Bad experience with sellers

[olejesperoliver]

Let me put it this way,

Would you buy a $200,000 Ferrari for $20 and expect it to be as good as a real Ferrari? I assume not.

Would you buy a $20,000 Toyota for $20 and expect it to be as good as a real Toyota? I assume not.

Would you buy a $200 used Hyundai and expect it to be as good as a new $10,000 Cherry? I assume not.

The thing is that while it is nice to assume that all things will be ‘fit for purpose’ there is a certain point below which it ceases to be rational to assume that. It is easy to say, oh but they said it would be, but that is like trying to sue a shark that bit you whilst eating a bloody steak in the pacific ocean at dusk. You put yourself in a place where bad things happen - and they did.

While I would like to punish the sellers who do this, it is beyond my control. Apparently beyond even Fiverr’s control so better to change the environment that supports these scavengers by removing the assumption that they were ever anything but too good to be true. This is the same logic used in new shark control methods: make the area unpleasant for sharks so they stay away and don’t accidentally chew on tourists silly enough to be there at that time of day (the make signs for people too but there is always one…).

If no one buys from them, these people change or go away. We all win - even the improved seller.

So, if they have proven they cannot do the job, stop wasting time, cancel and hire someone who is suited to your needs for a price that will ensure they are engaged.

🙂

Would you buy a $200,000 Ferrari for $20 and expect it to be as good as a real Ferrari? I assume not.

Would you buy a $20,000 Toyota for $20 and expect it to be as good as a real Toyota? I assume not.

Would you buy a $200 used Hyundai and expect it to be as good as a new $10,000 Cherry? I assume not.

I bought from a top seller. If I buy from a top auto seller with good reputation I assume they are doing something right. And it’s not like buying a Ferrari for $20, it’s more like buying a second hand low end car vs buying a top notch high end car. I don’t expect the low end second hand car to drive fast and look cool, I just expect it to take me from point A to point B.

The saddest thing is, your experience with just two Sellers has tainted your view of the other 2.5 million freelancers who rely on Fiverr to put food on their table.

Not really, I have used Fiverr for other jobs where I have received good products. I won’t be buying video editing from here anymore though.

I agree it’s bad from the seller. I assume there’s a miscommunication issue, him thinking when you say 120 secs that you mean 1 min 20 (unless he’s having trouble giving 2 mins because of the file sizes if it’s something like ProRes 422 HQ with an alpha channel - maybe he normally sends in mp4 H264 format which is normally a lot smaller). Just ask for another free revision and it might be okay. Maybe saying “120 secs (ie. 2 mins)” might help but shouldn’t be needed.

Normally I’d agree, if it wasn’t for the fact that his premium package clearly states 120 seconds. He should at least know what he sells.

And the files are all in .mp4 file formats at maybe 200kb each. They should pose no problem.

[uk1000]

Would you buy a $200,000 Ferrari for $20 and expect it to be as good as a real Ferrari? I assume not.

Would you buy a $20,000 Toyota for $20 and expect it to be as good as a real Toyota? I assume not.

Would you buy a $200 used Hyundai and expect it to be as good as a new $10,000 Cherry? I assume not.

I bought from a top seller. If I buy from a top auto seller with good reputation I assume they are doing something right. And it’s not like buying a Ferrari for $20, it’s more like buying a second hand low end car vs buying a top notch high end car. I don’t expect the low end second hand car to drive fast and look cool, I just expect it to take me from point A to point B.

The saddest thing is, your experience with just two Sellers has tainted your view of the other 2.5 million freelancers who rely on Fiverr to put food on their table.

Not really, I have used Fiverr for other jobs where I have received good products. I won’t be buying video editing from here anymore though.

I agree it’s bad from the seller. I assume there’s a miscommunication issue, him thinking when you say 120 secs that you mean 1 min 20 (unless he’s having trouble giving 2 mins because of the file sizes if it’s something like ProRes 422 HQ with an alpha channel - maybe he normally sends in mp4 H264 format which is normally a lot smaller). Just ask for another free revision and it might be okay. Maybe saying “120 secs (ie. 2 mins)” might help but shouldn’t be needed.

Normally I’d agree, if it wasn’t for the fact that his premium package clearly states 120 seconds. He should at least know what he sells.

And the files are all in .mp4 file formats at maybe 200kb each. They should pose no problem.

And the files are all in .mp4 file formats at maybe 200kb each. They should pose no problem.

Okay. It’s just that above you said you originally wanted it with transparency eg. alpha channel, like your source files and mp4 h264 doesn’t support that.

I shouldn’t have to specify that I want to retain the transparent background, that’s a no-brainer.

Also .mov video files supports alpha channels, so there are ways to do it quite easily if he knew half of what he should know as a “professional” video editor.

