Mike Piontek
Forum Replies Created
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Aside from the fact that people really aren’t buying much of anything right now, it would be nice to have something to compare my product to that people were buying. But, to my knowledge, there is nothing else out there that performs the same function. Instead of trying to compete with other products, I found what I perceived to be a need and filled it. People may be afraid of it because of the fact that there is nothing else to compare it to.
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Well, I did say I threw the video together rather quickly. The next one will have someone with more “appeal”, I hope.
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I did check for trademarks and such on the name Quicksets and found none. This product was always aimed at the little guy. I would say that 90% of the stuff I’ve seen as far as quick promos and message type videos over the last few years was single shot, talking head sort of stuff. This is mainly what the little guy does. Most of these videos use the same shot throughout; never changing angles or zoom. I wanted to put the ability to create unique, personalized sets in their hands. I would love to do what you suggest but that’s a bit out of my reach for now, cost wise. I can barely afford to hire myself. Only 2%?
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Thanks, Alex. There is a Zoom function but it’s kind of stuffed into the upper right corner of the tool bar. You’re the second one so far that has mentioned a blur. I did a lot of thinking about what to include as far as effects and such. There are a lot of things that I could add but it would wind up being a lot more complicated and ease of use was one of my goals. Blur was one of the attributes that didn’t make it. I left things out that could be easily done in the editor. My goal was to be able to create a background set and overlays, if desired with the least amount of work and prerequisite knowledge. I’m hoping to eventually get enough user feedback to determine what to add and remove. I’m always open to changes.
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True. It could also use a lead-in to grab the viewer. I put that one together in kind of a rush and need to spend a little more time on a better one. It’s also pretty fuzzy at the beginning. I used Premiere Elements 4 to assemble it since it had a nice “direct to YouTube” save feature. I normally use Vegas and have been for years.
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Okay, it’s been grabbed. I’ll get the DNS set up and change the site to reflect the new name. Thanks, Ron.
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Thanks, Todd. It’s good to get some feedback from someone more “in the know” about these things than me.
Define your market: You’re exactly right. It was planned from the beginning to be aimed at the home user, schools, churches and the like. As you say, it really doesn’t do anything that a good photo editor can do but it takes away all the headaches that go along with them; cost, learning curve, etc…
Improve your product: I agree. I’m not the worlds best graphic artist, far from it, actually, very far from it. But I figured that the graphics would be suitable since most of what will be created from them will wind up as a 360×240 YouTube video anyway. I wasn’t looking to see my product used on Monday Night Football. As far as the elements looking artificial, I think it has to come with the territory. Trying to create 3D images that can be mixed and matched is not easy. There are some trade-offs dealing with camera angles and perspective that had to be made in order to make the pieces appear to fit together. I’ll work on this.
Revisit your pricing: You’re probably right here. I based the pricing on research into the cost of pre-made virtual sets. Even the cheap ones look cheesier than my stuff. But, as you pointed out, this is not for the high or mid level producer that would normally be the market for those sets. I guess it’s price drop time.
Revisit your website: I’ve been working on corporate web sites since they were invented. I’ve been in hardware and software for over 30 years. I don’t think I would be very good at “funning up” a site. But I do see your point so I’ll work on that too.
I really appreciate your input. It’s finally given me a perspective from someone who knows what they’re talking about.
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So you’re saying that any derivative of “quicksets” is not safe to use? I was considering something like videoquicksets. But the purpose of my site is not competing with another existing site. Quicksets.com is taken, but not apparently used. Quicksets.net is an open domain name. Would that work?
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You see, I told you I was new to this marketing thing. The product is called QuickSets. To put it simply, it’s a Windows application that allows the user to create their own custom virtual video sets. It’s done by combining pre-rendered image elements into a scene to create a completed set. The website is at https://www.myquicksets.com. The sample video is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvb0r-5S0dI.
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I’m not an expert on this one but the differences are basically between ‘straight’ and ‘premultiplied’ alpha channels. Premultiplied applies the alpha information to each color individually as opposed to using the straight alpha channel value for each pixel. If you google ‘premultiplied alpha’ you can find lots of explanations on it’s effects and use.