As the 2018 dance recital season is just around the corner I have an update and a question about distributing dance recital videos on line.

First, the update. I did get one studio to agree to distribute their videos on line. In fact, they actually asked me if this was possible.

So here's my plan. I'm going to use Vimeo Pro ($600 per year, unlimited weekly uploads, 5 TB of space per year). The studio will charge all the parents and pay me a flat fee to record and up load the videos.

I will begin posting other studios videos on line (AFTER I get paid for the DVDs). I will also use the account for other business (weddings, sports, etc)

In the future, now that I will have video to show, I believe it will be easier to persuade studios to take the plunge. If my bigger schools charge ALL of their students a minimal $20 fee, I will get the money I need to record and up load the videos (I'm going to charge approximately $1200 per performance) and the schools should still have some extra money in their pockets.

For some of my smaller, mid-weeks schools, I still have to decide how to proceed, whether to even offer a reduced rate to upload their recital.

Now if you're still with me, the question.

I think I'm simply going to record the recitals that will be uploaded as 720p, 17mb, MP4 files and upload them directly to Vimeo. Does anyone see any flaws or drawbacks with this idea?

Any feedback is appreciated.

You do well for yourself I average only $500-600 a show. Most studios pay nothing or I pay them a commission so I can’t see them being too keen on paying me for a digital download. Pricing to me would be tricky because let’s say I charge the studio $400 and because everyone has the video I only get few dvd orders.

This year I’ve added digital download for an additional $5 with a dvd order or $20 for only a digital download. The vast majority of parents only want a dvd, followed by 20% getting the dvd/download and only a handful getting just a download. I’m not sure how happy parents would be if they were required to buy a digital download from the studio if the just want a dvd.

Since I don’t make a lot I have only the Plus account that stll serves me well. Btw I upload 1080p and compress it with handbrake at RF24 it yields 600-1,200mb file depending on the length. I think 720 looks crapy if you’re going hd you might as well go full.

Vimeo pro is not 600dollar, in Europe it's only 162 euro unless you are refering to their business account?

I wouldn't upload as 720p, as pete says, it will look bad especially on 4K tv's, I would upload at the highest quality possible, either HD or 4K, the client can still decide what quality they want to downbload when they select the download option.

You could maybe upload 2 versions, one HD and one in 4K but charge extra for the 4K download.

Thanks for the feedback Pete.

My thought on why I would upload 720p was that up until this point the parents were receiving DVDs with a much lower quality than 720p, so the video, even at 17mb would look MUCH better than it has in the past. And the up load would be quicker than full 1080p 28mb video (which is the top bit rate for several of my video cameras.

As far as my rates, I guess we have been fortunate. Many of my bigger studios average over $1,200 per recital. Many of these studios have more than one recital.

The tricky thing moving forward is fairness to each studio and fairness to my business.

A few of my studios average close to $3,000 a year in orders for their two shows. At $1,200 a show, I would be losing a significant sum of money. However, if I charge $1,500 a show, a majority of my larger studios will be forced to pay more than they would if the parents were ordering DVDs. And my smaller studios (in the $600 - $1,000 range), may be priced out.

So, I still have some kinks to work out, but I really think this change in distribution is the way to go.

Think about it like this, many parents will now be able to show off my work to their friends and families, by sharing the link or showing their student's particular number on their phone (at the office, PTA meeting, etc). It also currently gives me a leg up on my competition.

People can still order DVDs for the same $25 price that they used to order simply by sending me an additional $5 for the DVD, so to me it's really a win/win.

Noa, thanks for your input! I may need to re-think my 720p idea.

And you are right, I'm going to be using Vimeo Business, not Pro.

