Ski lesson video - would you pay a few quid for a memory stick?

A snowHead

when we do lessons at Inside Out Skiing we always take video and although we suggest that students bring a memory stick with them to keep a copy lots of time they forget or dont have one.

would you pay say 4 or 5 pounds after a ski lesson for a memory stick with all your footage on it?

A snowHead

given the amount people pay for a dvd with pictures of themselves on eg roller coasters, i would say you could charge considerably more than 4 or 5 quid

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

If you bulk buy you can get memory sticks for very little money, would if be feasible to add the cost to the lesson charge and hand them out anyway? That means you know what's on any memory stick you attach to you PC and avoid the risk of viruses etc being introduced to you system.

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Arno, we do it as a courtesy but lots of people forget a stick or dont own one so got me thinking we could order some branded ones with our logos on em. you may be right about the price point but we dont edit the video, it is just the clips we shoot so wouldnt feel right about charging for that...

thought about doing a proper video and selling but it is very time consuming...

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tafflondon, hadnt thought about catching a virus but we are on macs and so far no problems with that.

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skimottaret, we used branded credit card usb sticks for our motorsports video work and they do go down well. Some words of caution however.

If you record it it's got to be transferred to the memory stick in a format that they can read or with the software pre-loaded so they can view it otherwise you are going to get 'I can't read it call from the customers'

15 mins of HD footage is approx 1 gb.
Once with the customer you have no control.
If it's not recorded per customer you are going to have edit it.

So thoughts in response to the above points.

Either record natively in mpeg format as this is the most widely transportable format (depending on the codec used)
As I don't know how long your lessons last I don't know how much space you need. We pay about £7.50 for a 4gb card, but we buy in bulk.
Make sure you brand your footage and make clear the t's and c's around redistribution
Editing can be quite a long affair, especially if you are not used to it and don't have the pc power to make it faster.

PM if you need more thoughts or a longer discussion as we have gone through most of the issues and pitfalls.

regards

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After all it is free

Have a look at Dropbox.com this is a brilliant free way to share large files and saves a load of hassle with sticks.

To be honest. sounds like a good idea. I mean ive just spent 3.99 on a ski tutorial app on my iphone. For a fiver the concept would work. Surely people would pay more... If it was recorded in a widely used and format it would be very useful. To be honest the video could just cover the basics, or the areas of the lesson that you covered at the time. Then people could reflect or use your videos as a reference when they get home/skilodge etc..

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Jake43, that looks pretty cool will investigate further.

ansta1, thanks for all the information and your right on the file formats this is a big issue for us

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I was just going to suggest Dropbox - I've used this a couple of times in the last few months to upload/download photos with a group of people. Seems to work really well so far.

However, if the idea is to give out branded stuff then this wouldn't work quite so well Toofy Grin

Personally no, I wouldn't pay. I've got quite enough crappy videos of me skiing thanks

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Dropbox is pretty good, but I reckon they will run out of space on it pretty quick, as you only get 2GB free, which you can up to 8GB by referring people but it entails the customer then installing software etc.

I like the idea of a USB stick, why not have it as a tickbox when booking? Ie video on memory card £5 extra or something?

Cheers,

Greg

I've been thinking about doing something similar for sailing and perhaps having a small overlay on the video with "inside out" - "Hungry monster racing" for mine. And if they want "un-branded" they pay...

Also means if stuff does sneak onto YT etc then you get something back in free advertising!

You know it makes sense.

Do you think a video of your victims' skiing is of value to them?

I can see that videoing somebody and saying "you do that wrong, change it" is of value. But that's probably ten seconds worth?

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

I just thought to myself, surely there must be a way to package up an executable which will play the movie, a quick google finds me this

http://www.techgravy.net/2008/09/no-software-for-playbackdont-worryuse.html

and the program appears to be here

http://code.google.com/p/mulder/

MakeInstantPlayer - Convert your media files to self-running executables

A snowHead

hmmm dropbox has to be installed by the user and is probably not right for our needs. will look into cheap sticks, not trying to make any money out of this but so many times people dont bring sticks and ask to have the clips emailed to them which never works due to file size and it is a hassle to upload to file transfer sites...

A snowHead

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

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I'm with daehwons on this - I would have thought uploading the video to YouTube would perhaps be a better idea. I've done a couple of course with TDC in Tignes and this is what they do - and seems to work okay.

No Apple/PC compatability issues, you can make videos private, and best of all it's free.

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abj, daehwons, but in my experience it's time consuming to upload to youtube...

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I think the memory stick is a great idea. I have both QuickTime and Windows Media Player installed - but I suppose not everybody does. Is popping the video onto a stick in both formats a problem (video recoding is not my thing)? Personally I would prefer a stick to You Tube - but that may be the way to go because of format and cost.