[tiakovolana]

I shouldn’t have to specify that I want to retain the transparent background, that’s a no-brainer.

I think it would have helped if you let the editor know, since they probably didn’t know otherwise. mp4 doesn’t support alpha channels and if it’s a trailer they don’t normally support alpha channels. eg. I don’t think you can upload a video to youtube in a format that supports transparency.

The actual texts I provided were provided in gif and png format with transparent backgrounds.

The gifs might have been a problem, since they only support 256 colours, 1 of which is used for any transparent colour so it might not have been antialised well on other backgrounds. Though if you sent them with high enough res (eg. higher res than they would be used to allow for better anti-aliasing?) maybe it would have been okay.

I think it would have helped if you let the editor know, since they probably didn’t know otherwise. mp4 doesn’t support alpha channels and if it’s a trailer they don’t normally support alpha channels. eg. I don’t think you can upload a video to youtube in a format that supports transparency.

i don’t understand this. depending on the requirements, wouldn’t you ether create the text in the video editor, which could potentially make things like effects and animation nice and easy, or else, if you have a transparent image that the editor won’t accept, chroma the background and Roberts your fathers brother?

this is a screenshot from a video that i made for my sister for free. since i wanted it to be a surprise, i had to ice that logo from their facebook page, which was black on a white background. the text was typed into the editor itself *by way of a “title”), and both simply fade in and out over the video. not exactly star wars i know, but i don’t see any ugly white borders. and i use an animated logo i had made here for £15 (albeit ironically) 😛

i do know a seller that i think could give you a bloody adequate plastic cup within your budget, not sure if one is allowed name names in a positive light though

commony folky1920×1080 261 KB

[olejesperoliver]

And the files are all in .mp4 file formats at maybe 200kb each. They should pose no problem.

Okay. It’s just that above you said you originally wanted it with transparency eg. alpha channel, like your source files and mp4 h264 doesn’t support that.

I shouldn’t have to specify that I want to retain the transparent background, that’s a no-brainer.

Also .mov video files supports alpha channels, so there are ways to do it quite easily if he knew half of what he should know as a “professional” video editor.

Okay. It’s just that above you said you said you originally wanted it with transparency eg. alpha channel, like your source files and mp4 h264 doesn’t support that.

I know, that was with the first seller. Since the first seller I have converted the texts to a video format with the background I want.

[uk1000]

I think it would have helped if you let the editor know, since they probably didn’t know otherwise. mp4 doesn’t support alpha channels and if it’s a trailer they don’t normally support alpha channels. eg. I don’t think you can upload a video to youtube in a format that supports transparency.

i don’t understand this. depending on the requirements, wouldn’t you ether create the text in the video editor, which could potentially make things like effects and animation nice and easy, or else, if you have a transparent image that the editor won’t accept, chroma the background and Roberts your fathers brother?

this is a screenshot from a video that i made for my sister for free. since i wanted it to be a surprise, i had to ice that logo from their facebook page, which was black on a white background. the text was typed into the editor itself *by way of a “title”), and both simply fade in and out over the video. not exactly star wars i know, but i don’t see any ugly white borders. and i use an animated logo i had made here for £15 (albeit ironically) 😛

i do know a seller that i think could give you a bloody adequate plastic cup within your budget, not sure if one is allowed name names in a positive light though

commony folky1920×1080 261 KB

i don’t understand this. depending on the requirements, wouldn’t you ether create the text in the video editor, which could potentially make things like effects and animation nice and easy, or else, if you have a transparent image that the editor won’t accept, chroma the background and Roberts your fathers brother?

Yes normally you’d create the text in the software but maybe in this case the buyer had designed that texts in a certain way, with a particular font so wanted it done that way and also originally wanted the delivered video with a transparent background so the could place it over different ones later. I don’t think I’ve ever been asked to add gif text to a video. It may not work well like I said.

Yes I’m sure the gigs which create the trailers will will normally be delivering without the transparent background and will probably be delivered in a .mp4.

if you have a transparent image that the editor won’t accept, chroma the background and Roberts your fathers brother?

It wasn’t really that the editor wouldn’t accept it, it was that the video was being delivered by the seller without the transparency and the OP originally wanted it with transparency and the text was appearing in bad quality (possibly the .gif format ones since they only support 256 colours). Yes you might be able to key some colours in it to get it better, though it might be better for the source file text images to all be delivered in png rather than some in gif too I think (maybe if in the original .gif it looked okay but the edges had been anti-aliased against the original background colour and that caused problems when placed against a new background, and without anti-aliasing it might also show aliasing).

[benedictrm]

Would you buy a $200,000 Ferrari for $20 and expect it to be as good as a real Ferrari? I assume not.

Would you buy a $20,000 Toyota for $20 and expect it to be as good as a real Toyota? I assume not.

