Paying for movie downloads??

[mattyboy]

i've got a load of amateur movies (all licenced etc) about an hour long each. I want to start a paysite but rather the punters pay a monthly fee to download whatever they want, the punter pays a set price for either 1, 3, 5 etc movies to download. The thing i want to know is how do i go about doing this?? Paying a monthly fee to download what they want is easy enough but a set price for a set amount of movies??

[SYNIKAL]

Make a pay site

[mattyboy]

It will be a sort of paysite... if i charge X amount a month for unlimited downloads and have 15 gigs or so of downloadable movies, my bandwith bills will kill me! Thats why i want say a $5 per month join fee for a couple of movies and higher prices for more movies. I just don't know how i would manage it all with different prices whilst being able to choose which movies the customer wants?

[fiveyes]

You'd need to set up a database, a way to track each surfer and a program to credit/debit tokens for viewing.

Be prepared for a lot of users coming back to claim they got timed out right before the good part and want another credit...

[mattyboy]

thx fiveyes. There join fee would allow them 30 days to d/load the movies. Any ideas on what type of database and does anybody supply these or set them up?

[rastakit]

Originally posted by mattyboy
thx fiveyes. There join fee would allow them 30 days to d/load the movies. Any ideas on what type of database and does anybody supply these or set them up?

To keep 'em from being ripped and to track you may want to use a DRM solution....though most of those kinda suck, so be careful!

Also for pure download site you may want to consider adding a private, peer-to-peer technology on your system...would keep transfer bw charges down, and you could offer unlimited downloads....just my

[wyvern]

mattyboy,

We have the software to track down surfers in the members area and to limit their downloads.
We can customize it a bit to work with your billing system and to give each member the ability to either download a defined amount of megabytes or a defined amount of movies (after the limit has been exceeded they will be presented with a page of your choice).
Please contact me to talk about it. My e-mail: wyvern(at)rbtechgroup(dot)com or ICQ# 83300875

[TheSaint]

Its not hard to do, I have set up some. You keep a database of users and what they have downloaded so far.

The key is you have to hook into your CCBill or Globill or whatever script, and add the db update as new members are added and deleted.

Then you have a download php page which authorizes the action, updates the db, etc.

No big deal, really, just some scripting.

[Sly_RJ]

Originally posted by mattyboy
It will be a sort of paysite... if i charge X amount a month for unlimited downloads and have 15 gigs or so of downloadable movies, my bandwith bills will kill me! Thats why i want say a $5 per month join fee for a couple of movies and higher prices for more movies. I just don't know how i would manage it all with different prices whilst being able to choose which movies the customer wants?

Assuming the surfer downloaded all 15 gigs of movies, that's only $5 worth of BW. Charge enough to cover that.

[Theo]

is there any available script/software for this?

[DiVo]

So you want pricing like -

x - user can download 1 movie per month
x*2 - user can download 3 movies per month
x*3 - user can download 5 Movies per month


Is this the structure you are looking for? We have one partner that is building out a site similar to this. The logic is on the web side. It is not trivial, but we can help your team or put you in contact with designers that have already tackled any of these issues.

We don't create the websites, but we do handle the DRM, compression, and delivery. If you have any questions IM me

AIM - DivXVOD
ICQ - 3370081

In case you want to see some websites out there using DivX outside of the PPV model:

www.blue-views.com (rolling out a 'members' program similar to above)
www.bosomquest.com (memberships to each set and checks against fraud or misuse)
www.lionsdengold.com (token system)

[KBPimped]

Mattyboy you can do this all day long using WMT DRM and move past the pay site super fast. I would recommend you deploy it using TOKENS.

And I am not sure if you want to go with DivX since they have to do the hosting and the processing AND the DRM and they take like 40% of your money which sucks.

Not to mention DivX is like 1/2 the quality of WMT and its a proprietary CODEC and platform developed by a small company that is looking to sell.

[DiVo]

Originally posted by KBPimped


And I am not sure if you want to go with DivX since they have to do the hosting and the processing AND the DRM and they take like 40% of your money which sucks.

Not to mention DivX is like 1/2 the quality of WMT and its a proprietary CODEC and platform developed by a small company that is looking to sell.

We have all sorts of contracts we setup with each content provider.

We do handle the hosting but not the processing.

