Sounds like Excalibur features need to be incorporated in to Vegas.

I bought Excalibur, I love it and use it a lot- but I wonder how long Sony / Sonic Foundry is going to tolerate using their web site, bandwidth, etc. to hawk someone else's product?

>I wonder how long Sony / Sonic Foundry is going to tolerate using their web site, bandwidth, etc. to hawk someone else's product?<

The folks at SoFo are not only aware of Excalibur, but they think it's pretty neat.
Excalibur ADDS to the value of their product, and there is no reason for them to discourage its use.

Gary

Sorry Gary, I know they're aware of it. Didn't mean to ruffle any feathers. And it is a terrific add-on. I use it all the time, and would be lost without it...
George

George,

No ruffled feathers here.

Gary

I think the point is more is it APPROPRIATE for a couple guys to CONSTANTLY peddle what they're trying to sell, not the value or worth of what it is, regardless how good it happens to be.

Before Gary or anybody gets the wrong idea I think Excalubar is a neat application and so too the DVD tapes and SPOT's book and tapes, etc., but a peer to peer fourm isn't the place to try to sell whatever it is.

Fine if you announce you developed something or wrote something. Fine to link to your site. But to constantly shove Excalubar in our face is WRONG and SoFo is wrong to permit it (I bet Sony won't) because once you open the door, then others developing something will not only expect to be allowed to do the same, but demand they too be allowed to advertise and nobody is fooling anybody, that's what you're seeing. ADVERTISING.

Others like the keyboard company, and if I remember correctly one or two others have announced they have a product that may be of interest to Vegas users. They do not bring it up almost daily. The whole point is the value of the fourm is diminished when one or two posters seem to be here to mostly push their product. Maybe in the near future advertising space could be sold. You see it in some other popular forums and while I don't much care for that either at least it is outside of the thread posting area. As it stands now I'm kind of surprised nobody hasn't raised the favoritism issue or start trying to sell qet rich quick schemes.

I understand the concerns with going overboard on "pushing" our own product, and I agree with them.

Speaking for myself; I am very consious of when I mention Excalibur or my DVDs because I do not want to cross the line between being helpful and appearing like I am here to sell products.

I think if you go through my posts you will find a pretty low percentage of them mention these things.

The fact remains though, that when Excalibur, for instance, is just the right tool to acheive what someone is asking about, then it would be a disservice NOT to mention it.

Edward and I are Vegas users like everyone else here and once we developed the tools for Excalibur wanted to make them available to everyone at a very reasonable price. We are not blinded by dollar signs as much as we get a great deal of satisfaction knowing that we have created something genuinely helpful for Vegas users.

If the general consensus here is that we really need to cool it, then we will have to establish some new guideline.

Thanks,
Gary Kleiner

I have to agree with Gary, If there is a tool that will help me and most importantly save me time and money then I would like to know about it.
These forums are an excellent way of picking up tips and tricks and most of all help when you need it.
I don't think telling people about an add on to vagas that is such a big help is a bad thing, and to be honest I did not notice that it was being pushed. I came accross it just reading the posts in this forum, which I do a lot and its amazing what you can learn from reading so many posts. And yes I have just ordered Excalibur and the DVDs I can't wait to try it out.


Just my ten bobs worth..

Flack..

Not including inforamtion about a product because it advertising, even though it is the correct advise/product IS a disservice.

I doubt many people would be that anal about a couple of guys trying to make a dollar and offer usefull advice, service to the community. I am new to this forum but these are 'standards' anywhere - provided that it isnt SHOVED into everyones face or every post, it could hardly be a problem.

Enter Excalibur in the forum search engine and it comes up in 163 threads... since May. Some may consider that SPAM. I realize others are selling a DVD set or a book. My point is they don't try to inject that fact into so many threads. They simply mentioned it when it was released and answer questions when others asked about it.

You also have Satish that developes FREE plug-ins. When he developes a new one, he annouces it and that's the last we hear about it from him. Same for Brian in the DVD-A forum that wrote a nice application.

Kelly no doubt spends a lot of his personal time maintaing his large site where we can share sample vids with each other. Others spend a good deal of time answering questions and writing tutorials. None of us ask for or expect to make any money out of our sharing. I object to the commercialization of the forums. This forum's purpose isn't to help somebody make a buck. Its for us to try to help each other.

>Others spend a good deal of time answering questions...This forum's purpose isn't to help somebody make a buck. Its for us to try to help each other. <

I can see your point IF someone like myself did not spend time here answereing a lot of questions, but only posted when there was an opportunity to sell something.

I have already pointed out my "signal to noise" ratio, and I believe that most here would consider my presence here an asset to this board.

This is not the first time you have brought up the advertising issue, and each time you do, there are numerous posts from board members saying that they don't see a problem with being informed of helpful tools.

As for your SPAM theory, why don't you figure out the percentage of the comments about it posted by OTHER people besides myself and Edward. You seem to have enough time on your hands.

