Media & Photos

[Blizzard]

Firstly, I'd just like to congratulate te team on making a near perfect website. It looks good, functions well, its fast. And If i'm allowed to say so its lightyears ahead of TT!

One thing I feel its missing though is a media section. Or at least the odd video. The ride & area pages are great, only It feels as if they're missing something. Possibly a more organised picture viewing system along with some videos & "old attraction" pages.

The random photo gallery thing dosen't really do It for me. If your looking at photos of a ride, you want to see lots of different parts of it, as with the current system, you often end up with pictures that are either very similar or only show one part of a ride. It needs a little work I think.

Something along the lines of being able to drag in from the right of the picture pannel to scroll through pages each containing multiple photos. Just ask and I will try and upload a picture of what I mean if you don't follow.

Also, videos need to make an appearance! Maybe just one off-ride video per ride, or a rides advert etc. An embeded youtube video would do nicely!

Is anything like this planned for the future?

 

[djtruefitt]

I don't know the technical side of the gallery (I just add photos ), so I will let someone explain that part, but there are a few things in development at the moment. Ride histroy and park history is certainly being done, but its a very long and slow process, certainly a lot harder to write and produce than current rides, but it is being done!

In terms of videos, this has been suggested on the team, and I belive its something that should be happening once the main season kicks off (and we can get some filming done!).

Ill let some other team members post about ride images and anything else they wish to add

 

[BigDave]

TST is a fairly new site and by the time the site was fully up and running and on a new sever, the main season was winding down. A lot of media I assume will be captured and put online this year. The site is still stretching its legs and getting comfy. Once its settled down, Im sure new stuff will spring up in no time!

 

[Dave]

The gallery (located in the "More" tab) has the complete galleries, so if your after a good picture browse that's one place to get a fix. Resort section links directly into the galleries (links are on the side bar) but rides don't at the moment due to some differences in the running of the ride section.

As for video we have a Youtube account and as Mike said recording is one of the things we are planning on this year. I imagine we will be looking at incorporating video into certain pages. If anyone has any other ideas for things they want to see video/ media though let us know.

 

[BarryZola]

Have you considered speaking to the Towers about the possibility of allowing you to film some HD POV recordings of any rides that are worth doing it on? I see that theme park review etc always seem to have these vids on Youtube, but how do they go about arranging that? I think that having a comprehensive series of POV vids of the rides at the towers could pull in a lot of users, especially on new stuff like The Smiler.

 

[Anonymous]

Have you considered speaking to the Towers about the possibility of allowing you to film some HD POV recordings of any rides that are worth doing it on? I see that theme park review etc always seem to have these vids on Youtube, but how do they go about arranging that? I think that having a comprehensive series of POV vids of the rides at the towers could pull in a lot of users, especially on new stuff like The Smiler.

I've personally done this at a number of parks and its not easy. There's a lot of paperwork, you need specialist equipment and of course the support of the park, something which is hard to get with Merlin Parks. I actually had a PR guy from Heide say Merlin make it so much more difficult.

 

[BarryZola]

Have you considered speaking to the Towers about the possibility of allowing you to film some HD POV recordings of any rides that are worth doing it on? I see that theme park review etc always seem to have these vids on Youtube, but how do they go about arranging that? I think that having a comprehensive series of POV vids of the rides at the towers could pull in a lot of users, especially on new stuff like The Smiler.

I've personally done this at a number of parks and its not easy. There's a lot of paperwork, you need specialist equipment and of course the support of the park, something which is hard to get with Merlin Parks. I actually had a PR guy from Heide say Merlin make it so much more difficult.

That's unfortunate. This forum does seem to have a decent relationship with the Towers though, so if it was something that the forum actually wanted to do, maybe it would at least be worth enquiring about the possibility.

 

[Scott]

POVs are so common nowadays - although unfortunately so many are from non-approved sources. Despite this, we wouldn't really be gaining anything by going through all the hassle of trying to film a legitimate POV video as somebody else has already done a perfectly good one

 

[BarryZola]

Fair enough, just something that came to mind and which I thought was at least worth suggesting. I'm sure you guys have enough things planned to keep you busy in the coming months anyway

 

[BigDave]

Unless you are prepared to pay the park a lot of money and have a complete rig to fasten a camera to, then the park really won't want to know. When any large company come in to do filming on the rides, it takes them ages to put the rig onto the trains. The park won't want to waste time letting a small group of enthusiasts get POVs unless we cough up big bucks. AT probably wouldn't class your standard GoPro camera rigs as being good enough.

 

[Dave]

I think TPR get the PoV's as part of paying for ERT. We asked ages ago (might have been when we where still with TT) and the hoops you have to jump through are insane.