Hi Tracy

Just to get my thinking right, the schools pay you $1200 and then the students get charged $20 right? so as long as there are 60+ students the studio makes a profit. I often see posts saying "if I upload the recital online parents will share links with each other" if this is true will studios start getting students that tell them that " we don't need the link (or to pay $20) this year" I know this doesn't affect you as you get paid upfront but would it reduce sales from students, if if happened

We have done DVD sales for recitals and to be honest making the DVD's is really a pain in the but ... it takes up a lot of time burning and printing disks and also delivering so online is a great solution. We currently do live stream weddings on Livestream.com (Vimeo now own them) so adding recitals when they come up in 2018 would be easy and the media has some advantages too like live editing (so zero post work) and instant upload as you are shooting. In the future maybe look at Vimeo Live too??

Hi Tracy

Just to get my thinking right, the schools pay you $1200 and then the students get charged $20 right? so as long as there are 60+ students the studio makes a profit. I often see posts saying "if I upload the recital online parents will share links with each other" if this is true will studios start getting students that tell them that " we don't need the link (or to pay $20) this year" I know this doesn't affect you as you get paid upfront but would it reduce sales from students, if if happened


I read it that the $20 fee is mandatory. It's part of the cost of the recital. Students cannot choose to not pay it.

I've mentioned this before, part of the problem with online sales is that all of the Dance Parent's know each other, and have their contact info. It would be trivial for 4 or 5 really close parents to split the cost of a single access code.

Hi Vince

I don't see that as an issue provided you are paid upfront from the studio .. as Tracy says sharing the video simply provides more exposure and it IS a win-win situation. I guess it would be up to the studio to get the $20 from the parents (one could always say "no pay no dance") but since the studio hands over $1200 to Tracy before the event it's really up to them to ensure the parents pay up otherwise their kids are not going to be allowed to perform!!

Yes, I get the studios to pay me up front (or guarantee payment after the event), the studios charge each student. I will encourage the studios to include the price of the video into the costs each student pays every year.

In the future, when proposing this to the studios, I will explain to them that they can also make this a win for themselves. "As part of this season's dance fee, we will provide you with a high definition, on line video of all of the dances in this year's recitals that you can share with family and friends" (many of my studios have two performances with some dancers performing in both recitals).

In reality the studio can collect as much or as little as they want from each student to cover the cost of the video. I currently charge $25 per video and $40 for two DVDs if the studio has two recitals. Some studios tack on an extra $5 or $10 so they can make some money off of the DVD sales.

This new (for me and my studios) distribution model is really a much better product for all involved. The parents get something they can easily share with friends and family, the quality of the product is much better and the studios can more easily make a little money from the sales of the video.

I've mentioned this before, part of the problem with online sales is that all of the Dance Parent's know each other, and have their contact info. It would be trivial for 4 or 5 really close parents to split the cost of a single access code.

Vince, I agree with your point IF, one was selling on line dance recital videos the same way as they have been selling dance recital DVDs. BUT this new model (for me) gets the studio to agree, up front, that they will pay me X for recording and uploading their recital.

As I mentioned, there are still some issues to work out.

One big one being what do I do with the "smaller" studios that I currently work for. As an example, one studio has two recitals on an early Sunday in June every year. The studio averages about $1,600 worth of orders which is far short of the $2,400 they would need if they were paying the $1,200 per recital fee.

Sometimes I can personally record for this studio, however this year, I have a bigger studio also on the same Sunday, so I'm going to pay a good friend $400 to record the performances. So for me, I'll make around $1,200 for the two recitals (yes there is some additional media expense), which is still a nice amount of money for the additional work I will need to do. So I'm certainly not going to abandon the studio, but do I offer the on line uploads for $800 a recital or ask for $1,200 or simply continue to only offer this studio DVDs?

Another issue is that by offering the uploads at $1,200 I am slightly shorting myself on two of the bigger studios that I work for AND if I never raise my price I limit myself with any of the studios that may grow bigger in the future.

