Chronicles of a Newbie Movie Gallery Submitter

[radical]

In the past, I've maybe submitted one or two movie galleries but never really got into it seriously, after going to see Roy Chubby Brown and having a good few beers with Paul and a good chat about Movie Galleries, I decide what have I got to lose if I try submitting galleries, if anything I'll gain in valuable info and experience, which hopefully will broaden my abilities as a webmaster!

Now my reasoning for making this post is that I also plan to post a detailed account of my ups and downs, partner accounts, stats, bandwidth used, bandwidth costs, gallery designs, gallery template costs, sign ups made and what I re-invest back into this part of my business....

Hopefully this will help other people looking to submit Movie Galleries and give them a good indication of costs involved, bandwidth usage and a kind of base as too what is involved.

I hope it helps! I'll start this on Monday 23rd of May!

[chowda]

good luck. may u have hotlink protection

[radical]

First things first, I decide before I even attempt anything I need to find a good host at a good price, after speaking to a few other webmasters who submit Movie Galleries and listening to their opinions on hosts I checked out Ideal Bandwidth, after speaking with the sales rep I think yep I'll open an account!

So I take on a 10 Mbps economy server at $180, thanks to Ryan and Salie for the help and quick set-up!

So far my total cost is $180

My next target is choosing a sponsor, whom I think fits in with my overall agenda. I find a sponsor and start chatting with the sales rep and give them a general idea of what I'm trying to achieve and see if they can offer any helpful info.

So I'm now satisfied with my sponsor and think all is good so far and move into my next target, which is too have a few gallery templates designed around the sponsor, so I shop about and look at different portfolios, taking into consideration designs and costs etc. I finally find one that I think offers the best design at the best price and I order 5 templates at $50! Once my galleries are designed I offer them out to some friends to critic them and then hand them back to my designer to make changes etc.


This brings my total cost so far too $230

[radical]

Originally Posted by chowda

good luck. may u have hotlink protection

Thanks lol, yep need to re-do my .htaccess files a bit for this one

[polish_aristocrat]

you will probably quite posting updates after 2 days like most people did :/

[radical]

Originally Posted by polish_aristocrat

you will probably quite posting updates after 2 days like most people did :/

Nope the only time I'll quit posting is if I get to the point where I decide it's in my best interest not to continue submitting movie galleries! I'll post everything upto that point!

[Relish XXX]

I am interested in this. I have never submitted galleries, although I have purchased spots off GTS.

Thanks for doing this.

[radical]

Originally Posted by Relish XXX

I am interested in this. I have never submitted galleries, although I have purchased spots off GTS.

Thanks for doing this.

No probs, hopefully it'll turn into a good info thread that will help others too.

[khs]

a biz thread on gfy no fuckin' way, I look foward to your write ups

[radical]

My next task os to find a domain to move to my new server, found an old domain I haven't used in a long time, so I change the dns settings to the new server and place it on it's own unique ip.

I know have my most important basic tools: Hosting, Domain, Content and Templates.

I know look at what else I need and figure I need wmv/mpg splitters, screen capping tools and tutorials on how to achieve the maximum effect with screen caps. I'll post any helpful info on screencaps and what tools to use.

[radical]

Today, I'm thinking about getting my screencaps and movie clips ready for my gallery templates!

Also I've been thinking about what is the best forward in submitting these galleries, whilst chatting to some friends on ICQ I decide the best possible way to make a head start with traffic is to invest in some partner accounts with some mgp's! Also I need a good list of mgp's so I also think about the possibility of getting chameleon Submitter.

[AdultNex]

The hopes of getting big bucks from movie gallery submitting as a newbie in the business RIGHT NOW is long gone.

Partner accounts make up a good portion of submitting, and even if you do happen to operate a well-known and high-traffic MGP, you will not have success with partner account requests (out of the 150 or so requests that I sent out, only a handful of MGPs sent an acceptance reply).

For newbies, gallery spots are the only way to go.

[AdultNex]

Originally Posted by radical

Today, I'm thinking about getting my screencaps and movie clips ready for my gallery templates!

Also I've been thinking about what is the best forward in submitting these galleries, whilst chatting to some friends on ICQ I decide the best possible way to make a head start with traffic is to invest in some partner accounts with some mgp's! Also I need a good list of mgp's so I also think about the possibility of getting chameleon Submitter.

Chameleon Submitter doesn't work too well with MGP galleries. Go with Advanced Submitter or Dream Submitter (if you are familiar with building a DB).

I have a filtered Advanced Submitter DB with 156 non-PA sites and 48 PA-only sites (99% of the sites are active and high-traffic only). I can sell it to you cheap.

[radical]

Originally Posted by AdultNex

The hopes of getting big bucks from movie gallery submitting as a newbie in the business RIGHT NOW is long gone.

Partner accounts make up a good portion of submitting, and even if you do happen to operate a well-known and high-traffic MGP, you will not have success with partner account requests (out of the 150 or so requests that I sent out, only a handful of MGPs sent an acceptance reply).

For newbies, gallery spots are the only way to go.

