What shall we do?

[lmichiel]

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On 2001-10-31 14:00:56, TheInformer wrote:
Another potential part of the solution is sponsorships with software and hardware manufacturers. If ULead (for example) is going to use this site as a resource for DVD comparisons, why not see if they will help pay the bandwidth bills (+ pizza in exchange for a small banner or other form of advertising. This is called targeted advertising. The people that come here would be, for the most part, interested in ULead's products. Apply this concept to other companies, such as Adobe (Premiere), Hauppauge (TV tuners), ATI (All-in-Wonder series), and so forth. I'm sure that several of them would be interested in helping you out.
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Problem with this is that this site is independant and give objective information. Once this site is sponcered by Ulead or Pinnacle or ... than this site will loose it independacy. If Ulead pays for advertisements, they don't want to see test results showing that Adobe Premiere or Pinncacle Studio 7 is a better product.

cheers
Leo

[vcdsavant]

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On 2001-10-31 10:08:31, Smudge249 wrote:
It says
This page is Uncompressed
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Mine says this page is compressed.

[Sully]

Using AOL - this page is compressed.

[jwhitlow]

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On 2001-10-31 09:56:57, Baldrick wrote:
Can all test this page and report here or email what it says on that page or if it work at all?
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This page is Compressed

[Psx]

You can also post deals on dvd players and/or dvds and have you as the referrer so you get cash for anyone that purchases through your link. This can also be done on the dvd players list so it finds the lowest price using whatever service you sign up with.

[Thurbs]

This site is the best one out for VCD,SVCD,DVD etc...
I was very sad when it was down last weekend. I really needed it, when converting some DivX to VCD. I think that with companies like Microsoft, Apple, and others telling people that they can make a movie with their new computers will only be looking for information on how to make better movies and tips on VCD making. I have been doing VCD's now for almost 2 years and still look to this site for more info. What a blessing it has been to have this information out on the web, and all the people that make it possible. If I had some extra cash to help out believe me I would dish it out in heart beat.
God Bless,
MT

[Nostradumbass]

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On 2001-10-30 18:29:46, Vorlon wrote:
This is just a thought, but maybe another site might be willing to mirror this site. Or just part of it. If one site mirrored, then theoretically it would cut the traffic to this site by one half (I know in reality most would still go to the main site.) If more than one mirror site, then a lot of traffic could be redirected.
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Vorlon,

I think you are on to something. I've separately sent Baldrick a suggestion along these lines using mirrors and DNS load balancing techniques so that free web hosting sites or friends who have unused co-location bandwidth can put it use.

[teamhawaii]

Exactly how much dollars a month are we talking about here? What is the actual cost for keeping this site up?

[leebo]

Re: ads.

Have you looked at PBS lately?

[ebaldino]

Baldrick,

It is very noble of you to want to keep the site free. It is a wonder to me that you are able to invest so much of your time and resources to keep up this excellent site.

Long term, there are only two ways VCDHelp can go:

1)You keep up the great work and the site´s popularity keeps increasing over time. By "keeps increasing" I mean it will not level off at any point in the foreseable future. Since the content of the site also evolves to keep up with times, I personally believe it will continue to amass visitors and participants over the next few years, when we will see the desktop DVD production come of age. This site has reached critical mass. If the content continues to be good, popularity will continue to increase.

2) You somehow limit the evolution of the content in the site. In this case popularity and traffic might level off at some point, since the site would become more focused on a smaller niche, or on a slower-growth niche. This would require conscious effort from you to control the content so as to hold back the increase in popularity. I doubt this is what you want.

Now, under option (2) you could stand a chance of controlling the growth in resources needed to keep the site, and you might be able to keep it free.

However, under option (1) the resources needed (including your sweat) will continue to grow, and eventually will become to expensive for a non-commercial site.

This is unescapable.

Therefore, in the long run, you should be looking into ways to make some serious money with this site. I mean Profit, which means covering all expenses, including your labor, and still having something left to invest in the growth of the business.

You eventually will need to turn VCDHelp into a business.

As it stands right now, it already has great POTENTIAL value as a business.

There are several avenues to explore in making money with VCDHelp. They all have pros and cons, not one of them can do the job all by itself, and they all will require a lot of effort.

Many of your users have business experience.
Some have Internet business experience.
Some have masters degree in business AND Internet business experience.

They would all be willing to help you for free.

If you want to spend the next few months focusing on the technical aspects of the site, on making it leaner and meaner, that´s fine. I admire your persistance... Plus, everything you do will only add to the value of the site and to is potential as a business.

When you want to discuss business, we will be here.

I do hope you take up the issue sooner rather than later. It´ll be loads of fun.

best regards
E.Baldino

[pinoy2201]

Bladrick,will the forums be open today??????
i have a real big question that needs to be answered

[mikldom]

I am a member of a very active forum..

The Ultimate Subaru Messageboard...

I mean there are probably 30 new posts a day, many more response..

