[Randy Wheeler]

Looks like you made some major(?) changes already since your initial post or I’m getting more delusional with age. Here is a site to learn from that I like:

https://www.whiteiron.tv/demo/

Randy

[Randy Wheeler]

TV stations are using this consumer device to send live feeds from
remote locations instead of expensive satellite truck feeds:

https://www.slingmedia.com/go/slingbox

CNET News.com’s Erica Ogg visits CBS 5 in San Francisco to see how
the newsroom is using a Slingbox to get live video feeds for
traffic, weather and breaking news instead of relying on standard
news vans using satellite signals.

https://www.news.com/1606-2_3-6182261.html

To run the Slingbox users will need:

– TV Source (antenna, cable, satellite, DVR, DVD, or video camera)
– Ethernet connection from your Slingbox to your (wired or wireless)
router via an ethernet cable, wireless adapter or powerline ethernet
bridge
– PC with Microsoft Windows 2000 or XP
– Broadband Internet Connection (required for remote use only)

If you want to watch television from a mobile device you will need:

– A network which can support download speeds of 112 Kbps
(recommended). EvDO or EDGE are both acceptable
– A high capacity or an unlimited data plan from your cellular or
mobile provider
– A Windows Mobile device, such as a cell phone or PDA

While the Slingplayer software which is needed to play television
comes free with the Slingbox, users will have to cough up an extra
$29.99 for Slingplayer Mobile.

https://www.geek.com/sling-media-slingbox-personal-video-broadcaster/

Randy

[Randy Wheeler]

Well, your videos in the “projects” page do have a problem when I try to play them. After clicking on each video it takes 10-12 seconds to load while you see the word “connecting” waiting for the player to load. Plenty of connection speed here so it’s just a poor player interface design.

Also your videos are streaming from playstream.com not vitalstream.com, check your browser cache to check this. When I went to playstream.com to play their videos I had the same slow-loading player issue as yours and it uses the same player interface which is sorta lame too with the tiny scroll bar length and ugly interface design.

I would completely rework the Flash player interface maybe even change streaming services, it really turned me off right away as a fellow video professional since streaming should have no delay when initially loading. I’ve had much better experiences viewing progressive downloads demo pages compared to your current streaming demo page.

I also don’t like the audio that plays when the home page loads or the audio when scrolling over buttons, went out of style a long time ago.

Remember if you are recommending that people need to change/improve their website and to hire you then your website should be spotless for criticism.

Just trying to help out,

Randy

[Randy Wheeler]

Brendan Coots wrote: “There are many options out there, but MPEG-4 based Quicktime files have the widest support of any format, primarily because both Mac and PC users can see them.”

I don’t agree with that at all, Flash is now being used way more on websites and is far more compatible with Mac and PC’s. Just look at your own website, it uses Flash video for all your demos:

https://www.splitvisiondigital.com/portfolio.asp

By the way you might want to change the QuickTime logo that is next to the “view demo reel” text link to a Flash logo.

I’m using a PC and sometimes have problems loading QuickTime movies on websites. For example, one that works is the Digital Juice site which uses Quicktime in all their DJ product galleries and DJ Showcase section. All their tutorial videos use Flash.

Now if I go to a site like I had mentioned in my previous post:

https://brighthouseadvertising.com/man_sec/creative_s/hdcrtve.html

These QuickTime movies will not open and play when clicked on after buffering to my hard drive. I have to right click and Save As to my hard drive first then click on the file name to play them as a file using my QuickTime Pro player. This happens about half the time when I deal with QuickTime videos on websites. Why some sites with QuickTime videos work like Digital Juice and some don’t I have no idea but site with Flash always work.

By the way, I had no problem playing Aaron’s WMV videos on his site using Internet Explorer:

https://www.bigoperations.com/comreel.html

However, they would not load using Firefox. My advice to Aaron on price is to either charge by hour at your existing per hour rate or charge as much as the client is willing to pay if it’s a fixed price. First thing I ask a TV commercial client is what their budget is and go from there.

