VOD PPV companies

[shaun]

Hi...

We are moving to VOD / PPV, and I want feedback on peoples experiences with these companies.

I am looking right now at MaleFlixxx, GayHotMovies, AEBN, and maybe Naked Sword.

Let me make this clear... we are a STUDIO and have a libray of well over 80 titles. We also have high traffic, and will be offering this as an upsell ourselves....

So - who is making you guys money? Do I go exclusive or non exclusive? What are the hidden catches, and who should I avoid?

Any feedback is so welcome, that I will give you a free pass into MuscleHunks for your troubles (Ok, only if you post on topic please!)

Shaun

[gaybucks_chip]

Shaun,

We have about 20 titles, including several that have been in the top 5 or 10 with each of the VODs we're with, and we've talked to just about all the companies. Here are my thoughts, unvarnished.

MaleFlixxx takes absolutely forever (I know a number of producers who have waited well over a year and still aren't live; we've been getting commitments since January and will supposedly go live in September), give a million excuses, are really arrogant, almost never return calls, but supposedly when you actually go live with them (if ever) they perform pretty well. Do not under any circumstances sign an exclusive deal with them; they are aggressively pushing that on every studio, and it isn't in your best interest to do that with them or anyone else. The small additional benefits aren't worth the potential loss in revenues from the other VOD providers, particularly AEBN.

AEBN is the "big gorilla" and has more theaters than anyone. (meaning, more eyes, more money to you.) No matter who else you go with, you should be with AEBN, but I wouldn't go exclusive with them either. They aren't super responsive, but they produce better than anyone else and are definitely the largest player in the marketplace.

GayHotMovies has, for us been 100% nonresponsive in spite of all sorts of promises. They have also not updated their gay site in ages, so it looks like they aren't putting much energy into their gay products at present.

Naked Sword are wonderful people and have a great product, but I believe they are going through some changes and I'm not sure what they're doing with taking on new studios at present. If they're taking new studios, they'd be great people to work with, and they have some interesting projects up their sleeves.

The other people I would very highly recommend is Doggone Media. They are part of the Badpuppy network. They are currently pretty small, but their service is extraordinary, and they are working very, very hard to build up their network, both in terms of studios and traffic. I wouldn't go exclusive with them, but they will do everything possible to work with you to market your titles and set you up a custom theater if you have traffic to send them. Unlike the others, they can typically get your product up and running within a couple weeks of receiving DVDs. (They are converting all their existing content to Windows Media, so they may run a little longer right now, but if that's the case, it's only a temporary glitch.)

They have produced very well for us, both as a producer and as an affiliate, and we've been up with them for about a year now. We''ve also got a special arrangement with them such that any studio that signs up for Doggone Media through us get an extra 10% over what they normally pay (which is already quite competitive) and, while they won't be your major VOD revenue stream in the short term, I think with the plans they have in place, they will be a very major force to contend with in the next year.

PM me or email me (chip at gaybucks dot com) if you need any more info.

[Squirt]

Thanks Chip!

Some really good, and accurate, information there!

Thanks again

Shaun,

We have about 20 titles, including several that have been in the top 5 or 10 with each of the VODs we're with, and we've talked to just about all the companies. Here are my thoughts, unvarnished.

MaleFlixxx takes absolutely forever (I know a number of producers who have waited well over a year and still aren't live; we've been getting commitments since January and will supposedly go live in September), give a million excuses, are really arrogant, almost never return calls, but supposedly when you actually go live with them (if ever) they perform pretty well. Do not under any circumstances sign an exclusive deal with them; they are aggressively pushing that on every studio, and it isn't in your best interest to do that with them or anyone else. The small additional benefits aren't worth the potential loss in revenues from the other VOD providers, particularly AEBN.

AEBN is the "big gorilla" and has more theaters than anyone. (meaning, more eyes, more money to you.) No matter who else you go with, you should be with AEBN, but I wouldn't go exclusive with them either. They aren't super responsive, but they produce better than anyone else and are definitely the largest player in the marketplace.

GayHotMovies has, for us been 100% nonresponsive in spite of all sorts of promises. They have also not updated their gay site in ages, so it looks like they aren't putting much energy into their gay products at present.

Naked Sword are wonderful people and have a great product, but I believe they are going through some changes and I'm not sure what they're doing with taking on new studios at present. If they're taking new studios, they'd be great people to work with, and they have some interesting projects up their sleeves.