Would you buy a $200 used Hyundai and expect it to be as good as a new $10,000 Cherry? I assume not.

I bought from a top seller. If I buy from a top auto seller with good reputation I assume they are doing something right. And it’s not like buying a Ferrari for $20, it’s more like buying a second hand low end car vs buying a top notch high end car. I don’t expect the low end second hand car to drive fast and look cool, I just expect it to take me from point A to point B.

The saddest thing is, your experience with just two Sellers has tainted your view of the other 2.5 million freelancers who rely on Fiverr to put food on their table.

Not really, I have used Fiverr for other jobs where I have received good products. I won’t be buying video editing from here anymore though.

I agree it’s bad from the seller. I assume there’s a miscommunication issue, him thinking when you say 120 secs that you mean 1 min 20 (unless he’s having trouble giving 2 mins because of the file sizes if it’s something like ProRes 422 HQ with an alpha channel - maybe he normally sends in mp4 H264 format which is normally a lot smaller). Just ask for another free revision and it might be okay. Maybe saying “120 secs (ie. 2 mins)” might help but shouldn’t be needed.

Normally I’d agree, if it wasn’t for the fact that his premium package clearly states 120 seconds. He should at least know what he sells.

And the files are all in .mp4 file formats at maybe 200kb each. They should pose no problem.

I think the drama you have with me here is that you seem to only read a small part of what I write, and take that as ALL I wrote and communicated. Not so, I covered your point several times, but it seems you ignored that.

Maybe there is a lesson there*.

As a seller I would see it is a Red Flag in a potential client 😉

🙂

*most people loathe being misquoted and misrepresented, you might want to learn not to do it.

[tiakovolana]

i don’t understand this. depending on the requirements, wouldn’t you ether create the text in the video editor, which could potentially make things like effects and animation nice and easy, or else, if you have a transparent image that the editor won’t accept, chroma the background and Roberts your fathers brother?

Yes normally you’d create the text in the software but maybe in this case the buyer had designed that texts in a certain way, with a particular font so wanted it done that way and also originally wanted the delivered video with a transparent background so the could place it over different ones later. I don’t think I’ve ever been asked to add gif text to a video. It may not work well like I said.

Yes I’m sure the gigs which create the trailers will will normally be delivering without the transparent background and will probably be delivered in a .mp4.

if you have a transparent image that the editor won’t accept, chroma the background and Roberts your fathers brother?

It wasn’t really that the editor wouldn’t accept it, it was that the video was being delivered by the seller without the transparency and the OP originally wanted it with transparency and the text was appearing in bad quality (possibly the .gif format ones since they only support 256 colours). Yes you might be able to key some colours in it to get it better, though it might be better for the source file text images to all be delivered in png rather than some in gif too I think (maybe if in the original .gif it looked okay but the edges had been anti-aliased against the original background colour and that caused problems when placed against a new background, and without anti-aliasing it might also show aliasing).

It wasn’t really that the editor wouldn’t accept it, it was that the video was being delivered by the seller without the transparency and the OP originally wanted it with transparency and the text was appearing in bad quality (possibly the .gif format ones since they only support 256 colours)

i think what the OP wanted was a flat video, but using elements that have transparent backgrounds so as to create an effect maybe like the image i posted before? i’ve been running some experiments though. jus to say i’ve never charged for video editing and am not qualified to do so, as we shall soon see. back in 2008 i bought myself a copy of magix movie edit pro because i didn’t want my youtube vids to look like they were made in windows movie maker, and it’s something i enjoy immensely. that being said, imaging the following scenario;

i have a $30 video editing gig and i get an order from someone claiming that he needs a valentines video for his pigs. he attaches the following elements;

a ten minute video, VOB, depicting two sows (which i have cheekily made 1 minute 20 for this example ^^)

an awefull logo for “tiako films”, MP4 on a black background

a much nicer logo for “pip & ski internet video”, also MP4 on black

a rather nice animated gif of fluttershy flying, 550x450 weighing 1.5 mb

another animated gif this tiem depicting a pixie. a loop of two frames at one frame a second, 115x139 at 6k. both have 8 bit depth

the following jpeg of a different tiako films logo, which is 4800x2700

Lemur logo 2 JPG4800×2700 243 KB

for requirements he says as far as the video is concerned, he says a little off the top but keep the length, he mostly wants opening and closing titles (for some reason). he wants the two animated logos to be superimposed on the start of the film, he wants the animated gifs to somehow be involved in the title, “pinks have more fun”. finaly, he wants the jpeg superimposed on the end with a copyright stamp of 2014 tiako talking picture company. fair enough, this is what i come up with:

so track one in pig.vob. The logo MP4s are on track 2 and the black background are chroma keyed out. I did split the tiako logo up so that I could mess abut with the two halves independently, still the logo’s seem to now be knackered. It looks like I crunched the bitrate to 0 for reasons only known to the great mother horse.

