[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Hey Sebastiaan,

Setting aside that every dry hire facility that I know of in London (UK) is currently having a very hard time, and prices dropping like a stone due to cheaper equipment and too much availability.

However, even if you have a market with no competition, then there are issues to consider which the software won’t be able to do for you:
1) Will the person renting the kit know how to use it?
2) Insurance – you need to manually check and verify every application before a hire. Unless you sell it as part of the hire?
3) Although automated, all kit have to be unpacked and checked for faults and repacked for the next hirer. Not forgetting to charge batteries and erase cards.
4) T&C’s – especially to make sure that client doesn’t sue when they’ve forgotten to copy footage of the cards that you’ve just erased…
5) Check your own insurance before putting anything online. Are you allowed to advertise that the equipment in your premises? Do you need additional preventive measures to secure the hire kit?

Not wanting to discourage you, just setting out some of the issues that can be quite costly. So if this is a secondary business to make a bit of “pocket” money on your investment, then maybe you should think again.

All the Best
Mads

@madsvid, London, UK
Check out my other hangouts:
Twitter: @madsvid
https://mads-thinkingoutloud.blogspot.co.uk

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Hey Sammy,

Respect for trying to do the digital to VHS to digital conversion the hard way.

There can be a number of reasons as to why your signal is monochrome, including frame size, frame rate, copy protection (Not all DVD players will allow recording of their signal), Sync etc.

I would suggest either:
1) Shop around for a USB to composite video out – there should be quite a few of those around and should not break the bank.
2) Use a “BAD TV” effect in AE. It is free and comes as standard. Alternatively there are third party plugins that will emulate VHS/1980’s television.
3) Go to places like pond5 where you can purchase effect footage such as “TV Noise VHS” on a loop starting for overlaying on top of your video starting from only $10.00 – just searched and found several different variations.

Hope this helps.

All the Best
Mads

@madsvid, London, UK
Check out my other hangouts:
Twitter: @madsvid
https://mads-thinkingoutloud.blogspot.co.uk

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Hey Josh,

Rule number one if you want to keep your idea: Do not share it in public!

Unfortunately I am in the UK, but the idea sounds interesting. Although great telly normally comes out of people who are not conventional.

Rather than looking to show it to the nation, you should set up a YouTube channel and show it to the world instead. This will also give you freedom to tweak the format to perfect.

Good Luck

All the Best
Mads

@madsvid, London, UK
Check out my other hangouts:
Twitter: @madsvid
https://mads-thinkingoutloud.blogspot.co.uk

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Hey Richard,

You’re right, that was cheap and easy point scoring. Might have been funny (or sarcastic), but not intended to be hurtful.

However, the message remains the same: It is not difficult to create a new holding pictures/slates for the like of YouTube without having to steal or borrow someones artistic work.

All the Best
Mads

@madsvid, London, UK
Check out my other hangouts:
Twitter: @madsvid
https://mads-thinkingoutloud.blogspot.co.uk

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Richard, oh dear, it is the “we are not creative today” time…

Creatively, short of offering your 5 year old neighbour $20 for getting the crayons out, let me give you an example of how a NEW picture can easily be created using a basic camera setup, to be put in a placeholder of a YouTube video.

This example is specifically for that of a tourist board video:
1) If you don’t have smartphone or a digital still camera, borrow or hire one for item 2.
2) Journey to a beautiful local spot – may I suggest using a cycle, just to keep it green.
3) Point the camera lens at something beautiful, not your self.
4) Look through the capture window or on screen to see if picture is sharp? If not, adjust accordingly, although some people like out of focus pictures.
4.5) Be careful that no people in the picture can be recognized or are on private land, or Mr Richard Herd will tell you that you will need a release note, or it will cost you money, or you must hire a professional photographer to make NEW image.
5) Press button to take picture.
6) Take several pictures, don’t waste your journey. Make a library of pictures.
7) Get on your bike and go home.
8) Transfer picture from camera to the computer that you are using for managing your YouTube account on.
9) If picture is in a file format known as JPeg, you should be able to use it straight away. Otherwise you’ll need to convert it.
9.5) There are FREE software that will open your NEW image and let you save it as a JPeg should the original be different.
10) In the Video manager for the clip on YouTube select the point where you can upload your own image – use said image.

