How Do I Become a Vidutopia Contributor?

In the following sections we will describe in detail the process involved in becoming a contributor with Vidutopia. But before jumping into the details we wanted to provide you with a basic description of the process so you have a better understanding of how Vidutopia functions. At Vidutopia we want to make the process as effortless, easy, and risk free as possible for you the contributor so you can focus on producing high quality educational videos and leave all the logistics, marketing, and distribution headaches to us. A brief summary of the four key steps necessary to start selling your content on Vidutopia are listed below and if you want to dig into the details of any of the specific steps even further simply click on the hyperlinked blue text to jump ahead to a more comprehensive description of that specific step. As always if you still have unanswered questions after reading through these explanations feel free to check out our FAQ and Forums sections or e-mail customer support at .

Your membership account holds the key to every bit of your participation in the Vidutopia community and website. On the top right hand corner of the homepage you will find a link entitled "Sign up/Log In". If you are a new user click on the words "Sign up" to create your new account. When signing up for the first time you will simply be required to choose a username and password and enter a valid e-mail address and security code. You will also be required to agree to the Vidutopia Terms or Use and Privacy Statement before creating a new account. Once you have entered all the necessary information and clicked "Sign me up!" you will then receive an e-mail at the e-mail address you provided during the sign up process. Please click on the confirmation link provided in this e-mail to complete the validation of your new Vidutopia membership account. Once completed you will then have access to all the features of the Vidutopia website and will be able to upload and sell your own content as well as download and purchase others content.

When creating video content for sale on the Vidutopia website there are several important parameters to keep in mind. First and for most Vidutopia is dedicated to providing high quality educational video content. Therefore, videos depicting lewd, pornographic, or otherwise inappropriate content will be rejected and will not be made available on the Vidutopia website. Videos dedicated to a broad range of academic topics as well as DIY and other educational content are considered acceptable for distribution on the Vidutopia website and for an idea of the topics of interest to Vidutopia and its users please check out the categories and sub-categories of video content that are currently available on the site as these might help to generate ideas for your own creative content. However, if you feel your educational video content is something that would be well suited to the Vidutopia community, but does not fit into one of the currently available video categories, you can still submit your video into the miscellaneous category. The categories and education video offerings on the Vidutopia website are always expanding and one of the ways we do this is through the miscellaneous submission category. Videos submitted into the miscellaneous category often times lead to the creation of new categories and topics of interest within the Vidutopia website and community.

Besides video content or topic the other important parameters to keep in mind when creating your educational content are the video quality, or more specifically the video's resolution and bit rate, and the video file type. Vidutopia classifies submitted video files into one of three video quality categories (i.e. Streaming, DVD, and HD Blu-ray) based on two properties of the video file, which are its resolution and bit rate. In order for a video file to be accepted into a specific quality category it must met the minimum requirements of both resolution and bit rate defined for that quality level. The table below describes the resolution and minimum bit rate levels required for each category. Although it is not a specific requirement we do prefer that video files be submitted with a frame rate of 29.970 frames per second.

To begin the upload process you need to first login in to your account or if you have not yet created an account you can do so by going through our simple sign up process. After you have registered and/or logged in to your account you can then begin the upload process by clicking on the upload button which if this is your first time uploading content will then prompt you to enter the extra information needed for content providers. This information is needed because as a content provider you will be able to earn royalties through the sale of your content on the Vidutopia website and in order to ensure you receive your royalty payments we need to have accurate and up to date account information. After you have completed and checked the accuracy of your account information you will then be able to move on to the upload video page. An example screenshot of the video upload page is shown below.


As you can see from this image there are nine sections on this form that must be completed before you can begin uploading your video file. A detailed explanation of each field and the information that should be included in that field is described below.

• Category – This field contains a drop down list of the most common high level subject topic categories available on the Vidutopia website. Please select from this list the category that you feel best fits with the content or topic of your video. If your video fits into more than one category you should try to determine which category best describes your video content as videos can only be listed one category. If you are certain that your video does not fit within one of the predefined categories listed then you can chose miscellaneous and the Vidutopia staff with either 1) leave your video in the miscellaneous category (this category is also displayed on the Vidutopia website so videos left in this category will still be made available for sale online), 2) reassign it into a category for which the Vidutopia staff believe is the better fit, or 3) create a new category specifically for your content which will be added to the list of available categories on the Vidutopia website.
  