If your videos are going to be downloaded by the people who buy them (which goes down better) do you actually need to use Vimeo at all. I use youtube and Vimeo for things that I want a very wide audience for, but for private video and audio files I have a download site hosted on a server that costs me less than £100 a year. People pay for the products via PayPal, and get a secure download link, that expires after a few hours reducing the number of people sharing the download. The software to run it is not expensive, and the files can be anything - video, audio or pdfs. I've not thought about it for distributing video, but the bandwidth is plenty good enough for dance show quantities?

Thanks for the reply. I thought about several different routes when contemplating this move. One original idea was to use Google Drive.

Ultimately I decided on Vimeo because I really don't care if the parents, kids or instructors download the videos. I'm more interested in their ability to play the videos ONLINE. I want everyone to SHARE the videos as much as possible.

... but for private video and audio files I have a download site hosted on a server that costs me less than £100 a year.
You can post private videos on YouTube for free.

On the free You Tube scenario just remember that you then have music copyright to deal with and as most studios use current pop music, you will get pinged and an ad put on the video or even banned in some countries. I'm pretty sure that even if you set your YouTube upload to "private" their "robot" still scans the music!

Vimeo is the way to go. Online distribution is the future. Tracy has a solid plan. You might need to tailor your approach a bit for each studio. We can all think of problems you might face but sometimes you just need to take a chance and be willing to change with the times. Let us know how it turns out I have feeling you be saying in no time why didn’t I do this sooner.

I agree Pete

It the way to go .. I think the old business saying is "work smarter not harder" !!

We already pay a CDN $499 a year for Livestreamed wedding ceremonies so it would make sense to send recital footage up to the server live (we edit live but if an edit is needed we can also upload too) What is neat is that we have the option of creating an "event page" which makes for a nice landing page for viewers whether they watch it live or afterwards.

Let us know your comments once you have run a few recitals Tracy

TMy thought on why I would upload 720p was that up until this point the parents were receiving DVDs with a much lower quality than 720p, so the video, even at 17mb would look MUCH better than it has in the past. And the up load would be quicker than full 1080p 28mb video (which is the top bit rate for several of my video cameras.
17Mbps is a ridiculously high bit rate for 720p. Netflix recommend a 25Mb/s connection for their 4K UHD streams but the actual rate they stream 4K is about 15Mb/s. Amazon Prime streams 1080p at about 10Mbps. Hulu streams 1080p at about 5Mbps. BBC iPlayer streams 720p at under 4Mbps.

Very true

We do our 720P live stream at between 4mbps and 5mbps too and have never had a complaint .. with weddings we also supply a backup USB at 1080P at 25mbps which as Nigel says is over the top anyway!

As videographers we are far more critical than the average viewer. I watch a live soccer match the other day and my mate who was streaming it could only manage 1mbps yet it looked fine .. just a little pixellation during fast zooms!!

Vimeo is the way to go. Online distribution is the future. Tracy has a solid plan. You might need to tailor your approach a bit for each studio. We can all think of problems you might face but sometimes you just need to take a chance and be willing to change with the times. Let us know how it turns out I have feeling you be saying in no time why didn’t I do this sooner.

Thanks Pete, I will keep you posted.

Yesterday I contracted with another studio for this year. She was looking to go the traditional DVD route, but after a brief discussion about the merits of online distribution, she is going to look into offering the online service this year. And she said she will be having a discussion with some of the other members of her staff about definitely going the online route next year.

Let us know your comments once you have run a few recitals Tracy

Will do Chris, thanks for your input!

17Mbps is a ridiculously high bit rate for 720p. Netflix recommend a 25Mb/s connection for their 4K UHD streams but the actual rate they stream 4K is about 15Mb/s. Amazon Prime streams 1080p at about 10Mbps. Hulu streams 1080p at about 5Mbps. BBC iPlayer streams 720p at under 4Mbps.

I thought 17mb because that's highest 720p setting my Sony NX3s offer.

I am hoping to simply record each number separately, download the files to my computer and then up directly to Vimeo.

I also have a 9 Mbps and a 5 Mbps 720p setting. What setting would you use?

