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Would you limit storage space for uploads and/or remove videos after a certain amount of time on the platform? Storage tends to be one of the biggest difficulties cost-wise for a video hosting site. Keep in mind that you don't store just one copy of the video at the resolution that was uploaded. You store multiple copies of the video at progressively smaller sizes - so if somebody uploads 4k, you will end up storing at least 1080p and 720p copies as well - as well as potentially 2.5k and 480p copies depending. People don't usually expect their videos to stay on the site for only 1 year. So even if you're able to stay even at £60 ($82USD)/year for a year or two, as long as people are uploading and not deleting things, your costs will keep increasing. That's also not to mention transfer and CDN costs which are also potentially high. Imagine having a single very popular creator who uploads a daily 20 minute video in 4K quality which is then streamed by 1 million people every day. Will you still charge them just $82/year even though they're costing you a lot more than that? To make it worse, storage costs are increasing a lot - thanks to the AIpocalypse for RAM which impacts SSD's as well... and since SSD's are up, hard drives also went up since the big players are buying more of them instead of SSD's. This is where decentralized options like PeerTube start to become tempting - though they suffer the problem that a chunk of the content can vanish because a single operator gets tired of paying a lot of money to host others' content.

Unusually, Petapixel and DPReview have found a backbone and posted some interesting stuff in relation to the Minneapolis protests. https://www.dpreview.com/interviews/6336791578/john-abernathy-pierre-lavie-protest-photographers-ice-minneapolis-thrown-leica Imagine for a moment if smartphones and this Leica didn't exist. All we'd have to go on is the lies coming out of the federal government and they'd easily be able to smear the dead and do the big cover-up operation they're attempting to do now. But the images all around social media tell a different narrative. And I for one commend the bravery of the folk on the streets with their cameras. The truth is constantly being debased and it really took the biscuit last week with Trump's denial of British and NATO troops service in the Gulf War, Iraq War and Afghanistan. They were on the front lines and gave their lives for it. To anyone still thinking of voting Reform in the UK, or for those who voted for Trump at any point, surely your eyes are not still CLOSED after what you are seeing in recent weeks? If yours are, I'd be fascinated to know why.

The US government twats underestimates how angry Europe is over the greenland BS and the damage we can do. The EU and UK are one of the biggest economies in the world along with China and the US. I am not sure why the US would want to piss us off. But we could ask Canada and Australia to join a customs union. We would even go all the way and have them join the EU. UK could rejoin too. We could sell the trillion dollars of US bonds and crash the US economy. But what is rarely talked about is the US services industry. They are deeply embedded in European life but this might change. VISA, Mastercard, Apple, X and many American banks could suddenly find themselves kicked out of Europe and replaced by European companies. Imagine the damage that would do to the Americans. eBay and PayPal would lose almost half of their global market share.

I would argue that social media is due a re-invention as well. Everybody hates what it has turned into (basically crap addictive television). Facebook is no longer a place where you hear from friends. It always promotes clickbait, professional content creators and ads above what your friend's post, and the stories on Instagram have stolen what Instagram started which was a linear feed of photos, and turned it into TV. As entertainment it works fine, but it undermines the original concept of what Instagram was supposed to be and why people liked it. I would have a cross between Flickr and Instagram for photographers, with decentralised hosting and no Meta copyright BS.

Interesting mentions, but it needs not to be a general dumping ground for any kind of content, it needs to be laser focused on filmmakers / artists / DPs and musicians, exactly like Vimeo was in the very early days with the full community aspect built in, comments threads, forums and really good portfolio curation. Staff Picks has to be there (under a different name of course), as a launchpad of careers like it was at Vimeo. There is no reason why it can't work again. YouTube is dominant, won't be going anywhere. So it shouldn't even try to compete with that. The unique selling point is the ad-free viewing, original file downloads and community aspect, as well as that laser focus on filmmaking & cinematography of all kinds. A niche site for artistic filmmakers that costs £60 per year ad-free, that isn't just another copy-n-paste YouTube or Frame.io is what's needed now! Any interest in gathering ideas for a crowdfunding?