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skimottaret, speaking as a consumer, I would prefer some sort of internet-based system, as mentioned by daehwons and Jake43. Can't be bothered with a memory stick. Actually, for me, the video's not much use after a lapse of time: I'm not very observant and can't always tell from the footage what I've done rightly or wrongly - and, after time has passed, I'd be likely to forget what you said. But that's just me, I wouldn't expect everyone else to be so dim. As a matter of interest, do people who take memory sticks away actually look at them again?

After all it is free

skimottaret, Definitely. Having forgotton to bring a stick twice now, I would pay a few quid for the honour of a permanent reminder of how poor my technique is wink

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I'd go for the internet based option.

You could put the files on your webserver and send the link to those who want it. Delete them after a few weeks to clear up space.

The real advantage of this option is that your customers will need to give you their email address so you can send them the link to the right file. Much more useful for keeping in touch than a branded memory stick.

Mike

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some more thoughts from me.....

branded sticks - we find these work very well as marketing products and for certain events we supply these in autorun format as detailed above.

really dont forget the media transfer bit. most modern hi def video camera record in avchd this is not usually a sttraight drag and drop of whatever you have recorded it on. unlike the contour and go pro formats which can be pretty much copied direct to a device and most pc's and macs will play them directly.

again think about how people will use the video if you give it to them direct out of camera. they will post it on vimeo or you tube and you lose control. however even if you do add titles and branding this is relatively easy to remove but most people wont so free advertising.

The web idea would potentially work well, but would be difficult to sell up front and you run the risk of media or equipment failure resulting in the need for a refund. where i see the web version really working would be you adding analysis and detailed commentry over the video. not just do this do that but on this bit you can see you are doing this and here is what you should be doing and some ways to correct it. This however brings additonal problems in that you would need the ability to edit fairly well. titles, extra sound tracks, slow motion (good slo mo needs 50 or 60 fps to work well.) also the commentry and analysis would ned to be consistent with any instruction given during the session.

As a thought how about a before and after video. lesson 1 is a review and analysis. final lesson is a review as to what is now being done better and areas for improvement.

bet you didnt think it would get this complicated di you?

typically the people who dont bring a stick with them arent the ones who will spend time downloading stuff from the internet wink

it is more of an instant gratification thing for people and the more i think a bout it an internet system doesnt really work for what we want to do, we have several gig of video already and the up and download is too slow.

You know it makes sense.

I don't think its a big money spinner unless you've a special video filter to make your students look like skiing gods - I'd certainly pay good money for anyone who could do that for my skiing.

As a service though marginally above cost price for a stick - don't see why a number of people wouldn't take it away - they can always use the stick for other stuff.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

fatbob, absolutely agree about marginally above cost. but cost needs to include any capital and staff costs factored in over time. With the go pro and contour and other similar models you can drag and drop the files directly onto the stick. unless you want to add titles and branding then allow for about 45 minutes minimum for each 15 minutes of video for edit, render and copy to stick.

A snowHead

skimottaret, could you not drop it onto a branded recordable DVD rather than a memory stick... much higher margin that way! Toofy Grin

A snowHead

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

As has been mentioned by others, just stick the video on youtube, set them to "unlisted" and send them the link.

I've been doing this for quite a few years for our racers, and I know from the feedback I get it is highly appreciated.

"unlisted" on youtube means that it isn't shown in any search results, but if you know the URL then you can see it.

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We've all had ski lessons and tried sports like rafting where they video it then try to sell the day's fillming on DVD but they usually try to charge too much in my opinion.

The skydive video guys at Netheravon dump a quick low quality version of the jump on to a dedicated server and supply a special boxed DVD to take home.

But then they are charging £99 for the service.

Have a look at http://www.watchmyskydive.com/show.php?name=ami+collier
for my daughter's tandem and a quick appearance by me...

I can get you more details from the camera guys if you're interested in how they do it... Smile

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Yes it's a good idea,
I always forget to bring one with me

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skimottaret, You need 'Inside Out' branded memory sticks and I can help - http://www.mediacopy.co.uk/USB_flash_drives.htm

however, I suspect that you are probably better branding DVDs as they are significantly cheaper. Decent quality USBs will make the proposed price point in the OP unsustainable.

After all it is free

david@mediacopy, I am coming around to the idea of plain old DVD's for "emergencies" when people dont bring a stick and say "just email me the files". I dont think at this point we will have the numbers to warrant branding discs or sticks... I must admit i didnt think of asking you about this ooops ....

In future if we were going to do sticks i think we would brand them and perhaps offer to first time clients or Out coaching weeks as part of the package. We would put a copy of VLC on as well as files as rob and I have different cameras with differing file outputs (naturally) rolling eyes

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Ski lesson video - would you pay a few quid for a memory stick?

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