Yeah it was one of the main points I talked too Paul about, I needed clarification on the matter and the best way to proceed forward with submissions etc

[radical]

Originally Posted by AdultNex

Chameleon Submitter doesn't work too well with MGP galleries. Go with Advanced Submitter or Dream Submitter (if you are familiar with building a DB).

I have a filtered Advanced Submitter DB with 156 non-PA sites and 48 PA-only sites (99% of the sites are active and high-traffic only). I can sell it to you cheap.

I already have advanced submitter, one of these tools though I've never really used!

Please email me your details too [email protected]. Thanks

[Nicky]

Very good thread Radical, I will be checking in here to see your progress everyday

[radical]

Ok, first things I had to get for cutting the movies and screen caps was some tools, so I browse through some video forums trying to get a general idea of what's the best tools to use with the minimal fuss!!

I decided to use:

http://www.boilsoft.com/videosplitter/ Cost: $24.95 and

http://www.frame-shots.com/ Cost: $30


This brings my total cost so far to $284.95

[brilsmurf]

wow i bookmarked this thread so i can follow ur adventures, please do not forget to post screenshots of you traffic and sales stats!

thanx for this man, respect! that you take the time to do this!!

[Rui]

Interesting thread

AdultNex - I'm considering giving a try to Advance Submitter, tried the DreamSubmitter trial but wasn't impressed (to say the least) with it

[radical]

Originally Posted by brilsmurf

wow i bookmarked this thread so i can follow ur adventures, please do not forget to post screenshots of you traffic and sales stats!

thanx for this man, respect! that you take the time to do this!!

Yep I'll be posting screenshots of sponsor stats and server stats everyday.

[radical]

Ok, been looking for some good tutorials on how to touch up screen caps and managed to dig this up on another board:

http://www.dancingbones.org/xena/tip...g/capping.html

[candyflip]

Do you mind if people add any tips they might have to help you out?

[radical]

Originally Posted by candyflip

Do you mind if people add any tips they might have to help you out?

Yep that would be great Candyflip, any tips, advice and useful info would be greatly appreciated. I'm starting this from a total noob perspective. Hopefully it'll help other newbies aswell

[candyflip]

Thanks for the FrameShots link...hadn't seen that before and just bought a license for myself.

That will DEFINTELY save me some time when building galleries.

[Scotty.T]

Interesting thread. Looking forward to the updates. Bookmarked.

[Theo]

good thread,props to you for starting a business thread in this chaos ;-)

[radical]

Originally Posted by candyflip

Thanks for the FrameShots link...hadn't seen that before and just bought a license for myself.

That will DEFINTELY save me some time when building galleries.

Cool glad it's a help

I was using Hypersnap DX before but something SP2 for windows xp fecked something up and I've trying to figure out what, instead of capturing just the video it was capturing the whole desktop, even though I had change the settings to capture just the video alone, still works in PowerDvd ok but I wanted something quick where I could load into and take instant frameshots!

It's a good tool, they have some good filters you can play about with but what I've found so far is not to apply any and just touch up the screen cap in photoshop! Seems to get better results for me!

[radical]

Originally Posted by Soul_Rebel

good thread,props to you for starting a business thread in this chaos ;-)

Thanks Soul Rebel

[AdultNex]

Originally Posted by Rui

Interesting thread

AdultNex - I'm considering giving a try to Advance Submitter, tried the DreamSubmitter trial but wasn't impressed (to say the least) with it

If you didn't like DreamSubmitter, then your only other option would be AdvancedSubmitter (since ChameleonSubmitter was configured specifically for TGPs). Once you get used to it, you'll be lightning quick in manual submits.

Also, often times, the video quality is either bad or has awful lightning. If that's the case and you don't have the money to shell out for Photoshop, I would recommend getting Irfanview (www.irfanview.com). Not only is it a decent video,flash,image viewer, but you can adjust an image's sharpness, contrast, and brightness. It also loads very quickly and is quite small.

[radical]

Originally Posted by AdultNex

If you didn't like DreamSubmitter, then your only other option would be AdvancedSubmitter (since ChameleonSubmitter was configured specifically for TGPs). Once you get used to it, you'll be lightning quick in manual submits.

Also, often times, the video quality is either bad or has awful lightning. If that's the case and you don't have the money to shell out for Photoshop, I would recommend getting Irfanview (www.irfanview.com). Not only is it a decent video,flash,image viewer, but you can adjust an image's sharpness, contrast, and brightness. It also loads very quickly and is quite small.

Infraview is a pretty good tool, used it before

Here's some helpful tutorials to go with it:

http://clevergraphics.homestead.com/tutorials.html

http://www.anzwers.org/free/webdesig...tutorials.html

[Halcyon]

Originally Posted by radical

No probs, hopefully it'll turn into a good info thread that will help others too.

I've already been helped. Keep Going!!! (and thanks!)

[radical]

Originally Posted by Halcyon

I've already been helped. Keep Going!!! (and thanks!)

