video hosting

[norcal1027]

Hi,

This is my first posting as I just joined this site. I hope someone can help. My brother and I just finished a 22-minute documentary, shot on digital video cassettes (we used a Sony pdx10). I would like to host our video (and perhaps some other music and text only files) on a website. I am not sure exactly how large the file is, though I want anyone to be able to access it. As well, I would like a domain name of my choosing. I looked into Streamload.com, but it seems that my domain would have to include Streamload in the url. Does anyone have any recommendations? I am tech savvy enough to upload the video, though admittedly, I seek help because much of this tech stuff is beyond me.

[BluesCam]

Most web hosting companies these days support several streaming media formats. You just need to talk with various hosting companies to find a good solution. I would say WMV or QT would be pretty good choices for streaming. I would stay away from RN. Register your domain and pick a hosting company (most hosts will also register for you). When you have created and uploaded your site you will then need to submit your URL to the search engines so people can find you. Good luck.

[tubecamera-or-bust]

If you are offering it for free I would think you would get much more exposure from one of the established sites like Youtube.com. And... it costs you nothing!

[Jonathan Kirsch]

I second the YouTube. BUT:

1. Initial uploads are limited to 100MB and 10 minutes. They do have a special registration section for "directors", I think it's called, where you can upload longer videos

2. Their upload specs say .wmv or QT (even DiVX) and mpeg3 compression. I tried ALL of these and they came out looking like crap: very pixellated. So after more research and talking to people on other forums, the best bet is uploading a Flash movie of your video. Those are the ones that apparently look the best on the site. Reason is, YouTube does additional compression on your video after it is uploaded. Unfortunately, I don't know how to use, nor do I own, Flash.

If anyone has solutions/other avenues...please post!

I hope at some point to be able to do this because I know nothing about HTML and setting up my own website. YouTube would be a much easier way of sharing videos with friends/family without burning (wasting) DVDs.

Jonathan

[Canonman]

I second the YouTube. BUT:

1. Initial uploads are limited to 100MB and 10 minutes. They do have a special registration section for "directors", I think it's called, where you can upload longer videos

2. Their upload specs say .wmv or QT (even DiVX) and mpeg3 compression. I tried ALL of these and they came out looking like crap: very pixellated. So after more research and talking to people on other forums, the best bet is uploading a Flash movie of your video. Those are the ones that apparently look the best on the site. Reason is, YouTube does additional compression on your video after it is uploaded. Unfortunately, I don't know how to use, nor do I own, Flash.

If anyone has solutions/other avenues...please post!

I hope at some point to be able to do this because I know nothing about HTML and setting up my own website. YouTube would be a much easier way of sharing videos with friends/family without burning (wasting) DVDs.

Jonathan

The problem with YouTube and some of the other sites is that their licensing agreement that you accept gives them carte blanch to use your video or make it available to anyone w/o compensation to you.

[tubecamera-or-bust]

I'm not an expert on Flash but I think there is some kind of copy protection that may (I said may) prevent the viewer from saving
the file. That they can only view it.

All things considered, if your goal is to get your work seen these sites cannot be beat. That's why the big guys (movie makers, TV networks) are all jumping on the bandwagon to promote their work.

And.... you cannot beat that price.

There are other similar sites so check into them all. Good luck with it!

UPDATE: Check out Google's new site, here:

https://upload.video.google.com/

[Jonathan Kirsch]

Canonman: you and tubecamera are both right.

Yes, you don't get compensated...but those videos can't be downloaded...only viewed (YouTube says this in several areas of its FAQ page). Other people can post links to those videos as well as embed them in their own websites (with code provided by YouTube), but they can not alter them in any way. So, if you put a watermark or some type of credits, copyright info, etc. in it, there's no way they can steal it and say it's their own.

For me, I'm not looking to get compensated. Look at it as free advertising. You could post a video with a slate or additional video after it pimping your company (or "for more info go to xxx.com"). You could also send links to people and have them go to your "channel" which has info about you, kind of like a mini-website with YouTube sponsored links as well. There you could post all the vids on your demo reel...for free.

[PHX Shooter]

Taking a more traditional approach, I'm doing my hosting with Network Solutions right now and they do have both WMV and Real file hosting. Their disk space and bandwidth allotments are pretty decent. On the down side, the servers went down twice over the last couple of weeks for a couple of hours, but that is not the norm.

I'm using Flash video right now and I'll tell you, the results are pretty good. The best thing about it is you can embed the video in your Web page with a player and Flash is as ubiquitous as it gets for player compatibility. Plus its more OS agnostic, running well on Win and Mac platforms. Don't know about Linux.

[riley]

I have used Yahoo business for my project. I am producing a state wide cable tv show in the initial stages. I have put clips up and accordign to the managing software I could easlily post a half hour doc there if I wish. I use Yahoo Sitebuilder which you get downloaded when you join. If you can do microsoft publisher- drag and drop- output my Premiere file to .wmf.

I got my domain thru Yahoo and I do all my own web stuff, they make it sorta simple- I am not a web geek. I pay only $12 per month plus the annual domain fee.

I would recommend you check this out. On my site right now I have posted clips of what I am working on so my Cable Progamming guy can check it as he puts me on the August Schedule.

my site is www.exploreiowa.net

[Dan R.]

An important issue to consider when hosting video is bandwidth usage. If your site happens to become very popular, or if you post a single clip that becomes viral and gets passed around the world in a few days, you could easily rack up some significant bandwidth usage.

Make sure your provider won't charge you overages if you exceed your data transfer limits. Many will charge between $1.50 to $3.50 per gigabyte that you go over. If your hosting plan allows you 50GB of transfer a month and you use 1 terabyte, that can result in an overage charge of over $3,000. This happened to a still photog I know - his photos got circulated in a chain email that linked to his site - and his site got hit with 1.4 terabytes of data in 2 weeks. Thankfully, the provider graciously waived the $3,200 overage bill, but still charged a $250 overage fee.

In an average month, you won't use that much bandwidth - but if your site becomes successful you can easily go over the limit. Make sure you have a contingency for big spikes in traffic.

Also, beware of hosting providers that offer exhorbitant amounts of space and bandwidth for cheap fees. You get what you pay for in hosting - hefty server specs for cheap usually mean you are sharing the server with way too many other clients, which means more crashes, slower load times and other issues. Many sites that offer huge bandwidth plans either have written or unwritten policies to restrict traffic for sites that actually do use lots of bandwidth regularly, particularly for video and multimedia content.

YouTube and Google Video are options that solve the bandwidth issue, but there are trade-offs here. YouTube has the rights to use your content for their purposes. Both YouTube and Google Video have both automatic and user-driven 'tags' and 'recommended videos' that appear with and next to your video. Even though these sites are moderated, many times these tags and recommended clips can be explicit or inappropriate - a bad thing if you are directing potential clients to it. Also, these sites have full control what appears at the beginning, over top of, at the end of and alongside of your video - even if it is played in an imbedded player on your site. Although they don't do it now, they likely will start showing advertising in these slots, and you won't have control over the content of the ads.