mediaCastpro is not a microstock agency, but a marketplace accessible only to companies and professionals where you can sell and buy videos on any topic. The project was born at the end of 2022 and is continuously evolving, as can be seen from the new features introduced almost every month. The idea behind the project was to create a marketplace of videos, for professionals only, avoiding the intermediation of a microstock agency that, in addition to placing stringent constraints on formats and topics, also retains much of the revenue, which should instead accrue to creators.
What makes mediaCastpro different
mediaCastpro was created as a platform to facilitate the meeting of audiovisual professionals, where it is possible to sell and buy videos with very few technical limitations, at any price and even privately. For this very reason, there are many features of mediaCastpro that differentiate it from typical microstock agencies.
Upload videos consisting of multiple clips
Generally, microstock agencies sell clips individually, each of which has its own specific sales page, with a title, description and tags. This often leads microstock agencies to have many nearly identical videos, with titles, descriptions, thumbnails and tags that are also nearly identical, and this creates confusion for the buyer doing research.
The mediaCastpro platform, on the other hand, allows the upload and sale of videos that can consist of as many as 500 different clips each. In this way, the seller can show several clips, which share the same technical features and topics, on a single sales page. This both greatly simplifies the seller’s metadata work and creates less confusion for the buyer, who can scroll through all the clips without having to go out and open a new web page each time.
However, the clips that make up the video can also be purchased individually, if the seller wants, and it is not necessary to purchase the entire video.
A video with 144 clips on mediaCastpro
The clips are played as concatenated but you can always check which clip you are watching – in the example, the number 38 – and you can navigate through the clips using the bar on the right. The buyer can decide to buy all the clips or only some of them.
Choose the selling prices of your videos
You can set your own price after upload
An important difference, is that the selling prices of videos on mediaCastpro are chosen independently by the sellers. All too often, microstock agencies sell all videos at the same price, not giving proper consideration to the actual content of the videos. On mediaCastpro, you choose the prices of your videos. For example, you might decide to sell at a very high price a particularly unique video, which you would have no interest in uploading to microstock agencies that would sell it off too cheaply. On the other hand, you might also decide to sell at a very low price a very common video, in order to be able to sell it despite the large competition.
Platform is only available to professionals
Microstock agencies generally allow anyone to view content for sale. When a user buys videos, therefore, they are buying content that potentially anyone could have already seen. For many companies, especially medium- and large-sized ones, this could be a strong disincentive to use microstock agencies. A platform closed to the public such as mediaCastpro, on the other hand, ensures greater confidentiality of the content for sale, while also attracting types of buyers who generally frown upon microstock.
In fact, registration on mediaCastpro is open only to businesses and professionals. Private consumers cannot register and view videos for sale. A person is considered a professional if making videos is his or her job. Depending on his or her state of residence, a VAT number may be required, or an official document attesting to the start of the business, or – for those countries where this is not applicable – a similar demonstration of being a sole proprietor, for example through a strong online presence as such. This check is necessary, not only to limit access to the platform and thus keep content more confidential, but also for tax reasons: all transactions within the platform, in fact, are considered B2B and therefore, depending on individual local laws, may not have VAT applied.
There’s no approval process
Microstock agencies usually submit videos uploaded by sellers for approval. This, on the one hand, leads to long lead times before videos are actually put up for sale, and on the other hand, it increases the risk of having content, perhaps even unique and special content, rejected just because of minor flaws in the videos or technical constraints not met. By not submitting uploaded videos for approval, mediaCastpro solves both of these issues and makes it possible to sell even videos of news and events that have just occurred.
Since this is a marketplace, each seller is responsible for what they upload and offer for sale. Of course, videos that do not comply with the terms of use will still be removed from the platform as soon as they are detected.
