Frequently Asked Questions

Vidutopia is an educational video marketplace. We provide content providers with a free and easy to use platform to display and sell their educational videos at no cost. We handle all the marketing, advertising and distribution logistics and pay content providers a royalty based on the sales of their products through the Vidutopia website. For customers we provide a convenient and easy to search library of high quality educational content that can be viewed instantaneously online or used to create customized DVDs or Blu-ray Discs containing only the items of their choosing that can then be viewed on standard DVD or Blu-ray players.

Vidutopia is fairly simple to use, membership is free, and all members are able to both purchase access to videos which they would like to view as well as upload videos they would like to sell.

Purchasing videos is fairly straight forward and involves simply selecting and adding videos that you would like to purchase to your shopping cart. Where Vidutopia is unique from other sites is that in addition to online streaming access to videos we also allow customers to create their own customized DVD or Blu-ray Discs which are created to match your specific requirements and contain only the videos and information you select. This saves time and money by allowing you to only purchase the videos that you feel are relevant rather than purchasing expensive predefined full length video courses. Once all your videos have been selected and paid for if you have chosen to have a DVD or Blu-ray Disc created these will be made and shipped to you within 3-5 business days. You will also have immediate access to streaming quality full length versions of your videos online. For more detailed information on the purchasing process please click here to learn more.

Uploading videos for sale is also a very simple and straight forward process. Videos can be uploaded from your membership account using the easy to use Vidutopia video upload system. Once uploaded videos will be screened to ensure they meet specific visual and content requirements, but once approved they will be immediately made available for sale within the Vidutopia educational content library. From this point forward Vidutopia will handle the rest of the details including advertising, marketing, and distribution of purchased videos and will pay you royalties based on the sales of your content. For more detailed information on the process of becoming a Vidutopia contributor please click here.

More often than not the issue is that your spam filters are automatically screening the confirmation e-mail or in some cases deleting it without your knowledge. Please first check your spam box to ensure the e-mail was not captured there and then add Vidutopia to your e-mail programs list of approved addresses. If still cannot find your confirmation e-mail then contact us at support@vidutopia.com and our administrators will assist you with the activation of your account.

You can contact Vidutopia by clicking on the "Contact Us" link at the bottom of any page or click here. We are always interested in making the user experience more enjoyable and feedback is always appreciated. If you would like to provide feedback you can click on the floating "feedback" button on the left side of any page or click here. Finally, you can also e-mail are support team directly with questions or issues at support@vidutopia.com.

Video cost is dependent on two factors, which are 1) the length of the video file, 2) the format in which the video is purchased (i.e. Streaming, DVD, or HD Blu-ray Disc). Click here to see a more detailed description of video costs and learn more about the Vidutopia video purchasing process.

The number of videos that can fit on a single DVD or Blu-ray Disc depends entirely upon the lengths of each individual file that is purchased. Vidutopia uses a set bit rate for DVD of 5 Mbps and 25 Mbps for HD quality video files to ensure that any purchased DVD or Blu-ray Discs have the same visual quality as a comparable Hollywood or Television productions. These set bit rates results in the ability to store up to 120 minutes of DVD quality video on our standard DVD Discs and 120 minutes of HD quality video on our Blu-ray Discs. Therefore if the total length of all the videos purchased exceeds these limits then videos will be provided on multiple discs. Additionally, Vidutopia will always try to fit individual video files on a single disc, however on rare occasions a very long duration video file may need to be split up into two or more pieces that can then be provided across multiple discs.

Simply select the distribution format (i.e. Streaming Access Only, DVD Disc + Streaming Access, or HD Blu-ray Disc + Streaming Access) you wish to receive when you are adding videos to your shopping cart by clicking the add to cart button next to your desired distribution format. You are also able to mix and match distribution formats within the same order, just remember that DVD quality videos will only be provided on DVD Discs and HD Quality Videos will only be provided on Blu-ray Discs.

