This is one of the reasons we’re experimenting with a new way of doing things. We know it’s discouraging for new authors to want to upload when the wait times are so long.
Often the challenge isn’t the reviewers but the content. Especially content that sits in the middle. Authors with content at either end of the spectrum have very consistent review experiences but as you get closer to the middle it becomes a judgement call which is where some authors may experience inconsistency.
We’re willing to take the risk to test it out. You could very well be right and in that case our review method would have to change to reflect that. However, we’re hoping that something different will happen. If an author sees too much risk in uploading 1000 items, perhaps that means they’ll only upload 100. That means that other authors will have 900 new opportunities to move up in the queue and be 900 items closer to being reviewed than they were before.
If all authors were to take this approach, review their content first, test the review process and see what happens, it would improve the queue, raise the bar on quality and help grow the marketplace.
Author Driven Pricing (ADP, the ability to set your own prices) is not currently available for VideoHive but it’s something that we’re looking at implementing in the future.
You are absolutely right that clearer guidelines and more explicit feedback would grow your confidence in uploading. We’re looking to do more around content requirements and improve the review feedback as part of this experiment.
Great feedback and something we’re working to improve. As we’ve said here, we don’t think adding more reviewers will solve the problem of a growing queue.
Thanks for your input. General rejections are something we’re hoping to improve as we review more files at once. A sample of items reviewed with a variety of specific comments, we’re hoping, will give you a better sense of what we notice in the footage needs to change.
The entire stock industry is changing. Better equipment is more accessible than ever and what you can produce on a smartphone today is as good as what you could produce on high quality equipment a few years ago. That’s also changing the demand and sophistication level of customers. To stand out amongst the YouTubers with 4k drones and Instagrammers with WiFi enabled DSLRs, what is considered high quality stock also needs to change.
We know it’s tough. Trying to figure out how to describe the difference between good and great isn’t easy and often little things make the biggest impact. So, we’re trying something different. We want more time with individual author submissions to identify trends in their content that we think work or that we think need to change. We want the best content to have the shortest wait time possible before getting out in front of buyers. To get there we need to spend less time with repeat offenders and items that don’t meet our content requirements.
We listen to authors a lot. Listening and acting on what they say are two different things though. While we appreciate the opinions of authors and seek them out, we have to make decisions that are in the best interests of the community as a whole (including Envato) which can sometimes be different than what any one specific author may want or request.
In terms of quality, we absolutely want high quality content (who wouldn’t?). Pricing is important too and Author Driven Pricing is something we’ve rolled out across other marketplaces and continue to evaluate as an option for VideoHive.
I see different reviewing approaches that mostly depend from the reviewer himself.
Now if I shoot two videos with same settings, they get reviewed in two different days, one is ok and one gets hard rejected because of noise and byebye, 130+ days wasted…years ago they would have simply told me to fix the noise and reupload it! Which is exactly what I did, but I reuploaded it on another website…why? because it would get online here almost 12 months after I shot it and it sounds like a joke!
Also, I can’t get files rejected because of static, underexposed, blurred or whatever reasons and then I see on the main page underexposed, static and blurred files! Why is that? Reviewer mood? tastes? training? what? you guys have to tell me!
On top of that now we have some reviewers that don’t even look closely what they are reviewing because as I said before, once I got accepted a 4K file with a .zip containing a .flv file (the preview video) and it was the customer who bought it to tell me about the mistake, not the reviewer that didn’t even open the .zip file!
The kind of reviewer we need? A reviewer that knows what he’s doing and wants the market to grow along with authors, someone who takes his time to evaluate the problem and tells you how to improve or fix your file, instead of simply hard reject it and go straight to the next one because of money.
I had once a reviewer that blurred out a logo himself then sent the file back to me to reupload…that would be just impossibile nowadays!
In the meantime, while you are trying to figure out if ADP is a valid option which I’m sure it is, I would suggest to raise the prices to 10$ for stock footage !
Ah, that’s very interesting, and I didn’t know the curation system had changed. I thought it just started to get out of control when they made it so you didn’t have to jump through 10,000 hoops in order to get a video into the queue (i.e. having to add a watermark and create a thumbnail and whatnot).
It’s surprising and perplexing to hear your entire photo portfolio was removed. As I’ve gotten better with my camera, months ago I was going to attempt again to become a PhotoDune contributor, and they weren’t accepting submissions. I gave it some time, and nothing changed, so I said “forget it” and moved on to other sites (with a more fair payout ratio for contributors). It’s got to be tough to manage a company with so much new and existing content from so many sources and to try to keep contributors and customers happy…but recent approaches (although they are experiments) have me scratching my head more often, wondering what’s going on behind the scenes.
James- Thanks for your response. I still don’t agree with the rationalization for the new approach but appreciate that someone from Envato is obviously taking the time to listen.
Hi!
I believe that the new file confirmation system works? I have files waiting for 6 months already and they are not accepted, but my friends confirmed the files that were waiting for a month.
