VoukoderPro - Free for all?

Maybe a payment plan for companies which have more than a specific amount of employees?

Or in general if Voukoder is used to make money.

I think paying to unlock full features is reasonable (I've donated twice so far... after I used Voukoder and found it was beneficial for me).

The world of video is full of expensive things, a great resource like Voukoder at a low price should be an easy choice for many users.

The CCFS CuminCode FrameServer schmuck is happy to charge for his crap programming skills and lousy work ethic. Voukoder works several times faster, and is so much easier to use. Voukoder has no equal that I'm aware of. And believe me, I've looked! Especially if multiple streams and filters will soon be supported . . . Your program is vastly better and worth AT LEAST what he's charging ($15). Possibly 2-3+ times as much.

Keeping in mind that most of us paid for the NLE suites that we use Voukoder on.

One thing I would add is that a trial period of 1 week is NOT long enough. That's what CCFS is currently doing, and it did not make me happy. I've got other things in my life that need attention too, and I can't take a week off just to learn a new program. In my experience as a consumer, 1 month is a comfortable time period to figure out if a program will actually do what you need. I needed a couple solid weeks of working with TMPGEnc before deciding to buy it.

P.S., I decided not to buy CCFS. Total garbage.

I think it's a great idea to make Voukoder Pro available with a trial period limited to 30 days. This time is enough for the user to decide to buy or not.

If you charge an affordable price, your product will definitely sell. The affordable price will be compensated by the sales volume that should be much higher.

What is an affordable price? Something around 25 dollars. This amount corresponds to more or less 10% of the price of the main editing software on the market: DaVince Resolve, Final Cut, VEGAS, Premiere.

If half of Voukoder users buy it, you will have made a good deal. Do the math and see if it works or not.

I will definitely buy it, as I use it and I know it is reliable and of great quality.

Why not solicit financial support from the commercial NLE companies who are benefiting financially from the added value your Pro plugin might add to their platforms?

Alternatively, if your plan includes tapping into ffmpeg6 decoding, your Pro product could have a stand-alone mode for transcoding . With options for 64-bit data width tapping into ffmpeg6 avx512 and/or double-precision math. You might be able to sell a small connector app within the constraints of ffmpeg licensing if it only taps into the free library used by your free plugin. Or work out commercial ffmpeg licensing for the connector app if that's the way Resolve Studio does it.

I'm not a huge fan of the idea of costs based on total employees of a company, or even total revenue, because that creates huge limitations for people who work at a large place who's primary business isn't related to the software they are doing. For instance, the company I work for is a manufacturing company. I do 3D animations, renderings, and videos. There are two of us. The revenue from that barely covers our salaries, and some years not. So asking for software outside of what we usually use can be difficult. And if it's something like this, that's only suggested to give money, not going to happen.

But what you Could do is say that any commercial use Must used a paid license. And then give guidelines for how much you have to pay, but not actually tie that to what is mentioned in the paid license. So if someone pays $50 for it, and it was recommended to pay $300, then legally they wouldn't have reprocussions or anything, but it would read ambiguous enough that they would likely Try to get the $300 for you.

If the licensing said I Must pay in order to use it commercially, then I would say, "hey, I'm using an unlicensed version of this software and it's making projects 20 minutes faster. It costs $100 per year." Then it's likely I could get that sent. But if it isn't required, the best I've done is just send developers like you $5 here and there if I happen to have some money in my Paypal account personally. Not sure my wife would be too keen on me sending folks money just to be nice, so I do it that way. I mean, $5 is just a beer.

Anyway, that's my thought on it. And assuming I can get it to work well (having some troubles so far but only Just started) then I'll definitely send some beers as I get some paypal funds.

Is there a way to have the user download/install ffmpeg separately for free? This might remove the requirement for you to buy commercial licenses.

IIRC, Handbrake has an "update ffmpeg" function in it somewhere.

So it's not viable for VP to use the x264/x265 libraries ONLY if they are present in the FFmpeg build? (Which would only happen if the user has chosen to download and compile their own version of FFmpeg, manually enabling these encoders.)

One thing you could do is release versions early for your Patreons, that is what NMKD is doing with Flowframes and Mafiosnik with enhancr

Consider to release a basic version and pro version separately on Steam. Steam has a better payment system that works with multiple currencies and exchange rates.

$10USD might not be much for NA region, but definitely too much for 3rd world countries.

For myself, it is the complex deal with payment system that ended up driven me to pirate versions

Zitat von iAvoe

Consider to release a basic version and pro version separately on Steam. Steam has a better payment system that works with multiple currencies and exchange rates.

