It doesn't need to be High Definition. Just reasonable quality. Preferably stereo sound. The circulation of the magazine is 30,000. They claim 50,000 readers. So the loading on the server could be quite high I suppose?

Richard... I don't think you really need streaming in the classic definition. What should work would be "progressive download". From the user perspective it functions in very much the same way. Nothing special is needed on the Web server for this to work.

You could encode it in QT or Flash and embed the player in a Web page. Even at standard SD res, a Flash file wouldn't be that big. If you get a 1:10 hit rate from the mag subscribers (and that's really optimistic) the load on the server shouldn't be that great.

BTW... if you put the entire video on the Web, no one will buy your DVD. And, as former ocean racer I'd be interested your video.

[QUOTE=Tripp Woelfel;953937]What should work would be "progressive download".[ /QUOTE]

I agree with Tripp. You don't need a particularly hardcore server environment to run video. I would definitely embed the video in flash and test different encoding settings to see how it effects the playback ability on such a long video.

However, if you are really sure that tons of people are going to the site to watch the video at the same time then maybe Amazon S3 might be an option. Amazon S3 (Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) (http://aws.amazon.com/s3/)) is a high speed online data storage system. Vimeo uses it for its videos and photos (side note: I think it was about two months ago when the Amazon S3 servers went down for the first time, which resulted in a lot of broken sites like Vimeo). I never actually used it, but you pay for what you use and it appears to be fairly affordable (I would believe you could upload your video file to Amazon S3 and then use that link as your video source for your video embed code).

But depending on the demographics that read the magazine, maybe only 2% of readers will go to the website to watch the video, which in this case a cheap shared hosting environment would probably be more than enough.

Tripp
Many thanks. I will look into progressive download. It's interesting to learn that it's not such a big deal. The last time I costed this kind of thing was five years ago and it worked out at something like USD3 for someone to download half an hour of video.
Thanks for you kind words. It's nice to know that I might have at least one customer for a DVD ;-) I'll email you when it's done.
Wes
That's very helpful too. I will check out the Amazon service. Have never heard of that one and had no idea that Vimeo uses a third party.
In response to the general point that you both make. I really don't have a clue how many people will watch the film. Or whether I can make any money out of it. I shot it in HDV thinking that I could release on high def DVD but the way it's gone with Blueray it doesn't seem like this is viable for smaller runs.
It's mostly finished. I've got to sort the music out. I used a load of stuff off one album and hope that the record company will let me use it for free in return for a plug. Otherwise I will have to re-record (the compositions are traditional tunes and therefore copyright free).
The magazine editor likes it and was talking about an article in the magazine based upon the theme of the film.
So the article and film would complement each other and because of that I'd hope to get quite a high audience for the film from the readership.
But of course they will want to see all of the film. So maybe that won't be any good for selling DVDs off the back of it. I thought that there might be a market for them as gifts.
The other alternative might be to try to find a sponsor (not so easy right now I don't suppose) or to show part of the film for free and the rest as a paid-for download.
I'm moving off the topic of this section of the site so I won't go on. I haven't a clue what I'm doing really but hopefully I'll learn!

PBS and History Channel always plug buying a DVD of what they just aired so DVD sales of an entire film someone just watched on TV or online seems like it works.

55 minutes is a long video to watch online though. I would suggest cutting it into mulitple chapters much like a DVD. The auidence would have more control on watching only chapters they are interested in.

Thanks.
Hmmm... interesting about people buying DVDs of shows that have just aired. It's a good point. Difficult to know what direction to take in this respect ie does the airing make the DVD obsolete or will the promotional value drive sales. There seem to be different opinions about this.
The film is continuous, like a movie, but I might be able to cut it into chapters. Will think about that one.

In a moment of fleeting clarity over morning coffee, I think the PBS example points out a different distribution model than what Richard might be using. To figure this out, all you have to do is follow the money.

