this is mainly aimed at producers selling videos who are still recording in standard resolution..

not to be rude, but seeing how wer in the age of HD, and viewing clips that are still in any resolution lower than 720p... get with the program! HD cameras are as cheap as 150 bucks anywhere, which mine is 1080i and it was only 170 bucks..

especially when i still see full screen videos... who even owns a full screen monitor anymore? every laptop/desktop computer sold now is in widescreen and HD

I see how like 5 years ago when an hd camera was no cheaper than 500 but now whenever i see non-HD, i just skip right passed it since viewing it looks terrible on an HD screen

WAM is a very niche market, and its hard enough for producers to turn a profit without shelling out on equipment just because you say they should. Who the hell are you to order them to go buy a new camera?

an upgrade to hd Would make sales better... there are a number if sites which im not buying from/joining for that reason

i was trying to watch sum older vids, and i couldnt see anything because it was so small, and full screen just pixelates it even more

GM might come off a little pushy, but I kind of agree with him. Big, big difference when I watch an HD and then an SD video on my computer. It does influence my purchasing choices.

I agree with the OP, albeit perhaps not so crankily....

Sometimes, but not always, producers compress for online download in a way which kills quality. I'm a frequent downloader and far less frequent DVD buyer, but there are a couple if producers where I've been amazed by the quality of picture on source files.

One of the things I love about Slapstickstuff is his DVD quality version downloads.

Connection speeds and/or ability to playback HD clips is still a factor. On Messy Angel we offer HD and SD versions and a significant number opt for the SD version.

At some point HD will be the default option for everyone but its not quite there yet

Ah, it seems like only yesterday that we had to wait 10 mins for a jpeg from Crazygirls to download over our dial-up connection. And that seemed like a treat well worth the wait...

Never under-estimate the impatience of the modern consumer, and at the risk of getting a little "Puddy" on you all...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8r1CZTLk-Gk

Sorry, it is a little pixelated.

Unless the SD versions are cheaper, they're morons. In fact, even if the SD is cheaper, they're still morons.

My existing NTSC DV cams were about $3000 each. When I get around to replacing them with hi-def versions, the new ones will be in the neighborhood of $5000 each. Many of the high-end producers in this market are in the same boat. Those that have upgraded already have done so at considerable expense. The rest of us will get there eventually, but when you spend thousands on a camera in the first place, it doesn't wear out in a year like consumer-grade junk, so many of us are looking at abandoning perfectly good high-end DV cameras. That's not easy to justify, especially when most clips being sold today are still in DV format (720x480)

BTW, video from a new dime store "hi def" camera looks far worse than one from an older high end DV cam. Larger is not necessarily better. Cheap cams put out shitty video, regardless of the resolution.

Firstly, thanks for calling me a moron.
Secondly, because i view videos using my PS3 space is a big issue, i already have 274 clips on there, and if they were all HD i'd have run out of room looong ago.
Thirdly, when you're short of time and want something new to watch, I CBA to wait 15mins before viewing it.


Now to the OP, some simple economics and business, if production costs rise, so do prices, the higher demand that you speak of will arrive once the price has been set and the product has been brought to market (because we dont pre-order goods, we only know about them once they're already for sale). Then there is no incentive to lower the price even if sales are good.
However this would not be the case if producers are super rich, and can absorb the costs, or super confident that simply changing the camera he uses will increase demand enough to cover the costs at the current price, (which I highly doubt would be the case as many don't currently turn a profit and do this instead as a hobby)

Firstly I completely agree with Soundguy he beat me to it on that one and secondly I would like to ask where your contribution to the clip market is Gungemonkey because I see no clips or pics or anything. At least these people who are producing non HD stuff are at least producing something. This is a very amateur supported market and it's not perfect.

I'm also moving it to the producers lounge as it is more suitable there

Interesting to hear some reasons for this, although I have to admit they seem like head-scratchers to me. In my life, quality always trumps time or space issues ... although I'll concede that at the moment I haven't solved the minor inconvenience of not having the HDTV/Blu-ray setup in the "porn room." But when the Blu-ray of THE BIG DOLL HOUSE comes out in June, that'll have to get solved somehow.

And what the heck is a CBA?

CBA = Can't Be Arsed. Possibly a UK-only expression? Georgerv is right though, customers don't want to have to wait all night for a video to download, or spend megabucks on huge new hard drives to store them on (and double that for backups).

