How Does the Vidutopia Process Work for Customers?

At Vidutopia we strive to provide the most user friendly customer experience with easy access to high quality educational videos at a reasonable price. In the following sections we will describe in detail the four quick and easy steps necessary to purchase educational videos through the Vidutopia website. But before jumping into the details we wanted to provide you with a short description of the overall process and advantages of using the Vidutopia website. If you still have unanswered questions after reading through this tutorial please 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 of 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. Once you have completed the sign up process you can then access your membership account area by simply clicking "log in" at the top right hand corner of the website. Additionally you can also click on the "My Account" icon on the tool bar at the top of the website. These will take you to your membership account area which will look similar to the image below.



As you can see in this image nearly all of the details of your VIdutopia membership account and ID as well as any purchased and/or uploaded videos can all be accessed from you member account area. To examine the features of the membership account area in more detail we have split the above page into three separate sections which are described below.

• Button Features – On the right hand side of the page are three blue buttons labeled, "Upload Video", "Browse Videos" and "Invite Friends". Clicking the "Upload Video" button will take you through the steps required to upload your own educational video content onto the VIdutopia website. For more detailed information on this process and how to become a Vidutopia contributor please click on the following link Become a Contributor. Clicking on the "Browse Videos" button will take you directly into the Vidutopia educational video library where you can begin searching for and previewing educational content. Finally, clicking on "Invite Friends" will bring up an online form which allows you to enter your name and the e-mail addresses of friends that you would like to invite to join Vidutopia.com.
  
  
• Welcome Section – The welcome section in the center of Vidutopia membership account page has links which allow you to view and manage any information associated with your membership account. The first item listed is the e-mail address used to create your account. This is also the e-mail address that will be used in correspondence between you and the Vidutopia staff. Clicking the "Upload Photo" button will allow you to upload a personalized avatar or image that is associated with your user account. IMPORTANT NOTE: PLEASE DO NOT UPLOAD OR USE LEWED, PORNOGRAPHIC, OR OFFENSIVE IMAGES AS THIS WILL RESULT IN THE TERMINATION OF YOUR ACCOUNT AND DENIAL OF ACCESS TO THE VIDUTOPIA WEBSITE. Clicking "Contributor Account Details" or "Purchasing Account Details" will allow you to enter information such as shipping and contact details that will be required to provide you with royalties earned on the sale of your video content (Contributor Account) or for billing purposes when purchasing content (Purchasing Account). Clicking "Previous order(s) details" will bring up a list of your recent video purchase orders. Finally, clicking "View Revenue Report" will bring up a detailed report of any and all royalties earned to date on the sale of your education video content through the Vidutopia website.
  
  
• Videos Section – If you become a Vidutopia content contributor videos that you have uploaded or submitted will be made available for you to examine in the Uploaded Videos section of the membership account area. Once you have purchased videos through the Vidutopia website the full online streaming version of those videos will be made available to you in the Purchased Videos section of the membership account area. A button entitled "View Full Video" will appear under the video’s image which you can then click to view your purchased content.

Once you have creating your user account you can then begin browsing Vidutopia's library of educational videos. Our library of educational video content is always growing and we use both fully searchable text and key word sorting features to make finding the right educational content quick and easy. There are multiple links and buttons that can take you to the Vidutopia video library as well as short cut links to some of the more popular presorted versions of the library. From the user account the "Discover" link in the upper tool bar will take you to the main page of the Vidutopia Library, while the "Popular, Recent, Length, and Free" links under Videos at the bottom of the page will take you to various presorted versions of the video library. These same links are available on the Vidutopia homepage as well. The image below is a representative example of the Vidutopia video library main page.



To examine the features of the Vidutopia library page in more detail we have split the above page into three separate sections which are described below.

• Categories Section – Across the top of the library page and directly underneath the "Discover" tool bar is the categories section of the page which lists all of the currently available video categories. In this image the "All Categories" button (shown in bold black letters) is selected which means that all videos in all categories are being displayed. Clicking on any of the available category names will then select that category and restrict the list of displayed videos to just that selected category. This will also cause the selected category name to appear bold indicating that it has been selected. This function allows you to quickly and easily narrow down the list of displayed videos based on the category in which they have been classified.
  
  
• Search Features Section – The search features section of the library page is located on the right hand side of the page underneath the "Video Search Features" title bar. This section allows you to further search and sort videos based on a variety of criteria. The first item in this section is the "Search Keyword(s)" function. This section allows users to search and sort videos based on the relevancy of the video's title and description in comparison to the term(s) used in the keyword search. This can be done across all videos or across only a subset of videos. The second item in the search features section is the "Sub Categories" sort function which allows the user to further limit the videos displayed based on the classification of videos into certain subcategories within the broader categories. For example with in the broader category of math videos the sub category of Algebra could be selected to ensure that only videos pertaining to Algebra were displayed. The third item in the search features section is the "Sort Videos by" function. As the name implies this function allows you to sort videos based on different criteria, including Upload Date, Popularity, Video Length, and Relevancy (as it relates to keyword search term). The fourth and final item in the search features section is the "Video Type" function which allows you to sort selected videos based on whether access to them in streaming form is free or requires payment. Some content providers elect to have the online streaming version of their videos available free of charge while others require a nominal charge to purchase. Regardless of whether or not the online streaming version of a video is free or paid, standard rates apply for the purchase any video in hard copy DVD and HD Blu-ray Disc format.
  