Sales commissions retained are the lowest
The sales commissions that mediaCastpro retains are at most 30%, so much lower than those of most microstock agencies, which usually retain between 60% and 85%. This is made possible because of the low infrastructure overhead, due to the fact that the platform is accessible only to registered professionals, and because of the reduced amount of work the staff has to do, as they do not have to explicitly approve every single video.
There are (almost) no technical limitations for videos
Usually, microstock agencies impose fairly stringent technical constraints, accepting only a few codecs and resolutions and demanding durations between 5 and 60 seconds. This forces sellers to rework the videos, hardly ever being able to sell the originals as they were generated by the camera. On mediaCastpro, on the other hand, there are no particular limitations of codecs, resolutions or durations, and it is possible to upload videos up to 2 hours in length, even in original format.
In fact, you can even upload videos with a Log profile and apply a LUT to the preview only, to show correct colors to potential buyers. Since this is a platform for professionals only, mediaCastpro prioritizes maximizing the quality and quantity of the video content present rather than making it easier for the buyer, who is likely to be an experienced video editor, thus able to handle any format.
In any case, prior to purchase, it is of course possible to see all the technical details of the clips, which are also filterable in searches, so the buyer may choose to purchase only videos with certain codecs, resolutions, or color profiles, if he or she sees fit.
You can sell buyer-exclusive videos
Although even on mediaCastpro, normally, the same content can be purchased and used by multiple users, you can choose to sell some videos exclusively to only one buyer. In this way, the buyer is guaranteed to be the only one who has purchased and can use those images. This form of sale, which is naturally more lucrative for the seller, may also be highly valued by some buyers, such as some TV broadcasters, who may want to be the only ones to have the videos of a given event in order to broadcast them exclusively.
You can sell videos privately
Although normally videos on mediaCastpro are visible and purchasable by any registered user, in specific situations it is possible to choose to sell a video to a specific buyer privately, without that video ever being visible to other registered users. In this way, the sale is not only exclusive, but also private, and the buyer has the absolute guarantee that no one may have ever seen that video.
Sales transactions are direct between buyer and seller
mediaCastpro is a marketplace that facilitates the sale of audiovisual content between audiovisual professionals by generating and allowing video previews to be shown, handling buyer payments, making bank transfers to sellers, and allowing immediate downloads of purchased content. However, precisely, it is a marketplace and not an agency. Precisely for this reason, with each transaction the buyer’s and seller’s data are shown to both parties.
This fact, which at first glance may seem annoying and privacy-inhibiting, actually, contextualized within a professional platform such as mediaCastpro, becomes an opportunity: an opportunity to make yourself known, to network, and to find new partners to collaborate with. From a sale on mediaCastpro, a collaborative relationship could emerge outside the platform as well.
Working with mediaCastpro
Registering at mediaCastpro
To register on mediaCastpro, visit the platform website, click “Register” and fill out the form. Once registered, you can immediately access the platform and view videos for sale.
In order to actually buy or sell videos, depending on the type of business and the country in which you reside, you may need to fill out some other data about your business. This procedure, however, generally takes no more than 10 minutes, and serves to ensure that those operating within the platform are indeed true professionals.
How to upload videos to mediaCastpro
After registering and following the sales enablement procedure, you can upload your videos in three ways.
FTP upload with CSV file for metadata
If you have a lot of files to upload, perhaps already uploaded to other microstock agencies as well, the most effective way to upload them to mediaCastpro as well is probably this: upload the video files via FTP and, in the same space, also upload the CSV file with the metadata.
Once you have finished uploading video files and CSV file to the FTP server, you can log onto the platform, go to the page intended for uploads with CSV and signal the end of the upload. The platform will immediately check the syntax of the CSV file and, if there are no errors, it will notify the user that within a week all the files will be put up for sale.
Check this blogpost for detailed step-by-step instructions.
Using this mode, video files are not put up for sale immediately, but can take up to a week. While this is usually not a problem for generic stock videos, it could be a problem for videos related to news or events that have just occurred, for which it is therefore better to use one of the other two procedures.