I have already stated my sensitivity to the issue, and am willing to abide by the group consensus.

It is clear BillyBoy, that you have a personal axe to grind with me. Why boar everyone else with it?

Gary

I have no ax to grind. I would have said the same regardless who was using the forum to try to MAKE MONEY. In my view it isn't appropriate for ANYONE to constantly try to find ways to suggest buy your software or whatever you're hawking. You've told us about it already. Many times. Give it a rest. There's a big difference between announcing a new product some surely fine useful and reminding people about it almost daily every chance you get. Its tacky.

The fun thing about having a "discussion" with you BillyBoy is that no matter whatever anyone else says, it has no effect on your point of view and you just keep plowing along on whatever tract you are stuck on.

Your belief that I try and sell something every chance I get is easily disproven by the record of my posts.

Let's not prolong this agony any further.

Gary

The point you can't escape is only you and Jet your partner in this little adventure are pushing. Others that wrote a book or DVD set or other software simply announce they have and are done with it. Not you. You seem to have some need to keep bringing up that you have which brings us full circle. You're pushing and is IS becoming annoying.

The fun thing about having a discussion with you Gary is you always let your ego get over inflated.

I made my point. Lets drop it.

>I made my point. Lets drop it. <

You whined and stomped your feet some, yes.

Making a point involves logic and being persuasive. Those two aspects still need some work.

Gary

I just want to get the LAST word in here...

;)

Frenchy

"I just want to get the LAST word in here..."
Sorry about that, then!


BillyBoy:
"You also have Satish that developes FREE plug-ins. When he developes a new one, he annouces it and that's the last we hear about it from him"

True - and then dozens of other forum members will point this out to newbies looking for some help! Is this spam? If we want to keep topic repetition to a minimum it will only be because we have forgotten what it's like to be a newbie and can't be bothered any longer with any new newbies.

I don't mind the kind of "advertising" we get here - to me, it's more a case of "recommending". I am certainly thankful for all the recommendations I've picked from here and other forums.

regards,
Neil Porter

Wow! What a can of worms! My point was not to alienate Sony / Sonic Foundry and jeopardize the unique rapport that occurs in this forum. Sorry....

This is pretty touchy subject, I have on one occasion had a chance on this forum to push something that I might be selling that could be of interest to some of the people reading the thread. I didn't feel it appropriate to peddle my wares on this forum so I simply asked people who ere interested to email me if they wanted to know more.

But as it had no direct relationship to VV I feel that was the right thing to do. In fairness to jetdv if every VV user on the planet bought his product I think he's still going to need to keep his day job. The other thing is it does Sony / Sofo no harm if their bandwidth and forum space is used to help third party developers, at least not at this stage of the product, they need to do all they can to help them.

I certainly don't see a lot of advertising for VV itself, if SoFo cannot afford it then the small third party guys haven't got much of a chance. Further in jet's defence he did also point out that another solution was freely available, hardly what I'd call a hard sell!

I'm not being critical of what BillyBoy has said, its certainly a valid concern, particularly given the pernicious nature of the hard sell on the Internet these days. We've already had one Get Rich Quick scheme posted here.

It would probably be a good idea if this site included a specific space for listing third party stuff, I only found out about the ShuttlePro (which I love) because I saw it mentioned on this forum.

Biggest problem with that seems to be an unwillingness by so many people to search before posting!

Do NOT, repeat NOT "cool it".

You guys are primarily video producers, who just happen to have created some useful products for other video producers. Small developers like you are (in my view) entitled to more slack than would be a company whose ONLY reason for existence was selling a product. We fellow producers want and need to know about these little gadgets sold, as it were, on the fringe, and discussion forums are a good place to find out about them.

Besides, you and Ed don't JUST push your products. I see many posts from both of you that specifically address problems that folks are having, and I don't see any "skewing" of your responses toward only those problems that are helped by your product.

Regards,
Doug Graham

Amen!

Cool! I didn't know X could do that. Haven't read up on it much yet, but to know that it will do that saves me time. That means I make more money per hour. I know that X has a lot of tools to speed up editing, so reading these threads and picking up tips from Gary or jetdv or billyboy or any of you betters my life. I use V4 to make money with. The people who I do work for use what I give them to help make money for their companies. So maybe I look at all this differently, and yes I understand your point Billboy, but its never even crossed my mind on this forum like it has at others. This is a forum I look forward to visiting because its friendly and helpful and I hope it stays that way. So Gary or others if the tips are from your product or anyones product free or other wise I don't care, please keep up the good help, you haven't crossed the line in my opinion. Feed me kindly wither its free or at a price I don't mind. Try shoving it down my throat and you'll piss me off, and I just have not seen it here. And Billyboy thanks for reminding us what the rules are and how we need to conduct are selfs here and any forum we post in. But as much help as people like Gary provides they can bend those rules a tiny tiny bit as far as I'm concerned, if it truely helps some one.
Sorry for all the blah blah I guess Videobear said it best