I thought I found it but not:

www.filemail.com you can send files/folders till 30 gig for free!
So I copied a selfmade blu ray to a folder and installed the portable VLC media player in it.

Just clicking the exe file in that folder will launch the blu ray menu. works great.

But blu ray is almost 25gig of transfer so the download limitation of most clients will suffer.

I tested it and the upload was about 4 hours! (I have a very fast internet connection here)

Think best is to keep the DVD/blu ray option on disc and (never done before) a download option for a HD video file. (MP4 for example)

Do you encode to mp4 ? And how big is your file after that? I use sony vegas pro 15.

I saw a tutorial on "handbrake" that looks interesting for shrinking.

I find Handbrake sweet spot is around RF22 provides a good balance between size and quality. I’ll go up to RF24 for really long videos and down to RF18 for higher quality. I’m looking to achieve about 1gb/1hr for 1080p

I have been reading your progress and doing my own research. What has been discussed has been really helpful!
I am slowly converting to the digital route and had one studio go digital last year. This year, I just signed up 2 more of my studios. In order for digital to work and not worry about people sharing, then every student must pay. My studios are presenting it as a "recital fee". This way everyone gets a copy and sharing is not a problem. Plus, there is no need to sell dvds or worry about minimums. Depending on when your classes start and end, it only adds $2.80- $3.10 to each persons monthly total. We have found that people prefer to pay this throughout the dance season and not get hit with the dvd cost at the end.
This way actually earns me more money. For example, I have never sold dvds to 100% of the dancers and I have been doing this for 18 years. The studio that went digital last year only sold approximately 50 dvds for the past 8 years. With the digital format, I now get the same amount of money ($35/dvd) for a digital file from every dancer. They have 82 dancers, so my sales went from $1750/show to $2870 and I do less work because of not having to burn dvds, print, stuff mailers pay for postage and apply.
When they ask why it is the same price since there is no cost of the dvd anymore, I tell them that cost now goes into the hosting of the video on Vimeo.
If I film multiple shows for a studio and a dancer is in more then one show, then they get all shows they are in for the price of one. Since the cost is in the recital fee, parents aren't thinking that they paid "X" for a video(s). We get to look at this as we make our money on the distribution and not the production.

That's clever Jeff as there is no sharing issues and no "piracy" either. I assume that you are still uploading to vimeo which is the only time consuming bit left!

We did much the same with weddings and by editing live and sending live to the server we also eliminate the long upload process ..plus it's such a nice feeling to shoot an event, edit while you are shooting and the video is created almost instantly plus people that don't attend can also watch it. The best feeling of all is walking away at the end of the event and discovering you are actually done and dusted !! No edits no uploads everything is done on the day or night!!

Some great input on this thread. Thanks everyone.
I've been considering moving away from DVDs too.
I like the recital fee built in. That covers the cost and fixes the piracy problem.

As far as the delivery...
If you upload to Vimeo or Youtube, won't the music be a big problem and get flagged or banned? Some dance studios properly clear the music for stage use but not for internet delivery which requires much additional licensing. I continuously have problems with youtube flagging my commercial work that I have properly licensed music and even fill out the form saying so. I get tired of fighting it so most of my work plays with ads now.
I can only imagine what would happen uploading a video containing 30 popular pop songs!
So if saturday you record the event and monday you post it online with the anxious parents wanting to watch and the music is stripped off, or the video taken down or at the very least ad-infested there would be some unhappy parents.

What are your thoughts on a download link? I pay for a Godaddy online file service that I use to send download links to clients. Maybe share the link and they can download the video? That would eliminate the music problem. But it would introduce other problems. Maybe it couldn't handle the bandwidth if many of them try at the same time? Some of them may not be able to play an .mp4. They may not have a way to download it. They may come back 10 years later to try to download and you've removed it...

Hi David

We had the same problem with weddings being flagged by public sites like YouTube (Facebook is even worse) The solution is simple but will cost you annually but a CDN which doesn't expose the video to the public means nothing gets pinged for copyright. Even things like funerals where they play a montage of the person's favourite songs would get pinged on You Tube so we simply live broadcast to a private URL on the server and give the link to the studio.