However, the company is working on optimizing the upload procedure via CSV, and it cannot be ruled out that in the future the upload may become immediate in this mode as well.
Although mediaCastpro has its own CSV file format, it still accepts the formats of Shutterstock and Pond5 so if you already have a CSV in one of these two formats, you can use it without making any changes.
Web interface upload
The easiest way to upload videos to mediaCastpro is to use the video upload procedure built into the website. The procedure begins by asking for the video files to be uploaded (which can be up to 500) and then, as they are being uploaded, requires the compilation of all the necessary metadata, such as title, description, and tags.
Additionally, it is possible to upload the video files via FTP (login details and credentials can be seen by logging in to your restricted area on the platform) and then going to the website for metadata entry. The procedure for entering the metadata is identical to that in the point above.
Sales dashboard
For every sale you have made, unless you have changed your email notification preferences, you will receive a summary email with the list of clips sold, the price, and the buyer’s information.
By all means, it is also possible to see all sales made by logging onto the platform and going to the “Sales Orders” page.
Although there are no graphs or advanced analysis tools, it is still possible to see all the clips sold, the buyers, the prices paid by those buyers, the portion of the price allocated to the seller, as well as the grand total of sales for each month.
Getting paid
At the end of each month in which you made sales, you are asked to send an invoice to the platform with the amount you are entitled to. Within a few days of receiving the invoice, the platform issues a bank transfer in your favor.
Because mediaCastpro is a marketplace and not an agency, compensation to sellers is not paid in the form of royalties but rather as actual sales revenue, so a regular invoice must be issued. If you are a freelancer and your country does not require you to send invoices, then a receipt is also sufficient.
While many microstock agencies have relatively high balance limits below which they do not allow the contributor to request a transfer, on mediaCastpro it is possible to request a transfer even with only a 5 euro balance. However, if you do not want to issue an invoice and receive a transfer for such a low amount, you can always postpone the procedure until later months and issue a cumulative invoice for several months, resulting in a cumulative transfer of the various months.
Downsides of mediaCastpro
The main downside of mediaCastpro is definitely the amount of transactions that is currently lower than that of other more popular platforms. This is partly caused by the platform’s stringent access requirements, which limit its user base (while making it more specific), and partly caused by the very young age of the marketplace, which, having been born only a few months ago, has yet to expand and make itself known. In any case, there is certainly no shortage of business opportunities on mediaCastpro as well.
Secondly, you can note a poor – but still not impossible – usability of the website with small mobile devices such as smartphones. However, this should not be a big problem since, for the content covered (i.e., large videos), the average user is likely to prefer to access via computer anyway.
Another shortcoming is that the marketplace is to date open only to the European Union, the United States, the United Kingdom, Switzerland and Ukraine, while from the rest of the world it is not yet possible to register. The company has an interest in opening to the whole world, but no firm dates are yet available.
Finally, the upload procedure with CSV file could be a bit faster and more flexible, allowing the integration of the data in the CSV file with data to be manually written on the website, whereas at present either only the CSV file is used or only the web-based procedure is used. However, the company is working on this and it is easy that there will be improvements soon.
Conclusion
mediaCastpro is a complete and functioning platform that gives you the opportunity to sell your videos at the price you want, and the commission it retains is considerably lower than that of many microstock agencies. Precisely because of this, the speed with which you can become a contributor (it usually takes less than 15 minutes), and the ease of uploading videos (even using CSV files from other platforms), it is definitely worth including mediaCastpro in the list of platforms you work with. With little effort, you can thus increase your chances of selling your videos.
In addition, mediaCastpro’s ability to sell at the price you want and to sell exclusively gives this platform a leg up if you have particularly unique videos, which can thus be monetized better than on other platforms.
Certainly the very young age of the platform, and its consequent still not very wide use, cannot make you expect huge gains right away, but it still remains a very promising project, certainly unique and much more respectful of the value of videographers’ work than other agencies.