Could probably do a better job with more time, but $30

i’ve never really played about with things like gifs, but to my surprise I just plonked on tracks 2 and 3 after the logos, and they just worked. The only caviarts being that I had to dupe the end of the pip and ski logo so that I could devolve both the gifs into them both and make the transition work. Also, in order for the pixie to look more animated I sped it up with the stretch tool, which made it too short to work with, so I had to made a new movie of about 20 seconds worth of that object stuck together, meaning I wound up having to chroma the background from that too, but other then that I was able to just whack them in then drag and resize to my hearts content, which was nice. The title was created in program

the jpeg I messed around with properly. First I made the white background black in paint shop, which is where the artefacting comes from. Then I wanted to keep the outer ring black but made the rest of the background blue. Then I positioned the logo so that the heart was in the centre of the image hoping that’s where the heart transition would end, it didn’t. So, I made two imaged of just the blue background, stuck one blue background on track 1, and the other blue background in front of the blue logo on track 2, devolve the objects now in track 2 and apply the heart transition, go to the last frame in the transition and petition the image from there, which made the logo way of centre and that’s why I needed the first blue background. Then I made the still logo longer and rendered that as an avi. Now I plonk that avi on track two of the pig video and blue screen, so now i’m able to reposition the logo from there, all for the sake of that transition. the new copyright stamp was created in program on track 3. again, could have spent more time on the jpeg to get rid of the artefacting, but $30

fun fact, both of the opening logos were made from $5 static logos. The tiako films one cost about $5 (depending on how you look at it, it was part of a $15 package) and I effectively had to make the second half myself. The pip & ski animation was $70, the “internet video” font was supplied by via as a transparent PNG and i’m jolly happy with it. The image at the end was a $15 erotic logo, I was bored

so, without seeing the rubbish trailer, I think that the OP’s complaint is valid. Premiere seems to handle gifs in a similar way, though I can’t deal with that software. I was going to argue that if a cheap plastic cup costs $5, and you decide to instead pick one up from ebay for $1 then after a few weeks it falls apart, you can’t really complain about that, but I don’t think that’s what’s going on. While curtain things are more difficult then they appear, I don’t see how the mistakes described could be achieved unless the seller doesn’t know what he’s doing at all and is selling the service anyway. $30 is still allot of money to spend on nothing

@olejesperoliver I recently made some closing credits for a video I had edited cheaply on fiverr a few months a which I intend to go narrate over one of these nights.

. My recommendation would be to google the video editor and go get your cheap plastic cup

[uk1000]

It wasn’t really that the editor wouldn’t accept it, it was that the video was being delivered by the seller without the transparency and the OP originally wanted it with transparency and the text was appearing in bad quality (possibly the .gif format ones since they only support 256 colours)

i think what the OP wanted was a flat video, but using elements that have transparent backgrounds so as to create an effect maybe like the image i posted before? i’ve been running some experiments though. jus to say i’ve never charged for video editing and am not qualified to do so, as we shall soon see. back in 2008 i bought myself a copy of magix movie edit pro because i didn’t want my youtube vids to look like they were made in windows movie maker, and it’s something i enjoy immensely. that being said, imaging the following scenario;

i have a $30 video editing gig and i get an order from someone claiming that he needs a valentines video for his pigs. he attaches the following elements;

a ten minute video, VOB, depicting two sows (which i have cheekily made 1 minute 20 for this example ^^)

an awefull logo for “tiako films”, MP4 on a black background

a much nicer logo for “pip & ski internet video”, also MP4 on black

a rather nice animated gif of fluttershy flying, 550x450 weighing 1.5 mb

another animated gif this tiem depicting a pixie. a loop of two frames at one frame a second, 115x139 at 6k. both have 8 bit depth

the following jpeg of a different tiako films logo, which is 4800x2700

Lemur logo 2 JPG4800×2700 243 KB

for requirements he says as far as the video is concerned, he says a little off the top but keep the length, he mostly wants opening and closing titles (for some reason). he wants the two animated logos to be superimposed on the start of the film, he wants the animated gifs to somehow be involved in the title, “pinks have more fun”. finaly, he wants the jpeg superimposed on the end with a copyright stamp of 2014 tiako talking picture company. fair enough, this is what i come up with:

so track one in pig.vob. The logo MP4s are on track 2 and the black background are chroma keyed out. I did split the tiako logo up so that I could mess abut with the two halves independently, still the logo’s seem to now be knackered. It looks like I crunched the bitrate to 0 for reasons only known to the great mother horse.

