Binumi: Cheap Stock Footage For the Masses (But There’s a Catch)

It’s rare that I get the opportunity to write about a product that seems more or less targeted at me. But Binumi, a stock video, audio, and image website based in Bangkok, Thailand, is theoretically right up my alley. So it was with profound personal interest that I gave the site a good kick in the tires, before getting in touch with Anthony Copping, the CEO of Last Voices group (which operates Binumi) to put a few tough questions to him.

But let’s start with the good. Binumi is a slick site that’s extremely easy to navigate, especially if you’re looking for video footage or images. Footage is grouped into sequences, and in many of them, the coverage is pretty impressive. So, for example, if you’re looking for some footage of a crocodile, you can find this clip, but as you can see, listed below it are more than a dozen other clips of the same sort of thing from the same place. This kind of depth of coverage is potentially very useful if you’re trying to use stock footage to construct a complete scene.

Binumi’s library is already pretty big, but it’s also got some pretty hardcore regional focus: as you might expect, there’s a lot of coverage of Thailand. Mr. Copping told me that the company plans to expand quite aggressively in this area, saying:

We have a very aggressive library expansion and would expect a minimum of 20,000 video clips to be added every month for the foreseeable future. These include a much wider country focus and a lot more studio footage of objects as well as BinFX, our motion graphics collection which is starting to roll out.

I pointed out that many of the videos didn’t seem to have HD coverage, which makes them much less useful for professionals, or really anyone who isn’t working for output to the web. Copping said the company plans to expand its HD offerings, but he also suggested that Binumi is targeted more towards the prosumer/consumer market anyway:

We feel speed of download and storage sizes are very important for this demographic, for instance a student working on a project for a school video essay would find it prohibitive both in time and storage media to work in Full HD. We have tried to cover all basis by providing different sizes with our initial focus being on Consumers, albeit only a few weeks before full resolutions are available.

Browsing footage on Binumi

Binumi’s most unique feature is Binmash, which allows users to choose footage, audio, and images from the Binumi library and “mash” them together into a full video via a simple editing interface within the web browser. Users can also upload their own footage and music to their bins and combine this with stock footage from the site. Copping described the feature as “fun, easy and perfect for music videos, holiday and locations shorts, video gifting and messaging, etc.” It does seem like it might be cool for some users, although it’s not the sort of thing I can get too excited about personally. Still, it’s a unique idea and it’s good to see a company bringing some creativity into this market.

So what’s all this going to cost you? It’s actually quite cheap compared to many of its competitors, although the services it offers are a bit different. You can register an account for free, but to use any of the footage, images, or sound from the site, you’ll need to either buy credits — the site’s virtual currency — to pay as you go or sign up for a full subscription, of which there are several tiers, each providing members with a preset number of credits. The price of a piece of footage depends on the quality you need it in. In 480p, for example, this clip just costs 20 credits, but if you want it in Full HD, you’ll have to shell out 200 credits.

It’s impossible to say exactly how much that is in real dollars because the price of credits scales depending on how many you buy; the more you buy, the cheaper they get. But even if you buy credits 50 at a time — the lowest, and therefore most expensive, option — you’re not going to end up paying much, as 50 credits will run you just $2.99. That’s amazingly cheap compared to other stock footage sites, but there’s a big catch to that low price: if you want to use any of the footage you’ve purchased for any commercial projects, you’ll need a “Pro” subscription, which runs from $50-$100/month depending on how many months you buy.