The best bet for a YouTube alternative might be something a bit more decentralized. PeerTube have been around for a bit, but still haven't really taken off. Sorting by "global views" shows the most popular videos getting around 10k views. https://peertube.tv/ There are also options like Floatplane and Patreon, but their focus is more on people who will pay to follow a specific creator vs delivering a client gallery or similar. Finally, there are commercial services like Vidflow - no personal experience, but they're probably fine. Who knows how long they'll stay in business, though?

To host a large quantity of videos for streaming probably requires quite a bit of money and if there is no paywall then someone has to pay the bills and how to attract enough advertisers to cover them later. US has a lot of filthy rich people who can afford to arrange for these things to happen and take the risk. Europe spends its money taking care of people and so this money for investment is not as easily available unless funded by government or EU money. Since we don't want the business model to be based on data collection & IP theft, what would the business model be based on? Subscription doesn't work because US companies offer free services (but you are targed ads and your data is given to everyone somehow through intermediates and may be used for surveillance, political manipulation etc.) I think basic IT services (including video and photo hosting, forums, social media, basic tools) in Europe should be government funded or at least subsidized and all the infrastructure, code, and data must be located in Europe and preferably the code should be open source so that any manipulation or other illegality can be detected. And the platforms should be considered legally co-responsible for any illegal content or activities.

This is the problem with a closed, corporate owned web.

I would be up for that but SquareSpace would have to link to it as an option as I think they only currently link to Vimeo or YouTube for video? Could be why there are no other competitive other options out there?

Time for a UK / Europe Based Vimeo alternative then. Time to make our own.

Thanks for sharing your experience, I was looking to sell my gear and was wondering a better place than the regular ebay scam.. Well, it's look likes MPB is not better at all. Any possible alternative will be appreciated. Thanks

Ditto, well over 800 of the things… I finish my annual accounts for 25 later today and tomorrow I’m going to start putting year by most recent year, all of finished productions up on YouTube plus all future ones so if/when the plug is pulled, I will just need to change a few links. I only need to go back 5 years max so maybe about 100 uploads but still… 😏

They simply rock — the best cinema camera manufacturer nowadays, IMHO. Their cameras work like a charm, and the user interface is not only intuitive, it’s truly one of a kind. Japanese menus are a shame: ugly and counterproductive as hell — enemies of the shooter. Apples to oranges compared to these effective tools. Tested AI... here's the result: Your description matches Blackmagic’s “signature” approach almost perfectly. What you said narrows it down a lot: “They simply rock — the best cinema camera manufacturer nowadays” That’s exactly the kind of praise Blackmagic gets from shooters who value workflow and usability over brand prestige. “the user interface is not only intuitive, it’s truly one of a kind” Blackmagic is one of the very few camera brands where the UI is widely described as exceptionally modern and cinema-first (big touchscreen logic, direct controls, minimal menu-diving). “Japanese menus are a shame: ugly and counterproductive” This is the classic comparison people make between Blackmagic vs the big Japanese manufacturers (Sony / Canon / Panasonic / Nikon), whose menu systems are often criticized as dense and overly technical. So I didn’t “know” with 100% certainty like I had a label in your sentence — I inferred it confidently because the exact UI contrast you described is basically the standard Blackmagic vs Japan menus argument shooters make. If you weren’t talking about Blackmagic and meant another brand (like RED, ARRI, even DJI on the UI side), tell me which one — but your wording fits Blackmagic better than almost anything else. Funny, isn't it? ; ) - EAG :- )

Doesnt look good. Hope thzy wont go under, I have hosted most of my videos up there.

Now it's truly the end of an era. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46707699 https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/sjtjgbabzx

I still wish them the best with their Eterna sales to anybody other than a few rental houses. Other than 4:3 recording and more professional I/O, the much less expensive GFX 100 II has the same output. Also, the autofocus in video is a bit ass on it and unlikely to be much better on Eterna. 😅 But you know, if you have some 1.8x anamorphics that cover a 44mm wide sensor that you've been champing at the bit to use or if you really wanna go overkill on your social media presence, that 4:3 mode is probably killer. 🤣

... and the Ursa Cine 12K LF. This would be huge for me.