Could probably do a better job with more time, but $30

i’ve never really played about with things like gifs, but to my surprise I just plonked on tracks 2 and 3 after the logos, and they just worked. The only caviarts being that I had to dupe the end of the pip and ski logo so that I could devolve both the gifs into them both and make the transition work. Also, in order for the pixie to look more animated I sped it up with the stretch tool, which made it too short to work with, so I had to made a new movie of about 20 seconds worth of that object stuck together, meaning I wound up having to chroma the background from that too, but other then that I was able to just whack them in then drag and resize to my hearts content, which was nice. The title was created in program

the jpeg I messed around with properly. First I made the white background black in paint shop, which is where the artefacting comes from. Then I wanted to keep the outer ring black but made the rest of the background blue. Then I positioned the logo so that the heart was in the centre of the image hoping that’s where the heart transition would end, it didn’t. So, I made two imaged of just the blue background, stuck one blue background on track 1, and the other blue background in front of the blue logo on track 2, devolve the objects now in track 2 and apply the heart transition, go to the last frame in the transition and petition the image from there, which made the logo way of centre and that’s why I needed the first blue background. Then I made the still logo longer and rendered that as an avi. Now I plonk that avi on track two of the pig video and blue screen, so now i’m able to reposition the logo from there, all for the sake of that transition. the new copyright stamp was created in program on track 3. again, could have spent more time on the jpeg to get rid of the artefacting, but $30

fun fact, both of the opening logos were made from $5 static logos. The tiako films one cost about $5 (depending on how you look at it, it was part of a $15 package) and I effectively had to make the second half myself. The pip & ski animation was $70, the “internet video” font was supplied by via as a transparent PNG and i’m jolly happy with it. The image at the end was a $15 erotic logo, I was bored

so, without seeing the rubbish trailer, I think that the OP’s complaint is valid. Premiere seems to handle gifs in a similar way, though I can’t deal with that software. I was going to argue that if a cheap plastic cup costs $5, and you decide to instead pick one up from ebay for $1 then after a few weeks it falls apart, you can’t really complain about that, but I don’t think that’s what’s going on. While curtain things are more difficult then they appear, I don’t see how the mistakes described could be achieved unless the seller doesn’t know what he’s doing at all and is selling the service anyway. $30 is still allot of money to spend on nothing

@olejesperoliver I recently made some closing credits for a video I had edited cheaply on fiverr a few months a which I intend to go narrate over one of these nights.

. My recommendation would be to google the video editor and go get your cheap plastic cup

i think what the OP wanted was a flat video, but using elements that have transparent backgrounds so as to create an effect maybe like the image i posted before?

Originally the OP wanted the delivery to have a transparent background (eg. a .mov with an alpha channel). The OP said:

I shouldn’t have to specify that I want to retain the transparent background, that’s a no-brainer.

Also .mov video files supports alpha channels, so there are ways to do it quite easily if he knew half of what he should know as a “professional” video editor.

But later the OP changed the background of the image he wanted used I think and with the later seller he was okay with that seller delivering a flat mp4 file.

For your video that looks good in general, maybe the issues are partly because of the software like you said (and .gif). For the logo in the first approx 5 secs where there’s bits of black around it, maybe you could have increased the range of colours that are keyed out or use a different method of keying/removing the background. The 2nd one looks okay - though I don’t know if the animal is meant to be partially transparent - but that would be easier to fix if it wasn’t meant to be.

could have spent more time on the jpeg to get rid of the artefacting, but $30

With the jpeg you could have made any changes in a different format that was uncompressed/lossless (eg. png), if you didn’t do that. The size of the jpeg (that it was a lot bigger than the 1080p video size) should have helped. Though ideally a format other than jpeg should be supplied.

[tiakovolana]

i think what the OP wanted was a flat video, but using elements that have transparent backgrounds so as to create an effect maybe like the image i posted before?

Originally the OP wanted the delivery to have a transparent background (eg. a .mov with an alpha channel). The OP said:

I shouldn’t have to specify that I want to retain the transparent background, that’s a no-brainer.

Also .mov video files supports alpha channels, so there are ways to do it quite easily if he knew half of what he should know as a “professional” video editor.

But later the OP changed the background of the image he wanted used I think and with the later seller he was okay with that seller delivering a flat mp4 file.

For your video that looks good in general, maybe the issues are partly because of the software like you said (and .gif). For the logo in the first approx 5 secs where there’s bits of black around it, maybe you could have increased the range of colours that are keyed out or use a different method of keying/removing the background. The 2nd one looks okay - though I don’t know if the animal is meant to be partially transparent - but that would be easier to fix if it wasn’t meant to be.

could have spent more time on the jpeg to get rid of the artefacting, but $30

With the jpeg you could have made any changes in a different format that was uncompressed/lossless (eg. png), if you didn’t do that. The size of the jpeg (that it was a lot bigger than the 1080p video size) should have helped. Though ideally a format other than jpeg should be supplied.