I have in review queue those files which I have made very qualitatively and have enclosed a lot of money and they could affect my acceptance rate, but them still in review 6 month
30 projects have been uploaded within 10 days. And when these new rules came in. In my 30 projects answer came in one minute, and all hard rejects!. Never have my project been refused. I had 100% rate uploads. How could all the projects be so bad? I do not think you can even open the file and do not even check it because it’s impossible when i have upload aproves 100% rate. and all my 30 projects aswer is hard rejected! how can it be? in one minute? i have been waiting for answers about 2 weeks. i was waiting for answer about 2 proejcts beacouse they were uploaded about 9 days ago. now new rules has done. and all my projects has gone! can anybody explance what is going on? is this happends for new authors only? or authors who has low level?
sorry for my english… English ain’t my first language. can anybody tell me what i have to do? is there some new rules about uploading settings. file formats names size is there some changes that i dont now? somebody can tell me?
New rules in action. Today i have 99.9% of rejects. I think its a good way to solve a problem with long queue
All batch rejected in 10 minutes, i think think envato hired a lot of superman, they manage to check 40 files in 10 minutes
They managed to send 40 generic emails in ten minutes. There’s no evidence to support them reviewing 40 files and sending 40 generic emails in ten minutes.
As for the 99.9%… did you have 1000 clips in the queue?
Hello Envato? Wake up!
New rules in action but I still haven’t seen some updated quality requirements, as far as I can see from your link they haven’t been updated since over a year, how can you expect that us author will improve our quality if you don’t tell us what you require?
How can Framestock now get to know what to upload next, what he did wrong and so on?
Can someone also explain me why I see on the mainpage some static, poorly composed, underexposed and shaking videos?
No man, nobody cant explain it. We have to wait so far some changes will come. But I spoke more than once, I think Videohive will be a boutique market.
No man i have reviewed today 40 clips. And i sure that reviewer didn’t watch all 40 files. James told so, they take selectively several files and on them estimate all batch.
But at now i have approximate 1000 files which wait 5.5 month. By the way if you have permission to view files you can check it.
I have several questions to you. Tell please have you rejected files or you have 100% acceptance rate?
And i want to know your opinion. What do you think about this situation which proceeds the last year?
Envato does everything right? Maybe I do not understand them correctly?
Yeah, I pretty much have 100% acceptance rate. It’s a bit different for motion graphics though. Noise, grain, artefacts and lighting… there’s not really any excuses when it comes to animation.
And motion graphics are usually a bit more commercially viable than stock footage from a sales point of view… so they probably make it through more than footage.
Obviously such a long review time is far from ideal, but we’ll see what happens with these new changes.
And what should I do if my business suffers from new rules?
I have an experience of sale of video on other websites, I have 100% rating on SS, and I sell many files which was rejected on videohive.
I understand so videohive just wants to make very high quality and the small price.
But the tendency shows that videohive will be narrow for authors. I think some authors will leave and new authors won’t be able to pass quality examination. Also there will be only elite authors who make big money for Envato also now.
I understand so videohive just wants to make very high quality and the small price.
But the tendency shows that videohive will be narrow for authors. I think some will leave and new authors will not be able to pass quality examination. Also there will be only elite authors who make big money for Envato also now. I do not find accurate rules that explain how to shot and what to shot. But most of all that baffles me and does angry is what I see at elite and power elite authors footages with jerky and noisy camera. And it at them in a portfolio is also on sale. And i have same footage it was rejected.
Rules work not for all you recognize it or to prove to you? I have a link to files in which the camera jerky and has bad composition these files are accepted. I can send to you the personal message that it was not in a forum.
I heard you the firs time, no need to repeat yourself!
Do they have ratings at SS?
Some authors probably will leave, but that’s not going to have a massive impact on sales. Having 500 shots of business dudes shaking hands rather than 1000 doesn’t mean a 50% drop in sales… it’s more likely to mean the same amount of sales but just from a smaller pool of footage. Even with the new rules, 300 new items have been approved in the last two days, so new (and existing authors) will still be able to pass quality examination if their items are good enough.
What should you do if your business suffers as a result of the new rules? Accept it, alter your business approach or alter your business.
Only Elite authors who make big money for authors… it’s always only been Elite authors who bring big money for authors. I mean, not exclusively, but on an author by author basis, elites usually bring in a lot more money. Nothing is going to change that. And it would stand to reason that higher quality authors creating higher quality items that result in more sales, are going to make elite quicker and carry on generating high sales and high quality items. That’s the same here and on other sites, whether they have an Elite program or not.
I don’t think you’ll find accurate rules on what to shoot on any stock site. Any list that excludes anything would stop people from making things that aren’t on the list… thus limiting creativity, experimentation, and something that might look amazing, but just isn’t of a style or topic that sites are specifically looking for. Are there rules and guidelines on other sites… other than technical rules and guidelines?
As for the jerky and noisy camera, were these recent items? Standards increase all the time, and something that was accepted a year or two ago might not be accepted today. Even if not, mistakes are sometimes made. Just as you may have had items that maybe should have been accepted… you may also have accepted items that maybe should have been rejected. it’s swings and roundabouts!
I’m not saying I agree with the decision and I’m not saying it’s some kind of perfect solution… but something needed to be done and it has been. We’ll see how it works out. If I owned Envato maybe I would have done things differently. Envato would also be out of business by now… but it would have been one hell of a ride! They’d probably make a movie out of it, and it would be called “The Wolf of King Street”. The tagline on the poster would be “When you Succeed… We Party!!!”
give me 5 min