  
• Display Results Section – The display results section of the library page is the located to the left of the search features section and below the categories section. This section displays the videos that were identified within the video library that match any searching or sorting functions that have been selected. For instance in the image above all videos in all categories are currently being displayed in order from newest to oldest based on upload date because this is the sorting criteria that has been applied. This is also the default sorting criteria that is applied whenever the "Discover" button is used to access the video library. Within this section a small thumbnail image of the identified videos as well as a few details about each video are displayed to help you quickly determine which videos are of interest. Underneath each videos image is its user rating (if available) from 0 to 5 stars. To the right of each video is the video title in blue letters, followed by its category in italics, and finally the username of the content provider in bold. Each video thumbnail image is a clickable link to that specific video's detailed information page. Therefore if you see a video that looks interesting and want to learn more about that video or view a clip of that video you can simply click on the video’s image which will then take you to that video's detail information page.
  
  

Once you have identified a video(s) that you might be interested in purchasing the next step is to examine those videos in more detail and determine which video(s) and in what format(s) you would like to purchase them. To do this you simply need to click on the thumbnail image of the video of interest and this will take you to that video's detailed information page. An example of a detailed information page is shown in the image below.



To more easily describe the features of the video detail page we have split it into three separate sections which are described below.

• Video Details Section – Directly underneath the "View details for …" title line on the left hand side of the page is the video details section. This section contains more detailed information about the video of interest including its title, a description of the video, its duration, upload date, and the number of times it has been purchased. The video description field is used by the video's creator to describe their video's content in more detail and can also be useful in helping you determine whether or not a video might suit your needs.
  
  
• Preview and Rating Section – To the right of the video details section is the video preview and rating section. Clicking on the "Preview Video" button in this section will launch a separate window in which a 30 second clip of the video will play. This clip is a low resolution video at 320 x 240 and is only meant to give the viewer a better idea of what content is provided in the full quality version of the video. Purchased videos are of a higher quality and resolution than preview clips and the exact quality and resolution is determined based on the format that is purchased. Exact video quality and resolution details are described in the table below. Underneath the "Preview Video" button use the current user rating for the video and any reviews that have been posted. Clicking on the "more" button below the displayed reviews will open a new window in which all reviews are listed. Additionally, once you have purchased a video you have the option to rate and review that video by clicking on the "Post Your Rating" link.
  
  

  	Streaming Quality	DVD Disc Quality	HD Blu-ray Disc Quality
  Resolution	640 x 480	720 x 480	1920 x 1080
  Bit Rate	1 Mbits/sec	5 Mbits/sec	25 Mbits/sec

  
  
• Purchase Section – The purchase section of the video details page is located at the bottom of the page underneath the video details and preview and rating sections of the page. This section details the cost and availability of the video in various formats. If a video has not been provided in a high enough quality to qualify as HD for instance, then the option next to "HD Blu-ray Disc + Online Streaming" would read not available and the "Add to Cart" button would be removed. Additionally if the video's creator has elected to provide the streaming version of the video free of charge then the option next to "Online Streaming Only” would read Free Video and the Preview Button below the video's picture would instead read "View Full Video". Once you have determined which format you would like to purchase you simply need to click the "Add to Cart" button next to the desired format and it will be added to your cart. From this point you have the option to proceed to the checkout or continue shopping for additional videos.
  
  

Once you have identified a video(s) and selected the appropriate video format(s) you would like to receive you are then ready to proceed forward with your purchase and checkout. However, before we discuss the checkout procedure in detail let’s take a quick look at the shopping cart and some of the unique features of the Vidutopia website. One of the unique features of the VIdutopia website is that we allow customers the opportunity to create their own tailored DVDs and Blu-ray Discs by selecting the video content that they wish to receive. Additionally, we are the only educational video sharing site that offers customizable DVD and full HD Blu-ray Disc content. As you begin to select and add various videos and video formats to your shopping cart these different options are pooled together and used to create your own customized DVDs and HD Blu-Ray Discs. As an example the shopping cart in the image below contains two videos in HD Blu-ray format, two in DVD format, and two in Streaming online format. In this case the user would receive one DVD disc (containing the two DVD quality videos) and one HD Blu-ray Disc (Containing the two HD quality videos) in the mail. Additionally the user would also have access to all six videos immediately in streaming quality through their user account for the next 30 days. This gives you the flexibility to pick and choose any videos in any format even within the same order and your choices will be automatically sorted and provided in the appropriate format.



Each DVD and HD Blu-ray Disc can hold up to two hours of video, in its specified format, and for multiple video purchases totaling over two hours in length clips will be arranged and provided across multiple discs in such a way to ensure that any individual video segment is not broken up across multiple discs. In addition to these benefits the purchase of a DVD or HD Blu-ray version of a video that has been purchased in streaming only format in the past 30 days will result in a discount on the purchase price of that video equal to the cost paid for the streaming online format of said video. The quality and resolution limits required for videos to be classified as streaming, DVD, or HD quality are describe in detail in the SELECTING VIDEOS FOR PURCHASE section of this tutorial. A videos quality and overall length are what determine its cost and the table below details the costs of various video options based on quality and length.