For the logo in the first approx 5 secs where there’s bits of black around it, maybe you could have increased the range of colours that are keyed out or use a different method of keying/removing the background

i know, but you see the thing about the background, is it’s black. and the thing about the tip on teh lemur tail, is it’s black, so how ya supposed to key it? 🙂

With the jpeg you could have made any changes in a different format that was uncompressed/lossless (eg. png), if you didn’t do that. The size of the jpeg (that it was a lot bigger than the 1080p video size) should have helped. Though ideally a format other than jpeg should be supplied.

i see what you’re saying, though teh logo maker only gave me the jpeg i posted, and a coreldraw file that’s no good to me

the artefacting you can see on that logo exists because when i made the background black before, i used the fill tool to make the outer circle pink, the background black then the outer circle white, and called it a day. magix did a much better job keying out the background of that logo, understandably since it’s simpler and more logoey, not to mention static, but the image itself was of poor quality, since i put in about as much effort as i might if i was being paid $30 or less for this job. basically, as a base i used this

Lemur logo 2 JPG4800×2700 351 KB

when i could have used this

dirty lemur clean4800×2700 325 KB

in fairness, the image from the first few seconds of the video is from what must be the best $5 logo here. if you look, it says “tiako volana production”, i asked for that because i thought that way depending on context i could have “a tiako volana production” or “tiako volana productions”, an dit would be easier to add a letter then subtract one. with it i got an ai file, a pdf, two eps’s and two whopping 17333x9750 jpegs, which is, of course, use full

as for the animation, i could talk about that all night. it was £15 for a youtube intro, logo and banner. for the intro i sent him the aforementioned image, and asked for “tiako volana production” to fill the screen and then zoom out, for the logo i asked for something like my icon. the first attempt was like the one i used, but used this masterpiece

TiakoLOGO800×800 59.2 KB

i edited that and sent it back. the second attempt was the one i used, both were in the wrong aspect ratio so it’s cropped in my video. after that i resent the original $5 logo renames “part one” and my edited logo renamed “part two”, and asked for it to be rendered in 16:9, and got back the version seen in the video i pointed the OP to. i accepted that, and was sent the second attempt two more times while we tried to sort out the banner

i mention this because, of course, in my story i was only given the second attempt (chosen for it’s black background) and the end logo as supplied by the maker, which i was expected to edit as part of the $30 gig. of course in reality i have the luxury of being able to make a remastered version of the logo that i accepted so to speak. if i were to do it properly it might look something like

[uk1000]

For the logo in the first approx 5 secs where there’s bits of black around it, maybe you could have increased the range of colours that are keyed out or use a different method of keying/removing the background

i know, but you see the thing about the background, is it’s black. and the thing about the tip on teh lemur tail, is it’s black, so how ya supposed to key it? 🙂

With the jpeg you could have made any changes in a different format that was uncompressed/lossless (eg. png), if you didn’t do that. The size of the jpeg (that it was a lot bigger than the 1080p video size) should have helped. Though ideally a format other than jpeg should be supplied.

i see what you’re saying, though teh logo maker only gave me the jpeg i posted, and a coreldraw file that’s no good to me

the artefacting you can see on that logo exists because when i made the background black before, i used the fill tool to make the outer circle pink, the background black then the outer circle white, and called it a day. magix did a much better job keying out the background of that logo, understandably since it’s simpler and more logoey, not to mention static, but the image itself was of poor quality, since i put in about as much effort as i might if i was being paid $30 or less for this job. basically, as a base i used this

Lemur logo 2 JPG4800×2700 351 KB

when i could have used this

dirty lemur clean4800×2700 325 KB

in fairness, the image from the first few seconds of the video is from what must be the best $5 logo here. if you look, it says “tiako volana production”, i asked for that because i thought that way depending on context i could have “a tiako volana production” or “tiako volana productions”, an dit would be easier to add a letter then subtract one. with it i got an ai file, a pdf, two eps’s and two whopping 17333x9750 jpegs, which is, of course, use full

as for the animation, i could talk about that all night. it was £15 for a youtube intro, logo and banner. for the intro i sent him the aforementioned image, and asked for “tiako volana production” to fill the screen and then zoom out, for the logo i asked for something like my icon. the first attempt was like the one i used, but used this masterpiece

TiakoLOGO800×800 59.2 KB

i edited that and sent it back. the second attempt was the one i used, both were in the wrong aspect ratio so it’s cropped in my video. after that i resent the original $5 logo renames “part one” and my edited logo renamed “part two”, and asked for it to be rendered in 16:9, and got back the version seen in the video i pointed the OP to. i accepted that, and was sent the second attempt two more times while we tried to sort out the banner

i mention this because, of course, in my story i was only given the second attempt (chosen for it’s black background) and the end logo as supplied by the maker, which i was expected to edit as part of the $30 gig. of course in reality i have the luxury of being able to make a remastered version of the logo that i accepted so to speak. if i were to do it properly it might look something like

tiakovolana:

For the logo in the first approx 5 secs where there’s bits of black around it, maybe you could have increased the range of colours that are keyed out or use a different method of keying/removing the background

i know, but you see the thing about the background, is it’s black. and the thing about the tip on teh lemur tail, is it’s black, so how ya supposed to key it?