Producers who create programming for a network get paid when a program is aired. PBS, A&E and other networks promote DVD sales as an add-on sales opportunity. So the primary revenue comes from the broadcast with some extra gelt in the DVD sales.

If Richard airs his video on the Web he is potentially sacrificing the fat part of any revenue opportunity he may have with this project. Now, money is not always the top priority and Web airing may offer benefits, such as exposure, that may offer more value in this case.

FWIW.

As others have said, Progressive download is the way to do it cheap but with some PHP or a Lighty web-server you can have most of the benefits of a true streaming server without the cost. You can even do some very basic DRM. If you want to put it all online I suggest getting some sponsors that you can put before and after the videos, short 15-30 second clips of "This video is brought to you in portion by:" You can then also have some light google adwords and such on the page, Text versions only so there is not other videos fighting yours. The google adwords will provide a little revenue but most will come from the primary sponsors and DVD sales. To help get sponsors you will need some visitor numbers that can help project how many people could potentially see the ads. As for the magazine not having a site setup for video, once you have your video on a server you can setup a flash embed link they can use which will pull the video from your server to their site.

I must admit that I'd really like to get the film seen because I have some leads that may give me more work in this area and this would help to get me established.
I've also spent a huge amount of time making it and I'd like to get some money back.
The magazine is pressing me to put the film on You Tube because that is their preferred provider (it's a group of magazines and that's their policy).
I may have made a mistake in that I've been trying to persuade them to go for better quality.
I'm now thinking that if the readers have the choice to watch the film on YouTube ie not good quality, but are first given the opportunity to download a couple of minutes of good quality video.
Then if they are given the option watching the video in higher quality instead of watching it on YouTube but they have to pay for that.
And if they want to buy it as a present for a friend or loved one they could buy the DVD. (the film is about something that many people dream of doing so it has potential as a gift).
Perhaps a limited edition, personally-signed, gold-wrapped blue ray version too for a premium price (I'm joking now but it illustrates the approach).
How does that sound as a strategy?
Or would everyone take the cheap option and watch it on YouTube for free?

To help get sponsors you will need some visitor numbers that can help project how many people could potentially see the ads.
Thanks Josh. I know what the readership is but I don't know how many of them will watch the film. I suspect that a lot of them will if the film is effectively the other half of an article in the magazine. But that's just a hunch so it could be difficult to sell? It's an affluent readership but I reckon sponsorship could be an uphill struggle at the moment?
As for the magazine not having a site setup for video, once you have your video on a server you can setup a flash embed link they can use which will pull the video from your server to their site.
Thanks. I'm thinking of setting up a website around the film too.

While wordpress is over kill for just a solo page but it can hold the video and other pages around it and such and make it easy for updates and such.

While wordpress is over kill for just a solo page but it can hold the video and other pages around it and such and make it easy for updates and such.
Thanks. I will check that out because it's possible that it may run to more than one page and more than one film in the longer term. And a forum is a possibility as well.

The magazine is pressing me to put the film on You Tube because that is their preferred provider (it's a group of magazines and that's their policy).[Emphasis added]

This means they are:
Cheap
Maybe have some (advertising)revenue sharing with youtube/google
All of the above

Now let me tell you what to do ;-)

Only agree to put a trailer on youtube, no more that 5-7 minutes. Then set up a simple site (can be as little as 1 page) to which they should link to from their site(s) and mention in the magazine.

On the front page of this site, embed the youtube video trailer. Make sure the rest of the page looks nice and put some Google adwords on so you get some revenue (don't overdo this).

Add links to view the whole movie, buy a DVD or some other revenue generating 'thing' to the site (maybe view for free and donate fits your bill).

Negotiate on adding links back to the magazine and if they can add the video trailer to their site and/or youtube page. If they want your video they believe it/the story will generate (more) revenue for them. You cannot pay the rent from 'exposure'. If they also want to offer the whole video to their subscibers make them pay per download (from your hosted link).