The other people I would very highly recommend is Doggone Media. They are part of the Badpuppy network. They are currently pretty small, but their service is extraordinary, and they are working very, very hard to build up their network, both in terms of studios and traffic. I wouldn't go exclusive with them, but they will do everything possible to work with you to market your titles and set you up a custom theater if you have traffic to send them. Unlike the others, they can typically get your product up and running within a couple weeks of receiving DVDs. (They are converting all their existing content to Windows Media, so they may run a little longer right now, but if that's the case, it's only a temporary glitch.)

They have produced very well for us, both as a producer and as an affiliate, and we've been up with them for about a year now. We''ve also got a special arrangement with them such that any studio that signs up for Doggone Media through us get an extra 10% over what they normally pay (which is already quite competitive) and, while they won't be your major VOD revenue stream in the short term, I think with the plans they have in place, they will be a very major force to contend with in the next year.

PM me or email me (chip at gaybucks dot com) if you need any more info.

[James_Hotmovies]

Hopefully we haven't been that unresponsive.

We rewrote our software from the ground up and it's taken a lot of our resources. For the last 3 months it's been killing me.

I've hired a few affiliate managers and studio managers. We sponsor many events do a lot of search engine work.

Chip - have we ever gotten your content? I emailed a few times and haven't heard back.

Robert and Monica will be attending the gay phoenix forum and we will continue to push our gay marketing further and further. We are committed, for the long haul, to providing the best video on demand service for our gay and straight customers.

[shaun]

WOW! Thank you for that response! Unfortunately, at the last show I only got to talk to people selling thier VOD products to me, so it was really hard to get info...

I met with Naked Sword, but I think the rep and I hit off the wrong way, because he wasn't very nice (or perhaps I ran into one of he very few gay men who simply dislike women?) - and he hasn't responded back to me......

Now - this is another newbie stupid question. If - for example - I go with Doggone Media to set up my theatre.... then I do what? Send the disks of our DVD's tot he other providers (ex AEBN), and they do thier own processing for the stream? And then I have my own theatre, and AEBN has a few of my other titles, and Naked Sword has a few, or what?

This is something I would rather do myself, but part of the reason for doing this is to get more branding and buzz on my companies product line.... plus, I dont have the technology to do so.....

I really appreciate your help. Do you like MuscleBoys?

[jeffmaleflixxx]

I hope that anything you read on this post doesn't dissuade you from considering maleflixxx as a VOD distributor for your movies.

Recently we made a very large investment in our encoding technology. The result was an opening up of bandwidth of the number of movies we can encode and consequently get on the network; quickly. We get about a dozen new movies on the network weekly.

Although i work more with the webmaster / marketing side of things I can certainly get a producer in contact with our Studio Relations team.

Cheers,

[Titanmen]

MaleFlixxx, NakedSword, Hot Movies and TLA On-Demand are the top ones in our book. They all consistently deliver good income and are responsive to all our requests.

I would not go exclusive with anyone unless you are getting guaranteed minimums. If they want exclusive then they have to guarantee dollars. No $$$ guarantee, no exclusive.

Even then it would only be a 3-6 months exclusive from the intial release and then you could release it to other VOD vendors. You can't afford to have your content at only one VOD source.

[gaybucks_chip]

Now - this is another newbie stupid question. If - for example - I go with Doggone Media to set up my theatre.... then I do what? Send the disks of our DVD's tot he other providers (ex AEBN), and they do thier own processing for the stream? And then I have my own theatre, and AEBN has a few of my other titles, and Naked Sword has a few, or what?

For each VOD that's going to be streaming your content, you send them a set of your DVDs. They take care of encoding them for pay-per-view. Each provider has a slightly different way of doing that, different bitrates, etc. Even though it would produce a higher quality product, I was never able to find any VOD provider (including Maleflixxx, who used to tout their "much better quality" feeds) that was interested in taking a hard drive with AVIs, which would be the highest possible quality source material to encode; it seems they're all set up to handle DVDs.

As for the theater, the VOD provider you use will help you get set up, and then you just link to their theater page. I like the Doggone Media one because you have enormous flexibility in what it looks like, what is featured, and a lot of other things, but all of the theaters by all of the providers are pretty decent in terms of usability.