For codec quality check out some real data like www.doom9.org. 1/2 the quality is pretty laughable.

DivX is ISO mpeg4 which is not proprietary. Actually the opposite of proprietary.

DivX was first to market with connected set-top boxes and DVD players. Playing DivX to your TV and connecting to the network. Doesn't take long to put two and two together.

Lay people might think that M$ is going to come along with something to compete with the DivX CE offering, but I haven't seen any press releases or read any analysts reports to that effect.

As for being a small company, we were rated as one of the Top 100 private technology firms in the world. We have the unique position that we are in touch daily with the engineers building out the next generations of video delivery and not reselling Microsoft's technology. Do you honestly believe Microsoft is looking out for you. If you do, IM their VOD department.

If you want some concrete info to compare, drop me a line and you can make the decision for yourself. If we don't make sense for you, I won't be hurt. Just make sure your decision is informed from both sides.

[mattyboy]

thx guys but i have hours and hours of my own content and am just looking for a way to accept different monthly payments for different amounts of d/loads.

[DiVo]

I understand. I'm sorry. I was meaning to show you some examples of sites that are using different payment options and see if any met your needs.

We work with many content providers. I just want to make sure we don't waste any of your time if this isn't going to perform as you like.

We just supply the technology, we are not and do not want to be in the content business. That is best left up to the pros. Depending on how you want to group your content and what sort of rights you want to grant we can setup various scenarios for you.

Anyway, I'll stop pestering this thread. If you're interested, let me know.

Thanks.

AIM - DivXVOD

[mattyboy]

No probs DiVo
The token thing you do may be of interest to me.
Email me at: matt_awd[at]yahoo.co.uk
Need to sleep now so i'll catch up later.
Cheers.

[icedemon]

The guy that owns this place can set you up with a pay per download, you can use his bandwidth on his servers and you can use his merchant account for charging the customers.
http://www.extremefeetclips.com/
His email is
[email protected]

Ask for Neil. Tell him Mark sent you.

[KBPimped]

DiVo,

Its hard to imagine a company that was founded on Stolen technology from Microsoft would turn and diss them when the market heats up. How long have you been with DivX?

It's FACT that MS was first to market with a WMT based DVD player which came out at CES in like 2001 I think. MS DOES have plans for the WinCE market with DRM-able media and it's built into the WinCE platform code. It's a MINOR tweak for any MS DRM provider on this list to support it so don't think it's a differentiator.
Also I am not sure where you got your info but MS has NUMEROUS WMT based Set Top Box deals out there. Look a little harder or I can post some of them here.


What exactly is your business model at DivX? First you were a banner driven site with spyware then you moved into the DRM and hosting business and now your deploying CODECs on WinCE devices? Is that the business model?

I think the MS comments are trite considering the numerous WMT based DRM providers on this list that are making money and happy to do it. I just don't see DivX as a good thing for the adult industry.

You have limited revenue and market share as a standard, your developing CODECs and Players and now a VOD service......where is your value add?

MPEG4 is proprietary to the companies and orgs that benefit from it as a standard. There is nothing free or open source or non-proprietary about MPEG4. Its just a marketing term. Nothing more.

Seriously we could go on and on here but I don't think you want to and it's probably not what the board wants.

[gothweb]

You're talking about having a token system for your site. There are a number of systems out there to do that.

[KBPimped]

No not the site the actual MOVIES no matter where they are.

With a DRM implementation you are able to actually just push the movies out there independent of the website and in return your able to control per access usage to them via a token based system.

Member's sites are going bye bye.

[liquidmoe]

Originally posted by Sly_RJ

Assuming the surfer downloaded all 15 gigs of movies, that's only $5 worth of BW. Charge enough to cover that.

This makes the most sense to me. Plus if you run a paysite you should definitely put some password protection on it, anything half decent will also have the ability to throttle limit each account to a certain number of megs/gigs a day before disabling their account for the day. This avoids the bandwidth problem, there is no custom coding necessary, and you dont have to rack your brain with the whole tokens system, nor do your surfers. I mean if they want to bust a nut do you really want them sitting there calculating how many tokens they will be wasting and what they will have left afterwards?

Also a much easier solution would be a content management system. Hell you could easier turn this into a custom content management system where the user decides which update he would like to receive next.