Come up with some figure they should pay you for using the story and video. Probably relate this to the number of magazine copies/subscriptions. This can be a little or a lot, but should at least be something.

Make sure that when you intend to make the whole movie available for download, you: Encode it as h.264 with Optimal Frame Dimensions (http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flash/apps/flv_bitrate_calculator/video_sizes.html) and suitable bitrate (http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flash/apps/flv_bitrate_calculator/)
Use a good player to embed the video, like Jeroen Weijerings (http://www.jeroenwijering.com/?item=JW_FLV_Player) player or Flowplayer (http://flowplayer.org/); these can be easily configured (JW even has a 'setup wizard' for you).
Get a hosting account with "GB" monthly transfer (bandwidth)
Stay away from "95th percentile" (a.k.a. 95%) bandwidth accounts
Know what happens when your GB are used up, generally one of these things will happen You pay some, often rediculously high, rate for 'overusage'
Your site goes 'black'
Your bandwith is reduced to an unusable 'drizzle'
Use some form of file (access) protection if you're expecting/accepting payment. Players can offer some protection here.
Use Paypal for donations or payment (it's really easy). You can also consider Google checkout or other options, but PP is pretty much the norm.
If you have high aspirations check out real streaming solutions like Wowza (http://www.wowzamedia.com/). This will however increase the effort needed to get things up and running a lot. The same goes for other 'custom' solutions like one based on "lighty" (www.lighttpd.net).

HTH,

George/

In light of your latest comment might I add that you may consider starting off "good" but with the things you need "now" and then add in other things/video's/forums afterwards, not as an afterthought though.

You determine if that is days, weeks or months later...

George/

I really should let this subject drop but the thing that sticks in my craw is the magazine's leaning on you to do it their way. Unless they hold some rights to the film, the decisions made on how and where to distribute the film should be yours, and yours alone.

Clearly this work is something you've put a lot of yourself into and as such you should keep your goals paramount relative to decisions about its distribution. While those at the magazine might like you, it's their interests they hold most dear, not yours. I may be overstating the obvious but you should do what you think's best.

Wow. I'm glad I asked this question here. These replies are so helpful and illuminating.
Tripp - I don't think the magazine is trying to rip me off. They aren't trying to force me to do anything yet. They are just saying that that's the way that they do it at present. They are considering my suggestions. If they get heavy handed I can walk away but the editor has actually been very supportive eg helping me to get interviews for the film that might have been difficult to get otherwise.
My gut feeling is that they haven't really taken the video thing on board yet and that's where they are coming from.
There's a two way trade here. My film for their 50,000 readers. That's a lot of eyeballs. What's more it's a highly-targeted audience.
On top of that the magazine can give the film cachet. A bit like if you get a movie into the theaters you are going to do better on video. I becomes not just another run-of-the-mill, straight-to-video movie.
So if a large part of that edition of the magazine is about what my film is about and if that's something very close to the hearts of the readers then the magazine is giving me something valuable.
In return I think that I need to go with the flow a bit. Work with the magazine and the audience and try to persuade them to pay for a better experience rather than withhold everything.
If I do that then the magazine is more likely to integrate the film with the editorial. That's the ideal situation. To use the management speak - win/win.
But maybe they will all be cheapskates and take the least expensive option. I'll report back on this if you like!
George - I'm still reading and thinking about what you are saying about exposure. I think however that exposure via the magazine is worth a lot to me. If I think how much it would cost me to advertise the film in the magazine it's a substantial amount. If I am getting the film integrated into an article in the magazine it's worth a lot more.
I'm thinking of it this way. I made one film last March and put it on Vimeo. It was quite popular and got on the HD channel and has had just about 7,000 hits. I made five more films about music and told the staff at Vimeo about one of them. Bless them, they liked it and put in on the HD channel. That film has had 11,000 hits. That puts those two films in the top 25 out of 3,600 on Vimeo tagged 'short film'. The other four have had less than 200 each - and they are pretty good films too, but nobody has heard of them.
Moral of story - you can make a film and put it on the web but the audience isn't going to find it 99% of the time.
50,000 sets of eyeballs from your target audience is not to be sneezed at.
George - rather than push for payment I think I'm going to push really hard for integration between the film and the editorial of the magazine. I understand your point and would follow that line in other situations. I can't go into too much detail but I think that for this film that is the best route to take.
I really appreciate all your other technical suggestions and am going to check all of them out. They sound really useful.

