Best options for video on site?

[DavidO]

I've produced q video that I think will serve as a good introduction to my site. What's the best way to get the most out of it?

1. First, what's the best format? I saved it in highest quality WMV at around 30 MB. I could convert it to Flash but it would lose some quality. It's a pretty high-end production and I want good quality viewing.

2. Should I host it independently on my site?

If I embed it surrounded by keywords it should give me a good SEO boost. But I'm worried about bandwidth. I have a pretty high allowance from my host but I don't know how much bandwidth usage to expect from streaming this video.

3. Embed it from a video-sharing site like YouTube? I know there are some advantages in this.

4. Both of the above? Host it myself and put it on Youtube?

I already have a couple videos on Youtube but this is the first video I have that's suitable for using on my site. So I'll be real grateful for any advice on this!

[Spencer Westwood]

Originally Posted by DavidO

I've produced q video that I think will serve as a good introduction to my site. What's the best way to get the most out of it?
1. First, what's the best format? I saved it in highest quality WMV at around 30 MB. I could convert it to Flash but it would lose some quality. It's a pretty high-end production and I want good quality viewing.

It depends if you want people to view it in a browser or download it and watch locally.
If its online viewing then its best to convert it to FLV using a good convertor (and use the H.264 protocol) - then its the most compatible with all platforms and browsers.

2. Should I host it independently on my site?

Yes if you intend to sell it. No if you intend it be freely available.
If you expect a lot of viewers then you may want to consider hosting the actual video files on Amazon S3/Cloudfront rather than your own host.
Else upload to youtube as a HD movie and let it sort out the conversion for you.

If I embed it surrounded by keywords it should give me a good SEO boost. But I'm worried about bandwidth. I have a pretty high allowance from my host but I don't know how much bandwidth usage to expect from streaming this video.

You're not actually 'streaming the video' unless you use a streaming server. Some formats like Flash can start playing the file before its finished downloading. Others can actually stream like quicktime or real but they need specialist hosting.

3. Embed it from a video-sharing site like YouTube? I know there are some advantages in this.


4. Both of the above? Host it myself and put it on Youtube?

Yes if you want to keep a very high quality version on your servers or S3.


Kind regards, Spencer

[DavidO]

Thanks, Spencer. Right now I'm uploading it to Youtube and I'll see how it looks. I'm uploading the original wmv file. I read that Youtube will convert it to HD and that should work out fine.

If the Youtube quality is good I'll just embed it in my site and try it like that.

[Glenn72]

Here's what I did for a friend once.

1: Upload the video to a video site with high quality Flash encoding. YouTube HD or HQ (bigger than 640 pixels wide) would do the trick as their encoding seems quite decent these days. Although Facebook HD looks very nice also.
2: Download the highest quality version of the video using the Download Helper extension for Firefox.
3: Find a Flash (flv or mp4) video player script to play the file and upload it with the video file to play on your website. Google 'flv player script' perhaps? The one we used was the JW player I think, which also lets you create a custom image to appear on the video behind the play button.

Basically, it means you can take advantage of the high quality encoding from the video site, either YouTube or Facebook, but upload it with the player to your own site without having to worry about any branding such as YouTube or Facebook appearing on your video, and without having to worry about links to other videos appearing at the end. And also to add your own custom title image instead of having to settle for whatever from appears by default.