Dance Recital Video Distribution Revisited

[Pete Cofrancesco]

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.

[Chris Harding]

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

[Nigel Barker]

Originally Posted by Tracy Painter

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.

[Chris Harding]

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!!

[Tracy Painter]

Originally Posted by Pete Cofrancesco

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.

[Tracy Painter]

Originally Posted by Chris Harding

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

Will do Chris, thanks for your input!

[Tracy Painter]

Originally Posted by Nigel Barker

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?

[Tom Van den Berghe]

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.

[Pete Cofrancesco]

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

[Jeff Philips]

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.

[Chris Harding]

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!!

[David Banner]

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...

[Chris Harding]

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.

[Cary Knoop]

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.

[Steve Burkett]

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.