Free HDV Footage Network

[Christopher C. Murphy]

Ok, so we all have HDV footage..

Here are the reasons we should consider sharing HDV footage:

- Free is for me, you too? There are stock HD footage DVD's going for lots of $$$ on Ebay. They have some good clips and some useless too. We can share and get what we want for free.

- Regional footage that you couldn't get otherwise unless you went on a trip. Last year Heath asked me for some regional HDV footage of New England. I can easily get that to him if we have a simple system for sharing. Let's make it really easy.

- Broadband. I've got it and I'm assuming most on here do. Let's do a count...me first, I have broadband. Do you?

- Share what you want...like I know for a fact that I can offer scenic mountains, streams, nature and beach footage to anyone that wants it. I don't have immediate access to city-type footage - and I want some! I'd really like to get some busy streets, tall buildings, crazy city action.

Ok, those are some basic reasons for us to share free HDV footage. By the way, whoever wants to sell their footage should do that too! This is just our own little on-going free network...nothing against people wanting to make money with stock footage. I just don't have the money to buy any since I spend all my money on equipment!

How to do it?

- FTP sites on our computers. Macs have FTP sharing already, and PC's can download "Serv-U" for free (or cheap, i forget what it costs..a couple bucks)

- Email. I just opened up my Yahoo! email this morning and whoopie....2 GIGS of space. I spent the money ($29 a year) and now it's 2 GIG! If we all get Yahoo! Plus accounts we can use it to share GIGS of HDV clips all the time. I'd say my average clip is 400-500 megs.

- P2P networks, probably the easiest way is to start a simple P2P using all the free software out there. If anyone has any suggestions?? I use Limewire, but I'm sure you can "direct connect" with something out there?

- Old school postal mail -- DVD sharing. We each burn a few data DVD's of raw HDV footage and send it out via the postal mail and then you send it along to someone else. This one makes the most sense if we want to do like once a year instead of on-going. We could have a "HDV footage Mail Party" or something.

The postal one would only require everyone to post their addresses or maybe we could email Chris Hurd our address and he's compile a password protected area where we can check off who's got footage? I guess we could get a list of people's addresses via email? There must be an easy way to have addresses available without being public?

Anywho, I could start it by burning 2-3 DVD's and sending it to the first name on the list. All you have to do is open your mail...take what you want, and then send the DVD's to the next name on the list! All we pay is shipping costs. (It sounds like some marketing scam?!) lol

Soooo...now the discussion begins (I hope!). Please take all these bullet points as a frame of reference. Let's try and figure out what works best, so we can all have unlimited access to free HDV footage....ideally, with an on-going basis! (Even the big shot high-end HD guys don't have a free footage network setup!!)

Murph