Your welcome Halcyon

[radical]

Been looking .htaccess files today and these may be helpful for protecting movie files:

Drop this at the root of your domain:

<-------- .htaccess code --------->

RewriteEngine on
AddHandler server-parsed .html
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks Includes
ErrorDocument 404 http://www.yourdomain.com/404.html
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://www.yourdomain.com/404.html [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://www.yourdomain.com/404.html [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://www.yourdomain.com/404.html/ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://www.yourdomain.com/404.html/ [NC]
RewriteRule .*\.(gif|GIF|jpg|JPG|ram|RAM|mpg|MPG|mpeg|MPEG|wmv |WMV|avi|AVI|rm|RM|swf|SWF)$ - [F]

<-------- .htaccess code --------->

[radical]

Also place this in every folder which contains image/video files:

<-------- .htaccess code --------->

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !http://www.yourdomain.com/404.html/ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !http://www.yourdomain.com/404.html/:80 [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !http://www.yourdomain.com/404.html/ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !http://www.yourdomain.com/404.html/:80 [NC]
RewriteRule .\* http://www.yourdomain.com/404.html/ [R,L]


<-------- .htaccess code --------->

[Scott McD]

Cool, hope the submitting goes well...

[Mpegmaster]

OK just my observation about the movie gallery biz these days!!!!!

Its really tough for someone new to get in and do well really!!!!!
Every site is turning into a pay for submit module and the investments are becoming huge! And getting partner accounts aint easy anymore either! Believe me i know what i am talking about! Unless you got the right contacts! The days for the people who submitted galleries as a HOBBY are gone!!!!!!!
Only thing keeping some people still going is the free hosting provided by sponsors! But we all know that the Pro submitters have their own dedicated servers 70-100Mbits a month ;) Not a joke ;)

Things will get much worse in the coming days because of 2257 regulations!
The only positive note in this is the fact that people who have been doing this for a while are now in a good position to make more sales because not much competetion will be left very soon ;)

[radical]

Originally Posted by Scott McD

Cool, hope the submitting goes well...

Me too Scott, where ye been hiding?

[radical]

Originally Posted by Mpegmaster

OK just my observation about the movie gallery biz these days!!!!!

Its really tough for someone new to get in and do well really!!!!!
Every site is turning into a pay for submit module and the investments are becoming huge! And getting partner accounts aint easy anymore either! Believe me i know what i am talking about! Unless you got the right contacts! The days for the people who submitted galleries as a HOBBY are gone!!!!!!!
Only thing keeping some people still going is the free hosting provided by sponsors! But we all know that the Pro submitters have their own dedicated servers 70-100Mbits a month ;) Not a joke ;)

Things will get much worse in the coming days because of 2257 regulations!
The only positive note in this is the fact that people who have been doing this for a while are now in a good position to make more sales because not much competetion will be left very soon ;)

Thanks for the heads up Mpegmaster

[FreeFastHost]

It might be a waste of time for a newbie to try and get into submitting movie galleries right now. You're not going to be able to get the partner accounts you need to make money. I run some big mgps and I don't give out accounts to anyone anymore, unless they're a big site owner or a good friend.

[Nylz]

Originally Posted by Mpegmaster

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

that's about all I've read from your post

[radical]

Originally Posted by FreeFastHost

It might be a waste of time for a newbie to try and get into submitting movie galleries right now. You're not going to be able to get the partner accounts you need to make money. I run some big mgps and I don't give out accounts to anyone anymore, unless they're a big site owner or a good friend.

Thanks for the info, I can imagine it's going to be a hard task trying to get partner accounts!

[radical]

Bump, for today's activities

[radical]

Well uploading my galleries to the server just checking I've all all relevant info in place, 2257, .htaccess, 404 page etc

Here's one of my first galleries:

http://www.themoviesvault.com/gals/2352005/01/

The last thumb I need to sort out, still a bit bad, been playing about for ages trying to get a good cap!!

[brilsmurf]

looks great! nice desing: where did you had it made?

dont forget to post stats

[Nylz]

looks good!

good luck with your galleries, you can always hit me up if you need help, I might know a thing or 2

what sponsor is this btw?

[radical]

Originally Posted by brilsmurf

looks great! nice desing: where did you had it made?

dont forget to post stats

Hi brilsmurf, got them made by http://www.fractalpunk.com/, good price too


Yeah I'll posts stats when I get stats proggy installed on the server and start seeing traffic etc

[radical]

Originally Posted by Nylz

looks good!

good luck with your galleries, you can always hit me up if you need help, I might know a thing or 2

what sponsor is this btw?

Hey Nylz, heard a lot of good things about you from Ross and Paul

Thanks for the offer of help I may need to take you up on that lol!!

The sponsor I won't mention as their main affiliate site is not fully functional yet, but if you send me an email to [email protected] I'll forward it onto the appropriate person for you, if your interested in using them!

[Axzar]

Bump for an informative thread.

[Basic_man]

Nice thread, I wish you good success man

[Houdini]

fyi: .htaccess doesn' work for movies since no referer is passed. Check out http://www.antihotlinking.com or ??? there's another good one out there, but can't remember the name. Maybe someone else knows.