SkyChimp 0 #1 May 2, 2006 Hey everyone..... I know that most of us enjoy watching the great footage which is uploaded by our fellow jumpers to www.SkyDivingMovies.com however we have a current issue which needs to be addressed. The guy that runs the website does it soley out of the kindness from his heart and the passion for our sport. In addition, he pays for the monthly maintenence from his own pocket which was running around $350.00 per month. We don't know how much longer he will be able to carry that burden from a cost stand point and we are asking everyone to help chip in. You can donate thru PayPal by using one of the links provided the next time you watch another great video on that website. The amount of bandwidth required to keep her afloat due to the demand and growth is insane. Do what you can to help........ it's the least we can do. Does anyone else find it funny that we made a SPORT out of an EMERGENCY PROCEDURE?!?! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Zipp0 1 #2 May 2, 2006 Would he accept some donated bandwidth? Zipp0 -------------------------- Chuck Norris doesn't do push-ups, he pushes the Earth down. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
BIGUN 1,346 #3 May 2, 2006 I just went to the site - is it down?Nobody has time to listen; because they're desperately chasing the need of being heard. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
katzurki 0 #4 May 2, 2006 Fucking Paypal won't take a Russian CC. Can you set up an alternate donating route, preferably a direct CC bill? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
mcrocker 0 #5 May 2, 2006 Skychimp, Thanks for the post, and the donation. I don't manage the website, Pilotdave does that. I simply provide the machine (which was purchased with donations last year) and the bandwidth. Right now SDM is using 10mbps of bandwidth, sustained on my network. That is roughly $1000/month in bandwidth from my upstreams. That doesn't include the cost of my infrastructure (Cisco 12000 routers, 6509 switches). The site itself takes very little of my time to manage. I occasionally have to kick it but it has been stable the past few months. I currently have 135mbps of bandwidth @ $100/mb. In 120 days I'll have 2 Gbps @$35/mb. I'm currently policing the traffic at 10mbps, once I get my cheaper bandwidth I'll open up the flood gates and let the site use 30mbps. Donations help alot, they don't come close to paying for the service but they do let me know you value the service and want to see it continue. Also, I don't skydive anymore, I stopped jumping 2 years ago when my daughter was born. I still look to the sky and I miss it, someday I may return. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
docjohn 0 #6 May 2, 2006 I just sent them a donation. The PayPal button took awhile to find. Click NEWS and scroll about 1/2 way down the page http://www.skydivingmovies.com/ver2/pafiledb.php?action=news Lets keep that great site alive!! . Doc http://www.manifestmaster.com/video Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
FireMedicJumper 0 #7 May 2, 2006 Donation Sent. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bogwarrior 0 #8 May 2, 2006 Is part of the problem the compression ( or lack of it ) people use when uploading their video ? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
pilotdave 0 #9 May 3, 2006 Since January of 2004, there have been 2,229,383 downloads and we'll hit 3000 files by next week. If every video was 1 meg smaller... you get the point. I like big, high quality videos, but they just don't fit in well with donated bandwidth. High quality is great when the content is worth seeing in high quality, but just a waste of bandwidth when it's not. BTW, just hit 30,000 registered. activated users. Congrats to vckrusi, user 30,000! Dave Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
tdog 0 #10 May 3, 2006 QuoteHigh quality is great when the content is worth seeing in high quality, but just a waste of bandwidth when it's not. Some of my favorite skydiving footage is the high quality stuff I have downloaded from this site... I guess there could be a compression engine that recompresses files on the site - and offers compressed for free, and high res for a nominal fee (the cost of the bandwidth). I would not mind paying seven cents to download a file - I bet a few dollars a month in download fees could add up... Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
