Frequently Asked Questions

What does RTV do?

We make the best Virtual Tour Software

RTV offers both products and services to help professional real estate photographers, aerial drone pilots, and entrepreneurs create stunning photographic, panoramic, and video productions for real estate listings, apartments, hotels, senior living, cities, yachts, RV’s, camping grounds, communities, medical offices, hospitals, universities, museums, and the list goes on. Just think of anything you’d like to visit online before you take the time (and expense) to go see in person, and that’s what RTV can help you present. These presentations are commonly referred to as virtual tours, property sites, or productions.

Some think of virtual tours as being limited to panoramic photos only. This way of thinking is very limiting and those using our advanced mixed-media technology and limited only by their creativity since RTV tour creators have the ability to incorporate all forms of media into even more stunning, interactive productions that really help them – and the home or business being portrayed — stand out from other offerings. Imagine being able to mix your full-motion video, your gorgeous still photos, your 360/3D photos, floor plans, music, and narration into one vibrant and interactive presentation.

RTV tour creators can include still photographs, HD videos, floor plans, voice narration, music and even embed third-party content (like 4K YouTube, Vimeo, Matterport, and even Zillow 3D Home Tours). The choice to use panoramic photography is completely up to you the creator.

In fact, we feel that using a mix of HD still images, panoramas, and video is the best way to get potential buyers to purchase, prospective renters, to lease (sometimes without even visiting in person) and/or convince someone who is unsure about visiting the home or business in person that it is worth their while to come to experience the physical place themselves to experience it with all five senses.

Virtual tours are currently most commonly used for real estate or businesses, but truly, the possibilities are only limited by the extent of the tour creator’s imagination.

We help photographers and drone pilots dominate

One thing competing photographers around the world know is the local RTV providers are tough to crack. We not only arm our customers with very sleek virtual tour software, but we also provide sales and marketing training via our marketing portal www.RockPointeMarketing.com

(RPM) RTV knows what it takes to succeed in each market and that’s setting yourself apart and growing your business one customer at a time then keeping that customer for life.

This marketing expertise comes from the real-life experience of our founder, Jason LaVanture, who, along with his wife, runs a real estate photography, drone, and virtual tour business called www.BlueLaVaMedia.com It started as a challenge to Jason from a friend to become not only the creator of — but a client of — RTV, to prove how the BOOST Marketing and word-of-mouth (WOM) driving power of RTV’s virtual tour system could be used to grow a real estate photography business quickly, retain those customers for life, and stand out among the competition.

That challenge has turned into a thriving business that produces virtual tours and property websites for more nearly 1500 homes a year — and growing!

By learning how to master and monetize all of Fusion’s BOOST Marketing services and fully harness the WOM potential with each virtual tour and property site delivery, Jason and his team at BlueLaVa share the formula for success back to the RTV network. These marketing tools and tips come in the form of webinars, ready-to-go marketing pieces, business forms, tools and proven/tested ideas to help our virtual tour creators succeed and thrive in their market. Jason wants RTV users to learn from his wins — and his mistakes — to help them be as successful as possible, as quickly as possible.

In addition to RPM, users of our system all support each other as a community through our private Facebook page and face-to-face user meetups. With RTV, you’re definitely not out there trying to figure this all out on your own and you’re teed up to win.

We send our customers leads

At RTV, we get between eight and ten photography or virtual tour requests daily from all around the world. It does not sound like much but it adds up over time. We communicate with these individuals, determine their needs and connect them with qualified customers that are using our system to help meet those needs. We don’t quote for our customer or set a national price. We let all of our customer establish pricing based on local market conditions. There’s no cost to take a lead from RTV. All we ask is tha you do your best to close the deal and put it through our system.

We manufacture and provide panoramic tripod heads - Panoheads

It’s no secret that the highest quality panoramas are made using a high-end lens with a DSLR camera mounted to a panohead (AKA rotator). If you have a one-shot camera that’s ok and it will still work with our system, but again the very best panoramas are created using a panohead.

RTV has been making panoheads now since 1999. Our high-quality precision panoheads are made with brushed aluminum and stainless steel. Most importantly they are made in the USA, accurate to 1/1,000th of an inch and guaranteed for life.

We provide amazing (USA-based) technical support

Who helps would-be virtual tour makers create absolutely amazing productions? We do! Our virtual tour tech gurus have been helping RTV virtual tour creators succeed since 1999!. RTV virtual tour creators have access to video tutorials and webinars, our blog and ongoing live interactions with these techy — yet personable — wizards.

The RTV support team has one goal: to help our tour creators use the magic of RTV to make the productions they see in their minds — or something even better — come to life so as many others as possible can experience it as well!

