Videos: Logos or No?

[Mr. Spencer]

To be honest I don't see the need for a watermark or any other such property-of markings these days. Especially in the Biohazard community. There are no actual sites which would outright steal the videos apart from really low-rate ones. We don't use anything at all on Project Umbrella and it seems to be working out fine. I haven't seen a website steal or claim any video on the site as their own, and we've been open since 2007/8 now.

What about that cunt over at Resident Evil Umbrella?

[Canas Renvall]

A. You really like that word, don't you?

B. That watermark is totally fine, Dot. Go for it!

[A-J]

That's hardly noticeable, I say go with it.

[Beanovsky Durst]

Yup, that's it. Small enough, yet visible.

[Trent]

As long as it's readable to the viewer, go for it.

[MeganGrass]

I have mixed feelings about this one.

First and foremost, I want people to discover THIA, through whatever means possible.

As mentioned, one of the problems with watermarking images is that they can easily be cropped out. With videos, both the intro and outro can be cut out.

Again, as mentioned before, your main culprit is going to be the 1x-year old YouTube fanatic. We seem to have a pretty good relationship with other fansites, so that's not a big deal. If by chance someone at one of these fansites happens to steal material, it can easily be tracked. After all, it would be a THIA exclusive before *thief* steals it.

For videos, I would suggest this: Every so often, maybe every 5-10 minutes, have the watermark you used in that image above appear for a few seconds, then disappear, only to reappear xx amount of minutes later.

For images, you can have a "No Right Click" policy, but even that can be foiled via the 'PrintScreen' function on any given keyboard. So, it's your call on that one.


On the other hand, my bipolar self doesn't like any kind of watermarks. As Weed said, we, nor anyone else for that matter, actually own these images and videos. They are rightful property of CAPCOM. That said, it's also annoying to see watermarks, even if they are from this site.

[Chimera]

I'd rather not see any logos or watermarks, John.

[Kaneco]

This reminds me of the times I watched AMVs of Resident evil...and between the footage they used I always found the dreaded 'G' insignia of Gamespot for games such as RE2 & CV.

A lot of AMVs I saw hosted at REFan.com (even before it merged with New-blood) back in the day come to mind.

Like MarkGrass said, I hate any watermarks but what you did there on that example was very mild and unexpected...I thought you were going to use the sites insignia like the one the admins and mods wear right beneath their user name...that would have been....ughhhh.

If it helps the site become much more popular then I can just look the other way, otherwise if it is just to protect the footage I couldn't care less...like Mark said
it's property of CAPCOM.

Anyway, if it's to protect the footage I would recommend the light watermark over putting intros/outros because they're slightly harder (...more like a hassle than hard) to edit than intros/outros which you can simply cut them off of the footage with ease.

[Trent]

On the other hand, my bipolar self doesn't like any kind of watermarks. As Weed said, we, nor anyone else for that matter, actually own these images and videos. They are rightful property of CAPCOM. That said, it's also annoying to see watermarks, even if they are from this site.

It goes without saying that the material belongs to CAPCOM, the latter is always credited and THIA has always been loyal to CAPCOM in that sense.

Is the proposed watermark really annoying to you?

[MeganGrass]

Is the proposed watermark really annoying to you?

Any watermark or tag of any sort is annoying, whether it be this site, Joe Blow's fansite, even official watermarks from *company* is annoying to me. They just stick out like a sore thumb, without words, saying "I got this before YOU did! Bow 2 teh 3leet.".

With piracy at an all-time high, really, what's the point?

If deemed necessary, I can deal with it, without whining and bitching. I was jes' giving my opinion.

[Shadow Stalker]

Yeah put a watermark over it Dot50Cal.

[Dot50Cal]

So far the only responses I see against it are people referring to theft not being an issue, and some saying no on the grounds that theft isn't an issue these days. Like I said in the first post, this isn't a theft reason. Its strictly so that people who like what we do can come to the main site after seeing it. If you are one way or the other, please provide a reason as to why. I'm still debating it.

[imacwesker]

In my opinion a watermark, as small/transparent/whatever it is, is a stain on a video. The only reason to have a watermark during a video is to prevent theft. If theft is not an issue and you just want to advertise THIA, use opening and/or ending credits. Three seconds long credits are enough to read "THIA (www.the-horror.com) presents" without being too much annoying for the audience. This way you got your message across without (visually) damaging the video and everybody wins

[Carnivol]

The streams will always contain our reference info and you could technically put everything else (URL / comments / whatever) in the MP4 tags when we put up videos.


Generally, I'd rather not see a visual watermark. But there are of course ways to do it. I like the tiny the-horror.com URL in the bottom, but if it weren't for how it'd create unconventional video resolutions, I'd almost say a frame around the video itself w/watermark and site+video info would be the way to go. (Or just a tiny SOUND LESS splash. Doesn't have to be many frames - could also be the ending frames... or both). The ones on the FFVII CG FMV collection I have are like that. A tiny title of the video sequence, the amount of frames and some other jazz.

Either way, you're in for re-encoding fun if you're gonna watermark everything now. (I'd say just use videotags. Archivers wouldn't touch the tags if they were done properly and standardized from the start and ... well ... stealers' gonna steal.)

[Dot50Cal]

Based on the comments, I think I've come to a decision.

On general videos, we won't have a watermark. This includes cutscenes, trailers and the like. For anything that is actually produced by us (merchandise videos, comparisons, voiced walkthroughs etc) we'll have a small intro in the beginning with the site name/url. Depending on the length I may introduce a timed watermark as shown in the attachment earlier. I'm still undecided on that though and am open to influence.

Sound ok for everyone who voiced their opinions?