Yes. When you go back into a specific video file that you have purchased within the last 30 days as a streaming only file, you will now notice that the DVD and HD Blu-ray purchase options are discounted by the amount paid for access to the streaming only copy.

The primary differences between these four video formats on Vidutopia website is there screen size (a.k.a. resolution) and visual quality, which in this case is primarily determined by bit rate.

Resolution is pretty straight forward and as you will notice as you interact with the website the Preview quality videos have the smallest resolution at only (320x240) and their primary purpose is to simply give the viewer a general idea of the content described in the video. Streaming quality videos have double the resolution of the preview files and are much easier to see and display well on most computer screens. Their resolution is (640x480) which is the standard resolution for most online streaming video files. DVD quality videos are set to a standard DVD resolution of (720x480) which is the accepted resolution for now wide screen or standard television screen display. Finally, HD Blu-ray quality videos are provided in full HD resolution which is (1920x1080).

Bite rate is a little more complicated, but basically determines the quality of the video image that is displayed. Preview quality files are set at the lowest bit rate which is approximately 0.3 Megabits per second (Mbps) since their primary purpose again is to simply provide the viewer with a general idea of the videos content and a lower bit rate allows for faster loading of the preview videos. Streaming quality bit rates can vary from website to website but Vidutopia uses a bit rate of approximately 1 Mbps which is three times the quality of the preview videos and is higher than most other streaming websites and results in a fairly high quality streaming video display. DVD quality videos are provided at an average bit rate of approximately 5 Mbps, which is the same quality level as a typical Hollywood movie or television series that is sold on DVD Disc. This is 5 times higher quality than the streaming quality videos on Vidutopia's website and 10 times higher than most other streaming video websites, which is why videos taken from internet sources and shown on TV shows or Newscasts have such visual poor quality. Finally, HD Blu-ray quality videos are provided at an average bit rate of approximately 25 Mbps, which again is the same quality level as a typical Hollywood movie or HD television series that is sold on Blu-ray Disc.

Vidutopia accepts videos for upload in the following formats: avi, mpg, mpeg, mp4, m4v, mov, swf and wmv. The optimal format for uploading videos is in an MP4 or Quicktime file compressed with the h.264 codec. The resolution and bit rate of uploaded files is at the discretion of the author, but in order for videos to be offered through various distribution formats they must meet certain resolution and bit rate requirements. For instance, If you provide a video file with a resolution of (1920x1080) or higher and a bit rate of 25 Mbps or higher then it will be made available for sale on the website as in all three formats including HD Blu-ray Disc, DVD Disc, and Streaming. Vidutopia has the capability and will automatically compress larger files down in both resolution and bit rate as necessary, but obviously it is not possible to convert files up is either resolution or bit rate. Therefore files that don't achieve the minimum resolution and bit rate cutoffs for a specific distribution format will not be offered in those formats. The minimum resolution and bit rate cutoff for HD Blu-ray Disc distribution is (1920x1080) and 25 Mbps, and anything that meets or exceeds both of these requirements will automatically be made available for all three distribution formats. In other words you DO NOT need to upload three different video qualities; just the highest quality and we will take care of the rest. The minimum resolution and bit rate cutoffs for DVD Disc distribution is (720x480) and 5 Mbps. The minimum resolution and bit rate cutoffs for Streaming only distribution is (640x480) and 1 Mbps.

Video files larger than 1 GB in size can be provided directly to Vidutopia as a hard copy via regular mail. A link is provided at the bottom of the uploader form that will walk you step by step through the process of submitting video files larger than 1 GB in size, or you can click here to access the form directly.

Royalties are calculated based on the sale price of the video and the distribution format selected by the customer. Royalty payments are made on a monthly basis after a minimum account balance is achieved on sales that are at least 30 days old. This is done to ensure that no outstanding account adjustments or transactions are still pending when a distribution payment is made. You can also see what videos have sold and the total amount of royalties earned at any given time by clicking "view revenue report" within your membership account. For more detailed information on the royalty payments process please click here.