Member's Area Movie Sizes?
 

Is there a modern standard for the size of movies in a paysite member's area? Should movies be clipped to quickly downloadable, yet un-enjoyable, lengths. Or should they be left fully intact and miserably slow to download? Perhaps both?

I need answers! |smooch|

For our sites, we typically offer 3 different options in WMV format. Our newer stuff is all in high-definition but with the older stuff we also have an MPG option. MPG and high-def doesn't seem to work well together.

From my experience with review sites, the more movie options you offer, the better score you will get. I think its better to offer a lower quality option for the members with slow connections, then to cut them clips into a bunch of smaller files. Most people these days have faster connections and can download the full length clips and they want high quality because of the popularity of HD video. Our biggest clips are huge, 1440x1080 and get up to 500MB for a scene.

Ouch! Holy bandwidth hog |greenbat

Thanks, Beaver Bob.

Doing these sizes at FoxyAngel in one movie file.
Giant 960x540
Large 640x360
Med 480x270
Small 320x180
WMVMed 480x272
iPod 320x240
iPhone 480x320

Now that's a LOT of options. I was really hoping to do, well, less. |loony|

The sizes have developed over the years based on member feedback. Typical update is around 1 gig with all the sizes.

I think if you offer at least 2, you are doing fine. For SD, something like 720x480 and then a smaller 320x240 is good.

Cool topic.. I am interested to see what other folks who run paysites are doing.

Since we have the topic running, I may as well ask about photo sizes too.

My raw images are 2300x3500. That seems huge to me. Those puppies weigh in the area of 1MB+/- each. Should I knock them down to 1500 or so? It's not a glamour site like Hegre where poster size pics are common.

Doing them 1200 on the long side lately.

same. a few sites we do 1500 on the long side.

What I do for a couple of our sites is offer maybe 10 of the best shots in the raw full-size quality for members who like the very high-res photographs.

Some of my main sponsors have also started adding flash versions which are generally 2 sizes by low/high quality in their members areas.

Gotta keep up with the tubes, plus I guess you can sorta watch it as it streams.

My initial idea was to have a streaming Flash version of each movie with a download link to the wmv. I thought I was being revolutionary, but I guess I've been beaten to the punch once again.
Excellent. I knew the photos from the one site were too damn big but I wasn't sure by how much. I'll probably bring them down to 1500 on the long side. On the second site, the photos are 1500x1800 and I may just leave them at that, depending on my laziness level when I watermark them.

Yeah, 2 sizes for movies is usually fine. A large 640x480 (unless you have hi-def) and smaller. Be sure the higher ones are a good bitrate, 1500-2000. Again hi-def larger.

Pictures at 1200 should be fine too. I just did one set at 1500 but think it might be too big.

movie sizes, went to 100mb.

Well look who's become Uncle Pennybags! |pimpin

Pokers in the fire.|juggle|

RIF

Yeah I think 2 sizes . Large and Small would be sufficient. Somewhere between 640 and 720 for the Large and possibly 320 for the smaller.

Yeah I always wonder, too, what others do and if there is an unspoken "standard".

I render my videos in a large widexcreen 720x480 WMV at a bitrate of about 2000 and an mp4 for Ipod at the same dimensions.

We get frustrated though, because even then they don't always come out as clear as we'd like and we're not sure if it's the settings or the cameras or lighting conditions etc..

Used to offer a smaller 320x240 lowband WMV but I've stopped on the (perhaps mistaken, I admit -- I can't seem to get any member feedback, but neither have I had complaints) assumption that by now, most people have a fast enough connection to handle it. File sizes generally run 100 MBs for 10 minute videos.

Pix are usually 1200 on the long side.

Mina

A bit off topic but could you please recommend any tools to resize and watermark videos?
Thanks in advance

I use Episode Pro but it is Mac only.

Videocharge works real well if you're looking to simply manipulate the video files. It's not that expensive either at $30 for the basic version, and $100 for the full version.

Some of the features:

- watermarking
- splitting/joining
- make thumbnails
- convert/resize

Virtualdub and can do just about anything and it's free, the downside being that it's not very user-friendly.

Hope that helps... |smurf|

Yes

We have 5 sizes - maximum 1920õ1080 4000 kbps

Since our customers seem to demand and appreciate video more, we don't do much in the way of photos anymore. When we do, they're 800x1200, though I'm thinking to raise that to 1200x1600.
Video also offers the opportunity for extra revenue streams.

Our clips are 640x480, encoded at 2000kbps. The clip I have sitting in front of me runs 5:49 and weighs 85mb. Holding out on 16:9 right now, mainly because my own monitors are 4:3, so I find it personally annoying.

Normally only have 720x480 or 640x480 myself. Never had any complaints about that although some of the files are 1gig and above.

Lately we've been posting four versions of our videos:

Two .wmv versions: one 640x480/2000 kbps, the other 320x240/400 kbps

Two .mp4 versions: one 640x480/3800 kbps, the other for ipods 320x240/384 kbps

The mp4s look awesome, I think, even the small ones.

I don't know if we'll keep up all four of those, though. I'm thinking of at least dropping the small .wmv file.

We tried shooting in widescreen but stopped; it just seemed really unnecessary/didn't add anything to the jerkworthiness of our vids. I guess it really depends on the style of your videos and feeling of your sites. I would scope out your competition on thebestporn.com and see what they are doing and try not to fall too far below what is par for the course in your niche.

I'd like to add a flash version, but a few things are making me want to wait on that, mainly that we just don't have the time and computer resources to have our machines and connections tied up so long processing and uploading so much video.