EZboard provides the hosting.. and I think it is only like 30.00 a year or soemthing like that..

what about starting a forum on a off site host like that?
what about a yahoo club.. they allow messages, but probably not in seperate forums...

We really need the forum back.. but I am not sure about making the whole site a pay site... ... their has got to be ways of getting it done...

downloading the files should not take up too much bandwidth if you put them on a off-site server or link..

The forum seems to be the most active part of the site, and getting an account with a message board community makes the most sense to me..

just me $0.02
Mike
mikldom@yahoo.com

[hotmat4]

This site should not go into a business or paysite wat-so-ever!! I disagree with 'EBALDINO'. This site should go on as a free site. Turning it into a pay-site or business, though it would make money for you to pay for costs, you will lose loads of visitors because they can't pay. I'm 14 years old and this site is helping me with my interests.

You will find alternatives to keep this site going. If you do go into a pay-site lots of ur visitors will find an alternative and that will be more popular than urs. Kepp trying to fond out a way of decreasing your bandwidth effectively.

EZboard should decrease your bandwidth greatly because you get tons of posts everyday. EZboard is the most popular message board provider on the net. One site http://www.smackdown2hacking.cjb.net is a dedicated forum site to do with a popular PSX game called WWF Smackdown 2. They have lots of gameshark codes that people make. This has thousands of users and if you use it it should draw big attention to ur site because EZboard has millions of users.

Just please don't go into a business as this site means alot to me and many other people here. This site has given me great advice on what TV Card I got. I'd like to work for website as I honour it greatly.

Contact me on: tunstill28@aol.com if I can do anything. I'm on a 56k modem at the moment maybe getting a Broadband line early next year hopefully. I'd like to organise and administrate the forum through EZboard if possible please.

[sracer]

I suggest contacting Geoff Kleinman from DVDTalk. His site is a tremendous resource for things related to DVD. He has managed to grow that site without resorting to a pay-to-play site. He could offer a lot of insight into what it takes to keep an ever growing site, growing and free. There was a brief discussion once over there about starting up a VCDTalk sister site/forum.

My suggestions:
- eliminate the Misc/Off-topic forum. If people what to shoot-the-"stuff" there are plenty of other sites and chat facilities to do that.
- separate the site into sections that can easily be hosted separately and funded separately.
1. DVD Player, DVD Hack, VidCap database. DVD Player Manufacturers could and should contribute to the running of this. It is a great marketing resource.
2. Forums. These could be usenet newsgroups, Yahoo groups, EZBoard, whatever. All of these already have their own cost support structure.
3. How-to Guides. Linking to the particular application-specific websites will help offload the traffic to those. Providing the application owners with the how-to guides for their apps will help as well. Locally host those apps and guides that must be hosted locally.

In a nutshell, turn VCDHelp into a VideoCD portal and have it host only that stuff which it must.

Just my opinion.

[FDA]

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Problem with this is that this site is independant and give objective information. Once this site is sponcered by Ulead or Pinnacle or ... than this site will loose it independacy. If Ulead pays for advertisements, they don't want to see test results showing that Adobe Premiere or Pinncacle Studio 7 is a better product.

cheers
Leo
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Many people are saying this is what's happened with Tom's Hardware site since it started taking ads from Intel. Even if that wasn't the cause of what seem to be biased comparisons there, just the appearance of an ad-driven bias makes the site less useful, and therefore less frequented.

I'm glad to hear the forum here will be running again; although I'd still visit once in a while for guides etc., the forum is why I drop by every day.

[d4n13l]

Baldrick, I thought that I would post here instead of Emailing you, I bet your inbox is pretty full up at the moment. About the images:
I am about a quarter of the way through the gif's folder, it looks as though the new images will be an average of 3 times smaller in file size than the originals - with identical quality. I am using png format as it has a lot better compression than gif - I hope this is OK, Email me quick if it isnt . I have renewed some of the older images with new screen captures, there are a few shots of very old versions of TMPGenc etc, so I did a few new captures of the latest version to keep the guide images up to date.

[mikewg]

d4n13l, good job on the pictures. I think that's going to make such a significant difference, plus the up-to-date pictures are going to be great. I was at http://www.virtualdub.org the other day and even their screen shots were out of date... you'd think a site advertising their own program would have up to date pictures, but I guess I'm wrong.

Also I can verify Baldrick's email is full... I just got a reply from him from the email I sent him in the first hours after the site was shut down. It's going to take him days just to reply to the emails!

I'm also excited about the site reopening... my vdr files make my TMPGEnc freeze up if the accompanying AVI file is too big, I don't get it, so I can't wait till I can ask everyone again. *patiently waiting*

[bbb]

d4n13l,

What application are you using to dither all the pics into gifs? Debabelizer does a far better job and has far greater dithering control than Photoshop.

Also, why not use highly compressed jpgs for photos? Size should be the same and aesthetics are arguably better (miniblurryblocks vs white dither dots).