It's your call, but...
You're not advertising or 'buying eyeballs'
you are 'selling' your content for distribution
At the core it is no different than selling your film to the BBC/DC/NGC or any other broadcaster/distributor.

The way it works is that content creators get paid when someone distributes it, more so when it is for their commercial gain.

George/

Richard... If I sounded like I thought the mag was ripping you off, I didn't mean to. I don't think they are. They're just looking out for their best interests, as do all living things.

Having worked in many different types of media I can say that many tend to stick to their core competence. In this case you mag people are so focused on print they may not be spending much time on alternate media strategy.

At the risk of sounding like a Media 101 course, the new millennium clanged to a close the era of monolithic media companies. As such, print media outlets are adding audio, video and all the other things that the Web can bring to broaden the information experience. But I expect that you already know this.

You're an expert when it comes to video, and you have valuable knowledge that they can use to improve their video exposure. Teach them. Show them why you think your way is better. Be patient, and compromise when you think necessary. For both the short and long term, this may help you become more valuable to them and open the door for follow on business which generally a good thing.

You probably know this too but I thought it was at least marginally important to say.

George
I'm going to take up most of your suggestions eg putting the video on my own site and getting the magazine readers to visit my site in order to watch the film.
I'm going to look at a combination of sponsorship, VOD and DVD sales to make some revenue. I've also got some ideas for other material that I could put on my site and charge for.
I'm going to check out Wordpress to make the site with and all your suggestions regarding streaming etc.
Tripp
You've pretty much hit the nail on the head on a number of counts. The magazine doesn't have any experience or expertise in this area at present and there is the potential for a longer term relationship with this and other media outlets.
The way I'm looking at it also is that if I sold my film to a commercial broadcaster that they would pay me something and sell airtime to make a profit. The magazine isn't in the business of working in this way with video so it gives me the opportunity to cut out the middle man and try to do the commercial thing myself.
There are irons in the fire that I would be stupid to describe on a forum but what you are suggesting is pretty much in line with my go-with-the-flow strategy. Hopefully I can travel from A to B with the magazine and become a part of B and make some money in the meantime. I hope that isn't too muddled a way of putting it!

Thanks guys for all your help and advice. If anyone else has any thoughts or suggestions please let me have them.
I'll post the url of the site when it goes live early in 2009 (assuming this all works out - it could still unravel) .

Sounds good. Looking forward to seeing it :)

Here are a couple of ideas:

Use Amazon's S3 storage to hold the video itself; set up a simple Wordpress site with a Flash or Quicktime player to play it:

This page has a movie showing the process of encoding, uploading and publishing:

Publish at DVcreators.net (http://www.dvcreators.net/dv-kitchen/features/publish/)

Instead of DVD, consider direct download:

MOD Machine vs. DVD at Leaping Brain Labs, Inc. (http://leapingbrain.com/mod-machine/mod-machine-vs-dvd)

Thanks Josh
Amazon S3 and Wordpress are two of the recommendations that were made in this thread and I have started looking into both of them. S3 is really difficult to get my head round but I will return to it. Wordpress is giving me a headache too so I just ordered a book today.

Thanks for your thoughts re DVD. It's the conclusion that I've come to. I mean who is going to sit there waiting for orders to come in and then take them down to the post office. I can't say that excites me and I've got better things to do with my time.

