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Home » Is Vimeo PRO A Good Deal?

Is Vimeo PRO A Good Deal?

Vimeo PRO offers users a customizable player.

Vimeo has made its name by offering free and low-cost streaming to semi-professional video producers to host their online video files since 2004. But anyone running a small business and wanting to monetize their video was out of luck: Vimeo’s site guidelines prevent advertising or other money making activities that would disrupt the community of video lovers the company has carefully tended all these years.

But with the launch of Vimeo PRO this past Monday, Vimeo, the IAC-subsidiary, figures it knows something about the market that no one else has bothered to address. The sweet spot? Video streaming for businesses that is simple to use and price competitive. Pegged at $199 a year, Vimeo PRO’s simple price structure includes 50GB of storage and 250,000 plays. Need more storage? You can buy it in increments of 50GB at $199 a pop. Found yourself with a viral video? It will cost you another $199 to purchase an added 100,000 viewings. That’s about as complex as the price matrix gets.

That’s a relief. Trying to figure out charges per stream delivered—which is how most streaming services describe their prices—is a rather opaque metric for most of us running a small business. KISS (keep it simple, stupid) rules.

That’s just what Dae Mellencamp, Vimeo’s General Manager, stated in a press release: “Until now, quality video hosting has been expensive, confusing, and extremely difficult for a small business owner to understand. Small businesses have fallen between the cracks of free video services and massive enterprise video solutions.”

Brightcove, one of the leading video streaming suppliers, pegs its lowest cost offering at $99 a month. At that price point, users are allowed to manage up to 50 videos playing out some 40 GB of bandwidth per month. Other services such as San Francisco-based VidCaster are coming to market too; they start at $39 a month for 10GB of storage and 50GB of bandwidth.

More costly services like Brightcove—one of the leading companies in the streaming video field—also offer extras that may or may not be important to you. For example, Brightcove offers “Live DVR” (Allows viewers to pause, rewind, review and replay live streaming video), realtime multi bitrate streaming and live event advertising (to monetize live events with advanced advertising capabilities).


Vimeo PRO offers customization and logo presentation for small businesses.

Vimeo PRO isn’t some bare bones offering either. Besides the exceptional video quality the company has been known for, other features include customizable Portfolio websites, extensive video player customization, Video Review Pages, advanced statistics, social media sharing and broad privacy settings.

Production companies will be able to create many separate portfolios and share rough cuts with clients, while other small businesses will find some of the related capabilities useful for their particular needs.

To get a better idea of how streaming video charges stack up, you can check this page at CyberTech Media Group. The company, which is itself a provider of streaming video services, tears down pricing structures to come up with some interesting facts. If you accept their reasoning and figures, they make the very compelling statement that “if less than 1,000 minutes of video will be watched from your web site per day, you probably don’t need to pay for additional hosting for your streaming video.” If this is the case, CyberTech states that you should just use your current ISP.

Of course that still means you will have to know how to place video on your ISPs server and install a player on your website, which a service like Vimeo PRO makes about as simple as possible to do. You’ll have to decide for yourself the best method for your particular situation.

About Dan Ochiva

New York City-based journalist and NYCPPNEWS founder Dan Ochiva writes and consults on film, video, and digital media technology.

Community & Partner Links

How Sony’s New Virtual Sound Technology Can Change How We Hear Films

Kami Asgar and Jessica Parks are post-production heavyweights who work with major studios, namely Sony. As a sound designer (Asgar) and as a post executive (Parks), their collective resume touches on everything from Apocalypto to Grandma’s Boy to Venom.

Parks has recently shifted her focus from supervisor to hands-on sound design, and we talk about how it’s never too late to pivot on your career path and find the thing you love doing wherever you are in life.

Click on this link to read the rest of the article on No Film School’s site.

NJ – Governor Murphy signs $14B Incentive Program Bill – the NJ Economic Recovery Act of 2020

 Film tax credits — amending existing programs to include provisions for so-called New Jersey film partners and New Jersey film-lease partners and allowing an additional $200 million of tax credits annually over 13 years.