Back in the early 2000s, there was a trend for some commercial web designers to build sites that demanded the latest whizz-bang hardware and enormous (for the time) screens - they were designing sites to fit their own, very specialised, design-suite equipment. Which often left the results almost unusable on the kind of screens most ordinary people had at the time. Eventually the realisation came in that you should build sites for what the majority of your audience will have, not what you've got. It's a bit like that with doing video for sale.

Five years ago I shelled out £500 for a 3CCD 16:9 DV camera, which we still use, and which shoots decent quality video. Last year we upgraded our main still camera, we'll announce when sets shot with the new one start to appear on the site, but at the moment, given the choice between spending at least another £500 on a decent-quality HD camcorder, or shooting a whole load of scenes, we'll tend to shoot the scenes. While our equipment isn't in Soundguy's league, he's right on the button that a cheap HD rig will shoot poorer quality than a quality SD one.

The thing that sways my choice in terms of whether to buy WAM or not is very rarely the tech specs of the video gear. I'd far rather watch an SD scene where the clothes are right, the camera is steady, the camera angles let me see what I want to see, and the previews and description tell me that the scene will contain what I want, than an HD one with camera shake, or angles that block the money shots (you would be amazed how many producers manage to do this!), or outfits that don't work for me.

I think the trick in this market is to know your own niche, know your audience and shoot for them, pay attention to feedback and comments, esp from actual paying customers, and make sure you do your own thing to the highest quality you possibly can with the gear you already have. Upgrades are nice, but unless you're pulling in big bucks, not always affordable.

i havent uploaded any clips cuz the wifi connection im using downloads at 600kbps but only uploads at 80kbps.. and i have a 15 mintues HD videos that takes a while and with no prgress bar, i cant tell when its done... the pics show the resolution.. i use flourencent lighting which the camera records perfect to.. the dark levels are gritty but turning down the ISO helps a lot

but its 2011.. not 1999, an iPhone 4 can record 1280x720... 720p that is, and i get that a GOOD hd camera with a built in hard drive, zoom mics, scope lens, and true black levels can cost a bit, but higher resolution Does mean better quality..

Size Does Matter.. the bigger, the more people satisfied... wow, that sounded sexual but whatever

I have recently upgraded to an HD camera. I did it because I know that some people want clips in HD.

I have run some tests with it although it will be some time before I can shoot at mudpits with it.

Yes. The files are big.

They're huge. And humongous. Large, too.

I guess I can always rez 'em down.

Nessie

good cameras compress the files if they have a hard drive, but any hd camera with just an SD card records in uncompressed format so they can save While recording.. thats why i use an editing program to cut n compress

1gb down to 300 mb is a big difference

I understand the call for HD, but content is always king. If users don't like the clip, they won't buy it. But if the content is great, they'll even buy standard def clips.

(Messy Kelly, although in SD, is our #2 seller... behind Sploshme.com which is HD since 2008 or so.)

We've paid $3,000-$5,000 for 1/3 inch 3CCD SD JVC cameras in the past, but unfortunately they aren't worth anything now.

Amazing that cameras once worth $5,000 now go into the scrap heap, but that's the cost of doing business.

As an early adopter, we bought into HD about 4 years ago and couldn't go back to SD today.

HD 1920x1080 is now the minimum entry level... with 4K Red Cameras fast becoming the standard in pro video production.

Many TV commercials and even some movie footage is shot with the Canon 7D or 5D MKII DSLR bodies...

Equipment is not the equalizer these days... it's talent: the talent of the camera operator, sound person, writer, wardrobe, makeup, actress, editor, finisher, web developer, marketing person, etc.

Not many people realize how much work it takes to create outstanding content.

By the way, vimeo.com has plenty of high quality HD clips for viewing.

I particularly like the work done by editman, who often shoots using Canon 7D or 5D MKII.

Check this out...

A :30 TV spot:
http://vimeo.com/11838054

His behind the scenes (BTS) video that shows how they made it:
http://vimeo.com/11761500

He has plenty more BTS videos in his Vimeo channel, too.

I 'd love to know where you can get a Red cam for 4k from because that is bloody cheap, last time I looked at a red one with all the extra equipment required including the bank of servers to download and edit the film was more like a starting price of 40k

4K is the resolution, Mr. Coppola.