We send our customers jobs from our national & international accounts via Tour Track

In addition to having some of the best virtual tour software available, RTV also feeds jobs to hte users of the software via a program called Tour Track. Tour Track was designed to give companies with a national presence a way to order high-quality photography, aerial drone videos, anywhere in the world and keep a consistent look and feel. RTV streamlines this process by working with the clients to place their orders and understand their design and photography goals. We then distribute the photography and virtual tour orders to approved professional photographers within our network. Photographers are paid for each order they successfully complete. The beauty of this system is that RTV photographers are able to receive extra business they didn’t have to spend marketing dollars on, business that they would not be able to earn on their own since these national companies operate on a national level. Together we leverage the power of our network to contract with these companies and provide our professional photographers with additional business.

How large is the RTV Organization?

As of July of 2020, RTV consist of 16 employees. You can learn more about our operational staff on our About Us Page.

Can I use this to make a walkthrough virtual tour with hot spots and floor plans?

Yes! You bet you can. In fact, RTV was the very first virtual tour software to support hot spot navigational features way back in the day. We still support hot spots and have since taken it much further than the technology of 1999. Today, our software allows you to jump outside of the tour to another page on the web, add in information hot spots, audio hot spots, and even video hot spots. To get a feel of our features, visit our virtual tour gallery here – https://www.realtourvision.com/tour-gallery.html

What assurance do I have that RTV will be around in the coming years?

RTV has successfully launched 5 revisions of Tour Builder virtual tour software since its inception. With each launch, we add more features, functions, and value for our customers. RTV’s customer base has continued to grow since 1999 and we have profitable income streams from both photographers using our system as well as our Tour Track photo services.
Major international companies such as Choice Hotels, Motel 6, Kindred Healthcare, and more depend on the professional photography services provided by RTV.

What is a Full-Service Provider (FSD)?

A Full-Service Provider is a person or entity that purchases a RTV’s virtual tour software for the purpose of offering virtual tour services to others for profit.

Is this a virtual tour company franchise?

No, this is not a franchise. RTV’s Fusion virtual tour system has been set up so our customers can private label our technology to match their personal brand. RTV has policies set in place for conducting business with Full-Service Providers. Full-Service Providers establish their own company name, pricing, service offering, and their identity is separate from RTV. Each Full-Service Provider also establishes its own policies on how it conducts business with its customers.

Do you have a trial version of the software?

Yes, we have a free, no-obligation, and no credit card required trial version of our virtual tour software. We want you to know it’s the best before signing up. Set it up here https://www.realtourvision.com/trial.html

Do you have a satisfaction guarantee?

You bet we do, and we stand by it 100%. RTV offers each customer a 30-day money-back satisfaction guarantee. You can read more about it in our Policies Section https://www.realtourvision.com/support/policies.html

Does this system create a branded and non-branded production?

Yes. RTV’s virtual tour systems have generated both branded and non-branded virtual tours links since 1999. Our platform is 100% MLS/IDX compliant.

Are my customers that I load into Fusion mine?

Yes! RTV will never contact your customers directly in any way. Your customers and images are 100% yours.

Can I private label this system?

Yes you certainly can, and we want you to. RTV has led the independent photographer movement since 1999. We’ve always allowed our customers to have their brand front and center over ours. In order for all of our BOOST Marketing services to work correctly you will need to fully private label our system by setting up your MyBrand, connecting your YouTube channel, getting your Google Map API Key, acquiring your Great Schools API key, and your Weather API key. Once your private label is in place RTV will not show up anywhere on your productions. Even further your tours will be hosted in an HPPS (Secure) format and you’ll receive 100% of the SEO and backlink value as you create each virtual tour. Imagine how many backlinks you will have pointing back to your website if you only did thirty tours a month for a year. There’s a reason why so many of our customers dominate the search results.

Does RTV provide training?

Sure do! We employ three full-time Customer Services Representatives (CSR) who are here to help make sure you get everything set up and going. One CSR will be assigned to you and they will make sure that you know everything about RTV inside and out. Most of your training will be self training via watching videos in our Learning Center. As you get stuck along the way you can reach out to your CSR and they will point you in the right direction of a video or they’ll jump on a zoom meeting to show you exactly what you need to do to get moving again.

What is a virtual tour credit?

RTV customers have come to love our affordable, simple, and easy-to-understand pricing model. We sell virtual tour credits which are then consumed to publish virtual tours & property sites. When you publish your virtual tour you will be able to edit that tour again at any time without consuming an additional virtual tour credit. One virtual tour credit is used to publish a virtual tour and property site. Think of one credit as being equivalent to publishing one property or business. All for sale properties will remain online forever or until the property sells. It’s up to you to remove them and mark them as sold. All business and commercial virtual tours that are not for sale will require one virtual tour credit annually to renew. Each virtual tour credit can hold up to 100 scenes and up to five minutes of streaming 1080 video. For every fifty virtual tours that you delete or “shred” we give you one credit back. Purchased virtual tour credits on your account will never expire.