But if the opportunity comes up we will consider it

 

[Jordan]

I don't agree. If there's other people already doing POVs really well (Theme Park Review's ones are really good), would it really be worth TowersStreet spending a lot of money and doing our own? - especially that we would have no experience, and TPR will most likely do a very good POV of The Smiler soon enough anyway.

I'd rather see TowersStreet focus on doing the things we do well, really well - rather than trying to do all the things and not doing any one thing particularly great. (This is the same argument for when people ask if TowersStreet should do ride simulators.)

 

[Wilsy]

We have started focussing more on certain other parts of the site, such as our YouTube account (www.youtube.com/towersstreet) recently, with a lot more planned in the coming months.

Things like this take time, but I believe they will be worth the wait.

 

[James]

Yeah, there are a load of decent POVs on YouTube already. Not really any point in the team here investing time in doing that when the content is already widely available.

Team work can be put into things of far better use rather than creating something that you can already get.

One suggestion I have regarding videos. How about a video for each ride/attraction on the site. Likewise a video for each hotel and the waterpark (although that'll probably be impossible now) too. I know it would involve quite a bit of work and requires someone to be doing a lot of editing. Although if you guys did it right and provided something high quality I think it would really bring something unique to the website and also make the theme park/resort sections more engaging with visitors to the site. There's no Alton Towers fansites out there that has videos on all pages so it would be pretty unique.

I know the Alton Towers website has videos on each page however I think the team on here could easily outdo those videos and provide something more interesting.

Just a thought.

 

[BarryZola]

Slightly contradictory there James.

You say that TST should not put effort into producing a set of POV's as there are already some out there (sporadically) on youtube etc. You then go on to say that the site should however produce a set of off-ride/attraction vids when there are already plenty out there (sporadically), again, on youtube and other fan-sites.

That was exactly my point, there are plenty of POV's out there, but where can you find them all on one AT website done by themselves and in high quality. I fully accept that finance may be an issue but if it was possible I believe a fine set of POV's on TST would be a good thing. However, it looks like this is not something that is going to happen, so that's that really

 

[James]

True, however I find there are a lack of sites (or places) where I could find ride/attraction videos. POVs I know I'll go to TPR or Ride Guide and find every video I need in one place. Attraction and ride videos I have to dig for, and most of the videos out there I find are very mediocre, often with some 2002 pop-rock tune thrown on top of it or bad camera skills.

A part from Fotowhizz there's no where you can find a set of well done videos of rides and attractions. If TowersStreet had a full collection of videos I think they would be a big hit as this site would be the only place you can see such a wide collection without having to dig deep down.

POVs are far more common than ride/attraction videos.

 

[Dave]

I think the basic response to this is IF the opportunity to do a POV came up we would take it, however, its not something I would hold my breath on just because of the sheer volume of H&S crap that has to be done.

So we wouldn't say no but we don't expect to get the opportunity, we have a friendly relationship with Alton Towers but the only non-press group who seem to get POV's at Towers are TPR which I assume is because A) they pay for ERT when they come over and B) it gets them some free international exposure (as TPR vids are world renowned) which is all the better.

Just to give an example of the hoops, you have to have either a full fixable rig or miniature pencil camera thing which are not cheap if you want decent quality video.

But watch this space

 

[BarryZola]

Can't say I disagree with either of the 2 above posts. For the record, I agree that a full set of quality off-ride vids would be very useful. I've toyed with the idea of having a go at that myself as sort of a survey of the attractions in 2013, but in video form, but realistically I don't have the time for the foreseeable future to do such a thing. I definitely think there's a place for it though and if someone's got the time I'm sure it would be an enjoyable little project for someone.

 

[Jordan]

I think the basic response to this is IF the opportunity to do a POV came up we would take it, however, its not something I would hold my breath on just because of the sheer volume of H&S crap that has to be done.

Really? That disappoints me. The amount of money it would cost the site to do POVs that would match other people's, plus the time that would be spent to record and edit them, would be far better spent elsewhere.

I think the team should be a little more modest, and link to the good POVs already online instead. You could do that right now today, and it would be a really quick win for everyone - TS becomes a bigger source for ride info than it already is, visitors reading the site can discover videos that they may not otherwise have found, and the fansites who made them get a bit of love for the time and effort they spent to do them.

 

[Dave]

We won't be paying for recording POV's, we are not exactly made of money so that idea has never been considered. I'm talking about if the opportunity magically fell out of the sky into our laps. As I said previously its very unlikely.

Sharing other sites videos are an option but obviously to do so its courteous to get permission. It's a thought though.

Though this is not something that is really at the top of our list of priorities, we have a fair few things to be getting on with already.