Forgive me for being flabbergasted about some of the above comments.

So YouTube is bad because it abides by the law and above that tries to help uploaders to use copyrighted materials by offering ad revenues to the copyright holders.

While at the same time members here promote methods to avoid detection of copyright materials.

Cary, let's not be too pompous about it. Most musicians want their music to be widely recognised and appreciated and that love means dance recitals and some events will inevitably use them. Since such events can be recorded for prosperity, this creates something of a conundrum for the person recording it. Countries like the UK address this by allowing for a license for DVD productions but as yet not offering a solution for more modern distribution. Oddly, money paid for a DVD distribution license doesn't specify music choice, so such funds go only to the music industry. Upload a video to YouTube and the money does go supposedly to the artist, well some of it anyway to their label at least.

No one goes out of their way to use copyright music, but some events we require to film will have them. It's a tricky subject and one where no easy solution can be found. As I said, with YouTube, some artists choose to monetise their music and effectively grant permission for non commercial videos to use it, though commercial videos also benefit from such arrangement and such videos are still monetised.

It's not a right and wrong scenario with artists having different opinions as to how their work is used. I have had my own work ripped and used by other users and I never make a fuss. But others in my situation would. My view is, as long as no one claims my work as their own, if they wish to use it to promote their venue, fine. I want my videos to be widely seen. But others may feel differently on the subject.

It's part of the challenges we face and frustrating as if those representing the artists simply allowed a quick and easy method to use their music in such cases, I'm sure many would use it. The fact they prefer to ignore the issue, only adds to the complication.

Personally I prefer to use royalty free or paid for licensed music now. Less hassle and worry, but alas if I wish to distribute a full length video with live audio, popular music is going to be part of the product, unless butcher the audio and remove the key music heard on the day. With dance revitals, you're screwed. You can't replace the music and Parents want a video, which you have every right to be paid to film. Give a solution that satisfies that and copyright concerns and many would take it, but since there isn't always one, we are left with a mess.

Hi Steve

If you create your own content then you have a choice and can add royalty free music to your production or even no music at all. We are talking here about a dance recital where the studio chooses the music and you are simply there to film it and have no say about the music. Whether you have the people buy a DVD with copyright music or have a link to a private server with copyright music I cannot see the difference at all. You are not blatantly exposing the music on line to the general public. I mainly do wedding ceremonies and I'm sure the bride would be overjoyed if you told her she couldn't use Ed Sheeran as her walk in song and had to use some royalty free music. If that were the case she would probably say "well I won't have a video then if you can't capture it as it happens" Surely it's just as illegal to hand a client a DVD or USB with copyright music on it.

Hi Chris,

In the UK, you can pay a license fee that allows you to use copyright music for videos, but only for DVD distribution. Not sure if it includes USB and definitely doesn't include online distribution. As you saying makes no sense as a video I release privately online for the couple to view is no different than giving them a DVD. People can copy DVDs or show them to others at large get togethers. In fact I've got a few bookings from friends who saw the full length video whilst visiting the couple. No different than them giving a password over to an online video.

When I create my own content, I use royalty free or licensed music, but for Weddings I am more limited. My Full Length contains natural audio and so obviously contains copyright music for the Ceremony, couple entrance to the Wedding Breakfast, 1st Dance and of course if they have a band, they're singing covers of copyright music.

If I was delivering short 20 min videos my options would be easier. Less need for live audio. But if I get ask to film and include in full, a Michael Jackson tribute singer doing a 40 minute set, I've got no choice other than to refuse and which case, they'll go elsewhere.

The UKs current license for handling this is limited and could use modernising. Especially as DVD production is becoming a thing of the past for many video companies.