UntamedDOG 0 #11 May 3, 2006 QuoteIn addition, he pays for the monthly maintenence from his own pocket which was running around $350.00 per month. I have no intention of helping to finance a website that promotes dangerous behavior amongst skydivers. The website started out innocent enough. People would post their lame sit-fly videos and coach jumps so they could show off how “legit” they were. Things have changed. Now it has become a contest to see who can come as close to death as possible, while catching it on tape. People are running out and buying cameras just so they can catch their next cut away or cliff strike. As one of the most outspoken and respected voices amongst the DZ.com community, I feel it necessary to say “throw those piece of shit camera helmets in the fucking trash can!” Stop trying to be trendy. The camera look is getting old. Every 100 jump wonder wants one. When we stop acting like sheep, only then can the lemur evolve into a talking ape. UntamedDOG Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Jumpah 0 #12 May 3, 2006 With 30k registered users, I'd think you could generate some amount of advertising revenue to break even on the site. Don't know what you've tried, but some thoughts: - Remove content that has low ratings from the users after x number of days/weeks. - Have a section dedicated to promotional videos from industry manufacturers that they pay a small fee to have up there. With 30k registered users, the manufacturers can be reasonably sure their content is going in front of people who are interested in it. How many downloads has the skyhook demo had, for example? That video (along with dz.com threads) has me looking to get one, so its a powerful marketing tool. - Mirror content to spread out bandwidth...people use your main site to search for content, but can download from a remote location, saving you the bandwidth. - Make a donation page and make it obvious. I donated because of what I saw on dz.com, not anything I saw on the movie site. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
docjohn 0 #13 May 3, 2006 Quote I have no intention of helping to finance a website that promotes dangerous behavior amongst skydivers. I smell a troll....... . Doc http://www.manifestmaster.com/video Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Eule 0 #14 May 3, 2006 QuoteSince January of 2004, there have been 2,229,383 downloads and we'll hit 3000 files by next week. If every video was 1 meg smaller... you get the point. Some random ideas: - Provide a way for the uploader to also upload a couple of stills (JPEGs) along with their video, to give a little preview of what the video is about. This might help people to decide whether they want to download the full video or not. - Alternatively, have an automated preview. After upload, extract stills from 1 minute in, halfway through, and 1 minute to end (or whatever) and show them on the detailed video page. This isn't as good because it's harder to catch a key scene, but it's less work. - Like the above, but extract a few seconds of video from various points, transcode to a low resolution, and offer that as a preview. - On the video detail page, put the frame size of the video (640x480 or whatever). This can help show whether the video is high or low quality, and help people decide if they want to download it. - This one is tricky, but: Let people host their own videos. The clear problem here is that people will submit a video that isn't theirs, or is on a server that isn't theirs, or on a server that will fall over under the load (i.e. Windows). The idea is that they could enter the meta-data into your site and have it show up in a search, but your site will link to their provided URL. You might have to do a verify step where you send them a video or image that you have created, and have them put it on their server, to give some kind of assurance that they control the server they want you to link to. - Compute a 'top hogs' each day - how many megabits per video. This catches both huge files that aren't so popular, and smaller ones that are very popular. Then see if compressing or transcoding those files yields any benefits. Unfortunately the rework is hard to do in an automated way. Maybe have an email list of volunteers (perhaps per-category?), email the list of top hogs to them, and let them try making one of the top hogs smaller. - Unpopular, but: set some limits on max size, taking into account frame size and video length. Or, accept the upload, but if it's over a certain size, tell the uploader "this will take a day or two to show up". Then manually re-encode it to get it smaller before making it publically available. The step that sucks on all of these is the "manual re-encode" part. You might be able to automate this somewhat with mplayer/mencoder - it's what I use to view videos on Linux, and since you seem to be on DeadRat, this should work. (I have had less trouble using mplayer to view AVI/WMV videos than using Windows Media Player!) On Windows, Mediacoder uses mplayer/mencoder as a back end and still has a few rough edges, but usually works pretty well. Thanks for your work on the site! EulePLF does not stand for Please Land on Face. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Andy9o8 2 #15 May 3, 2006 QuoteAs one of the most outspoken and respected voices amongst the DZ.com community, I..... ...in fact, Dog, at least in my eyes, you're practically god-like. Sadly, I can't bear your children. But I would like to donate to you. I'll e-mail you my credit card number. Feel free to share it with Skyride. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
