ETHICS STATEMENT:
Vimeo have had a paid banner on my site for quite some time now, but I have recently become an affiliate of them with regards to the purchase of Vimeo Pro. Each purchase of a Pro account through my banner gives me a small percentage which helps maintain this site and, along with the other site affiliates, make it just about possible to make the reviews and keep the content going alongside my real job… DP, Director, Cameraman, Filmmaker for hire! So although it is in my financial interest to promote and plug Vimeo, I would never do it if I did not completely recommend it and find it indispensable. All my affiliates are only for companies whose products I use pretty much on every project. I don’t take affiliates or ads for products I do not use, like or recommend, despite the obvious financial benefit it would bring. My ethics are essential to me and this site. Without them this site would not be what it was. A true, honest and unbiased place to get my opinion. If ever a product is mentioned, it will always be because I do fully recommend it and never because it is my financial interest. There is further reading on my ethics here.
This post is really two in one. The first part is about the new subtitle feature in Vimeo. Much needed and finally now added. The second is a belated look a the much improved Vimeo Pro service. Subtitles for films are really important, not just for deaf or hard of hearing people, but for any difficulty in understanding accents and of course, for foreign language films. Of course, someone needs to write these subtitles, and for long films this takes time, but the rewards are there as it means a whole new audience can enjoy your work. I have worked with Deaffest in the UK, and it was eye-opening for me, and I realised how frustrating it must be for deaf and hard of hearing filmmakers to watch my work. I now have four films that have been subtitled into English which can be viewed in my “Film subtitles” section. I aim to have all my documentary work done at some point, and of course I would have translations done too…that is the next step! My personal documentary made for the charity fundraiser Movember called “Papie” has a number of foreign languages, thanks to the generosity of some friends. You can see that below, as well as my latest piece to be subtitles, Portrait of a projectionist.
Some words from Samuel Dore, who is a filmmaker who happens to be deaf.
Some words from Adam Loretz who has subtitled many of my films
One of the key aspects to making a successful film, is maintaining the connection with your audience. Beyond captivating imagery, films are mostly carried by some sort of spoken narrative and it is here that audiences can sometimes become derailed.
Portrait of a projectionist from Philip Bloom on Vimeo. Papie: A personal story that affects us all from Philip Bloom on Vimeo.
A LOOK AT THE NEW IMPROVED VIMEO PRO
Until recently, I believed Vimeo Pro was too restrictive with paid HD embeds and limited storage space compared to Plus, and I couldn’t recommend it to anyone, but people who needed to host commercial work had to be on Pro due to their terms and conditions. But now with its relaunch, suddenly it has become something way better and much more attractive to many people, including myself, and something I truly can recommend. With the old Pro, you had 50gb of storage. Now you have, 1tB of storage a year. A massive jump! You now get 20gb of upload a week! That’s a lot of space! Here is a rundown of the differences between the free account, the plus account which costs $9.95 a month and the Pro account which costs $80 more a year. Is it worth it? That’s up to you. It depends on what your needs are. I share a lot of my edits with clients privately via Vimeo Pro. I love the video review feature for this. It’s neat, and clients love it. Here is example of one such page I sent to Facebook for approval of their film. This is ONLY available on Vimeo Pro. For $80 more, this is amazing. Clients don’t want to download new versions, they want to stream, and this is a clean and uncluttered away from your normal page way of doing so.
Basic members receive:
- 500MB per week of storage space
- 1 HD video upload per week
- The ability to upload up to 10 videos per day
- The ability to create 1 Channel, 1 Group, and 3 Albums
- The ability to download converted video files
- Basic-yet-robust privacy controls
- Basic embedding features
Vimeo Plus members receive over Vimeo basic:
- 5gb per week of storage space
- Up to 5gb of HD videos a week
- No ads
- Priority conversion
- HD embedding
- The ability to upload up to 10 videos per day
- The ability to create 1 Channel, 1 Group, and 3 Albums
- The ability to download converted video files
- Basic-yet-robust privacy controls
- Basic embedding features
- Mobile device support.
- Source file download (as long as you click to save source file)
- Tip Jar
- Customisable embedding
Vimeo Pro additional features over Vimeo Plus:
- Upload up to 20GB a week (1040GB each year)
- Priority video conversion to get your videos online faster
- Unlimited HD plays on any device
- Private, unlisted video review pages
- No banner ads for you or your viewers on Vimeo.com whether they are logged in or not
- Unlimited customizable video Portfolio sites
- Unlimited Groups/Channels/Albums
- Advanced Stats dashboard
- VIP Support: 1-hour email responses around the clock on business days with 1-day email support on holidays and weekends, Eastern Time
- Mobile-ready videos
- Customizable and brandable video player
- Third-party player support
- Optional source file storage
- Full mobile, tablet, and connected TV compatibility
- Sell your work, your way with Vimeo On Demand
Is Vimeo PRO better than Vimeo Plus?
I have four…yes four Pro accounts. Now in full disclosure mode, as they sponsor me, these accounts are complimentary. Out of the four if I paid for them, I’d have my main account, my reviews and tutorials, and my global stock account too. Just my “extras” account wouldn’t need to be. Four corners, my latest Pro account, is very important to me. I travel the word and film wherever I go, even if it’s holiday, workshops or between shooting gigs. There is so much beauty to capture, and I realised I may as well start putting these together as edits and make them available for potential stock use. I am represented by Stalkr for stock for all my work, not just the stuff on “Four corners”. My aim of “Four Corners” is to showcase 4K “travel postcards”. Now this is the next step for Vimeo. 4K support. You can upload in 4K and when transcoded it looks gorgeous, but you need the PRO storage to do so, and it doesn’t show 4K. Although I do opt to keep the original file, and I make it available for users to download for personal viewing only. I trust you. Don’t steal it! 🙂 I do have a 4K dedicated YouTube channel. Whilst this is a sponsored post for Vimeo, it would be dishonest of me to not mention the fact I am also on YT. I strongly advocate being on both platforms. Generally YT gives you quantity of viewers, Vimeo gives you quality! 🙂 I would love Vimeo to go 4K….when, I don’t know. All I do know is the place most people will be able to watch 4K will be on their computers, with the cost of displays coming rapidly down. 4K TVs in the home are still incredible rare. I have a 65″ 4K TV at home with an amazing amount of content: Tom Lowe’s Timescapes, and my work. That was sarcasm by the way! But with 2014 looking like it’s the year of affordable 4K cameras, we could start seeing more and more content. You can check out my 3 most recent ones below. Innsbruck and Chania being my favourite!! Four Corners: Postcard from Chania from Philip Bloom: Four Corners on Vimeo.