Options for video to web?

businessesforsale · #1 (**permalink**) 01-28-2008, 11:47 AM

I am a complete newbie to video editing and to this forum, which looks to be packed full of knowledgeable people, so hope I've come to the right place.

I want to start putting video interviews on my website. I have a top end Mac and and older version of Final Cut Pro (5.1).

I have just starting exploring the software and don't really have the time or money to invest in any other software.

My question is: what is the best way to display my videos on the website? I just want to reach the widest possible audience. Should I use Quicktime, or Flash or something else?

Thanks

Mark W · #2 (**permalink**) 01-28-2008, 01:18 PM

I am not a fan of q time as the player only has limited functionality unless you pay.

Flash is very portable and hardish to d load and copy but i dont use it myself so cant really comment further.

.wmv can give very good results at 'streamable' bit rates, about 1mbit. The player is prestty ubiquatous and is available freee for mac users. Easy to copy

divx is looking better and better with the new streming player but many people will not have the s ware player installed. Easy to copy.

In the guides section there is a guide to using wmv what i did so it is very good obviously...

businessesforsale · #3 (**permalink**) 01-28-2008, 01:36 PM

thanks Mark

My only problem with wmv is that being a mac user it doesnt play automatically. You have to download an application called flip4mac before you can play it. OK for me to do, but what about the average non-tech mac user?

Thinking some more about flash, don't all browsers have flash players now, so wouldnt that be the most ubiquitous format? Think that's what they use at uTube.

What are the downsides to using Flash again? Not sure what you mean about 'hardish to download and copy'?

Chris

Mark W · #4 (**permalink**) 01-28-2008, 02:43 PM

I suppose anything put on the web is easy to copy if u really want to but flash is probably the least easy - I cant really comment more as I dont use it but you are right about it's ease of playing across platforms.

As for macs and wmv all my mac friends had to do to stream my wmvs from my web site is to install the free version of media player for mac from m soft.

Nikosony · #5 (**permalink**) 01-28-2008, 02:45 PM

Are all of those video formats available to you on your new website? You're very lucky if you have all of those formats available as most service providers only allow one or possibly two video formats. As you say you are using a Mac, then maybe Flash would be the one to choose, as the player is readily available; you would export your movie with a .swf file extension on it or maybe QuickTime as .mov is a more popular format on the Mac, like .avi is on Windows PC's. You should also download a few more web browsers than just the one you are currently using to make sure the website looks alright and the videos play alright aswell just in case everyone doesn't have the same browser installed on their computer as you do. I have three on this pc at the moment, Internet Explorer 7, Safari for Windows (which I am currently using, much faster than the other two) and Netscape Navigator 9.

businessesforsale · #6 (**permalink**) 01-29-2008, 07:03 PM

Thanks Mark, helpful advice

Nikosny:

Originally Posted by Nikosony

Are all of those video formats available to you on your new website? You're very lucky if you have all of those formats available as most service providers only allow one or possibly two video formats.

Thanks, but
1] it's not a new website, it has been running 8 years
2] I own a hosting company, and you wrong about most service providers only offering two video formats - you are talking about web hosting companies? All the formats mentioned previously in this thread are no problem for 99% of hosting providers. Put it this way, I have not come across one where it would be a problem.
3] I wouldn't dream of uploading anything to the web without testing on all major browsers for both PC and Mac platforms

Nikosony · #7 (**permalink**) 01-29-2008, 11:10 PM

I didn't say they only offered two, I meant a small number. I had no idea how old your website was either until your last post and you didn't say in your first post that you actually owned a hosting company. It would have been useful knowing that at the start.

businessesforsale · #8 (**permalink**) 01-30-2008, 02:58 PM

Originally Posted by Nikosony

I didn't say they only offered two, I meant a small number.

The point is, Nikosony, your statement is completely incorrect and therefore misleading to anyone reading this thread. There are no limits on formats.

Originally Posted by Nikosony

you didn't say in your first post that you actually owned a hosting company. It would have been useful knowing that at the start.

Why should I have mentioned it? It was not relevant to my question.

Nikosony · #9 (**permalink**) 02-01-2008, 10:59 PM

How many formats has YouTube got for example? No one on here had any idea of your background you could just has easliy have been someone setting up a site themselves, there is a normal questioning of people who post on here to find out more information about them, but obviously you think we are all mindreaders. You sound like a bit of a fucking asshole to me.

Marc Peters · #10 (**permalink**) 02-02-2008, 04:54 PM

Right, lets start from the begining and avoid confusion. The original question was "what's the best way to display videos on my website". Lets put this question to one side for now, and concentrate on "how do I put videos on my website".

The first thing to note is that the delivery of streaming videos is a combination of server-side scripting (the website) and the end user (the viewer). To get a wmv file to play on a website for example requires the end user to have the necessary WMV codec installed (essentially media player!) and for the website to prvide the nessary commands within the script. This so called "embedding" (it's not really streaming per se) can be achived by including the following code on your webpage:

Code:

<OBJECT ID="MediaPlayer" WIDTH="192" HEIGHT="190" CLASSID="CLSID:22D6F312-B0F6-11D0-94AB-0080C74C7E95"
STANDBY="Loading Windows Media Player components..." TYPE="application/x-oleobject">
<PARAM NAME="FileName" VALUE="videofilename.wmv">
<PARAM name="autostart" VALUE="false">
<PARAM name="ShowControls" VALUE="true">
<param name="ShowStatusBar" value="false">
<PARAM name="ShowDisplay" VALUE="false">
<EMBED TYPE="application/x-mplayer2" SRC="videofilename.wmv" NAME="MediaPlayer"
WIDTH="192" HEIGHT="190" ShowControls="1" ShowStatusBar="0" ShowDisplay="0" autostart="0"> </EMBED>
</OBJECT>

This will result in a little media player on your webpage. Neat, but requires media player to be installed on the end users PC. So here's our first method, and that's embedding video into a page.

The second method is to simply provide a URL of the video. The end user can then download the video and watch this as it's downloading (the media player on the end users machine will buffer the video).

The third is probably the cheapest and easiest. Simply upload your video to YouTube, then copy and paste the provided emded code into your website. Hey presto you have an embedded media player that almost anyone can see. You see YouTube uses flash, which is pretty much ubiquitous on PCs around the world. Both the player and the video are essentially flash, so there's no issues here!

The fourth is to invest in an effing expensive media server which streams the required videos such as how the BBC provide their videos.

Does this make sense?