[markwolff]

I have been with maleflixx for over a year, very happy with them, very good marketing Dept, and support, There royalty structure is far superior to naked sword

[Epoch Holly]

WOW! Thank you for that response! Unfortunately, at the last show I only got to talk to people selling thier VOD products to me, so it was really hard to get info...

I met with Naked Sword, but I think the rep and I hit off the wrong way, because he wasn't very nice (or perhaps I ran into one of he very few gay men who simply dislike women?) - and he hasn't responded back to me......

Now - this is another newbie stupid question. If - for example - I go with Doggone Media to set up my theatre.... then I do what? Send the disks of our DVD's tot he other providers (ex AEBN), and they do thier own processing for the stream? And then I have my own theatre, and AEBN has a few of my other titles, and Naked Sword has a few, or what?

This is something I would rather do myself, but part of the reason for doing this is to get more branding and buzz on my companies product line.... plus, I dont have the technology to do so.....

I really appreciate your help. Do you like MuscleBoys?

Hey Shaun I see you are in San Fran.... Would you like to do lunch tomorrow or Friday... I would love to meet with you and apologize for someone not being nice too you! Hit me up at marketing at nakedsword dot com and we can even do coffee or whatever.... I am a friendly lesbian I promise ...

[steven619]

I think studios should use any company they can trust...
That pays on time, has been around for at least a year (without complaints) and understands the marketplace.

Although we offer PPV (rev share and real white label), DRM, and hosting I also use (for the studios I also own or work with) Maleflixx and AEBN. I never had a chance to work with Nakedsword but they are pretty good too.

An "exclusive" agreement sounds good and the PPV/VOD companies spend a little more time on the new studios I would suggest never to do an exclusive. Spread the love around and use the PPV/VOD as extra marketing of your site (membership, store, or other...).

Would you like to have your product in one store...or all the stores?
The more people see my product, name, logo, and brand the more exposure I get. If you have your videos on AEBN, Nakedsword, Maleflixx, HotMovies, and ours the more people you will reach. No one "3rd party distribution" has 100% of the marketplace.

Just my thoughts...but I've only been doing this for 8 years.

[desslock]

We are moving to VOD / PPV, and I want feedback on peoples experiences with these companies.

I am looking right now at MaleFlixxx, GayHotMovies, AEBN, and maybe Naked Sword.

Let me make this clear... we are a STUDIO and have a libray of well over 80 titles. We also have high traffic, and will be offering this as an upsell ourselves.... Shaun

My business is heavily structured around all the companies mentioned in this thread, so let me add the following:

My first suggestion is to consider Maleflixxx or NakedSword. They have different business models, so consider that in your decision. Both are successful, they are just different.

Now I come from the other side of this, I'm an affiliate marketer of the movies which guys like you produce. Here's a suggestion which I use when choosing how to sell between them:

What company makes movies closest to your own? For example, Naked Sword runs Colt movies. If Colt fans are all hanging out on Naked Sword, and your product would cross market to them, perhaps that would be the place to be. Especially since Naked Sword's membership structure allows your customers to watch their whole library at their leisure.

On the other hand, Maleflixx is the only place on Earth you can go to watch Kristen Bjorn movies. If your movies are European (I see you list your hometown as Firenze) Maleflixx might be the place to go for more International flair.. they have the Hungarians, Lucas Kazan, Cazzo. But, Maleflixx only sells a la carte. So your entrées had better be tasty.

Here's another final thought - see what kind of reporting information you will receive from these companies regarding who is watching your movies. Statistics reporting has always been extremely beneficial for me in allocating my resources.

Steve

[jeffmaleflixxx]

As far as studio's go we have both exclusive and non-exclusive partnerships. It is the producers choice and never pigeon-hole a producer into an agreement that would not work for them.

We do have a lot of European content, but also tons of Latino, Brazilian and "American" content. We are reasonably successful in Europe thanks in Large part to our Super man account manager Eduardo who speaks 5 plus languages. A definite bonus when conducting business in Europe! Plus many of us here have a second language. I'm functional in Polish, Russian and Ukrainian.

BUT the US is still the biggest slice of the pie!

Cheers,

[dwaynered]

Don't forget us in your search! You can contact me directly about our VOD services. I'd be happy to discuss our offerings and more!