Hi Steve

Our laws are much the same except they are so antiquated that they don't mention USB's ..You are allowed to produce up to 20 DVD's per client and they in turn are not allowed to show the video to a group of more than 20 people otherwise it's classed as a public performance!!! Of course online videos are classed as broadcasting yet every traditional videographer will put up samples on their website and use copyright music so the whole system is a joke to say the least. As we are still a British Colony I would suspect both countries would have the same system for weddings.

I was chatting to a fellow videographer in the USA and they seem to have nothing like we have so I guess they live on a knife edge for each wedding!! I wonder what the dance recital guys do about music copyright in the USA?

Dance rectitals are an unusual situation. In my corporate productions, I license the music or use royalty-free music properly licensed. YouTube still flags it even when I fill out the info. In wedding videos I do the same. If a bride asks about syncing a top 40 hit to her highlight video I say, no, if I cannot license it from one of the sites. The selection of popular music is small from those sites.
Virtually all my competitors continuously use whatever music they want with no concern or attempt to license it which gives a big advantage over me.

For dance recitals my contract has the studio sign that they have proper clearance rights for wardrobe and music. Do they really? I don't know. I doubt it. I am hired to record the event.

If I were to try to clear all the songs they use in just one recital the conversation would go something like this:
Dear dance studio, it will cost me $1,700,000 and about 6 months to 3 years to clear the music, and some of the songs cannot be cleared at all. You understand and will gladly pay this and be patient during this process right? I realize little Suzy will be have left elementary school and be in Jr High by then but that is still okay, right?

Dance rectitals are an unusual situation. In my corporate productions, I license the music or use royalty-free music properly licensed. YouTube still flags it even when I fill out the info.
Youtube automatically flags it, they obviously do not know that you have a license. If you reply and provide info on the license and it is rejected that is not YouTube's fault, you need to knock on the door who licensed you the music, they are the ones rejecting it not YouTube.

Again I do not understand all this negativity about YouTube, they are the only platform that actually works with the license holders to obtain arrangements for you to actually publish unlicensed material with the price of having ads shown. Something I find entirely reasonable. And yes, some music may not be available, but most is nowadays.

I believe you will have the same problem with vimeo that you do with youtube - playing the music that the studio used on the day will get your content flagged quickly and you'll spend way too much time fighting it.

The Australian licence mentions video rather than DVD now (an attempt at modernisation?) and does allow uploading of videos to the web as long as they have a password (that came in last year) unfortunately uploading to youtube or vimeo and quoting your licence means nothing since they are in the US and operate under US law.

If Australia & the UK had a local provider, things might be dramatically different.

I'm actually considering setting up my own synology server to show my videos, while it won't have the distribution that a vimeo or youtube has - I don't need that, I only need people in my target area to be able to watch and share the videos.

Good post Paul

With events like dance recitals the object of the exercise is to provide online distribution to a select few parents only so places like vimeo and youtube who specialise in mass distribution to millions of people are not really a good suggestion as you only want to be able to distribute your content to those you have paid to watch the content. A private server would actually be ideal and with recitals you are looking at strictly local people rather than a world wide audience. With our weddings we do have overseas audiences so mirror servers are often needed as we could have people in Brazil and the UK who want to watch our live stream but need it private. Would a standard USA web host site not work or are those too slow for video? My web host in LA gives me unlimited space and more importantly unlimited bandwidth for a low price but I'm not sure how it would handle a few hundred people all watching an event at the same time?

Even Vimeo cause me grief now - Ironically last year one video I made was specifically for the UK copyright agency - they didn't want just the usual audio recording, they wanted the video - this increased the circulation, so I popped it on Vimeo and sent them the URL and the password. Vimeo pulled it for copyright reasons. It contained material that was flagged as protected. Indeed it was, and that is what it was for! It is getting very silly now. I popped it on my music download server and that worked fine. As to bandwidth charges? I have no idea as my agreement doesn't seem to make finding out this info very easy?