steveorino 7 #16 May 3, 2006 http://www.bitpass.com/ Charge $.01 or .05 or whatever you want to access videos. steveOrino Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Dolph 0 #17 May 3, 2006 Any kind of direct charge is likely to scare away a good deal of users. Eule had several good suggestions for handling bandwidth issues. Limited non intrusive advertising would be another way of covering costs. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jumpingjimmy 0 #18 May 3, 2006 another kick ass post by "the dog" Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
rbanfield 0 #19 May 3, 2006 People hosting their own videos is pretty easy... use torrents. Sure Windows sucks, but there are plenty of torrent clients. Since skydivingmovies.com is amenable to hosting these files, perhaps after a certain number of snatches, they can host the file permanently (hosting after the file becomes popular becomes that much more unnecessary in terms of swarm speed with torrent files, however it will allow those using their 'home' bandwidth to stop seeding and free up disk space for other good stuff). Essentially the idea is to get those posting 100MB "My first AFF" videos off the site because relatively few actually care about them (and those that do care can host with their own bandwidth), meanwhile allowing 100MB "Jeb Corliss" videos to be hosted on site that way 500 seeders can delete the 100MB (50GB of distributed data). Quote- This one is tricky, but: Let people host their own videos. The clear problem here is that people will submit a video that isn't theirs, or is on a server that isn't theirs, or on a server that will fall over under the load (i.e. Windows). The idea is that they could enter the meta-data into your site and have it show up in a search, but your site will link to their provided URL. You might have to do a verify step where you send them a video or image that you have created, and have them put it on their server, to give some kind of assurance that they control the server they want you to link to. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jumpingjimmy 0 #20 May 3, 2006 it's a shame when you become a victim of your own success how about e-mailing everybody who has registered to ask if a small charge would be aceptable? i know i'd gladly pay a small amount each month, i'm always watching videos from the site. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
unformed 0 #21 May 3, 2006 I was reading the BitPass site and that looks like a good idea. I don't think too many people would mind paying a few cents to download a video. I know you'd probably like to keep this free but obviously it's a very difficult thing to do. It's also easier to get everybody to pitch in, say, a nickel, every day, than to get a handful of people to throw in fifty bucks a month. pilotdave, I know you're a programmer...I'm one too, and would be willing to donate my time to help implement something on the website if you want to go about doing that ....This ad space for sale. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Dokeman 0 #22 May 4, 2006 enforce a mandatory compression to your liking.. Make everyting wmv or xvid or whatever you want. If would also make viewing the movies a lot easier on the users since they would only need one codec/player. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
SkyChimp 0 #23 May 5, 2006 Quote Also, I don't skydive anymore, I stopped jumping 2 years ago when my daughter was born. I still look to the sky and I miss it, someday I may return. Didn't you have that Mirage on ebay last year or no?? Hope you return when you're ready.... Does anyone else find it funny that we made a SPORT out of an EMERGENCY PROCEDURE?!?! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
SkyChimp 0 #24 May 5, 2006 QuoteQuoteIn addition, he pays for the monthly maintenence from his own pocket which was running around $350.00 per month. I have no intention of helping to finance a website that promotes dangerous behavior amongst skydivers. The website started out innocent enough. People would post their lame sit-fly videos and coach jumps so they could show off how “legit” they were. Things have changed. Now it has become a contest to see who can come as close to death as possible, while catching it on tape. People are running out and buying cameras just so they can catch their next cut away or cliff strike. As one of the most outspoken and respected voices amongst the DZ.com community, I feel it necessary to say “throw those piece of shit camera helmets in the fucking trash can!” Stop trying to be trendy. The camera look is getting old. Every 100 jump wonder wants one. When we stop acting like sheep, only then can the lemur evolve into a talking ape. UntamedDOG PURE COMEDY Does anyone else find it funny that we made a SPORT out of an EMERGENCY PROCEDURE?!?! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
mcrocker 0 #25 May 5, 2006 Yep, I sold my Mirage G3 last fall. I didn't jump all last year, I kept it in the closet always hoping to go again but it isn't a reality for me now. Maybe when my kids are older, I have more time & more money. I dunno, I miss it, but I can live without it. Basically, I didn't have enough time to jump enough to feel safe and current. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