How much does a virtual tour credit cost?

In 1999 a virtual tour credit cost $10. Today a virtual tour credit purchased one at a time is $15 and when purchased in groups of ten or more are only $12 each. Keep an eye out for our Black Friday sale and if you’re new and just starting with us, don’t miss out on our virtual tour match on your sign up day!

What is a scene?

A scene in a virtual tour can be any form of media. It can be a full 360° spherical panorama, a full 360° cylindrical panorama, a cylindrical partial panorama that is between 90° and 359°, a still image, a full-motion video clip, a 360 video clip, or embedded third-party media that is used to represent a unique location within your tour. Each RTV virtual tour can hold up to 100 scenes for the fee of one tour credit. More scenes can be added to a virtual tour for additional tour credits. There is no limit on the number of scenes that productions can have.

Are viewer statistics/tracking available?

Since 1999 RTV has offered our customers some of the most robust virtual tour tracking reports on the market. Our customers call them Weekly Seller’s Reports. We call them Traffic Reports. These are weekly reports that get sent out from you to your customers each week (if you have them turned on) that will show how many visits, top traffic sources, desktop VS mobile, unique VS repeat, top scenes in the tour, and much more. Your customers will love using these reports as a communication tool between them and the property sellers or the business owners. Once they see the traffic coming in they’ll never use another provider! If you want to go further try adding in your Google Analytics or Facebook Pixel code. It’s all here and easy to do.

Can I use my own Google Analytics or Facebook Pixel on my tours?

Yes. With RTV you are able to not only put in your Google and Facebook tracking code, but you can also put in the tracking code for your customers. We recommend that you monetize the latter. Imagine being in a presentation and pulling out your device showing real time stats of who is looking at your productions and from where. It’s a deal closer!

Do you have lead capture?

You bet we do! At RTV lead capture is very serious business. Imagine being a real estate photographer who is also sending potential buyers to their customers with each production. We do just that. When you get your first email from a happy customer saying they received a lead off your property website or virtual tour you’ll have a customer for life! RTV offer multiple lead capture solutions on both property site and virtual tours. The leads go directly to your client from you as an email. It’s fantastic!

Can I advertise my company off the productions?

Yes, and if you don’t we’ll be reminding you to do so. The RTV system has been programmed to be a word-of-mouth (WOM) driving machine. Having you private label the system is not enough. We will encourage you to also set your company up as an advertiser (affiliate) that will automatically be placed on each production that you create. When set up correctly your logo will be placed on your tours and property sites for you. This will be a clickable link that will let both home shoppers and other real estate agents or business owners know that you were the creative magic behind the production. Just take a look at a few of the productions at https://tours.BlueLaVaMedia.com and watch for the BlueLaVa logo to appear. Our best customer receive on average 25 – 30 visits each month from potential new customers just by having this in place. Read a case study on how it all come together here – https://www.realtourvision.com/real-tour-vision-review-case-study-two.php

Do you have a client portal?

RTV has a robust private labeled login so your clients can easily login and manage their own productions. We give you the ability to choose what they can and can not do. It’s a great way for you to give your customers some access and control over the productions you create without giving up control. By default we have them throttled down for you so they can only edit listing status and get their links, but you can easily give them access for more control such as choosing music files, rearranging or renaming images and much more.

How do you make a panoramic 360 scene?

A panoramic scene is created by taking several snapshots and processing them with photo stitching to make a panoramic virtual tour scene. A 360 or 3D camera may also be used to create a panoramic scene. A panoramic image will only count as one scene within your virtual tour.

Can I export the virtual tour?

Yes. Each virtual tour can be exported to MP4 and YouTube with the push of a button at no additional charge. You may download your MP4 file and store for safekeeping or deliver it to your customer on a thumb drive. The possibilities are endless.

Can my tours and property sites go on the MLS?

Each time you create a virtual tour or a property website, RTV will automatically make both a branded and a non-branded version for you. The non-branded version of the virtual tour will be placed on the MLS by the listing agent. In some cases RTV has an automated feed established with the MLS board and you can post it on behalf of the agent by pressing a button. However in most cases, the MLS board will not technologically support a feed so the agent will need to log into their MLS system and copy and paste the non-branded URL of the virtual tour. Once the virtual tour or property site is on the MLS it will automatically distribute out to all of the national real estate portal sites such as Zillow, Movoto, Homes.com Trulia, Realtor.com, and others. Once on these portal sites, RTV is able to inject the branded version of the tour onto the national portal site for you. With RTV there is no need for the agent to login to each national portal to add the link to the branded production.