Though I also said “…or use a different method of keying/removing the background”. It depends what software you have and what functions are in that. Maybe you might have needed to draw a mask/masks over one or more frames/keyframe it. Maybe something like the paint bucket effect in AE coud have been used if the same colour was only in the middle parts of the tail but not the edge (so you could fill from the black area outside the character and it would stop at the first non-black edges of the character).

The one you showed at the end was better I agree and without those black artefacts, so you could have delivered something like that if you wanted/had more time or used that logo to re-create the same animation as what was in his source gif (if that was what he wanted) if he gave you one with a black background and that motion.

[tiakovolana]

Well yes. The video was the agreed resolution, but that was never the problem.

The actual texts I provided were provided in gif and png format with transparent backgrounds. They were later converted by the seller to a format that doesn’t support alpha channels, and used as they were after conversion with no further modifications.

I shouldn’t have to specify that I want to retain the transparent background, that’s a no-brainer.

ah, the plot thickens. i’ve never really used after effects, though i did find myself an interesting open source alternative, which i’ll have ot learn at some point. if i had access to AE i’d probably try the rotoscope feature and see what tha did

i did however find a ghetto way of doing it, which you did kind of suggest but i wanted to do it with only the mp4 file (which ironically is actually a .mov file, but flat), so i took a screenshot, made the background green in an image editor, cleaned it up a bit and that seems to have done the job

if i understand the OP correctly, what he supplied was

• a number of small MP4 clips, probably images, effects and so forth, not raw video footage, as such many of these files wanted trimming slightly

• some PGN files containing text with transparent backgrounds, to be superimposed onto the edited trailer in their apropriate places

• more of the same, but as gifs

but in both instances what they received back suggested that the seller only uses a program like muvee autocreator, having converted the unsupported images into low rez jpegs, and doesn’t have the capacity to cut a scene in two whatsoever, so just inputted the unedited mp4s and pixalated jpegs into the program and hit create

the result was an absolute mud pie if a 90 second movie, with the titles appearing out of context and in a white box, and the video fading in and out all over the shop. for the second seller the OP modified the text images to have flat backgrounds that matched the colour of the video hence giving the illusion of transparency, further suggesting that this was to be one of those slide show type trailers, but to no avail. the OP said this;

The actual texts I provided were provided in gif and png format with transparent backgrounds. They were later converted by the seller to a format that doesn’t support alpha channels, and used as they were after conversion with no further modifications.

I shouldn’t have to specify that I want to retain the transparent background, that’s a no-brainer.

I ended up having to make a background for him in the same color as the background used in the video. If I hadn’t I am quite sure the seller would be unable to figure out how to do it himself.

Well the .mov files are just supposed to be merged with other video clips anyway, so where I use the final product shouldn’t matter.

the files are all in .mp4 file formats at maybe 200kb each

Since the first seller I have converted the texts to a video format with the background I want.

i realize that you haven’t really said anything to the contrary, but in general i’m with the OP, in that i think a $5 video editing gig should get you one of those autoproducer type deals, $30 should either get you a hand made simple slide show, text and cheesy background music style trailer with what the OP provided, or something like the below video with what i said i was provided (as opposed to what i have). the fact that that took me some effort is irrelevant because for someone claiming to be a professional editor (which i’m not), because i reckon by the time i’ve edited the images, found the music, found appropriate clips from the supplied footage ect, and the final film had been burped that’s probably a 2 hour job. if i’m charging $30 for a premium gig then i’m probably not using AE, but free software of software i have already. so even if it took me three solid days to achieve, so long as that wasn’t because if the buyer i think he’s getting about $30 worth of work, but he does need to get what he paid for

i think unfortunately that sellers like that (and the one who made my tiako logo) are ruining the soil

[uk1000]

ah, the plot thickens. i’ve never really used after effects, though i did find myself an interesting open source alternative, which i’ll have ot learn at some point. if i had access to AE i’d probably try the rotoscope feature and see what tha did

i did however find a ghetto way of doing it, which you did kind of suggest but i wanted to do it with only the mp4 file (which ironically is actually a .mov file, but flat), so i took a screenshot, made the background green in an image editor, cleaned it up a bit and that seems to have done the job

if i understand the OP correctly, what he supplied was

• a number of small MP4 clips, probably images, effects and so forth, not raw video footage, as such many of these files wanted trimming slightly