  
• Subcategory – Within each category is a list of subcategories that are typically specific to the parent category. As with the selection of a category, selecting the appropriate sub-category will help ensure that customers can quickly and easily locate the content that is best suited to their needs and will ensure you have the highest level of exposure to potential customers interested in purchasing your content. A miscellaneous option is also available in the subcategory field and will be handled in a similar fashion to the way in which the miscellaneous option is treated in the category field above.
  
  
• Video Type (Paid/Free) – Video type simply refers to whether you would like to make the streaming version of you content available to customers free of charge or for purchase. Some content providers may choose to forgo the potential revenue generated by streaming purchases to allow potential customers a full preview of the entire video content, via free streaming access, with the hope generating increased DVD and/or HD Blu-ray purchases of their videos. At Vidutopia we want to give you our content providers the freedom and flexibility to determine what is best for your particular situation, and this is why we have added the video type selection feature to our uploading process. Regardless of whether or not the video type is set to paid or free, non-streaming (i.e. DVD and Blu-ray) orders will always be sold at the standard price based on the video format and length.
  
  
• Video Title – The video title should be a short and descriptive statement that describes the overall theme of your video. When customers view a preview of your video content the video title will be displayed in the box underneath the preview.
  
  
• Video Description – The video description should also be a succinct and more detailed explanation or description of the content presented in a specific video. This section of the video upload page allows for a larger number of characters (1000 to be exact) than the title section so that a more complete description of the videos content can be provided. This section is very important and along with the video preview will likely be the two most important factors used by potential customers to help them determine whether or not they want to purchase your content.
  
  
• Video Keywords – The video keywords will help customers locate your video content when using searching and sorting features. Choosing the most appropriate keywords is just as important as the proper selection of category and subcategory as both will help ensure that potential customers interested in the content you are providing are able to locate your videos.
  
  
• Content/Topic – The content/topic section refers to the way in which information is presented within the video. The five most commonly used presentation styles (e.g. Animation, Black/White Board Explanation, Lab Experiment, Presentation/ Demonstration, and Screencast) are listed as well as the miscellaneous category "Other" for videos that may not appear to fit within one of the predefined styles.
  
  
• Upload Video – If the file you are uploading is less than 1 GB in size you can then continue forward using the online uploading page. To select the video you wish to upload you can click the "Browse" key next to the Upload Video box and then navigate to and select the file on your computer and click open which will then automatically input the file name into the Upload Video box. Once the file name has been entered you will then be able to click the "Upload" button to begin uploading the video content to your Vidutopia member account. IMPORTANT NOTE: PLEASE NOTE THAT VIDEO FILES LARGE THAN 1 GB OR APPROXIMATELY 1000 MB IN SIZE CANNOT BE UPLOADED USING THE VIDEO UPLOAD PROGRAM. FOR FILES LARGE THAN 1 GB IN SIZE PLEASE CLICK ON THE "Mail In Form" BUTTON IN THE "Mail In Video" SECTION.
  
  IMPORTANT NOTE: PLEASE BE PATIENT DURING THE VIDEO UPLOADING PROCESS. A STATUS BAR WILL LET YOU KNOW THROUGHOUT THE PROCESS WHAT PERCENTAGE OF THE VIDEO HAS BEEN UPLOADED, BUT FOR VERY LARGE FILES THIS PROCESS CAN TAKE A SIGNIFICANT AMOUNT OF TIME. THE SPEED OF YOUR INTERNET CONNECTION WILL DETERMINE HOW FAST OR SLOW THAT UPLOAD WILL OCCUR BUT FOR FILES CLOSE TO THE 1 GB MAXIMUM FILE SIZE WITH A TYPICAL HOME CABLE MODEM CONNECTION THAT TOTAL UPLOAD TIME CAN REACH AND EVEN EXCEED 1 HOUR.
  
  
• Mail In Video – If the file you are uploading is more than 1 GB in size you will need to burn it to a DVD or HD Disc and mail it in to Vidutopia's Processing Center using the Mail In Form button on the Video Upload page. This will create a form and instructions page that you can print out and place in the mail along with a burned copy of your video content that can then be uploaded manually by the Vidutopia staff. IMPORTANT NOTE: PLEASE ENSURE THAT ANY CONTENT WHICH IS BURNED TO DVD OR HD DISC AND MAILED TO THE VIDUTOPIA PROCESSING CENTER IS PROVIDED IN ONE OF THE APPROVED VIDEO DATA FORMATS. DO NOT CREATE DVD OR BLU-RAY PLAYABLE VIDEOS AS THESE FILE FORMATS ARE NOT SUPPORTED AND WILL RESULT IN THE REJECTION OF YOUR VIDEO CONTENT.
  