Will these go on Zillow, Realtor.com, Homes.com, Trulia, Movoto, and other portals?

Once the non-branded virtual tour or property site is on the MLS it will automatically distribute out to all of the national real estate portal sites. Once on these portal sites, RTV is able to inject the branded version of the tour onto the national portal site for you. With RTV there is no need for the agent to login to each national portal to add the link to the branded production. This means more word-of-mouth marketing for both you and the agent.

Does this come with royalty free music?

You bet! With nearly 300 tracks, RTV has one of the most extensive royalty-free music libraries for you to choose from. We pay for it each year and license it for you. With our agreement, you’re allowed to use it on all of your virtual tours and YouTube productions worry-free. Our system even allows you to purchase your own music and upload your own tracks.

Does RTV offer image editing services?

Yes! RTV has been editing images professionally for our national and international accounts since 2007. In early 2020 we opened up the same services to our customers worldwide. The service is called our Brush & Build service and it costs $1.00 per photo and $2.00 per panorama. Unlike many of the other image editing services around the globe, RTV will not only edit your images for you, but we’ll also create your virtual tours for you. Be sure to ask about our Brush & Build service!

How much does the narration cost?

The RTV system has a built-in narration system for you called the Cloud Recorder. This will allow you or your customers to take advantage scene by scene or tour level narrations. All that is needed is an internet connection and a microphone. If you choose to create your own .mp3 files on your end you can upload those to your productions as well free of charge.

Are there any extras or hidden costs here?

Everything you see in the features section of our website here – https://www.realtourvision.com/products-services/tour-marketing-tools.html is included with each virtual tour unless otherwise indicated. There are only a handful of additional services that cost extra money from RTV. They are as follows:

AstroZoom (Space-to-Earth-Flyover) – $10.00 or $15.00 with property lines. AstroZoom is a Space-to-Earth flyover video that is added to your production. It’s a one-time-fee.
DIY Virtual Staging – Starting at $15 per photo. You can virtually stage your vacant properties easily using our integrated DIY virtual stager.
Full-Service Virtual Staging – $35 per photo. We will sage your photos for you. It’s easy and you can still flip it for $50 or more per photo to your customer.
AudioPal – $120/year annually. You can have our text-to-speech system narrate your virtual tours and property sites for you on an unlimited basis. We have dozens of voices for you to choose from.
Custom Social Media Video – $12. We will choose the very best images in your production and create a one minute or less video for you to give to your customer. We recommend that you flip this for at least $25 or more. It’s an easy money maker for you!
Custom Domain – $14. If your client would like to be able to market their property using a vanity domain such as www.808mainst.com you will be able to purchase these directly through our system. We suggest that you flip it for $25 – $30 depending on your market.
Brush & Build – $1 per photo & $2 per panorama. RTV will not only edit your images for you, but we’ll also create your virtual tours for you.

Do you offer territory protection?

RTV offers more territory protection than any of our competitors, but not as much as would be offered with a costly virtual tour franchise. We have a few golden rules that we live by listed below:

1: We do our best not to over-saturate any given area. We accomplish by looking at the number of real estate agents in a given market and seeing how many productions a year we have coming out of that area. We aim for a minimum of 20% market penetration in each market across the globe.

2: We will never set up one of your 1099 photographers to compete against you. That’s just not right and there are plenty of other systems out there they can choose to come in second place to you.

3: We will not sell to one of your customers so they can compete with you. If we get the feeling that one of your agents or customers is trying to “Back Door” you, you’ll be the first person that we call. We care about your success and ability to dominate your market.

Please keep in mind that in most cases you WILL share your market with others using the RTV system. We don’t offer exclusivity, we can’t control where people move to and we don’t stop those who want to use our system to establish a network of photographers around the country or even internationally. We’ll never limit your growth!

Does this system support floor plans?

Yes. You can attach floor plans to your tour. The floor plans you upload to your virtual tour will be interactive by linking your panoramic, still photo, and videos scenes to your floor plans.

Will this work with Matterport or iGuide?

Yes. If you’re currently using Matterport or iGuide you can take your final production and embed it into our property sites or virtual tours at no extra cost. The benefit to embedding your productions into the RTV system is that you get the advantage of having all of your media for each listing into one media presentation in a private labeled fashion. Why would a property marketer want their drone video, their still photos, listing descriptions and 3D productions all in separate links? They wouldn’t. With RTV, Fusion becomes your vehicle to present all of this information under your brand, with your SEO, all the while you will harness your word-of-mouth (WOM). Never give up your brand! Best of all, your customers will receive a weekly traffic report that will show how long many visitors are looking at your productions and where they are coming from!