Pretty nice, they need to bring it to the Pyxis 6K

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I think you are right on the money, I only have one XH2s which I got mostly for a one client, The bulk of my video work is on the Lumix's. After the firmware crisis, I never fully trust the AF and have opted to always manually focus. I also agree with you, Fuji just abandoned the XH2s, they could have at least given us shutter angle, waveforms..... anything via firmware! I know they probably want all of us to run out and buy an Eterna but that's just not the right camera for what we do so no thank you.

«As a Fuji user, that smooth autofocus on the BM6k makes me cry.» «I sold my X-H2s and all the lenses a few months ago to get BMD Cinema 6K, and I never looked back since.» source «The most significant thing about all this, as you pointed out in the video, is that Blackmagic is essentially giving autofocus to all of us who already bought their camera, instead of releasing a Blackmagic 6K Full Frame Pro with autofocus just to make us open our wallets again. They may be losing money in the short term, but in my view they are gaining in the long term, because the trust the brand inspires is truly remarkable.» source Disclaimer: Happy camper as Blackmagic shooter over here! Looks like I am not alone... - EAG :- )

Went grave digging for the Fujifilm X-H2s thread. How is everyone doing with theirs and the current firmware level? I still feel like video autofocus is ass in continuous autofocus, either multi or wide/tracking. I have it randomly pulsing in an interview setting when the subject turns their head, camera maybe 1 meter away on a 16mm (AF-C, tracking with Left Eye AF on). Recently shot running content, camera on a tripod next to the street with a 56mm telephoto lens. Empty street, one runner coming into the frame, camera never detected him and never adjusted focus (tried multi and tracking, had face detect on, eye off). Personally I feel like this camera really damaged my brand perception of Fujifilm. They completely destroyed the autofocus function in firmware, then took a long time and multiple firmware updates to get it back to where it started, and ended up still worse than pretty much all competitors. This is a flagship model with price on par to many full frame cameras (it's currently 2899 USD) and they just completely gave up on the user base and moved on to releasing a whole bunch of other models with the 40mp sensor instead of working on fixing their existing models. They never gave it any real additions in firmware besides FLog2C; no anamorphic de-squeeze, no custom frame markers, no waveform, etc. This camera could have been absolutely amazing, it still has outstanding image quality and rolling shutter, but Fujifilm completely refocused towards vibes, FilmSim-dials and TikTok/Influencer attention. I have an X-M5 as an EDC camera and to be honest, expect for the IBIS, nothing about the X-H2s makes me feel like it performs noticeably better.

I don't quite understand what the problem is. Metadata giving instructions for interpreting the exposure (such as a "soft" ISO setting which does not actually affect the stored image data) can work for proprietary formats such as raw video but is there a similar option for non-raw video formats in any camera? If the video is to be used "as is", with minimal editing, all the major editing and playback software would need to know what to do with the data and the instructions that come in the metadata. If the file is meant to be always edited (as in log video) then it may make some sense to offer this as an option but the user always has the option of using just one of the base ISOs in the camera if they so wish, so I'm not sure what added value there is from having a separate brightness adjustment; just to see the image better? The problem is that by doing that you likely become disconnected from how much exposure latitude you have in either direction as the brightness of the image shown is just an adjusted brightness for viewing pleasure and does not reflect the actual exposure or values stored in the file. To compensate for this loss of visual connection between what is shown on the screen and the actual position of the values stored then would require additional exposure monitoring tools, such as colors indicating how many stops you are from saturation at each point of the image, and this then can lead to screen clutter in a small camera with a small screen. The Nikon ZR, as far as I've understood, does offer such an option by choosing R3D recording: the camera lets you choose one of two base ISOs and then adjust the brightness using the ISO sensitivity adjustment which does not affect the stored data. I already see people asking Nikon to add "traffic lights" for monitoring to help deal with the disconnect. Does the ZR waveform display reflect only the actual stored values or is the brightness adjustment or ISO sensitivity also affect the waveform?

Everyday is a new nightmare from the moron machine of modern life.