Sell your work on Vimeo ..

[Allan Black]

.. this might encourage more local indie production. u-tube will be next imo .. with cheaper fees.

http://vimeo.com/ondemand/

Cheers.

[Murray Christian]

Youtube already does it. See, for instance:

Wake in Fright - YouTube

I'm not sure what the cut is or the buy in or whatever. Vimeo might be more indie/amateur friendly. An interesting idea anyway. Definitely worth keeping an eye on.

[Matt Sharp]

You're required to have a Vimeo Pro account ($200/year) which takes a chunk out of potential earnings.

I think YouTube Rentals is a better idea. YouTube Rentals Beta (US Only) - YouTube

[Ryan Douthit]

I set mine up. Looks great! (Much better than YouTube rentals - which I also have available.)

https://vimeo.com/ondemand/subiesport

[Gary Nattrass]

At $200 a pop to join in I bet someone is making a lot of money out of this!

[Sareesh Sudhakaran]

It's great to see Vimeo trying to help. At the moment, though, nothing beats Amazon, and they don't even charge you.

[Ryan Douthit]

Originally Posted by Gary Nattrass

At $200 a pop to join in I bet someone is making a lot of money out of this!

I was already a Pro member prior to this feature rolling out. Even prior to VOD being available I considered it worth the $200/year.

[Ryan Douthit]

Originally Posted by Sareesh Sudhakaran

It's great to see Vimeo trying to help. At the moment, though, nothing beats Amazon, and they don't even charge you.

Are you referring to the service that requires you send in a DVD through Createspace for SD streaming? Or have they updated that archaic system?

[Sareesh Sudhakaran]

Originally Posted by Ryan Douthit

Are you referring to the service that requires you send in a DVD through Createspace for SD streaming? Or have they updated that archaic system?

Yes, the very same! This 'archaic' system still trounces any other online distribution system on the planet - movies or otherwise.

As a second option, I recommend Youtube, which allows you a full 1080p upload of your movie if you're in 'good standing'. No direct money, but if your movie is really popular...

I would warn filmmakers to think hard before they commit to something like Vimeo, or any such service that wants money to host your movie. There are many other channels out there who will do the same for free. Vimeo will not market your movie, but whatever marketing efforts you put will directly and indirectly benefit Vimeo. How is this any different from hosting your movie on your own website?

I'm not trashing Vimeo, mind you, just that you need to be aware of the business model before you commit. We need to keep the PRO service (which is cool) from 'the next best thing for indie filmmakers' (which Vimeo is not). There's lots of fish in this sea.

As an aside, I'd take an 8 Mbps SD-DVD over an 8 Mbps 1080p video.

[Heath McKnight]

Originally Posted by Matt Sharp

You're required to have a Vimeo Pro account ($200/year) which takes a chunk out of potential earnings.

I think YouTube Rentals is a better idea. YouTube Rentals Beta (US Only) - YouTube

Ugh... I was ready to sign up, but... You're better off going with CreateSpace for free and even though Amazon takes a bigger cut, you're not responsible for upfront fees.

heath

[Ryan Douthit]

If I have to take my digital file, burn it to a DVD, ship that DVD to someone, then three weeks later they 'rip' a digital file from it and post in in SD... I'd say that's pretty much the definition of archaic. If you prefer the output, great, but it's far from modern and efficient. It's worth noting that I'm currently selling 15 TV episodes. That process would eat up several days for what would be meager sales on that platform. That said I *do* currently offer a video I produced several years ago on Amazon Prime, and it does about that same as any other current platform in terms of a handful of sales every month.

I have a lot of experience with digital distribution. I've been a YouTube partner since 2008 and have access to their Rental Beta. I've used it. It's not great. I used to make a lot of money from ads on YouTube, now I don't make so much (still lots of views, but they result in less CPM due to changes in the YouTube ad distribution). But, I am very familiar with the platform and I would never recommend someone post a film there. The ad model doesn't make any sense and you have as much going viral there as you do yelling about your movie in the mall (and I have 20,000 subscribers...not a lot by YouTube standards but more than many.) And that's not even getting into how easy it is to rip full HD files off of YouTube.

Now to Vimeo. I was a Pro user *before* there was ever a VOD option. So yes, to me it was very much worth $200/year before VOD was even offered. I've re-upped my Pro status twice since it launched. I use it as a white label system to power a couple of my membership sites and doing that it's made back well more than the price of entry. So, to say they're "charging for VOD" isn't entirely accurate. What they've done is provided VOD as a feature to an already worthwhile system (for some, but not all, I understand that.)

Have you tried to get your video into the sales area of iTunes? If you just walk up to a distributor the transcode and placement fee (not including promotion) is about $1500 per episode (or feature.) Yes, if you have a distribution deal through an agent, you can probably get these waved... but not always and not everyone has an agent with the connections to do this.

Vimeo has apps already on Apple TV (and XBox Live, Roku, Samsung, Vizio, iOS, Android, Windows Mobile, etc.) and that makes for a very powerful viewing platform. Possibly the most extensive one available outside of iTunes. By this measure the $200 to me seems like a deal (even ignoring the other features the Pro package comes with.) I look forward to their upcoming VOD directory (not launched yet) to see how powerful discovery will be (for those that opt in, it's not required to host your PPV on Vimeo's URL.) If they can include a strong promotion piece it will end up being the platform to beat. If not... well, just like always, we'll be on our own to promote, promote, promote.

[Ryan Douthit]

To update this thread since I last posted: Vimeo has added a discovery page for VOD offering and I've sold a few season passes as well as single episodes without any additional promotion.