Hi Paul

I have been with Powweb for the last 18 years and when I log onto their control panel for the usual domain and website management mine does have a section which tells me how much space I have used and what my limit is and then what bandwidth I have used and also my limit but both limits are "unlimited"

Australia web hosts are pathetic with bandwidth allocations but the USA have such huge server farms they don't seem to worry about bandwidth in most cases. For our videos we use Livestream because our subscription account has unlimited storage and unlimited live viewers which is quite important as some of our gigs might only have 50 viewers and some as many as 15,000 ... I know some CDN's charge for "views" rather than allowing as many as happen to watch the video.

The only question that hasn't been answered yet is IF one uploaded (even live) to a standard large web hosting company and 10,000 people decided to watch the live broadcast would the mass of viewers throttle a standard server?? That's why for now we pay over US$1000.00 per annum to host and backup our live video but because we have clients paying us it is actually a small charge only per gig!!

I suggest that if you allow a password controlled digital download from a service like google where they are forced to download rather than stream, then bandwidth is not so important. You could cut off access after several weeks to reduce the chance of misuse or unintended distribution of the password. Just to cover the plethora of formats supported by modern TV's you could make available the content in a couple of file formats.

Ian S

Can anyone provide some insight as to the legality of offering digital files/downloads/streaming in the US? I have been wanting to offer these to my dance recital studios for years, but haven't due to the complex and outdated laws.

My understanding is that the studios are responsible for the fees associated with the music copyrights (BMI, ASCAP & SESAC). Even those are limited as it appears that they are only good for one production per year???

As videographers, we have to deal with obtaining a video sync license (to sync our video with their copyrighted music) and a master use license, and possibly more ...

Has anyone consulted with an IP attorney to know exactly what's involved with protecting ourselves and our many customers who will ultimately share our (possibly illegal) video all over the internet?

The laws are definitely lagging behind the times, and I'm worried that this huge movement away from discs to online viewing/downloading/sharing may cause some serious damage to the small businesses that rely heavily on this income for survival.

Thoughts?

Hi Jane

Before you even consider obtaining a legal online download system in the USA, may I ask how legal are your DVD's you distribute. As far as I know with US copyright even producing DVD's isn't 100% legal as far as the copyright owners are concerned or can you get a sync licence that adequately covers you 100% when you sell DVD's ?

You are correct, Chris. As I mentioned, my understanding is videographers are supposed to get sync licenses, master use licenses, and possibly others, which is what I was looking to others to see if they've gone down the legal path. What I'm hearing from most is DVDs/Blu-rays was the lesser of two evils being, I guess, less risky; but, customers don't want that and computers don't come with DVD/Blu-ray players anymore. And, as we know, once it is shared online, it becomes much more risky for all involved. Since my last post, I came across an article about proposed legislation: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/28/business/media/music-copyright-digital-services.html, which refers to the Music Modernization Act of 2018: https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/2334?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22music+modernization+act%22%5D%7D&r=3. Until then...???

Thanks Jane

Yeah I would be pretty sure that people who shoot dance recitals and sell DVD's don't pay the required prices for using the music .. seriously, if they did it would be thousands and thousands more than they actually make from the performance. I don't really know what the answer is but I could never see videographers going thru channels to obtain clearance ..For the ones I used to do I simply filmed them and the studio did the distribution ..I figured that way if there was a copyright claim the studio would need to sort it out. I see a lot of videographers just charge the studio for their time and parents pay a fee added into their daughter's dance lessons ...then the DVD's are sorta free but I have no idea how legal that is?? The BIG problem is that if others are doing recitals they would be reluctant to say "This is how I get away with it" so you will never know.

I used to do that, until a legal friend of mine pointed out that the law (at least in the UK) doesn't allow the responsibility to be passed on. Who does the deed is apparently how the law sees it. If you client says Can you add the ABBA songs to that video please, I'll take full responsibility and get the clearances, AND they put it in writing - if they don't, then you did the deed, and you are the one who is liable. I'm pretty sure this is common in most legals systems. After all, the hit-man does the murder, and the time, no matter who paid them.