$10USD might not be much for NA region, but definitely too much for 3rd world countries.

For myself, it is the complex deal with payment system that ended up driven me to pirate versions

This isn't a bad idea!

I wouldn't mind paying $10 since all of my raw recordings use multi audio tracks and using this will help render the videos shorter with the multi tracks! for the people editing my videos!

Zitat von iAvoe

Consider to release a basic version and pro version separately on Steam. Steam has a better payment system that works with multiple currencies and exchange rates.

$10USD might not be much for NA region, but definitely too much for 3rd world countries.

For myself, it is the complex deal with payment system that ended up driven me to pirate versions

Absolutely no against the usage of Steam. That would be dead on arrival for any license sales to companies. I will never install Steam on my companies workstations - and this will be like that for sure for any other company too.

I also do not want a subscription model - this is absolutely the worst from a user's perspective.
If it's optional - then ok.

Subscription models force lock you into a software, just look what Adobe did. If you do not pay every month, you even can't open old projects. And older versions just disappear and do not get activated anymore. Have a very old (like 15 years) After Effects project? Bad luck - you can't open it anymore - even not in a virtual machine.

Maybe a business model like the digital audio workstation software Reaper has:

https://www.reaper.fm

A new license includes free upgrades through REAPER version 7.99. There is only one version of REAPER. The license price depends on how you use it.

$60 : discounted license.
$225 : commercial license.

You may use the discounted license if:

• You are an individual, and REAPER is only for your personal use, or
• You are an individual or business using REAPER commercially, and yearly gross revenue does not exceed USD $20,000, or
• You are an educational or non-profit organization.

Zitat von Robert Niessner

Absolutely no against the usage of Steam. That would be dead on arrival for any license sales to companies. I will never install Steam on my companies workstations - and this will be like that for sure for any other company too.

I also do not want a subscription model - this is absolutely the worst from a user's perspective.
If it's optional - then ok.

Subscription models force lock you into a software, just look what Adobe did. If you do not pay every month, you even can't open old projects. And older versions just disappear and do not get activated anymore. Have a very old (like 15 years) After Effects project? Bad luck - you can't open it anymore - even not in a virtual machine.

Maybe a business model like the digital audio workstation software Reaper has:

https://www.reaper.fm

A new license includes free upgrades through REAPER version 7.99. There is only one version of REAPER. The license price depends on how you use it.

$60 : discounted license.
$225 : commercial license.

You may use the discounted license if:

• You are an individual, and REAPER is only for your personal use, or
• You are an individual or business using REAPER commercially, and yearly gross revenue does not exceed USD $20,000, or
• You are an educational or non-profit organization.

Alles anzeigen

You are right about the companies side, then, it is still possible for Steam to be one of platforms available.

Zitat von Joe24

The CCFS CuminCode FrameServer schmuck is happy to charge for his crap programming skills and lousy work ethic. Voukoder works several times faster, and is so much easier to use. Voukoder has no equal that I'm aware of. And believe me, I've looked! Especially if multiple streams and filters will soon be supported . . . Your program is vastly better and worth AT LEAST what he's charging ($15). Possibly 2-3+ times as much.

Keeping in mind that most of us paid for the NLE suites that we use Voukoder on.

One thing I would add is that a trial period of 1 week is NOT long enough. That's what CCFS is currently doing, and it did not make me happy. I've got other things in my life that need attention too, and I can't take a week off just to learn a new program. In my experience as a consumer, 1 month is a comfortable time period to figure out if a program will actually do what you need. I needed a couple solid weeks of working with TMPGEnc before deciding to buy it.

P.S., I decided not to buy CCFS. Total garbage.

First off, I too have donated at least twice for Voukoder - early on in it's infancy and then again on a stable version release. I will donate again once the new follow-on is released. I absolutely chafe at the "rent a code" model like Abode CC but as a retired S/W engineer I understand it's a better way to get consistent revenue. I'm from the days when sw was bought outright and then used with updates until a new version was available and deemed enhanced enough to buy again.

I appreciate what Vouk is doing and the situation he's in.

Regarding CCFS, I've been using the older FREE version https://www.debugmode.com/frameserver/ for years. At least that 3.1 version has been stable with no complaints. It's slower in fps than using Voukoder directly but sometimes it's the only path that works ... mainly back in the day with Voukoder had problems and I had to get video out of Premiere. I too use frameserver to pipe output to TMPGEnc.

I have no problem with paid software, but it have to be easy to pay for