So I'm looking into the direct download option (and your links) in order to charge for video and audio material. I'm talking to the magazine about making the whole film available _possibly_ with a sponsor and trying to sell extra interviews and the music to the film (still to be recorded!) as paid-for downloads. If anyone has more ideas relating to this I would love to hear them.

And thank you everyone who has contributed to the thread. It's been incredibly useful.

Use some form of file (access) protection if you're expecting/accepting payment. Players can offer some protection here.
Use Paypal for donations or payment (it's really easy). You can also consider Google checkout or other options, but PP is pretty much the norm.[/list]
HTH,
George/
George
Do you have any more information about how one could use Paypal to charge for access to video/audio files? I'd be very grateful to learn more if you do. Many thanks.

Hi Richard,

Even though the high level stuff sounds straightforward, even easy, the devil is in the detail.

Setting up:
A website
A (progressive download) video stream
A paypal payment option
is all fairly easy. Especially if the file is small and the number of (expected) downloads is limited.

As soon as the above doesn't meet your expectations/requirements things get technical and complicated very quickly.

At this point I should mention that you really need some sort of Business Plan and Marketing Strategy or simply put, some idea on how you want to make money and some prediction/expectation on the numbers. You'll need that to figure out what your budget can be... And you will need some budget, even though my advice is to keep it as simple as possible and (only) expand if it is making you (enough) money.

I cannot judge how much or little you can do yourself, but you will need some help from a webbuilder and/or webhoster.

Asuming a (very) limited budget and some measure of copy protection but still having a base to build on:
Get a webhost that offers a CMS (and the bandwidth/subscription you need)
Preferably have them manage the updates for it
Make sure the CMS has "membership" and "PayPal" modules/plugins
Look for a suitable template for the CMS, one that you have to change as little as possible (save big changes for later)
Get a webbuilder (and possibly a desiger) to adapt the template to spec. and make sure they know how to integrate a (custom) flash player like JW or Flow
Put the paid-for content player on the "members only" page(s); this will pretty much be the extent of the "copy protection" (i.e. not that much)
Use the PayPal module to automatically create "member" user accounts (or put them in a specific group, etc.) and send confirmation mail to these users
Users will log in and be able to view their a/v content
Joomla! (Open Source) CMS it should suit the purpose and there are a lot of hosters offering it and lots of builders working with it.

The protected pages will also protect you from bandwidth bandits (hotlinking) that will try to make money on your dime (or penny). It won't really prevent anyone from copying/distributing/pirating the content as it uses "progressive download" as the (pseudo) streaming mechanism. You can use this with true (real time) streaming as well, but need a streaming server or service.

In my opinion you can't really go with less than that very easily, although technically you could build your own simple membership and content protection "system" and PayPal has an API for which you can write your own interface.

However a ready-made CMS will have that and more, like some marketing tools (newsletter) and be easier to maintain and expand upon when needed.

George/

Hi George
I'm sorry to be slow in responding. The notifications on DV info seem to have stopped working for me and I've just found your post.
Hmmmm. This is getting quite complicated.
I've been having thoughts about whether I really want to get into being a retailer and I'm not sure that I do at the moment.
I've got a meeting with the magazine editor in ten days and need to have made my decisions by then.
I've approached some potential sponsors too.
So I will look into your suggestions and work out a plan.
I really appreciate your feedback and will let you know what happens.
Richard

One important point to keep in mind is to think about the presentation. With a thrown-together solution, it can be easy to make valuable content perceived as if it should be free.

People are used to web video being free- so many have tried to charge and failed, while DVDs continue to be perceived as having value.

Amazon and others have been marginally successful selling music for 99 cents from their website, while Apple has been enormously successful selling music from the iTunes software environment.

How much of this is due to Apple's "coolness" (even to Windows iTunes customers) and how much to the perceived value of buying the same thing through a separate software program?

Good points Josh. Thanks.