And that is the simple way of getting a NEW image for your YouTube clip.

Happy to do a Q&A if the above wasn’t clear enough 😀

All the Best
Mads

@madsvid, London, UK
Check out my other hangouts:
Twitter: @madsvid
https://mads-thinkingoutloud.blogspot.co.uk

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Hey Tao,

You need a converter and a analogue SD to Digital HD up-scaler box in one, which I suspect may cost you more money than the camera itself (or hiring a camera with HD-SDI out). Even if you do get the box, there is no guarantee that the picture will look good in the up-scaled format.

Alternative, and I don’t know the specific model so no promises, you could try and see if the Firewire will give you a live HDV signal. Then at least you should only need a converter from FW to SDI, rather than down-converting to S-Video and then up-converting to HD-SDI.

All the Best
Mads

@madsvid, London, UK
Check out my other hangouts:
Twitter: @madsvid
https://mads-thinkingoutloud.blogspot.co.uk

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Hey Mike,

My bad, you’re right, in my haste to reply I missed the word “not” in there.

Having said that, the example video from John had plenty of public archive footage in it. Which one should always be cautious about using for commercial purposes.

All the Best
Mads

@madsvid, London, UK
Check out my other hangouts:
Twitter: @madsvid
https://mads-thinkingoutloud.blogspot.co.uk

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

[Richard Herd] ” I assume you mean take a picture of the video screen and then display that picture”

You assume wrongly, let me repeat: “create new images from scratch” – the keyword is “new”, not reproduction.

All the Best
Mads

@madsvid, London, UK
Check out my other hangouts:
Twitter: @madsvid
https://mads-thinkingoutloud.blogspot.co.uk

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Hey John,

Well done for helping your sons out to reach that Grammy – no shame in doing that.

However, what you are proposing can have a serious and detrimental impact on your sons careers.

Why?
Because you are generating a product with the intention of helping them progress professionally. And you want to create that product be using other peoples content without paying for it – that would be the same as your sons using known songs and tunes from the likes of Michael Jackson, Beatles, Rolling Stones etc and calling that their own – if that happens, your sons will in all likelihood end with a $million dollar lawsuit and no musical career.

Sorry to say it, but you need to make do with what you’ve got, or get your camera our, or pay for footage. Although, you may find that some of the libraries (NOT Artbeats) such as NASA will allow you to use elements of their footage for free for the right cause.

All the Best
Mads

@madsvid, London, UK
Check out my other hangouts:
Twitter: @madsvid
https://mads-thinkingoutloud.blogspot.co.uk

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Hey Addie,

Although I suspect that the other side of the argument feels that they have an valid argument for removing the materials, here is a few more opinions on how your case could be resolved:

First; you should ask the supplier directly what have changed now, in comparison to what you’ve done previously? And to why this is happening now?

However, if the supplier have previously allowed you knowingly to use stills to promote the videos, then that is what you should continue to do. By originally allowing you to use the stills, it could be argued that the supplier entered into a contractual agreement for you to use the images for promoting the videos.

At a long stretch, but a good argument to test out in court, the videos might have been edited in such a way that only bad images comes up on the auto selection on YouTube and that this has created an issue where the videos cannot be used for the purpose that they were intended for – in which case, the supplier should either fix it, or pay back the cost for producing the videos – that is if a mutually agreeable arrangement cannot be found.

You could also just create new images from scratch to create new stills for the front end of the videos – should be doable with a digital camera, or even a smart phone. This would remove the argument completely and remind you not to use that supplier ever again. Maybe even put a note out to other similar organizations.

All the Best
Mads

@madsvid, London, UK
Check out my other hangouts:
Twitter: @madsvid
https://mads-thinkingoutloud.blogspot.co.uk