Click this link if you want to read the full article on the Lexology site. http://bit.ly/35NtDx6

Film Commish announces date for production restart

In her December 18, 2020 news update, MOME Commissioner Anne del Castillo announced that the Film Office is now accepting permit applications for production activity that begins on July 27th.

She also announced awards now (Awkwafina) and more. To read all of the Film Commish’s bloggy sort of news column, click here.

Stimulus Offers $15 Billion in Relief for Struggling Arts Venues

The coronavirus relief package that Congressional leaders agreed to this week includes grant money that many small proprietors described as a last hope for survival.

For the music venue owners, theater producers and cultural institutions that have suffered through the pandemic with no business, the coronavirus relief package that Congress passed on Monday night offers the prospect of aid at last.

To read the full article on The New York Times’ site, click here.

If you want to start production, here’s the latest news from the Mayor’s Office

Phase 4 production guidance is available on the Film Permit website. All production activity, whether it requires a Film Permit or not, must comply with New York Forward Industry Guidance.

For more information see, please refer to the State Department of Health’s Interim Guidance for Media Production During the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency. Please review the guidelines and FAQ before submitting permit applications. The Film Office is operating remotely, so please allow additional time for Film Permit processing.

The above paragraphs contain links to the various FAQ – just mouse over the relevant words.

Nikon to Stop Making Cameras in Japan

Nikon has fallen on hard times as of late as its camera sales have cratered, and now there’s a new indicator of how dire its financial situation is: the company is reportedly pulling the plug on making cameras in Japan after over 70 years of doing so.

To read the full article on Petapixel’s site, click here.

NVIDIA Uses AI to Slash Bandwidth on Video Calls

NVIDIA Research has invented a way to use AI to dramatically reduce video call bandwidth while simultaneously improving quality

What the researchers have achieved has remarkable results: by replacing the traditional h.264 video codec with a neural network, they have managed to reduce the required bandwidth for a video call by an order of magnitude. In one example, the required data rate fell from 97.28 KB/frame to a measly 0.1165 KB/frame – a reduction to 0.1% of required bandwidth.

To read the rest of this article on Petapixel, click this link.

 

 

 

Union Health Plan Dodges Film Workers’ Suit Over Virus Relief

Law360 (October 9, 2020, 5:22 PM EDT) — The Motion Picture Industry Health Plan’s board can’t be sued under ERISA for allegedly flouting its duties when it relaxed plan rules in response to COVID-19, a California federal judge has ruled, nixing a proposed class action filed by two cinematographers who still couldn’t qualify for benefits.

In an order entered Thursday, U.S. District Judge R. Gary Klausner granted the board of directors’ motion to dismiss Greg Endries and Dee Nichols’ Employee Retirement Income Security Act suit accusing board members of breaching their duty to treat all plan participants fairly.

Endries and Nichols, members of Local 600 of the International Cinematographers Guild, said in July that the board left them and others “out in the cold” in its attempts to address the problems COVID-19 caused for plan participants.

But Judge Klausner agreed with the board’s contention that the case, which alleged a fiduciary breach, should be tossed because plan administrators don’t act as fiduciaries when they amend health care plans.

Read the full article on the Law360 site by clicking here.

Russo Brothers Received Close to $50 Million From Saudi Bank

Anthony Russo and Joseph Russo photographed at the PMC Studio in Los Angeles for the Variety Playback Podcast.

The Russo brothers, directors of the all-time top grossing film “Avengers: Endgame,” quietly secured a roughly $50 million cash infusion for their production company AGBO from Saudi Arabia earlier this year, multiple sources tell Variety.

In a deal brokered and closed at the beginning of the pandemic, the Russos received the investment from an undisclosed Saudi bank in exchange for a minority stake in the brothers’ Los Angeles-based shop.

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