  

Once your video has been successfully uploaded or received in the mail at the Vidutopia Processing Center, it will then be automatically routed into the Video Approval phase of the Vidutopia process which is described in more detail in the following section.

Once you have successfully uploaded your video content it will then be automatically directed to one of Vidutopia's trained video reviewers for further processing and approval. This process is completely managed and conducted by Vidutopia’s staff and does not require any additional effort or work on your part. During this process the Vidutopia staff will be primarily performing three critical steps. First they will review the uploaded content and descriptive information to ensure it is accurate and fits well with in the categories that have been selected by the content provider. If the reviewer believes there may be a better fit for the video in a different category or style they may modify those selections. They will also judge the overall quality of the video content and take into consideration the number of videos already available on the site that may contain the same or similar content. IMPORTANT NOTE: ANY CONTENT CONTAINING PORNOGRAPHIC, VIOLENT, OFFENSIVE LANGUAGE, OR OTHERWISE INAPPROPRIATE MATERIAL WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED FOR USE ON THE VIDUTOPIA WEBSITE.

Once a video has been reviewed and has been found to be accurately described and is judged to be of a high enough quality to be presented on the Vidutopia website it will then be converted into various file formats depending on the quality level of the original submitted video. Please see the table below that describes in detail the minimum resolution and bit rate levels required for the different quality levels and distribution formats available for sale through the Vidutopia website.

Higher quality video files can always be compressed into lower quality files using standard video editing software and still maintaining a large degree of their original picture quality. On the other hand lower quality videos cannot be converted into higher quality files without the creation addition of non-original data or other processing "tricks" which usually result in much poorer picture quality. Therefore, when a video file is submitted and achieves a given quality level, it is also automatically made available in any lower quality levels as well. The highest quality level on the Vidutopia website is the HD Blu-ray Disc level, followed next by the DVD Disc level and finally the lowest quality level is Streaming. Therefore, any video file that meets or exceeds both the resolution and bit rate levels required for the HD Blu-ray Disc quality level would be made available for sale on the Vidutopia website in all formats including HD Blu-ray Disc, DVD Disc, and Streaming. For example, a video file that has a resolution of 1920 x 1080 and a bit rate of 30 Mbits/sec is of a high enough quality that it qualifies for all three distribution categories including HD Blu-ray, DVD, and Streaming. On the other hand a video that has a resolution of 1920 x 1080 with a bit rate of only 17 Mbits/sec will only be made available in DVD and Streaming formats, because even though it has high enough resolution for HD Blu-ray Disc it does not have a high enough bit rate to ensure a high quality Blu-ray video could be created using that specific file.

Finally, once the video has been converted into the various distribution formats applicable it with then be approved at which time it will immediately become available for purchase on the Vidutopia website. You will also receive an e-mail letting you know once the process is completed. Now you can sit back, relax, and collect royalties on the sale of your video content through both online and mail order distribution channels. The section below describes the royalty process and rates for various purchase transactions in more detail.

Once your videos have been approved and placed on the Vidutopia website all you need to do then is sit back, relax, and begin earning royalties on the sale of your video content. Vidutopia will handle all of the logistics related to the marketing, sale, and distribution of your content, and will provide you with royalty payments based on the sales of your content. The exact dollar amount earned for the sale of a given video is based on the royalty rate and the current sale price of that video. Royalty rates are based on the distribution format selected by the customer and are currently set at 50% of the purchase price for streaming only content and 25% of the purchase price for DVD or Blu-Ray Disc sales and do not including any sales tax or shipping and handling costs. The table below illustrates the royalty rate and amount of royalty earned in dollars for a given video sale. From this table one can see that the sale of a 15 minute long video on DVD Disc would result in $2.50 of royalties earned by the author. It should also be noted that any discounts on the purchase price of a video option will also result in a representative decrease in the total royalty payment. For instance, if a given customer first purchases a streaming only 5 min long video then the author of that video would earn $1.00 on the sale as normal. If that same customer then proceeds to purchase that same video in HD Blu-ray Disc format, within 30 days of the streaming only purchase, they will then receive the discounted rate of $5.51 ($7.50 - $1.99 = $5.51) on that purchase which will result in a royalty payment of $1.38 (25% x $5.51 = $1.38) in addition to $1.00 earned on the original streaming purchase. Therefore the author will still earn $2.38 in royalties for both sales, but the customer will not be forced to pay extra for the same content if they purchase the streaming option first and then subsequently HD Blu-ray Disc option second within the 30 day purchase window.