Online Video Question

[Richardk]

I was asked if I can help put up a video on a family's start up website but not being a marketing / web guru I now have more questions than they do.

I see a lot of people putting their videos on YouTube but I'm wondering what are the pros and cons of doing this? Also if you host it yourself, don't you need a streaming sever to watch the video unless you make them download the file first? Then there's bandwidth cost (you versus YouTube) and exposure and whatever else goes with this.

Next I guess we get into issues with encoding the video and move on from there (formats, resolution, etc). I think I know enough to be dangerous but has anyone done this (like duh, maybe I'm the last one who hasn't?) or have a good reference site or other info to point me in the right direction?

Oh, I'm also thinking having several 'versions' makes sense since online, a low resolution might be fine but if it's later shown on a laptop or bigger screen, then retaining the original or at least DVD quality makes sense as well.

Like I said, enough to be dangerous but since I don't do this on a regular basis, I'm probably behind the current 'state of the art' or 'common practice'.

[The Gorn]

I've posted a couple of Youtube videos. The longest one was about 10 minutes.

I'm not sure what you are asking. Basically, you upload a video and if Youtube accepts it you are fine. If there is some format problem you will get back a message or indication that it failed. Youtube accepts at least MOV, AVI and MPEG formats.

What happens when you post a video is that Youtube's server farm renders the video into Flash. Some quality is lost. So you absolutely don't want to make the Youtube version your archival version.

I am "Mr. I Run My Own Server" with my own VPS running Postfix and Apache, and there's no way I have gotten interested in hosting a streaming video server. The problem will be supporting the bandwidth in bursts. Why would you want to do this? I wouldn't.

As far as encoding or changing formats of videos, products like Adobe Premiere and Microsoft Expression Encoder will do this. The single big feat is transforming AVI (which is uncompressed, semi raw video) into MPEG, Flash, WMV or ASF which are compressed. This is the lengthy, CPU intensive part. My Intel i7 temperature actually rose quite a bit a while back when I compressed one video using Adobe. I kept hearing a fan turning on and off and the four core temperatures were up 10 c or more until it was done.

The MS Expression Encoder is specialized for Microsoft's Media Player formats - WMV and ASF. The Adobe product can produce DVD suitable output (MPEG.)

Lastly, Youtube allows you to restrict viewing to certain users in order to keep some videos private.

I would recommend ignoring all of the video format questions and just try uploading some videos. Note, if the file extension isn't supported by Youtube then it won't work. Only then should you get into re-encoding.

[Richardk]

Thanks for that info but can I step back a bit into "where" to put the video.

Obviously YouTube is out there but are there any reasons to not post videos on YouTube? Certainly they provide a great service, render it into Flash and they cover the storage and bandwidth but are there any downsides to doing this as opposed to a paid service that essentially does the same thing but it's tied to only your site and not generally available on YouTube like services?

[The Gorn]

Ok, if this was a core question I didn't understand it as such.

That is up to you to find out. I have no idea if there are private label/OEM type online video hosts.

One idea - the "Cheezburger Network" - Lolcats, Failblog and related sites - post their videos on some service that is not Youtube. I don't pay attention to the branding but it's not Youtube, it's something different. Maybe you should check into that (just visit icanhascheeseburger and look backward through the entries until you find a video. That should tell you when you play it.)

[Richardk]

No, it was just the first question.

And it's not whether there are other video hosts but rather is there a downside to using YouTube?

I was hoping that someone who routinely builds websites with videos could shed some light on using YouTube and instances where it's best to find something else.

I was thinking this was along similar discussions here about the pros and cons of using free email services versus getting your own domain and host or even using a free web hosting service versus getting a paid one. If something as simple as email has pros and cons then I'd think a video hosting site such as YouTube would have a similar set of pros and cons. I can think of a few but I'm sure I'm overlooking something.

[pxsant]

FWIW, here is a list of the top 10 video hosting sites.  http://www.internetvideomag.com/Articles/TopTenVideoHostingSites.htm.  On my system, it takes quite a while for the page to populate so wait a while if you don't see the info.

Youtube is number one but there are quite a few other choices, most paid sites.

Vimeo seems to be the author's favorite for high quality video content.

I have no experience with any but Youtube.