Hi Richard,

I understand it can seem daunting and 10 days (or 7 by now) is too short to make anything happen.

If the whole streaming bit gets your stomach in a knot, talk to a streaming provider, ple PlayStream. I've not used their DRM services, but their prices are good and I'm sure they deal with pay-per-view requests daily; they should be able to get you started quickly.

Your website would only be the 'storefront' which can be set up quickly.

George/

Hi George
I've got longer than ten days. But I've still got to find people to record the music for the whole film and do a couple of interviews.
I'm actually thinking of seeing if people will donate to charity and see what happens.
My fallback position was to stream it from Vimeo but I put a test piece of the same length onto Vimeo (50 minutes) and it doesn't want to know. It doesn't start playing.
Meanwhile I have learned enough to almost finish a website of my own.
It's all useful stuff. I'm finding out about really obscure things like favicons.
I've got a meeting with the magazine editor a week tomorrow and hope to have most of my ducks in line by then! Got to be done by Christmas - or perhaps sooner. Will find out in a week.
Many thanks for your help.
Richard

Keep us posted ;-)

George/

Keep us posted ;-)

Absolutely! I still want to see it.

The first part of the film is finished. It went up an hour ago. You can see it here if you wish:

Blue Water (http://www.bluewaterfilm.org/)

The second part will follow at the end of the week.

It's been a wild ride in the last month. My hard disk started to fail just as I was about to start a final and major edit of the film. That was two Mondays before Christmas. I thought I was going to lose the film at one point. The computer was working by Boxing Day so Christmas and New Year and the cottage I'd booked in Scotland were cancelled. I worked through the night last Wednesday to finish the film and then began to upload. 65 hours later I finally succeeded at 01.00 today.
Yachting World magazine wrote a very nice review of the film based on a rough cut. The magazine hit the bookstalls on Thursday. They will be linking to the film today from their website and the editor's blog. It will be interesting to see how many of their 50,000 readers watch the film.
I gave up trying to make any money out of it. Perhaps later. I hope it will raise money for charity.
It's been an interesting learning exercise!

Richard, Fantastic work! I started off listening to the story whilst looking at your techniques, but listening to James tell his story swept me up into the story. Nicely done.

As a former can and offshore racer and someone who spent several years preparing my boat for long-distance cruising (although never actually getting to go), you've definitely gotten the story right. I particularly identified with the woman when she voiced her trepidation about the journey as she piloted her craft out of port. I had that same feeling of excitement and apprehension after crossing the start line of my first offshore race. It didn't fully leave me until the anchor was down at the finish. Long story there for another time.

You might want to contact some of the US-based sailing sites like Sailing Anarchy, Lats and Atts, Lattitude 38 and others if you're interested in getting a larger audience. I'm sure that many would truly enjoy seeing your film. Send me a message if you're interested and I'll get you the links.

Having shot aboard a sailing vessel, I know the challenges presented and you've done a stunning job of it. Truly, there are a finite number of major plot directions an ocean voyage story can take. Storms, running out of water or food, boredom in the doldrums and the like. It's the smaller, more personal ones that make the story intriguing... at least for me.

I've been looking forward to seeing this since I first ran across your posts. It was worth the wait. Simply brilliant.

I particularly identified with the woman when she voiced her trepidation about the journey as she piloted her craft out of port. I had that same feeling of excitement and apprehension after crossing the start line of my first offshore race. It didn't fully leave me until the anchor was down at the finish.

Hi Tripp
Many thanks for your kind words. That means a lot to me.

Someone, I can't remember who, said that a person who is not afraid to go to sea is a dangerous person to have on board. I think that we all feel the same. Maybe that's why we have an imagination - to help us visualise what can go wrong and hopefully work out a way to avoid that or to fix it quickly if it does!

Yes please, I would love to have those urls. Perhaps a message rather than a posting as it's not exactly DV info territory. Whatever you think is most appropriate.