[d4n13l]

Photoshop... LOL. hehe, i only use the best - Macromedia Fireworks and no less. Also, PSP 7.02.

I am not applying any dithering to any images, they dont need it - I am using as few colours as possible. Dithering makes the file size a lot bigger. PNG gives a FAR better image than jpgs do for screen capture, my new images are crystal clear . Jpegs are really for photography, they do not compress "flat colour" very well at all. The problem I have is that a lot of the old gifs have had dithering applied, it is nearly impossible to reverse this. I only use jpg when there is a large portion of video in the picture, it gives about the same size as a png but looks better. However, most images will be png, they are superior to gif.
Here is an example:
This is a .png - It is roughly 6Kb:

Crystal clear and a very small size.
This is a .jpg - It is roughly 6Kb:

A complete mess, I had to use 99% compression to get it the same size as the .png.

Hopefully the new images should load a lot faster and be clearer to view.

[susie]

Cool.

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On 2001-11-01 17:06:13, d4n13l wrote:
Photoshop... LOL. hehe, i only use the best - Macromedia Fireworks and no less. Also, PSP 7.02.

I am not applying any dithering to any images, they dont need it - I am using as few colours as possible. Dithering makes the file size a lot bigger. PNG gives a FAR better image than jpgs do for screen capture, my new images are crystal clear . Jpegs are really for photography, they do not compress "flat colour" very well at all. The problem I have is that a lot of the old gifs have had dithering applied, it is nearly impossible to reverse this. I only use jpg when there is a large portion of video in the picture, it gives about the same size as a png but looks better. However, most images will be png, they are superior to gif.
Here is an example:
This is a .png - It is roughly 6Kb:

Crystal clear and a very small size.
This is a .jpg - It is roughly 6Kb:

A complete mess, I had to use 99% compression to get it the same size as the .png.

Hopefully the new images should load a lot faster and be clearer to view.


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[DiViNeLeFT]

i would just like to say great job to everyone with the great ideas... i almost cried when i saw the forum closed. i just hope it opens back up soon... im like a crackhead waitin for that next hit!!

[HyperJoe]

I would be willing to give for a yearly fee of $25/year...

This site is one of the only reasons why I have DSL...seriously.

-hyper

[Riot_Inc]

I haven't been coming here since i've been at school and stuff, but damn, i like this site a lot. I'd probably be able to pay to check stuff out.
~Erik

[septor]

[quote]
On 2001-11-01 17:06:13, d4n13l wrote:
Photoshop... LOL. hehe, i only use the best - Macromedia Fireworks and no less. Also, PSP 7.02.

No fireworks sucks bro
illustrator is better for vector images than fireworks
photoshop is a overall better program as a reason why most web designers use it
I know everyone in my company uses it and other companies that design webpages use it
buy for html fireworks is the best
I like using fireworks but to compare it to photoshop is ludicrous
If using the right compression settings with photoshop you can acheive equal or better effects
then again fireworks is easier to work with
just my too cents

I'll admit I've only read the first and last pages of this thread so my apologies if this has already been mentioned.

As far as pay sites go a lot of people have said they a) can't afford anything or (more likely) b) are younger & don't have credit cards. Well, that may be good. While CC payments might be easier there are costs associated with them. Waaaayyyy back when, BEFORE there was a World Wide Web Internet sites took payments in the mail. True, more footwork but it might save some costs?

Additionally, there'd have to be a 'trial' period for new members (how many people shell out money for content). This, of course, leads to people who create new accounts just for the trial period.

A 'mixed' board would probably be best. FAQs & 1 forum (with posting limits) for all, the rest of the forums (with bigger posting limits, if necessary) & downloads for paying members.

Jon-Mikel

[r34skyline]

i found a pretty good web hosting site. it has multiple t3 connections and unlimited web transfters. the thing is it costs from $4-200 a month.
http://www.nextwebhosting.com check it out

[d4n13l]

septor,
hehe, I was just kiding there...
I hope you were kidding about fireworks being lame...

I have illustrator too but I have no real need for vector based images. I am atually using about 4 different programs, the quality and file size of each image created is roughly the same for each. The files I am mainly dealing with are so small anyway - the compression of png is so good.
The only time when I need advanced controls and the best editor is when I come across images that have been saved as gif but saved with dithering and too many colours etc. The main offenders are images that people take when using "flashy" windows schemes. Like where the title bar of the window has a colour graduation, it makes reversing the damage done near impossible, or extremely difficult at the least. All my new screen catures are done with as much solid colour as possible to make full use of the png compression.

[TheInformer]

If you want a site to help with "withdrawl" until VCDHelper gets up and running again at 100%, check out

http://www.labdv.com/en/

A pretty nice site for information.
Here's hoping Baldrick gets everything taken care of!

[septor]

Those are some damn good capture shots bro
I think baldrick should use some of those
Being that they are good quality and way less straining on the server
good work!

[judo]

i wish that the forums will be opened soon and the whole site