Author Topic: Rehearsal DVDs becoming obsolete  (Read 5893 times)

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ambrosialx

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Rehearsal DVDs becoming obsolete
« on: Feb 04, 2015, 08:26 am »
Hi all, so I am running into a problem that I am sure I am not the first to run into so I wanted to see what other people have done/thought of. As a ballet SM a big part of what I do is maintain a DVD library of past performances so that dancers can take a copy home to review their parts prior to rehearsal. DVDs are great, they are physical copies I can lock so they can't be ripped and people have to give them back when they are done. Unfortunately the physical medium is not working for most of my dancers who have laptops without DVD drives or use tablets. USB keys work for people with laptops but half of our dancers don't have laptops either. I have thought of private Youtube links but whats to stop it being shared? Thoughts?
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KMC

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Re: Rehearsal DVDs becoming obsolete
« Reply #1 on: Feb 04, 2015, 11:33 am »
What's to stop a DVD or USB drive from being copied?
Get action. Do things; be sane; don’t fritter away your time; create, act, take a place wherever you are and be somebody; get action. -T. Roosevelt

bex

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Re: Rehearsal DVDs becoming obsolete
« Reply #2 on: Feb 04, 2015, 04:24 pm »
I would go for a private Youtube or Vimeo link with a password. You can always change the password periodically, if the added security is a priority.  Like KMC said, what's the stop a DVD or USB drive from being copied as soon as it's plugged into someone else's computer?
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MatthewShiner

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Re: Rehearsal DVDs becoming obsolete
« Reply #3 on: Feb 05, 2015, 10:39 am »
I think Private Vimeo and Youtube have been "approved" by AEA on some verbal rulings I have received . . . might be the way to go.
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jNehlich

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Re: Rehearsal DVDs becoming obsolete
« Reply #4 on: Feb 05, 2015, 01:51 pm »
I agree with using private youtube and vimeo for dance companies. I know many choreographers and dance companies who have gone this route and there hasn't seemed to be any negative affects.
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BayAreaSM

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Re: Rehearsal DVDs becoming obsolete
« Reply #5 on: Feb 07, 2015, 03:11 am »
We have the same issue with our ballet company and the lack of DVD drives in laptops, or dancers simply using iPads instead.

I recommend a product called Wondershare (or any watermarking software). I had my company buy it for my work computer. I add text and sometimes a water mark to our videos, put them on Vimeo and send out a link with a password. You can remove the embedding option and lock it from being downloaded. And if you don't want it to be shared, just change the password the next day and then no one will be able to view it.

I only tout Wondershare because every day my staff and I find out something else it helps us do. When we don't have a rehearsal CD, it quickly rips the audio off the DVD for us - and makes it easy to cut up tracks to make a CD. Need a still from a DVD? It does that too. Upload a DVD video with watermark in any platform? No problem. It's fast and easy to learn, which helps.

Also, not to be negative, but depending on your company and the contracts you have with the choreographers, trusts, etc - they may not allow videos. Then you can tell your dancers they can borrow the DVD, if they watch it onsite in your studios. Then you don't have to worry about videos leaving the building or dancers not having DVD players. We've gone that way as well. (It's actually our current policy that no one gets to take any videos home - they have to watch it on paid time in studios if they want to watch one.)

LexieTaylor

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Re: Rehearsal DVDs becoming obsolete
« Reply #6 on: Jul 28, 2015, 04:02 pm »
I feel like with whole production videos, by the time that you compress them down to vimeo/youtube sizes, they are getting to be poor quality anyway. You can definitely use these or drop box to share, but I agree with BayAreaSM that sometimes the best option (and creating less extra work for yourself) is to let the dancer borrow a DVD during a break in their rehearsal day. Then they can either use a company computer/tv or borrow from another dancer to have one with a disk drive.