Randy

[Randy Wheeler]

It better look good with the setup they have and I’m sure the price is out of range for 99% of local businesses that need a local cable TV commercial. From their website:

“Bright House Networks HD and Film units only shoot on Eastman Kodak film stock with Panavision 16 or 35 mm cameras”

Here are few more of their demo videos, one showing a behind the scenes which will give you an idea of the production cost that is involved.

https://brighthouseadvertising.com/man_sec/creative_s/hdcrtve.html

Too bad most if not all of their QuickTime Demo movies are interlaced, it really degrades the look. All that money spent on 35mm and they can’t click a deinterlace button.

I can do that for a dollar!

Randy

[Randy Wheeler]

Bob Russell wrote: “My thought is to give them the source materials that I created and a list of the Royalty Free clips and vendor and inform them they must purchase their own license for those items to be able to use them legally. Am I correct in my thinking on this?”

I have an extensive Digital Juice stock collection of animations, video, sound effects, music and so on. Almost every project I work on has some Digital Juice content in it so how would I ever give a client any of these stock elements which are only licensed to me if they requested it? Some of these stock elements are modified by me to the extent that the original stock content would be useless to them anyways.

I certainly don’t want to direct my client to the Digital Juice website and show them what I paid for each stock element in their production and how many graphic/video/audio elements were actually used. Besides all of these stock elements are sold in large content library-type packages and not individually.

Randy

[Randy Wheeler]

Make them wait! If the client shows up an hour late, make them wait an hour before starting on their project. That gives you more time play your Nintendo Wii!

An eye for an eye…

Randy

[Randy Wheeler]

I just remembered that I was to going meet with the church a couple weeks ago to discuss pricing and basically eliminate all the “grinding” going on. I had sent an email stating the topics we’d be going over and some of the changes I needed to have done in order to continue editing the show for them. I’m sure that’s a big reason why they decided to jump on my “buy out” proposal.

I guess if you want to eliminate the “grinding” from a client, always have an out for them that you can profit from.

Randy

[Randy Wheeler]

It’s a small church and they are definitely “grinders” on the TV show I edit for them. I am currently trying to bail out of the situation and offered to build them a computer edit system based on what I use, all the project files and training on how to edit the TV show at a level that I’m currently doing for them. I’ve been doing the show for the past 6 months with no “word of mouth” work coming in from it so I don’t see that changing.

They agreed to the initial price I proposed, which is surprising considering all the past grinding, and will come up with the initial 50% payment at the end of February. Nothing is signed so I’ll just have to wait and see if that goes thru. I’m requiring 50% up front with the computer delivered and 50% before training starts which includes handing over all the project files which is over 100GB in size.

The interesting thing is that I had offered to do this months earlier after I edited a couple shows but they, out of the blue, sent me an email right after I finished the new closing stating that they would accept my offer of bringing the editing of the TV show in-house at their church. I made it clear that I would not be training them on how to do motion graphics like I did for the new closing, just editing and only editing software will be installed on this computer.

That’s one of reasons I did this new closing at a low fixed cost. I wanted to derail the weekly grinding process that was going on with the each TV show edit. Problem now is they have been holding off on editing any new shows for the past three weeks so maybe they are trying to save up money for the “buy out” proposal.

If they not come up with the money at the end of the month, should I tell them that the price I gave them is no longer valid and could possibly be raised?

Thanks for all the comments so far,

Randy Wheeler

[Randy Wheeler]

I did a music video a couple years back that was supposed to be used in a DVD documentary about this Grammy award winning musician but it ended up not being used and it hasn’t been posted on his website yet. Would there be any legal issues posting that music video on my website demo reel or DVD demo reel? Do I have a right to use the music in the music video for demo purposes? What about posting it on YouTube? He’s also an actor and has been in several big movies.

Randy