Hi Paul

I see your point! However there is still no easy solution in most countries ! We now have a licence in Australia that allows you to put videos online as long as they have a password. However the moment you host it on any non Australian site you are back to square one as YouTube works on USA law so even if you could find a server locally It will more than likely cost an arm and a leg for decent bandwidth.

I wonder what would happen if you set up your own server as Paul Mailath hinted on, is that technically "broadcasting" ?? A private server with nothing but video files and never advertised or promoted with password protect isn't physically broadcasting or is it?? I wonder, even if that is considered broadcasting, they would still have a tough time finding your files?

Those bit rates are ridiculously high. Netflix & Amazon stream 4K video at 15-20mbps but for 1080p it’s no more than 5mbps while 720p would be 1.5-3mbps.

No - I'd say it's not broadcasting, but here, they add in extra terms to make sure it's a catchall. However wee have a version for online downloads that's quite cheap and just has a £12,500 annual income from downloads as a rule. Is there nothing like this available your side of the water?

Hi Paul

We DO have an online option now but the video does need to be password protected BUT (and that's the BIG BUT) it only covers video hosted on an Australian server so you cannot pay for your licence and set up , say, a vimeo account and password because they will ping you as they recognise USA law. I dunno about the UK but here hosting is pricey and the word bandwidth causes jitters. I host my websites on an LA server (powweb) for something like $25 a quarter and that gives me unlimited files, unlimited space and unlimited bandwidth. I think the option here was designed to cater for the wedding videographer who wants an online sample of a few minutes rather than a dance recital producer that has 4 hours of a performance with hundreds of viewers.

Nigel?? We do regular livestream weddings each week and those are sent to the stream server at 2mbps and the quality looks pretty darn good at 2mbps .. Never had a complaint from brides .. in fact I shoot a backup to card at the same time at Panasonic's 28mbps but only render that out at no more than 8 mbps as an MP4 file ..I could probably get away with 4mbps for the backup

Just found this interesting thread as I'm looking at the same options this year for my dance work. Been happily distributing via DVD however there have been a few dance studios ask about a download or USB option.

I am heading towards the USB option as that seems a lot easier route, albeit more expensive. As you say Chris, our AMCOS/APRA licences do not cover online distribution via hosting outside of Australia. I do not believe my customers are also in the position to be downloading 8GB files on their home internet NBN speeds. Some may, but I'm expecting I will get quite a few emails from unhappy parents unable to download the huge HD files of a 2.5 hour long concert. I expect that they would then ask for it on USB, defeating the purpose!

This leaves me with USB. I've been playing around with filesizes and codecs to see what is the most compatible. On my 8 yr old Sony LCD Smart TV, It refuses to play a video larger than around 4GB even though the USB is formatted for ExFat. This means I'll probably have to separate the files into Act 1 and Act 2 etc and keep the bitrate low enough in order to keep it around the 4GB mark. I've played around and 5mbps 1080p is actually pretty decent and keeps a roughly 1:45hr show to around 4.2GB. Splitting the acts up I could bump it to 10mbps and I think larger than that is overkill and would run into more compatibility issues.

Cost is a huge factor and would probably have to wear the cost of the USB as I can't see parents paying any more than they already are for DVDs. I've pushed Blu-Rays for a few years at an extra $5 but there have only been a couple of the larger dance studios that have bothered to plug it. Most of them are happy with DVDs. At this stage I can't see any of my studios going all USB instead of DVD, so I would still have to create the menus and author the DVDs along with the case artwork. So I'm not saving any time there.

If I do go down the USB route, I would have to change to a flat rate for every family. The only good thing about DVDs going by the wayside is I think a lot of people have forgotten how to pirate and/or don't own DVD drives on their computers. There's no way I'm going to do individual sales on USBs.

Has anyone actually taken this step and provide feedback from last year's run of dance concerts? I'd be interested to see how you got on.