• some PGN files containing text with transparent backgrounds, to be superimposed onto the edited trailer in their apropriate places

• more of the same, but as gifs

but in both instances what they received back suggested that the seller only uses a program like muvee autocreator, having converted the unsupported images into low rez jpegs, and doesn’t have the capacity to cut a scene in two whatsoever, so just inputted the unedited mp4s and pixalated jpegs into the program and hit create

the result was an absolute mud pie if a 90 second movie, with the titles appearing out of context and in a white box, and the video fading in and out all over the shop. for the second seller the OP modified the text images to have flat backgrounds that matched the colour of the video hence giving the illusion of transparency, further suggesting that this was to be one of those slide show type trailers, but to no avail. the OP said this;

The actual texts I provided were provided in gif and png format with transparent backgrounds. They were later converted by the seller to a format that doesn’t support alpha channels, and used as they were after conversion with no further modifications.

I shouldn’t have to specify that I want to retain the transparent background, that’s a no-brainer.

I ended up having to make a background for him in the same color as the background used in the video. If I hadn’t I am quite sure the seller would be unable to figure out how to do it himself.

Well the .mov files are just supposed to be merged with other video clips anyway, so where I use the final product shouldn’t matter.

the files are all in .mp4 file formats at maybe 200kb each

Since the first seller I have converted the texts to a video format with the background I want.

i realize that you haven’t really said anything to the contrary, but in general i’m with the OP, in that i think a $5 video editing gig should get you one of those autoproducer type deals, $30 should either get you a hand made simple slide show, text and cheesy background music style trailer with what the OP provided, or something like the below video with what i said i was provided (as opposed to what i have). the fact that that took me some effort is irrelevant because for someone claiming to be a professional editor (which i’m not), because i reckon by the time i’ve edited the images, found the music, found appropriate clips from the supplied footage ect, and the final film had been burped that’s probably a 2 hour job. if i’m charging $30 for a premium gig then i’m probably not using AE, but free software of software i have already. so even if it took me three solid days to achieve, so long as that wasn’t because if the buyer i think he’s getting about $30 worth of work, but he does need to get what he paid for

i think unfortunately that sellers like that (and the one who made my tiako logo) are ruining the soil

I mostly agree.

but in both instances what they received back suggested that the seller only uses a program like muvee autocreator,

Maybe. Or the there was some issue with the edges in something like the .gifs that the seller(s) couldn’t give a good result with (maybe because of the colour they were originally antialiased against). But like I said, other formats are normally better than gif as a source format if you want better edges (it only has 1 transparent colour and 256 total unlike png which can have more - millions of colours and an alpha channel for transparency)

with the titles appearing out of context and in a white box, and the video fading in and out all over the shop.

Maybe. I don’t remember the white box mentioned but he said the text was pixelated and low quality and something wrong with the editing.

for the second seller the OP modified the text images to have flat backgrounds that matched the colour of the video hence giving the illusion of transparency, further suggesting that this was to be one of those slide show type trailers

Maybe. Though we haven’t seen the original source files to be sure. It might have been one of those type of trailers but could have been created in something like AE, I don’t know. It could have been the text was originally anti-aliased against a particular colour but that anti aliasing didn’t work well with the new background. Png sources with alpha channels or similar (or having the seller create the text) might have worked out better.

but in general i’m with the OP, in that i think a 5 video editing gig should get you one of those autoproducer type deals,

I agree.

but he does need to get what he paid for

I agree

i think unfortunately that sellers like that (and the one who made my tiako logo) are ruining the soil

Yes, though I think there was some miscommunication between both. I think it would have helped if the OP specified originally that he wanted the delivery from the 1st seller to have a transparent background, like he said here he wanted (especially since that could have been a lot higher file size and meant GB instead of a lot less). Maybe the seller should have asked what format the buyer wanted it in but specific requirements at the start could have helped get the buyer what they originally wanted.

Maybe the sellers were used to working with different source file types and so had many good reviews but whatever was supplied didn’t work well with what they had. Though that doesn’t explain the bad editing the OP mentioned. If the OP paid a cheap price originally then they are probably not going to get the best result though, and it’s probably okay that not every gig is high priced giving the absolute best possible. Maybe with more specific requirements, the right sources, maybe a couple of revisions, the original seller could have given what was required. Or maybe the original seller was a brand new seller without reviews so were just inexperienced, and for more professional results a more Pro gig could have been purchased originally. If the sellers are consistently producing very low quality work though they could get their gig removed.

Where the OP said:

the files are all in .mp4 file formats at maybe 200kb each

If that file size was correct and if the resolution was 1920x1080 that does seem too low really if they were source files. Though maybe they were easy to compress so gave a low avg bitrate. But the min recommended bitrate for 1080p24 for youtube would be about 1 MB for a second of h264 video.