Stock Footage Trading?
 

I myself, have needed some stock footage in which I couldn't shoot myself due to the landscape where I live and things like that. I know none of us really like to pay for stock footage if we don't have to.

So I came to this conclusion:

Scince a lot of us have XL2's and we are spread out around different regions of the world. Why can't we start a Stock Footage trade group?

Maybe I can't get this perfect shot because of where I am located, but another person on the community can get the shot perfect, and vice versa.

I think it would work quite well and scince it will be a trade then we can save some money on stock footage and it will be a helpful addition to the community.

The only thing that could keep us from doing it is filesizes, but if people would help we could get several FTP's set up and once we get it up and started then it should take off.

Just a thought guys. I figured it would be something nice to do if we can get something together!

Great idea. Maybe a token Paypal contribution for membership to cover costs, or some such scheme as that? Even a couple bucks might be enough of a barrier to keep a lot of the riff raff out while helping the webmaster to avoid sinking into poverty? Just thinking out loud. ;-)

A password protected FTP would also work as long as those of us sharing are willing to keep the password secure.

I agree.
PayPal don't work in this part of the world - normal VISA will do the trick.

To build a little futher on the orginal concept, a place to request video footage of items or subjects would also be great. This would allow those on a trip or just extra time on their hands to know what someone is looking and might be able to help out.

superb, would definatley be up for this.......

I'd also be very interested in this, but....

I don't have an XL2 :-(

But I can shoot lots of stock footage with my GL2....

Nice to hear that people are interested. We need to try to get a nice setup to start it.

First we would need people willing to run FTP's so people can get the files. As for a startup fee, as long as we keep it relatively cheap it should work nice. We will need someone to take care of that aswell.

I am willing to run an FTP from my comp. I wont be able to run it 24/7 though so it will either have to be upon request or a daily/weekly time when I will have it on.

Anyone else willing to run an FTP? Can anyone take care of paypal stuff? Also, as for people like Nico van Tonder and those that cannot us paypal, what could we do for them?

Hi

quick question tough (my motherlanguage is not english)
What exactly IS stock footage?

greets
Tim

<<<-- Originally posted by Tim Commeijne : Hi

quick question tough (my motherlanguage is not english)
What exactly IS stock footage?

greets
Tim -->>>

It is footage of corn growing in the fields. Oh wait.....that's stalk footage. :)

Seriously it is like a library of different shots that editors and producers like to have on hand to use when there is not time or ability to go "film" footage. For example if a news program want to do a piece on earthquakes and they want some "earthquake" footage it would be just about impossible the go film one for the show. So they go to their stock footage and find previous footage of eartquakes to use in the piece. This footage is not free and usually cost money.

Would it be easier to post preview clips of the footage on an ftp server, then use another method to transfer the files when someone needs a particular one?

I'm just thinking out loud. I think that initially there might not be enough demand/footage to warrant putting everything up. Unless the server will be specifically oriented for requests.

What about using a direct connect hub? I don't know very much about networking, but maybe that would work better?

I could also put up an ftp, but only during limited hours...stupid comcast is always resetting my connection to prevent doing such a thing...

If enough people are interested thought, it could be pretty cheap to buy some real server space.

PayPal will now accept credit cards even if the user does not have a PayPal account. It falls under the Merchant Account settings. Basically any legit credit card "should" be accepted by PayPal. The problem with S. Africa is that so many internet scams originate from there, many companies (like PayPal) just refuse to do business with them. Hopefully they will take Visa from a respectable bank there though.
I think it sounds like a super idea but a problem I see is that the bandwidth would be enormous and most ISP's disallow that kind of file sharing. I have a 6Mb/s download speed but only a 512Kb/s upload speed so restrictions like that could make file transfers quite sluggish, especially when it's full rez video.
Great idea, I'll think on it some more...

Hey guys, if PayPal etc isn't really needed, we don't need to be locked into that idea, either. I just wondered out loud about it in case cost, or "riff raff" would be a concern. If we have a simpler, no-cost means to accomplish this, so much the better.

If someone is really ready to take this on as webmaster, think it through based on your assets/capabilities and let us know what your needs will be. Who knows, maybe somebody has the server space / bandwidth (which would be A LOT!) available to them and all we need is to do is decide together what level of security we want?

Another possibility is sponsorship...maybe DVinfo sponsors, or even a Big Dog like Canon would kick in? Never know.

To Rhett Allen

You said on this forum : “The problem with S. Africa is that so many internet scams originate from there, many companies (like PayPal) just refuse to do business with them. Hopefully they will take Visa from a respectable bank there though”

I regard that remark as an insult to me and my country, uttered by a person who most probably do not even know where South Africa is and obviously do not realise that the South African banking system is one of the most advanced in the world. We had ATM’s before Switzerland knew it existed.

I would appreciate it very much if you could supply me with the facts about these “many internet scams originate from there” as you put it. I am talking about facts – not stuff you suck out of your thumb, but facts about this country you know nothing about.

In no country on earth are there more identity thefts, credit card number thefts, bank frauds, internet scams and just plain criminal behaviour than the USA.

If you are interested I would e-mail you the history of the Mafia (Cosa Nostra) in Texas in particular.

I could give you many facts about such scams in the USA in general and Texas in particular.

"The Internet Fraud Complaint Center (IFCC) is a partnership between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C)."

WASHINGTON -- A new generation of scam artists has taken to the Internet, e-mailing for money, creating look-alike sites, and stealing your personal information.

About half of the Federal Trade Commission's top ten consumer frauds of the year have an Internet connection. But they share a common thread with brick-and-mortar scams, says Howard Beales, director of the agency's consumer protection bureau.

Identity theft again tops the FTC's list, making up 43 percent of the 380,000 complaints lodged into the FTC's Consumer Sentinel database of complaints from government agencies and consumer-protection organizations. Consumers attribute $343 million in losses to consumer fraud in 2002.

Austin police are warning online sellers of high priced items of a new scam going around. (Do you know where Austin is??)

Attorney General Greg Abbott Warns Texas Consumers About Rising Number of Internet Scams.

The reason PayPal is not operational here is that there is no demand for it. There are thousands of other companies doing business with credit cards transactions and money transfers from South Africa.

To the rest of you guys:

I am willing to support this venture by rigging up a server in Pretoria to serve as a mirror (if necessary).

The PayPal story is not an issue. I ordered a 7" Panasonic LCD monitor for the XL2 from NebTek in Salt Lake City 2 weeks ago and received it the day before Christmas by means of a telegraphic transfer of funds - and then I am not talking about all the software I downloaded the past 4 - 5 years where I paid by credit card.

I suggest that if credit cards is a problem we could deposit money into the accounts of one of the moderators, Chris Hurd, etc.

Just give me details of the PC and the software we must use, etc., because I have never done it before.